Two new geese at home, and I can feel much better about the rather absurdly overbuilding I did of my hull. Got asked by London Fog to come out and remove some domestic geese that had been abandon on their fire pond. I knew this was going to involve the kayak, as they have a big pond. Besides, I wanted to play with my kayak!

Now of course, they needed to schedule this to avoid employee hysteria, and to allow all interested people to attend. Which they certainly did. And with each passing day of this, it got colder and colder.

So come the day to get the geese, the pond is rather nicely frozen. But with the thoroughly overbuilt MillCreek (aka jock itch), we *can* overcome!

First I have to basically tobogin my way down the hill onto the pond. Which resulted in the boat being supported at each end, stern on the grass, bow on the ice, me perched in the middle desperately try to balance it all. With some shoving and a sideways slither, we crashed down onto the ice and rocks. Trying to paddle over ice is challenging! Then it's off to a nice round of ice breaking with the bow! Cutting through some areas, and riding up on others. It certainly did sound like I was ripping the boat to pieces. I wasn't, but it really sounded bad.

The geese of course left the pond, as this deranged thing is out there flailing a paddle around, making all sorts of unpleasant sounds. But there's all these well meaning people around the pond, so the geese kept coming back. So I'd have to crash around through the ice again to chase them back off to where they could eventually be caught by my wife.

Overbuilt? Well, yea, my boat does way in at twice the officially designated weight (70 lbs vs 35 lbs). But it also stood up to this rather harsh use with narry a scratch.

We won't talk about the broken rub rail and small gouge I put in the hull trying to put it away at the end of the day. One really should ask for help when needed, and not try to wrangle a bulky heavy boat up into a shed roof on a windy day when one is tired and cold.