Goose Report

November 2nd
Up early for the second night running, around 3 or so, and maybe it’s not such a bad thing. Up with the cats, wondering about Mishkin, our young gander, who I discovered had been attacked by something, much like his father Shmuel a month or so back. The good news is that he seems more active and rowdy than Shmuel had been – it took some doing getting him corralled so I could catch him, he put up quite a fuss even though I had noticed him lagging behind the others yesterday morning and on closer inspection I saw the spray of orange-ish blood on his back. Shmuel has also returned to true protective mode, so there was the double obstacle of Mishkin’s athletic evasion and Shmuel’s loud alarms and lowered neck and bites.

November 3
Good morning.
Up early for the second night running, yesterday, 3 am; today, 4 so I guess it’s whittling itself down. I had been traveling for about a week and a half all across the country, so maybe my body’s still acclimating to being back home. I can hear Sofia in the mud room/entrance hall, shoveling sand in the litter box as if she were an excavator. She isn’t satisfied until half the box is on the tile floor.


Friday November 5th
Up early again, it’s 5 or so, Astrid’s on my lap, and the house is quiet save for the quiet hum of the refrigerator, a few drips from the rain outside too. I’m on a bit of a goose watch. I got home from a one day trip to NYC yesterday about 5 and the geese were out on the pond and being dusk it was a little late to lure them back to shore. They know it’s me, a few of the girls call back across the water when I speak to them, but the growing dark makes them distrustful, I guess, for they won’t come, despite the scratch I rattle in the big plastic jar. It’s done the trick many times before, but not last night. Instead, they stay on a sedge mound we call Goose Island for it’s where the Canada Geese nest every year.

Oh, just heard a bark.

I still don’t know what attacked Shmuel and Mishkin. It may very well be two different predators. “If it’s a fox,” Richard opines, “it won’t be back for a week. They move around constantly.” If it’s a coyote, though, that’s another story. They get the taste and stick around. The good news is that they haven’t killed one of them yet. Chances are if they had, they’d be back for more. And maybe with friends. I’ve seen scat up by the goose pen and by the side of the pond, but I haven’t been able to make a clear identification yet. No scat expert I. And the predator could also be a dog, we haven’t ruled that out either. So I’m on a goose watch, waiting for first light to see if they’ve weathered the night. They usually come back to shore in the morning and meander back by the chicken coop where it feels safe. We’ve had a bit of a rearrangement of coops lately – we moved what their coop over by the chicken area and, with the help of neighbors, toted the turkey shelter which had been situated up in the far end of our orchard down to where the goose pen had been. Now it’s in the process of becoming their winter home.

It’s nearly 7. It should be getting light soon. I take it that they’re safe out there. If they stayed on the island, they should be. I think the attacks happened when they were on the shore preening or sleeping. Maybe it’s a rite of passage, surviving attacks. As I said, Shmuel seems back to his old self. Mishkin, though, who was never tough to begin with, shies back from the others now and is nursing a hurt wing as well as bite marks on its neck. And I forgot that Royce offered another theory regarding the injury. An owl. Those could be talon marks on Mishkin. You’ve got to watch every which way. I spent a night or 2 turkey baster-feeding Mishkin as I had Shmuel as well as spiking his drinking water with tetracycline. But he was in much better post-attack shape than Shmuel had been. Mishkin would call for the others when he heard them, in a full high voice. He was spry. He couldn’t quite stay at the others pace when they’d fly ahead. He’d try, but stop almost immediately because of the hurt wing and then give a sort of “wait up!” cry as he waddled to keep up with them. Oh, it broke my heart.

Now I have to say this whole “healing Mishkin” scenario reminds me of EB White’s essay “Death of a Pig” in which he unsuccessfully tries to nurse a sow of his back to health knowing full well that they’re planning on slaughtering it in the fall for meat. We’ve begun “processing talks” about Mishkin and one of his sisters. And the turkeys too, of course. And being around them, caring for them, holding them, staring into their eyes, these living creatures, does give me pause. Richard’s all gung ho about it. In fact, he wants to do the killing himself. He’s asking Royce to help him and he wants to do a trial run with Whitey, our bossy rooster, soon. Whitey won’t be missed, by me or the countless hens he humps continuously and forcefully every day BUT when it comes to Snowball, Sassie, Rasputin (the turkeys), Mishkin and Daphne, it’s a whole other story. The argument for becoming vegetarian or vegan creeps ever closer. Or maybe I’m just a big pussy.

Well things have changed considerably here since I first started writing. Richard’s up, working at his laptop at the kitchen table, the cats are fed and content, a fire’s crackling in the wood stove, we’re half way through our first cup of jo, and the geese have flown/ran over from the pond. They’re standing around outside in the rain, so vulnerable looking (that’s me editorializing), waiting for someone to come feed them. “Let them be,” Richard counsels. And so I have. And as I look up I can see Shmuel slowly leading the others single file up to their new home where fresh water and a bin full of grow pellets awaits. “They look like they‘re Amish,” Richard says. “Especially the girls.” I’d say pilgrims, because of the girl’s grey. But whatever. All’s well.