Finally! Something interesting!

This month has been rather dull. Deven and I have been taking Miles to Springbank park to feed the geese lately, but other then that, we really haven't been doing much else.
On Friday we decided to go feed the geese again. So we all piled into the car at just after 5 and headed off to Springbank park. It was cold out, and nobody else was in the park. It was kind of nice to have it all to ourselves like that. We parked in front of some benches, and began to rip up the 4 pieces of bread we had brought with us. We fed those silly geese until we had none left and then decided to take a walk.

At the foot of the parking lot there is a roundabout. We noticed a goose sitting in the garden in the center of the roundabout. We headed over and discovered she was sitting upon a nest. Miles wanted to say hello to her, so off he went. Shortly after saying hello, we left her alone and headed to the park. We played for a while, Deven hopped after Miles, and Miles would run to me and we'd both run yelling "Monster!!". When we were good and tired, we headed back to the car. Miles wanted to say goodbye to Mommy Goose and so we let him go over and say bye. We were lucky enough that she stood up and revealed 1 egg sitting in her warm nest. I shooed Miles away when she hissed, we didn't want to accidently disturb her any further.
We got in the car and drove away.

On Monday, we were planning to go to the Childrens Museum, unfortunately for us, it was closed. We decided we'd pick up a loaf of bread and feed the geese again, this time we'd make sure we had enough to leave some at Mommy Gooses nest for her. Again, it was cold and very windy. We had the park to ourselves. We parked in front of the benches and once again, began ripping up bread for our goose-friends.
We gave the hoard of geese about 4 pieces of bread before deciding that it really was pretty cold and we should just rip up a piece for Mommy Goose and leave it for her and then head out. But when we arrived at the nest.. Mommy Goose was gone. And so was her egg. There was nothing but a pile of dirt and feathers left where she once sat on her precious egg. I felt so bad for her.. Assuming some punk-ass kids thought it'd be fun to completely disturb her and take her egg. She was no where in sight.

Deven tried to make me feel better by suggesting that maybe the egg had hatched. But with no evidence of shells, I knew this couldn't be true... I decided to look around a little and found it at the base of the hill. I turned it over thinking the worst had happend.. but it was fine. No cracks. I picked it up and we brought it home.

The immediate thought was that it was probably dead. But being the animal lover I am, I had to try. The egg was cold, but we managed to warm it up again. I have been reading a lot online about caring for goose eggs, and found out that an egg can survive 5 days with no warmth. Since we had seen Mommy Goose just 2 days ago, we know the egg has only been out in the cold for 2 days at most. A sign that it's dead would be based on how well it holds it's warmth. A clear sign would be if it gets cold really quickly - we managed to keep it warm the entire evening since we'd come home, and the warmth lasted all night. So this little egg is holding it's warmth - Great sign!

We've tried candling the egg (where you hold it against a flashlight to see inside) but we don't have a flashlight and the light we did use, covered too much surface area. So unfortunately we couldn't see inside. However we'll probably try again when we have a better flashlight!

So that's our interesting story, and our current "project". I've let Miles know that there is a chance it won't hatch. But if everything goes well, we should have a gosling around May 16th.

*NEW* on Just Us Moms!

I created Just Us Moms in the hope of bringing Mothers together to give eachother advice, share in the little things, and offer a shoulder to lean on for those tougher moments.
During our public viewing, Guests of the forum were able to see all that Just Us Moms has to offer, and a suggestion was made to have a space on the forum dedicated to all those Dads out there. So I created "Just Us Dads" as it's own category and included sections which were suggested by the men on the site so they could have a space of their own.

We've held giveaways and hung signs up around the city.

I recently asked various people, what in their opinion would make a good forum for parents, even better. 1 particular suggestion stood out to me the most. A section for caregivers. Often times, caregivers go under-appreciated. Babysitters, daycare workers, and other workers in the field of child care don't always have children, but DO have experience with them, and therefore can share some advice here and there about things they've experienced.

SO.....

Now, on Just Us Moms, we have a section dedicated to all those wonderful people out there who give us the opportunity to take a break, go to work, or just get the shopping done! A section where we can say a big THANK YOU.

We have also added a Guest Chat section where Guests viewing the forum can Join The Discussion - a section where specific threads are chosen to be shared, or they can create their own threads and just chit chat, get to know the other members and more or less just dip their toes in the water before jumping in.

If anyone has any further suggestions to make Just Us Moms an even better escape, go to;
http://www.justusmoms.forumotion.ca/ - Good to know - Suggestion box
or
click here to go directly to the Suggestion Box. http://justusmoms.forumotion.ca/f2-suggestions