Love and Killing

I’ve been distracted by love this morning. Love of this place, love of Richard, just plain love. It can be very off-putting. We woke at 5 or a little past. Rooster crows stirred us and we decided to get up. And this wasn’t a disgruntled decision, no, it seemed just right. It was a grey morning, still, lightly sprinkling. There was a purity to the air. I think the goose girls were surprised that we were out so early. They seemed grateful and closely observant, nibbling at our boots and pajama bottoms as we let the roosters out of the coop and trudged up to set Nanna and the chicks free. Richard’s chicken addiction kicked in again a couple days ago and he bought 3 Wellington (I’m guessing now) hens. They are sweet and docile with an impressive feather design of various browns and blacks and will be laying brown eggs by autumn. Richard defended his purchase by saying he needed something to counterbalance the roosters that were going to be killed on Monday. I replied that I thought the point had been to thin the flock, but my words were whisked away by the wind, unable to penetrate the force field of Richard’s smile and “oh well” shruggy attitude toward the whole thing.

After setting Nanna free we thinned out the beets in the garden and weeded a bit as the coffee brewed away in the kitchen. It all felt meditative, nothing momentous, just the enjoyment of being up with one another, going with the flow of the morning. Even the continuing rain didn’t dampen our spirits.

I soon went up to write and hadn’t been up there but a few minutes when Richard called me from downstairs.

“The geese are at the top of the rise; they’re going to try to fly again.”

I donned my green Wellingtons (my boots, not one of the chicks, of course) and stepped outside for the aerial show. We’ve been awaiting this time with trepidation. One of the Canada Geese gosling’s wings had been injured for quite sometime and we dreaded the day when the parents would begin giving them flying lessons. That’s what’s been happening the past couple days. The first time, our girls took part. The male Canada goose and his 3 healthy offspring flew effortlessly over the house to the pond while the mother, the injured gosling, and our 2 girls, squawked and waddled quickly down the hill in anxious pursuit. Since then our girls have decided to simply be observers and this morning they stood beside us, awaiting the ill-fated take-off. Something inside me yearned for a miracle while bracing for heartbreak. Then some silent signal was given and the whole family fluttered into the air with a flurry of honks. The 3 healthy offspring flew overhead in a bee-line to the pond, while the injured one canted down to the ground despite his best efforts. Both parents stayed with him, and putting themselves on either side of him, urged him back into the air, and again, he tried, he tried, but couldn’t keep up. The parents continued on to the pond and he went down into some tall weeds and struggled to get out. I turned to Richard and we both shared protruding lower lips with one another.

“Both Royce and Gail say I should shoot it,” Richard said. “It’s just going to make it harder for the rest of the family to leave.”

We’ve been hearing about and playing with different scenarios – calling a humane society, imagining our girls “adopting” her/him after the parents leave, and now, killing him to put him out of his misery. We’re leaning heavily in that direction. The killing would be Richard’s department. He has picked off woodchucks from our upstairs window with the hunting rifle he brought from Arizona, where we had a cabin for years. Out in the southwest he prided himself with being a proficient plugger of jack rabbits. He’s hoping to bring that skill to bear here, but it won’t be a happy undertaking. No. We stood silent and watched the disoriented gosling squawk out from the weed tangle, calling for its parents, trying to find where they had gone, wondering how to best get there as he scurryied this way and that, his injured left wing feather grazing the ground as he dashed around about. Both Richard and I gave little sympathetic “poor baby” moans.

To quell our uncomfortable feelings, I suggested our geese a hug. I think I’ve mentioned before that you have to slowly corner Ginger and Mary Ann in order to hold them. We bill and coo to them as we close in and they finally stand still and hunker down close to the ground, their ultimate defensive tactic. When this happens, we pick them up, holding their wings close to their side as we do, otherwise they will start flapping in their excitement and might injure themselves. We sat down on the side porch and put the girls on our laps. They nibbled and chomped on us, chattering away. It helped to hold them. They smelled so fine, newly laundered. I’m a sucker for attaching human ways of thinking and feeling onto animals. The wave of emotion I felt while watching the broken winged gosling teeter down to earth I felt its parents must surely be feeling too. Not so. They most probably feel nothing at all. It’s all instinct, all part of nature. And now the thought crosses our minds that even a seemingly merciful act as killing it seems intrusive. “Maybe we should just let nature take its course,” Richard opines later as we look out the front windows at the Canada Geese family in the middle of the road, preening themselves. And that is another option, leaving well enough alone. Mom, newly arisen with coffee in hand, provides yet another option. “Why don’t you take it in to be processed with the roosters tomorrow morning. Have a nice goose to cook.” Hmmm.

How this all started out with love and veered into “The Killing Fields” I don’t know, but there you have it. All part of the world here. Love and killing.

And it’s still a grand morning.