Geese!

I finally found some geese the other day and am now the proud owner of four White Embden's. They currently look like furry lemons with webbed feet! CUTE!

I used to own an African Grey gander named Rowdy who was an absolute terror! I absolutely loved him and so did the rest of the family. He would follow us around the yard, bite us on the ass when we turned our back to him and honk with every word we said when trying to have a conversation. He was obnoxious, rude, mean, hateful and he by god ran this yard, which was full of chickens, goats and a really big Great Pyrenees dog named Goliath. Rowdy had a distinctive honk when someone would pull up in the yard. He also chased meter readers unmercifully and anyone else he didn't recognize. To this day people who haven't visited in a while will honk the horn because they think we still have him. They won't get out til we come out.

Rowdy's greatest moment came when the cops arrested me for writing a letter to the editor calling for legalization of marijuana. See, geese leave large, green splats of shit all over the yard and on the day the cops kicked in my door looking for weed Rowdy had left a nice package in the front walk way. As I was being led away in hand cuffs four suited detectives were down on their hands and knees examining, with great intensity, the large, green splat of goose shit. According to the false statement they had made up and attributed to my then 5 year-old daughter, I had thrown some weed out the back door that morning. They were apparently considering confiscating some goose shit for forensic analysis. I wish they had. That would have made the whole ordeal even more hysterical than it wound up being.

Rowdy was a free range goose, never penned up and I had him for about four years. Nothing bothered him because he was a mean bastard and it really does hurt when they pinch you. One weekend me and the family took off for Atlanta to one of my speaking gigs. When we returned home he was gone. Not a feather anywhere. Just simply gone. The whole family was brokenhearted. I've missed him every day since then and had thought about getting more but never did.

Then I got a call a few days ago that a lady had some for sale. I went to check them out and came home with four instead of two. They look like door steps in size. There is one big one who is going to run things. The other three follow that one's lead. One is teeny tiny. They all live in the pen with the chickens and ducks and the minute I put them in there they took over....even though they are much smaller in size than the rest of my birds. The little bitty one toddled off away from the others a couple days ago and the chickens got after it. Soon the whole heard of geese were surrounding the chickens and pinching them to get their little one back. It was hilarious. Now the chickens and ducks RUN from the geese.

I am very glad to have the marvelous barnyard fowl back in my yard. If any of you ever pull up out here after they are grown this is what you are most likely to encounter, so blow the horn first.