Babies! We Have Babies!!!

Five baby geese! They hatched on Thursday! I checked on the mama Thursday morning, and she was still sitting on the nest. I went up to the roof again after lunch, and found mama and daddy goose, and five babies!
I made a frantic phone call for help to our office manager. I don't know what I expected, but certainly nothing less than the Coast Guard flying in with their rescue helicopters and those baskets they lower into the ocean to pluck people out of the Bering Sea like they do on Deadliest Catch, right? They could swoop in and load this little family into the basket and whisk them off to safety--somewhere that is NOT on top of a 2 story roof!

That didn't happen. After the office manager consulted with our grounds manager, they decided that I might be over reacting just a bit. Both of them said the mama and daddy goose know what they are doing, and that they would probably have their babies off the roof by morning.

Reluctantly, I went home Thursday evening, but if I didn't have to go to a funeral that evening, I might have stayed on the roof all night! Friday morning, I was back at work and went right up onto the roof of the museum, hoping to find the little family had vacated the premises.

No such luck.
After another frantic call to the office manager, in which there was much laughing on her part, I decided I was pretty much alone in my quest to take care of this little family. No problem. I made several trips to the roof with buckets of water and made some nice puddles in low areas of the roof. Next I pulled up some nice, tasty shoots of grass and took a couple of buckets full of that to the roof.

Then, I called in some people I can always count on...my sister and my niece! There was no laughter...only "What can we do to help?" Isn't that great? Within an hour they arrived...with provisions.
They brought a chicken feeder, a big waterer (not pictured) and bags of chick food and poultry food! My heroes! Here is Jenny on the roof. Yes, they even climbed the two flights up to the roof to see the little family!
I am still taking up buckets of water for puddles, and grass for some fresh food, but I feel so much better knowing they have a supply of food and water on the roof.

It's hard to tell from this picture, bu the babies are all sitting in the food!
Fortunately, I have to work today, so I can check on them throughout the day, and if they are still there on Sunday, I'll be riding down to work to replenish their puddles then, too. I may be the subject of laughter at work, and some might be wondering about my mental state, but nothing is going to happen to those babies on my watch!