Touching Base

I have been truant about writing, mostly due to having been in New York City working on a project that will keep me away from Vermont for a while. How long that "while" may be is still up in the air. A friend wrote me this morning to tell me that they had recently happened upon the blog and read all the back installments and it gave them such a sweet sense of the place and I realized now more than ever I do need to find time to write of and about Vermont to keep that "sweet sense of the place" alive in me. I do miss it so, the smells, the sights, the embrace of it all. I long to take a nice meander down our road and take in the slow changing of the seasons. There's still ample snow on the ground, but the temperatures have been rising into the high 40's during the day, which is prime for the sugar maple sap to flow. Richard says that our road is alive with little trucks back and forthing with their huge plastic gathering vats in back, filled or unfilled depending upon the direction they're driving. Soon sugar shacks will be steaming up and the men will gather round with beers and conversation as the sap slowly boils down to syrup. The warmer temperatures have also stimulated our fine big white gander Schmul.
"He's been mating with the girls," Richard told me.
'How can you tell' I rejoined.
"It's pretty obvious."
Richard proceeded to recount that he'd been the barnyard voyeur the day before watching his very own version of the nature channel.
"Ginger and Mary Ann just submit, they flatten out on the ground like pancakes and he climbs up on top of them. And he's big! He grabs their necks in his beak and positions them. He's not as rough as the roosters are with the hens, but Ginger and Mary Ann look a little the worse for wear. Some of their feathers are gone on their backs, on their necks."
'Poor babies.'
"But they seemed fine with it. He couldn't quite get positioned right on Ginger and Mary Ann seemed jealous while he was doing it. She'd nip at both of them until he finally climbed off Ginger and flattened Mary Ann to the ground. Then Ginger nonchalantly walked over to the water bucket and drank while he was doing Mary Ann."
'Brazen hussies.'
A pause.
'So how does he know when to stop?'
"What do you mean?"
'If they have eggs inside them, how does he know not to mount them? If he did, wouldn't it squash the egg inside them if he flattens them out so?'
Richard didn't really have an answer beyond "they just know."

More later.