I'm not sure these pictures capture how grand they really are. They are so huge and low to the ground. It almost always rains soon after these clouds roll in, which is surprising seeing as the distant ones look so pretty and sweet. But as you can see in the second picture, their undersides look much more gloomy than you would expect.
Another surprise we had when we moved to Michigan: the goose population. Shortly after we moved in, the goslings started transforming into adults. They reached a really funny, awkward stage in between, so I said they were goose teenagers. In an attempt to create a more succinct term for them, I called them googagers. Jake was always making fun of me for combining the words incorrectly: it would actually be goonagers. So the term stuck and now refers to all geese.
Googagers: they are everywhere, and worse - their poop is everywhere. We noticed one or two little presents when Jake's parents were helping us to unload the moving truck. They put some cardboard down on the lawn so we wouldn't step in it. What we didn't know then is that the lawn is merely an illusion. The lawn is really a few blades of grass growing through a hearty blanket of green goose poop. I refuse to cut across our grass for any reason. There are some uneven places in the parking lot where rain and sprinkler water pool, and that water is literally green with poo particles washed down from the lawn and sidewalks. Gross. It is good that they run the sprinklers so often in our complex because it clears the poop off of our sidewalk. They are like landmines.
We are glad they water the lawn in our complex because we have lost count of the number of people who have told us that you don't have to water your lawn here. This is funny because Jake and I have seen countless brown lawns. We saw one lawn that was brown with green polka-dots each in a circumference around a sprinkler head. To their defense, we have also been hearing that this is a particularly hot summer for the area. But still, it's pretty funny.
The lawn at our complex seems to be doing okay, but they run the sprinklers at the worst possible time. They are always going in the late afternoon during the hottest part of the day. Not only is this inefficient, but that is a high traffic time for coming and going around here. So the other day, Jake and I came home in the afternoon to find the sprinklers running in front of our apartment. We carefully tracked the three that appeared to be threats and planned our strategy for getting to the door. I made a break for it with Jake close behind, and just as I leapt for the landing step, we were broadsided by a fourth culprit that had evaded our detection. We were both soaking wet, defeated by the sprinkler gauntlet.
Anyway, back to the clouds and the geese. The rainstorms we have seen out here are much more intense than the ones we remember in Utah and Idaho. They are sudden downpours often accompanied by strong wind. We went to lunch the other day and contemplated sitting outside because the weather was so nice. We decided to sit inside and halfway through our sandwiches, we looked out the window to see the table umbrellas blowing inside out, giant raindrops pelting the ground, and a substantial stream rushing toward the storm drains (aptly named - who knew?).
So the first time we had one of these storms, I was home alone while Jake was at school. I ran to the window only to peer outside and see this.
Whenever we have a rainstorm, the geese congregate like this. The all face the same direction and tip their heads back a little as though they are searching the skies for their mothership. Then the hordes parade across the lawn, pecking their beaks in the grass looking for worms. Those crazy geese. In the second picture, you can see the amount of water that shoots out of our rain gutter during these storms. It creates a nice little recreation area for the geese.
