.jpg)
My stepson Sam and our pastor and friend John went goose hunting on Christmas eve morning. Sam did not have to work and wanted to scratch his hunting itch. John had been wanting to try his hand at hunting waterfowl with his new shotgun, so he was very excited to go with Sam. They hunted in a blind that is located behind the house of some other friends of ours situated on a creek. Sam said that there were lots of geese and mallard ducks hanging out in the creek, but that they were all staying just out of gun range. Finally, some geese came in to land and were close enough to shoot. Sam and John both shot. Sam's goose folded up and hit the water hard and was not moving. John hit two geese that hit the water. One was stone dead, but one began to swim away. Sam shot it again and then went out to retrieve John's geese because they were farther out. When he came back to pick up his goose, it was gone. Apparantly it had recovered enough to either fly away or hide on the bank somewhere. They both looked for a while, but could not find it. This is John with the geese in front of his house. Sam recommended that he take the geese to someone who would pluck it for him, but John wanted to at least try the first ones himself. I think he will have them plucked the next time. As a sidebar, when I woke up on Christmas eve at around two in the afternoon, I smelled something wonderful cooking in the kitchen. Sam had gotten a goose last Saturday and Melissa was cooking it with my Aunt Marlys's wonderful recipe. It was a delicious Christmas eve dinner. I had to spend Christmas eve night at work, but I was home on Christmas morning.
