Critters worse than copperheads or coyotes

My young co-worker spoke with an accent I could not place. He was telling me and another associate that the next day, Friday, would be his last day with our big-box store. I did not know him well, had never spoken with him at length since my transfer to that store just a few weeks previously, and we rarely crossed paths, for he was an assembler and I, a merchandiser/custodian.
He said his wife was going to graduate from the local university with a degree in petroleum engineering, and they were planning an immediate move to New Mexico where she had a job with an oil company waiting for her.
"And I'm going to be a house husband," he said, laughing.
My other co-worker in the conversation, a woman who had worked longer with him and knew him better, said, "Aren't you giong to go to school and finish your own degree?"
"Well, yes," he said, "but being a house husband sounds like more fun."
"What's your degree going to be?" I asked.
"Mechanical engineering," he said. "I've got about two years to go for my bachelor's degree."
"Well," I said. "Be careful in New Mexico. I hear they have some vicious venomous snakes there."
"Oh, I know all about vicious venomous snakes," he said. "We had some where I grew up."
My other co-worker said, "You grew up in Africa, didn't you?"
"Yes, South Africa," he sid.
"My God!" I exclaimed. "They've got black mambas there!"
He laughed, "Yes, and green mambas, too They're hard to see in the trees at night. And king cobras."
He then told about his grandmother who as a baby was sitting on the porch with her arms outstretched. Her parents looked to see what she was reaching for and there was a king cobra with its head up. They quickly grabbed the baby and backed into the house.
He told a couple other stories abut cobras. And he told about coming home to the farm from a visit to "the shops," which I took to mean the stores in town, and "there was a troop of baboons lounging around on the porch. We just went back to the shops for awhile."
Baboons are vicous creatures, he said. "They will tear you up."
At the end of that conversation, I decided, and told him so, that he was well prepared for life in New Mexico. Whatever snakes or other critters they had there could not compare with what he grew up with.

Watching a V of geese flying north

When I stepped off the back porch this morning just after 5, I looked up and saw the sky was clear and the stars were shining, at least in the west, my direction of travel for the next 30 minutes or so to get to my day job. The ground was soggy for we had received a heavy rain overnight.
As I set my travel mug of coffee atop my car, I heard a goose in the sky to the South. I head a couple more calls. We have many resident Canada geese here, and I see them year-round at a couple of parks. Consequently, I didn't think much about it as I fumbled for my keys in my pocket with my right hand and hung onto my dinner bucket and Thermos full of coffee in my other.
Then, the goose conversation picked up and was coming in my direction. I looked up and a beautiful big V of geese glided north directly over me. The motion-activated porch light was still on, and the light from the two bulbs lit up the birds' undersides.
They weren't real high, well above the top of the persimmon tree, but not way up there in the darkness.
They made a beautiful sight, and in my morning prayer on the way to work, I thanked the Lord for the opportunity to see the birds, and I thanked Him for the seasons and His creation.
At work, I was telling some co-workers about the geese when Justin, who produces his own outdoors show for local television, said, "Did you notice that one side of the V was longer than the other?"
"Yeah, why is that?" I asked, expecting a semi-scientific answer from a man I consider an outdoors expert.
"Because one side has more geese in it than the other," he said, grinning.
I laughed. We all laughed and shook our heads. And it wasn't even April Fool's Day.