Field Note: July 2000

          Recently, a young woman came to my house carrying two slugs that were each four inches long and over six inches long when stretched out.  She wanted me to identify the slugs.  In the encyclopedia, they were shown to be “ great slugs”, an introduced species, which are now pests.  I’m sure if my wife, Mary Alice,  saw a six inch slug in her flower garden, she would probably give up gardening.  Hmm, I wonder, how much money that would save me in flowers.

          At the end of June, I assisted the crew at Mt. Pisgah State Park  in capturing and transferring thirty Canada geese that were making a mess of the park’s facilities.  After the geese were crated and loaded onto trucks for a ride to a new home, Don Fitzwater, the park foreman, asked Mike Harkness (one of the crew) if he wanted to go along to release the geese.   In his dry sense of humor, Mike said, “No, I think I’ll stay here to see who makes it back to the park first, you or the geese.”

           At the Bark Peelers Convention, which is held at the Lumber Museum, in Potter County, I had an exhibit of old traps and posters on display.  One sign that was displayed near some traps read “Danger, steel traps set in area.”  A young man said, “Look Dad, now they have to put a sign out to tell the fox that there is a trap set.”

           Rich Gulyas, of East Smithfield, had a pair of Canada geese raise   goslings on his pond.  One day as Rich was walking around the pond he noticed the geese swim into some cattails to hide.   As he got closer both of the geese stuck their heads underwater in a further attempt to hide.

Hmm... Maybe an ostrich appears in their family tree.