11:04 Saturday, June 17th

Another storm's coming through! A real cracker! Thunder splitting the sky. That one sounded like an old theatrical bolt made by a long piece of metal in the wings. The rain's streaming down. This is exciting! And a cool wind is bringing the sweet smell of freshness through the screen windows. Richard's sleeping through this whole thing. Oh, the wind's picking up! Wow. It's dark in the room save for the glow from the computer screen and the flashes of lightning. Cool! That one lit up the night!! It feels as if we're at sea. Why, I don't know. This reminds me of the great storms we used to get back in Indiana, big booming thunder claps accompanied by lightning bolts that would rip the sky asunder. Fantastic. Lots of water pouring down. Then a pause, as if the storm were over, and another rush of rain. Now again, silence, as if someone were conducting this, a pleasant patter, a far off crack and grumble. Will this one now pass over like the last one? Perhaps. This is all very entertaining. I'm wondering how the geese and chickens are taking this? The grass we put on the goose house to muffle the rat-a-tat of rain on their metal roof has blown off and I fear it makes them nervous. What must they think? do they get frightened? Are they chattering to one another, gazing out at the sky, the shadow silhouettes of the trees flashing across the meadow, then dark again. Who knows. Well, it is passing. Maybe there'll be a whole series of these throughout the night. They are traveling west to east, right over our Cape Cod house. It's blitzkrieging on now, perhaps to the Connecticutt River by now, off into New Hampshire. Hope everyone's safe and battaned down and enjoying the great show!

10:30 pm Saturday, June 17th

A tremendous thunder storm with Valhalla-like lightning strikes just blustered through, a lot of sound and fury, a big blow, and now peace, peace. A distant rumble, a tiny bit of rain, but gone, gone, as if nothing even happened. Lovely.

Now the frogs have started croaking again.

Vermont - July 12th, 2010

A time of mixed blessings.

We’ve been having a series of raccoon attacks. The first on the evening of July 4th got 3 Wellsummer chicks, and the second, despite precautions, nabbed 3 of Richard’s 6 turkey chicks, crippling a 4th. There was no joy in Mudville that night. Poor Richard. By admission, he’d gotten a bit cocky, impervious to predators. On the 4th, coming home from a fantastic fireworks display, he’d left the back door of the coop open, something he’d done many times before with no ill effect. But not this time. “And they were all hens!” he moaned to the heavens. He’d been “cursed” with a majority roosters in all his hatchings of eggs and now this seemed like a double blow. Royce warned him to expect more attacks now that the raccoon had the taste. These raccoons live underneath Royce’s old barn next door, he sees them every night, they come to the woodpile just outside his kitchen door. We caught one of the cubs by our coop the day after the murders in broad daylight. And he looked so cuddly and harmless, like a tiny koala bear. But he began snarling as we corralled him into a plastic pet carrier and Richard began a misery of deciding what to do with him. This kind of dilemma brings morbid humour out of Royce. “We could toss the carrier into your pond and fish it out later.” Richard just couldn’t decide, wouldn’t decide, didn’t feel like killing it, couldn’t do it. Later that evening, still unwilling to make a decision, he gave the carrier to Royce who offered to “take care of things.” I was surprised to find out a few days later that he hadn’t shot it as I had expected he would, but had taken it over near Wells River and let it loose in the woods there.

But Royce warned that our turkeys were not safe now. He’d taken care of just one of the raccoons, a baby, and there were sure to be more, adults, and word would be sent to others that there were prime pickin’s here. I’d seen enterprising raccoons at work years before near Woodstock, NY doing summer theatre when they had raided a kitchen pantry whose screen door had been left unlatched despite instructions to the contrary. We came home from rehearsal to find peanut buttered paw marks streaking the kitchen floor and counters like a crime scene, split open packages of spaghetti and pasta, jars of jam unscrewed, a havoc of cereal and potato chips and crackers, the remains of a mid-afternoon bacchanal. And they were brazenly waiting outside with their pals, waiting for another raid. That night it turned into a Stephen King story “Raccoon!” I went up to my second story room – and there were no tree branches nearby, no ledge or outcropping on the house to gain purchase, just clapboard siding and a sheer drop. I was sitting on my bed, going over a script that I was trying to memorize, and got the uneasy feeling that someone was watching me. I turned to the window and there were three long snouted bandit faces looking in at me. I swear I could hear the theme to “Mission Impossible” going. I gave a shout, but they were undeterred, not the least bit frightened. With an “Oh, he saw us” nonchalance, they slowly shimmied out of the window frame, and somehow “hopped down” 10 feet to the forest floor and sauntered off to plan another raid. Raccoons mean business.

I’d shared this story to Richard before, so heeding that and Royce’s admonition, Richard put the turkeys back in the garage in an old moveable cage that they had grown up in. The next night, though, he tried letting them spend the night outside as they had many nights before, flying to the top of the metal sheeting covering our woodpile where they had up-until-then slept undisturbed. In the morning, they were fine. He tried the next night, and again, fine. But on the third night, disaster struck. I’d been away in New York for a few days and he hadn’t told me about it, so when I finally asked where the other 4 turkeys were, these sweet, jabbery birds that had firmly imprinted themselves on both of us and had followed us everywhere much like the goose girls had done last summer, Richard spilled the beans. “I couldn’t tell you, I was too upset,” he said. When I told him how sorry I was and asked if he was alright he continued, “I feel as if I let them all down.” Not fun.

The past few nights we’ve been putting the turkeys in with the chickens and closing up the coop tight. Every one seems to be getting along well. We’ve named the 2 unharmed turkey survivors Lynne and Alfred, after the famous acting husband and wife team The Lunts. We’re not really sure what sex either of them is, which direction their leaning, but that seems to perfectly fit what I’ve heard about the predelictions of the real Lunts. Our crippled bird remains namelss. We’ve already named one of our limping birds “Laura” in honor of the “Glass Menagerie” character, so we’re not sure what will stick with this one. We’ve debated about splinting the leg, but Richard has said “no” because he feels it’s been wrenched out of its socket, making the leg pretty worthless. We have no idea how extensive the injuries are. That said, the bird seems in good spirits, it’s eating and drinking well. We’ll see what happens.

In the “more cheerful news” department, the Canada Geese have started a form of flying lesson on the pond, teaching their fold to skim the top of the water as they flap as hard as they can and then diving beneath its surface at the end of the flight. Soon they’ll be flying from the rise behind the house. Our geese hold their own form of flying lessons with Schmul in the lead. They flap their wings mightily and all run as fast as they can, nary a one getting off the ground, though they seem to congratulate one another quite a bit after each run. I wonder if they’ll feel “less than” when their Canadian compatriots take to the air and they can’t. Will they dream of flying, I wonder? Maybe what they do is their idea of flying, a more grounded, flappy version. The other day I was so surprised to catch our geese crooking their heads to look waaaay up in the air at a passing jet. Did they really see it? There was nothing else in the sky at that moment. Did they think it was some sort of far away bird? Who knows. It was fascinating.

The thick mugginess of a week ago has abated, but it’s still very much summer, now in the 80’s rather than the high 90’s. The pond has been exquisite, we’ve been diving in almost daily and it’s been WARM, a perfect blend of sun warmed upper level and spring cooled lower levels. Brilliant. The geese all give us a WIDE berth whenever we dive into the pond. They go to the far, far side of the pond and walk up into the woods and watch from a protected distance until we get our swimmy ways out of our system.

The garden hasn’t really taken this year. We tried not ameliorating the soil AND not using organic seeds this year. That’s the last year for both of those experiments. But to be fair, the weather had been really goony leading up to planting. Everything went in late and then it stayed cool for a long time. Sugar snap peas are strong, wax beans are coming through with a close second, but beets have been disappointing and carrots and chard as well. I just planted some peas and radishes and more chard. We’ll see. I worked in a lot of compost this time, trying to make up for the soil deprivation I inflicted. Live and learn.

Speaking of swims, I’m going for one now to wake myself up from my afternoon torpor. Hope this finds you well.

I got my wish and other developments

I’d been having a hankering to hold one of our geese, especially one of the goslings (Prince Mishkin, Daphne, or Felicity), but they’ve been so closely guarded by their folks that this has been a near impossibility. Last year I loved being able to hold Ginger and Mary Ann every once and awhile. Richard reminds me that they probably didn’t enjoy it that much since we’d have to corner them, sending them into frozen, squatting shakes, but what does he know? When we did get them onto our laps and rubbed them under their wing feathers and cooed at them and had something shiny for them to chew on, they liked it fine. Alright, I’m deluding myself. And anyway, ever since Schmul’s arrival and becoming over-protective mothers, Ginger and Mary have become neck stretching harridans, the only thing missing are curlers in their hair and a rolling pin to wave around in the air threateningly. Who’d want to hold their skanky selves now anyway. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I have held Schmul a couple times lately, however that doesn’t count because it was purely for survival since he was coming at me like “Jaws” (or “Bills”) and I’d whipped his neck around and then embraced and lifted him in an attempt to calm him down. Note to self: this doesn’t work, Schmul turns into Hydra, snapping the air in hopes of chomping off my nose.

This morning, though, when Richard and I went up to the pen around 6 to let the geese out, Prince Mishkin and one of the gosling girls inadvertently got themselves on the other side of the pen door and were momentarily separated from the rest of their family.
“Now’s your chance,” Richard uttered.
‘What do you mean?’
“You can go in there, shut the gate, and hold one of them.”
So I did. And there erupted such an agony of distress and panic from parents and kids alike. It was as if I were a Nazi guard in “Sophie’s Choice.” The goslings threw themselves at the fence, screaming and crying, trying to get to their parents who were keening wildly on the other side. I felt horrible. I looked to Richard who gave a shrug with an expression somewhere between “what did you expect?” and “so now what you gonna do?” But did this heartbreaking scene deter me? No, I’d come this far, I thought, the damage is done, full speed ahead. The babies scrambled for cover, darting away from my approaching boots. The parent’s caterwauling continued. Mishkin was breathless with terror, I just couldn’t go after him, but Daphne (or Felicity, I don’t know which one it was) was another matter. I thought that since she had been imprinted on Richard her hatchmeister for several weeks before becoming part of the goose clan, that she would calm when in my arms. Wrong! It was as if she were a pioneer girl the Injuns (so unpc) had kidnapped from a Wagon Train in all those old westerns and when the settlers come to retrieve her they discover that the heathens have brain-washed her into believing in all their heathenish ways, such as “the White Man wants to kill you.” I picked her up – just like John Wayne did Natalie Wood in “The Searchers” - and for the briefest of moments I savored the pleasure of how downy soft she was, how next to nothing her body weight, how my hands went right past all this fluff disguised as substance gone right to a soft inner core. And then her screams ratcheted up in volume and she shat down my right leg. And looked to Richard, helpless, and he said “Get them back together.” And so the scramble to put Natalie, DAPHNE! down and open the gate, and guide the 2 now permanently damaged goslings out to where their parents waited in a flustered, frustrated huff. I got a good scold from Shmul and the girls and they walked off, calming themselves, as I stood, lower lip protruding, as Richard deadpanned, “Well … you got your wish.”

Other developments? I dug all the Burdock root out of our stone wall bank, big elephant eared, deep-rooted invasive things that we later saw people selling at a local market as a root vegetable (You got to be kidding!!) I’ve resewn the bank with white and red clover. It seems to be taking. Tiny little 2 leaved growths are popping up leprechaun-sized. I’ve also strewn the seeds along the side of our pond which is 2 feet higher due to the silt at the bottom of our pond being shoved up there last fall. Trying to get something more to grow there. We have a newly planted willow tree plus this gorgeous, stunning single flowered iris popping up. Can’t wait for the clover. Was informed this week that red clover is the Vermont State Flower.

Gout weed is an invasive weed that smells like cilantro and has stalky seed-filled flowers reminiscent of Queen Anne’s lace. Never heard of it before moving here. I’ve been battling this intruder on another part of our bank. There’s a whole section of our orchard where it’s taken over. The only way to frustrate its invasion is by planting something else that will smother it out, like lilies. That’s the plan. It’s time consuming, but I welcome tasks like this, weeding and bringing a bank back to a bit of order, a controlled overgrowth, very English garden, balance and chaos, nature and man’s hand mixed. The task helps me weed out unwanted thoughts in a parallel kind of way. Giving myself over to the task at hand.

My legs are welted up with black fly bites. I slathered myself with Skin So Soft the other day, but to no avail. The unseen biters made their way through, drawing little pools of blood down my backside.. They are a bit of a scourge here. And on sunny days where you want your shirt off, basking in the limited Vermont tan weather, there’s a double lotion layer needed: sun screen and bug repellent. My legs are evidence that, as of yet, the two don’t seem to work well together.

Happy Summer Solstice! It’s so green mountain state here, verdant, and rich, and bursting with life - the air, the ground, the trees! Our pond is so CLEAN!!!!! We’ve taken a few dips – skinny and clothed – and the swim is spectacular, if spring fed bracing in sections. And the minnows like nibbling on you EVERYWHERE!

That’s enough rambling for now. Have a great day!

This too shall pass

I don't know if it was a drill or a true panic, but the 6 Canada Geese - the gander, goose and their 6 quickly maturing gosling - just lickity-split across our front lawn in perfect, stiff legged formation, high-tailing it across the road to the safety of the pond. Who cares about a legitimate reason to fly off into a "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!!" fright these days! Dread and dire conjurings seem to be the mood du jour. Even in nature. And here I am in nature, back home again after having been in the city, New York City to be exact, for a rather long stint, and I'm feeling my own version of mild panic. Mine is more of the displaced, restless, who am I again? Where am I again? variety. Granted, this will pass, I know it, I've experienced it many times, I'm a vet, and I feel a bit foolish going through it all over again, having to conjure up patience with myself, to let it take its course. "Can't I just skip this part?!" Because it always FEELS like the first time. Like wandering through a bout of depression. 'This will never end! I want this over now!' screams some run-for-the-pond part of me. And the lens through which I view the world is that of a critic's. Everything needs FIXING! And there's not enough TIME! And THINGS, imaginary THINGS snap at my heels demanding attention, like self-imposed DEADLINES, and CHORES, and BILLS, and what am I doing with my LIFE and really? You really want to entertain what am I doing with my life thoughts TODAY when you're in a spin cycle of displaced, restlessness?

Sofia just came in through the pet door with a mouse clamped in her maw, a little gift to cheer me up. Thanks, Sofia.

Back from flushing that little morsel down the toilet. The air is alive with poultry sounds: the stereo crowing back and forth of our 2 roosters, one's at the coop, sounds like the Wellsummer, and the other's back to my left in the orchard, the Orpington, both in good voice, round, echoey tones; there's a mourning dove in the woods across the way, commisserating with my mood - thanks; there's various chatterings of sparrows and chickadees and other undefinables; every once in a while a goose argument whips up in the backyard - OUR geese this time - and vanishes away. And quiet surrounds it all, embraces it all. Well, not quite. There have been a few big trucks, moving van size trucks, laden with wood chips passing by, incongruously LOUD. Here comes one now, I can hear it's engine's strain coming up our gradual incline.

Oh, it would feel so GREAT some days to be able to join a clutch of Canada Geese, strip down to just feathers, and for no reason at all, maybe to just get it out of my system, run screaming across the front lawn, screaming out the world, screaming out whatever thought or feeling might be residing inside me, weighing me down, and just head for the pond, swim away from it all. Or just shit along the banks all day and have someone else clean it up. Ho-hum. Maybe a little molting too. Make room for new feathers, new skin, new thoughts. That would be grand.

I'm off for a walk. Have a grand day!

The First Gosling!

Our first new gosling has been born!! We’re pretty sure that it’s Mary Ann’s, a girl, presently residing under her mother, tucked beneath with a nudge from a beak when Richard craned in for a peek. No imprinting on humans this go round. Ginger is on nest duty, sitting on the 4 remaining eggs, a bit nervous and jittery Richard reports. Schmul is spending most of his time in the coop with the girls rather than patrolling outside, though he did come out to chase the Canada gander away from the area when he came snooping around. Everyone is calmer, quieter - still protective, but not so harried and paranoid. I’m glad I’m traveling up again tomorrow to see first-hand what’s going on rather than just hearing news passed on from Richard. It sounds like a sweet time.

This time last year the girls were wee things themselves, hatched in an ingenious incubator cobbled out of an old rectangular green cooler, designed by Richard with some added electrical guidance from Royce. By little twists of fate and timing, I had been the one present when the hatching and/or delivery of various chicks had occurred before the geese, Richard having been out of town on family business, so this time he was determined to be present. He had put in a transparent piece of plexiglass on the top of the cooler so he could see the goings on inside without opening the lid and letting the moisture out, humidity needed to soften the shells and help the goslings peck out of their hard shells. As they started to come out, so tiny and adorable with these huge over-sized webbed feet, Richard kept shoving me away from the plexiglass, saying to them: “Imprint on me! I’m your papa!” And though he knew the moisture needed to be contained, Richard couldn’t contain himself from opening and re-opening the lid and finally had to help Mary Ann out of her shell. There for a while we thought that aid might have stunted her in some way, but those fears were unfounded.

They both grew by leaps and bounds, graduating to ever bigger holding pens and jabbering for our attention and presence. When we finally took them outside to sun in a pen when the warmer weather came their cries whenever we’d get out of their sight were mistaken for cries of distress by the Canada Geese nesting on our pond and they flew to the rescue like the goose equivilant of child services in a huff of alarm, hissing and stretching their wings overhead “Karate Kid” style. A close call. (You can read about this at more length by referencing blogs from last year.)

This year will be different. I love Schmul and his protective presence around the yard, but I do miss the idea of being the only “men” in the girl’s lives. I feel like we’re parents giving our daughters over to a young suitor, a future husband. And he must be Mormon because there’s a whole lot of “Big Love” going on in our backyard. Those hussies. We’ll see how it all works out, letting nature do its thing, both with the raising of our little flock and how that flock interacts with the Canada brood nesting on the pond this year. I had urged Richard to move the Canadians off the pond to avoid any showdowns and allow our crew to have free rein of the pond, but he didn’t do it. He’s a big advocate of letting nature take its course. He’s also a bit squeamish about interfering in the affairs of pets and animals, even when said interference means trimming claws or combing natty knots out of hair. But he’s also had the whole run of the place while I’ve been working in New York City and trudging across to an icy pond to shew away geese while having to do chores and other jobs and general upkeep probably didn’t top his “to do” list. Again, we shall see. It should be interesting.

Last year the girls befriended the Canada Goose family and were allowed into their inner circle, as if they were a pair of odd, dear aunts from another wing of the family. The Canada gander would hiss out boundary settings when they got a little too close to their goslings, but other than that the girls were allowed to swim near them, rest on the bank of the pond beside them, take part in “family gatherings.” It was sweet to watch. I’d often wonder what was going through our girl’s little goose heads when it came to reconciling us being their imprinted parents while these other swimming, feathered, different yet similar creatures seemed so like kin. And the Canada gander seemed nonplussed when we would call the girls home for the night and they would come swimming over, flapping their wings and running with us back to their pen, and obediently stepping into their coop to be latched in for the night. But they cohabited in a state of détente, tolerating one another’s quirks, and this probably due to their being no male influence around the girls. Now with Schmul I don’t think the meeting of goose minds will be quite so smooth. I hope to be proven wrong, but ever since the Canadian’s arrival whenever Schmul has walked over to the pond with the girls, the Canada gander has come swooping over, dive bombing them, and Schmul has reacted in fear. In fact, our geese won’t go over there anymore, won’t even cross the road. Richard prefers to see that as a good thing, especially with new babies being born. And how will Schmul react when the Canadian brood comes across the road to munch on THEIR lawn? More will be revealed.

This just in ... !!

News Flash from home – as flashy as you can get in Vermont. Something seems to be going on in the goose coop. Richard reports that Ginger and Mary Ann aren’t as squawky and het up as they had been before. When he got close to the coop window this morning, instead of the familiar furor of scolding protests, the girls calmly clucked and chatted. Richard surmises something’s up beneath, that there’s either movement in the eggs or – glory be – some eggs have hatched. No idea yet. They may be a little more civil, but they’re still not giving him a peak. We do know the egg count is down from 8 to 5, several of the eggs were cracked when the girls rolled them to the back of the coop for a more hay cushioned area during the recent frost. Royce opined that if the eggs cracked, Ginger and Mary Ann probably ate them. You need your energy sitting on a nest all day and night.

This past week I took a quick dash up to our place on my day off – taking off from New York City at 9 pm and arriving around 2 am for a one and a half day stay. A bit of a tiring stretch, but well worth it for an infusion of New England countryside. Schmul was in rare father-to-be form, pacing the perimeter of the coop, his own private maternity ward walk, on patrol, on guard. Whenever Richard and I would get anywhere near, he’d come out to confront us, stretching his neck down and out to its full length and when we’d point our finger at him with a firm “no” he’d turn and screech out a high alarm, echoed immediately by the girl’s lower Selma Diamond register from inside the coop on the nest. This was repeated continuously throughout the day as we walked back and forth from the house to the garden we were weeding and planting right near the goose coop. I had to hand it to him, though; he was doing his job. Being the male, protecting the women folk. It was impressive. When I went to turn him in that night he refused to go. Usually I can grab his beak, turn him, and wave him up to the back gate of their pen with ease, but he would not be turned. I tried to turn him and pick him up, another maneuver which has worked in the past. Nope. He squirmed and bit and flapped his wings. At one time I had his beak closed with one hand, and stretched away at arms length away from me, and he took swipes at me with his wings. You could hear the wind whip and whoosh with the force of each thrown punch, as if he were wielding a sword. He was not going to back off without a fight. Finally, I was able to pick him up, tote him up to the gate to the coop fence, toss him gently in only to have him turn quickly and grab hold of my jeans in his beak and wrench his neck back and forth. This was a fight to the finish. He’s something.

Earlier that day I had marveled at him. In the late afternoon he went up to the coop and escorted the girls – first Ginger and then about an hour later, Mary Ann – off their nest for a leisurely stroll around the property. They munched grass together, took a swim and a wash in the kiddie pool, another munch or 2, a stretch, a walk around the house. I’m sure this was all instinctual, but it looked so gentlemanly, as if he were Cary Grant in a white dinner jacket, taking his bedraggled babes out for a quick night on the town, treating them with class. So beautiful.

The next morning, just before I left for the ride back to the city, Schmul seemed surprised when Mary Ann got off the nest and walked out for a munch without him having gone to get her. There was such a bickering and jabbering back and forth as they ate grass beside one another:

Schmul: What are you doing?!
Mary Ann: What do you mean “What am I doing?”
Schmul: You’re off your nest!
Mary Ann: Yeah, I’m off my nest!
Schmul: Get back in there!
Mary Ann: You get back in there!
Schmul: I come and get you. That’s when you get off your nest.
Mary Ann: Oh, those are the rules, huh?!
Schmul: Yeah, those are the rules.
Mary Ann: Gimme a break.

She turns her back and eats some grass.

Schmul: Get back on your nest.
Mary Ann: Whatareyagonnado? Bite me?
Schmul: Oh for cryin’ out loud!
Mary Ann: Yeah, you do that pretty well. Soundin’ the alarm every 5 seconds!
Scmul: I’m lookin’ out for your best interests!
Mary Ann: How’s a constant Code Red in my best interests? Every 5 minutes “Emergency! Emergency!!” You don’t think our kids are hearing that through their shells? They’re gonna be a bunch of wacked out weirdos!
Schmul: You patrol for a while, see how you like it.
Mary Ann: Gladly. I’ll switch places with you anytime you like. I’d like to see how wide your ass gets sittin’ on a nest day and night.
Schmul: Oh, now I like your ass.
Mary Ann: Quit, quit, You can’t make me fall for you, I’m mad.
Schmul: Is that a smile I see?
Mary Ann: I said Stop it! I’m pissed!
Schmul: Try some of my grass over here, baby. It’ll make you feel better.
Mary Ann: I don’t want to feel better.
Schmul: Sure you do.
Mary Ann: Oh Schmul.
Schmul: Oh baby.
Ginger: (from inside the coop) Oh brother!

More news on the coming goslings soon