Our summer guests showed up this morning. I heard them honking when I woke up, but I didn’t think it was them. I thought it was another flock flying over, looking for the river, the neighbor’s stock dam or the big lakes east of us.

But the honking persisted.

So I got up from my desk to look out the window and up at the sky where there were no geese, just blue and I thought I’d  gone crazy.

It was possible, seven months of winter will do that to a woman.

I sat back down with my coffee and heard Husband call from the kitchen where he stood with his face plastered to the sliding glass door.

“Look down there,” he said, pointing to a patch of brown earth below the house.

“The geese are back.”

And so they were.

The geese.

Our geese, who spend the summer floating and canoodling with the pair of ducks in the stock dam outside our window.

The sight of those big, lanky birds walking around and honking between the snow banks was a welcome sight. We had been waiting for them to show up, as if their appearance solidified what is still quite unbelievable to us.

Summer is coming.

Summer is coming.

Summer is coming.

And just like spring, I would have loved to welcome this couple a bit sooner, but they know what they’re doing.

This isn’t the pair’s first trip back North. It isn’t their first spring together.

And had they arrived Monday they would have come home to this.

But they didn’t. They arrived on a day that turned into sixty degrees. A day I imagined they spent getting reacquainted with the place and showing the third guy around.

I’ve never seen a third goose. I wonder if he’ll stay?

Husband and I opened the door to let in the sunny morning air and watched as the familiar animals waddled and honked and moved closer to the house. We laughed as the pug stood stoic and protective outside the door, contemplating the size, shape and strength of the intruders before deciding to retreat.

We wondered what the hell our bird dog was doing in a time of such an invasion?

We said we loved these geese and were glad they were home.

We said, it’s nice to see them isn’t it?

We said, isn’t it amazing that they keep coming home?

We said we were glad they were still together.

And then we turned away from the window, back to work,  back to life and into another season together.