So, the Darlin' Man has today off and decided to run down to the feed store and replenish our chicken scratch, sweet feed and dog food.
He comes home and his daughter runs in yelling "We have a surprise for you! A HUGE surprise!!!"
Now, I don't know about the Darlin' Man around your house, but mine has dreams. BIG dreams. Occasionally, he muses out loud about some of them...in the past 6 months I have heard such things from him as:
"You think it would be hard to milk a giraffe?"
"I hear ostriches can bring a good profit."
"What do you think about raising yaks?"
"You know, we might be able to put a burro to good use here."
While outside I am smiling, inside I am:
So, I was not quite sure what to expect, especially as I headed out the door---and before I got to see the HUGE surprise, the Darlin' Man said "I got a really good deal on it!"
Remember Ugly Betty? The remarkable layer that has never laid an egg? Yeah...that was his last "good deal".
Anyway, he leads me over to the milking does pen where I am greeted by this:
So my face was more like:
We have a GOOSE! It's a girl and was the last one the feed store had. They don't like feeding them through the winter, so they sell off all the farm critters they can as winter creeps in and will get new chicks, goslings, turkey poults, etc., in the Spring.
We have named her Heloise, but pronounced the French way---where the 'H' is basically silent.
Heloise is tall and elegant and very opinionated.
She does NOT like the dogs. She does NOT like the Darlin' Man. She does NOT like the goats. Putting her in with the chickens or peafowl seemed like a bad idea, so she is in with the milking does for the time being.
Pendar uses that pen as home base as well, but although he tried to court the peahen, getting cozy with Heloise seemed to be the last thing on his mind! Especially after she hissed at him and chased him across the pen!
Heloise is lovely:
In this picture, you can see Pendar's legs as he exits...stage left...
I am not quite sure what we are going to do with her...the Darlin' Man says he got her "as an experiment".
Apparently, the "experiment" is to see if we can handle geese.....we'll see!
Anybody have any advice? Should I expect any eggs with no gander around? What snacks do they like, along with their regular feed?
Christmas dinner is just around the corner, and roast goose is good...
ReplyDeleteI think it's time you relinquished DH's Feed Store privileges.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn Renee...I have actually called up there and asked them to please not show him any farm animals! If Johnny answers the phone, he says he'll try to head my guy off at the pass, but if Johnny's dad is there...well, the old guy never lets an opportunity to make a sale pass him by!
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