Bob's Story, Continued

The last time I updated everyone on Bob, it was Thursday night, the end of an exciting day. Bob had fallen off a roof that morning, landing belly-up on asphalt, and he wasn't putting any weight on his right leg. He was kind of wobbling around, which make me think there was some kind of head injury, and I really wasn't sure he would make it through the night.

Here he is snuggled up in his plastic tote with his little friend. It's a stuffed animal we put in there so he would have something to snuggle. He had a heat lamp over him, and all I could do was hope for the best.
Miracle of miracles, he survived the night! OK, now I have a baby goose and three bird dogs, and I have to go to work. That's clearly a disaster waiting to happen, especially when I caught Emma going through cookbooks and bookmarking "Roast Goose" and "Foie Gras". The only option was to take Bob to work with me! No problem, I just loaded up the Prius with Bob's essentials, and off we went!
First stop was mom and dad's house. They were amazed that Bob was alive. Not only was he alive, he was walking all over with nary a limp! Here he is with Bessie. Bessie is saying, "Go ahead, give me five minutes alone with this bird. Five minutes. That's all I ask."
Needless to say, I scooped Bob up and we were on our way to work. I set up his baby pool on the museum's back porch, and Bob had a grand old time!He was swimming like he was born for it! Which, I guess he was, but still... After thinking he was going to wake up dead (so to speak) and he was alive, every little thing he did was a miracle!I took him to the lake and tried to find his family, but there was no sign of them. I did find some other geese, and put Bob down with a pile of goose food, but the other geese didn't want anything to do with Bob. So, at the end of the day Bob came back home with me. Friday night we took him to my niece's house--she has a pond on her property and has ducks and geese, but the same thing happened. They weren't at all interested in Bob, and he is just too tiny to leave him out there with no family to protect him. Back to Britknitterville where Bob enjoyed another night of pampering.

My sister called a couple of wildlife rescue organizations, just to make sure we were feeding him correctly & such, and both encouraged us to allow them to take Bob in and allow him to be raised as a wild goose (instead of as a child with feathers) and released to live the life a goose was meant to live. They also mentioned that it was against the law to be in possession of a Canada Goose, but that had very little to do with my decision to take Bob to the wildlife refuge. He was clearly imprinting on me, thinking I was him momma, and my head knew that wasn't the best thing for Bob, even though my heart wanted to keep him with me forever and ever.

Anyway, the next day we took Bob and his little bedtime buddy and headed north to Medford, New Jersey.There was a pit stop at a local Wawa mini mart for some much needed coffee, where Bob was a big hit with the employees and customers. People were taking pictures of us with their cell phones! Bob took it all in, posing for pictures like a movie star!All too soon we were on our way again, and an hour later, we arrived at Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge.
They were very nice and let me have all the time I needed to say goodbye to Bob. There might have been a few tears shed, I'm not sure. Ok, ok, I cried like I was losing my best friend. I'm certain the girl who did the paperwork thought she had a real nut case on her hands, but to her credit, she just smiled and assured me that this was the best thing for Bob. She took Bob from me and he went with her without a backward glance at me. That hurt, Bob...that really hurt! Typical man...

We wandered around and took a look at the facility, and Bob really lucked out! It is like a wildlife heaven. I took lots of pictures, but most were out of focus, probably because I couldn't stop crying. Click on their link and take a look at Bob's new home. Nice...very nice.