New From the Home Front

A quick catch-up before heading to Hall’s Lake for an early morning kayak. Just cuddled each of our newly hatched turkey chicks to get the imprinting ball rolling. Yes, it’s not the ideal time of year to be hatching chicks of any kind, but Richard was disconsolate over the loss of 3 of his adult turkeys to a raccoon attack a couple months back and I urged him to try ordering more. He assured me that the season to order was long past, but to his surprise this was not true, an oddity, and he found himself bidding for 12 turkey eggs. He won the bidding war, the eggs were shipped, he incubated them, and 6 out of 12 hatched 2 days ago. 2 of the unhatched were fully formed inside their eggs, but didn’t make it. One of them had started pipping the shell, however he or she had gotten themselves upside down and couldn’t pip out through the bottom and died. Richard was saddened by this. They’re such vulnerable, adorable creatures. And none of them have bumble foot (I think I’m remembering the term correctly), an arthritic-looking malady that curves some of the turkey’s “toes” 90 degrees. I had thought this new brood would be fully grown by Thanksgiving, but some quick arithmetic earlier this week put a lie to that. Where and how they’ll be kept over the winter is an issue to be dealt with sometime soon. Tomorrow is another day. And Richard’s already thinking of thinning out his various flocks. There are a couple “chicken swaps” coming up where he’s sold some pullets in the past AND we have prospective buyers for Daphne, Felicity, and Prince Mishkin (our newer geese.) I still feel the older geese will be heartbroken by the separation, though I have to keep reminding myself that idea probably comes from Disney animated features.

Autumn feels as if it’s here, especially in the mornings. We wake to all our cats burrowed in close, with no complaints and calls to get up and fix their grub, they enjoy the warmth. Of course, we get up at 5:30 or 6 so where would the complaint be? Oliver was out all night – we left the porch pet door open for him, while keeping the screen door shut to prevent anyone else from getting out – and is now crashed out on our bed like a teenager who partied hard the night before. The geese have raised their morning ruckus and are in the road, pruning and fluffing their feathers, urging on the last of their molting. They love lining up across the road preventing cars from going by, and giving the drivers “what for” if they deign to honk at them or slowly edge their way through the flock. Audacity reigns.

Yesterday around 4 of a hot day in the high 80’s, I came home with a new kayak. I’d been on the fence about buying one for a while, ever since a blissful time on a friend’s pond a month or 2 back. I’d been paying close attention to the sales price of kayak’s slashing down, down, down. The confluence of the lowering price and my deep yearning for a return to that joyous day on the water came together in a surety yesterday around 3. I pulled into Farm Way, decision made; the salesman was barely able to start into his pitch and I had the kayak picked out, oar, life preserver, and mount rack, all at a percentage of what they had originally been. Fantastic! And yes, the Connecticut River is in my near future, and I’m open to other autumn haunts for these early mornings, but yesterday, the idea of being on our pond, trying the new boat out, paddling back through the swampy areas that only the geese and ducks pad to, seemed like nirvana. The geese were aghast as I portaged this 12’ orange creamsicle-colored plastic thing across the road toward “their” pond. They stood motionless, with just a few whispers to one another as I lowered it into the water beside the pier. Even Schmuel, the ultimate neck craner, was nonplussed. I eased into the boat, pushed off from the shore, and soared out to sea. So beautiful, so still, so perfect. AND the geese followed. This was completely unexpected. Usually when we swim, they hightail it out of there. They might observe from the safety of the bank, but they don’t want to be anywhere close to these splashing, shouting, whooping creatures. Do we become something else to them when swimming, I wonder? But the kayak – the exact color of their bills, by the way – must’ve been something different altogether. They were curious and intrigued. They followed me, so beautiful, this little clutch of goose family, swimming along with slow, sure ease. For the most part it was a dance between the two of us. They’d circle me, come close, confer a bit, all very calmly done. Once Schmuel seemed to recognize the top part of my body sticking out from this orange floating arrow and began to arch out at me, but that was short lived. Mostly it was a pondy meditation on one another. Who are you, really?

When I came to shore, I propped the kayak up against our small willow tree near the pond and went back to the dock to exercise a bit and lay back to take in the gorgeous sky. The geese got out beside me and both Ginger and Schmuel approached the boat as if it were an adversary, their necks craned, bodies low, warning honks and jabbers. The boat didn’t make a move. So they all moved in for a chew and a bite. They couldn’t really gain purchase there and finally resigned themselves to acceptance. Richard soon came home, having heard of the recent purchase, and wanted a paddle out on the pond himself and again, and the curious journey and dance were repeated.

It seems like a poem of a day, light relaxed and easy on the trees. The perfect opportunity to become one with a body of water. I think I’ll go enjoy bird song and beauty from the perspective of a boat on the water.

Have a great day.