When your gosling is more interested in your hair than you as a person.
It occurred to me this morning that I left the ends of The Goose Egg Tale loose and uncertain, and that many of you must be gripped uncomfortably at this point with suspense. My heartfelt apologies. And while I think I did mention the successful hatching of two goslings, I'll start back at the beginning. Posterity's sake and whatnot.
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One night some two weeks ago while ordering the day's mess in the silence of the living room, I heard something not entirely unlike a mouse set on doing terrible things inside the walls of our home. Gosh isn't it so fun to own an old farmhouse, I thought. Peep! Peep! Peep! Weird mouse. Peep! Peeppeeppeep! PEEP! For someone who had just spent the previous month coddling hatching eggs, it took me a shocking long time to realize that what I was hearing was so very unlike a mouse in the wall that it in fact was three active goslings still in their shells but trying to be otherwise. Peep!
We won't get into the details of how, but I discovered that if I bent my body in half, inserted my head and torso into the game cabinet-cum-gosling nursery, and let go a peep! into one of the vents of the incubator, a chorus of peeps! would be sent back in return. Alone with this joy, I unsuccessfully tried to pull Gus from a deep sleep. Hhhhhhhh, children. Basking in the miracle of life together would instead have to wait until an ungodly hour of his choosing. Sometime around sunup the tables would turn and I would be the one clinging to sleep, begging to be left alone and unconvinced that anything other than Staying Put mattered. Peep!
Over the next three days all of the goslings transitioned from A Life En Shell to the Big Wide World. Though we often positioned our upper halves dutifully and uncomfortably in the cramped cabinet, we never caught the final push resulting in freedom. The first gosling emerged to wake us couch-sleeping geriatrics with an explosive thump that sent both the dogs scrambling. The second was found fully hatched in the incubator upon our return from collecting this year's seed potatoes. Late on the final evening as we watched the older goslings awkwardly learn about legs and their attached webbed feet, the benefits of giving the third hatchling some space from its siblings very clearly began to outweigh the cons of opening the incubator mid-hatch. This time successfully, I shook the sleep from Gus who had been adamant that his was the face the goslings should see first. His naked frame was sent down the stairs to move babes with careful efficiency, and a short while later the beaming new father was back to bed without incident.
The following morning we awoke to a very loud gosling and something Not Right. Our third and final hatchling's legs were all but useless, oftentimes resulting in the small bird stranded on its back and screaming. Years of lurking in online chicken forums made for a quick diagnosis of spraddle legs. However, I know nothing of having to cure the splay myself- which seems half the battle, doesn't it? One terrible bandaid brace (thanks, internet), one far more reasonable vet wrap brace (thanks, internet), and twenty-four hours' time later, the gosling was walking independently and quickly shedding the quirks that had earned it the endearing nickname of Turtle. Since then we adults of the house have been told to refrain from speaking to or looking at the goslings for fear their loyalty to the littlest human will waiver. We of course are happy to bend to the mildly unreasonable edict. Us seasoned folk know so well of the way new parenthood can twist the normally amiable.
Upon first hatching, the goslings were easily distinguishable- one was perfect, one had a cowlick, and one stranded itself on its back frequently - but age and proper braces has all but snuffed those differences out and they are currently just Three Goslings Who Are Loved. We did briefly attempt to sex them so that gendered names could be doled out but found our inexperience with hunting goose penises to be a real detriment. Ah well. As waterfowl are wont do, they have grown so much that it's impossible to believe they were so recently shelled. Soon enough they'll feather out and live in commune with the cattails and pinkletinks. Mother and son are hoping to break ground on goose house construction in the next week or so and are overall feeling rather pleased at having coaxed forth some life from what might otherwise have just been scrambled.
In the middle of winter a few years back, Gus and I came upon four human-kept geese toddling down our road. And as circumstances relating to livestock, icy roads, and unspeakable temperatures demand, their humans were absent from this thrilling walkabout. It wasn't the first time we had seen them out, nor the last, and eventually they disappeared altogether, an outcome certainly related to their wanderings, whether from predation or human exasperation I'm unsure, but it was that particular day while playing Locate That Human! that I realized: I love geese. I'm a goose person.
A Goose Person.
But having regretfully entangled myself with marginally beneficial fowl before (guineas, ducks, Polish frizzle chickens, etc.), I sat on the newfound revelation. I thought, oh when I'm old, I'll get myself a few geese.. But the thing about being goosey is this: one cannot put it on hold for a time when. I imagine if you are goosey, you understand. A month ago Gus and I sailed through pea soup fog for a box of American Buff Geese hatching eggs. I forgot the cash, Gus was harassed by the gaggle keeper's cat, and we ate cowtails from the gas station that had to have been at least a decade old, but A Goose Person got her eggs.
Last night the first gosling hatched; the second broke free this morning; and tonight, while Gus sleeps and Craig drives home from work and I try to string together some explanation for my being A Goose Person, the third and final little gosling is Trying. To the delight of E.B. White fans the world over, Gus wants to name them Louis, Serena, and Sam Beaver. Such a high praise christening, one might suspect him A Goose Person as well.
Old posts from now defunct online journals of my past, every Thursday.
This post was originally published elsewhere on August 30, 2014.
Blueberries are picking. Chicks and ducklings are breaking through shells coming earthside. Little boys are giving themselves first haircuts while mamas wait for that jam to set, wait for that water bath to boil.
We are sun-browned and weary, grateful and sometimes teary, in Deep Summer.
Sunday we were in talks to let go of Much Loved Animals to make room for Much More Sense Animals. Later that evening, Craig ripped up the carpet in our new bedroom, setting off decades of dirt and dander, revealing less than inspiring plywood underneath. Monday night we moved furniture from our old-bedroom-soon-to-be-Gus's-bedroom only to find ourselves bickering over how little we seem to get done in a day. And all the while I'm thinking about how settling into the right place- whether a room in your house or the herd in your field- it can have you so off kilter. So much so that you have to wonder if you really are settling into what's right or if you're just making yourself really uncomfortable just because. We'll see when it all levels out.
We lost three hens to a fox last week. Two days later eight healthy chicks, or chicklings if you're a certain almost four year old, tumbled from the underside of a dutiful hen. It all comes around, it all rights itself. Death followed by birth; growth from the ashes after you burn it all to the ground. It's in that spirit that I'm finding peace with the necessary but hard decisions we're making, straining my eyes to see the rebirth around the corner.
Sunday morning I set out to one of our wild blueberry fields alone. Five hours later I had just as many pounds and a plan for jam. Such a difference from last year when I could barely find the patience to pick a pint. This season, despite changes to come, has been one of reassurance. We can grow our own food. We can pick enough of our own berries to have a winter jam stock in the larder. We can make this all work.
Summer has been good to us. We've been lake swimming and eating out of the garden daily and finding ourselves a community. Last summer was eternal and this one I can barely get my hands on. In just a few days I'll be able to say Gus starts back to school next month! And then before any of us are ready, it will be October. My favorite month made particularly special this year with plans to open an online shop. I'm excited and scared, and sometimes feeling less than qualified. And for now I'll leave it at that. A less than poetic ending but I can only put off the to do list in hours of daylight for so long. All the summer love to you.
2017 update: we kept the cows and have since moved bedrooms again.. <3
