Goosey, Goosey, Goosey, Goosey, Gander

Sunday 30th Decmber 2012
Happy Birthday Little Sis!

Goosey Goosey Gander, wither shall I wander,
Upstairs, downstairs and in my lady's chamber
There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers,
I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs.

 

As a child I knew many nursery rhymes, but never did I actually pay any attention to the words. It's a pattern I've continued into adult life. Even if, by some freak of coincidence, I actually know more than the chorus line of a song, I can guarantee I'll never have paid any heed to the meaning of the words.

 

Goosey Goosey Gander ... Cromwell's soldiers who marched in goose step... searching every room of the house...for the old man...the Catholic priest who would only say his prayers in Latin...to execute!

 

 



Nothing quite so sinister about today's goose story I'm afraid. For a while I'd been wondering how to put our three ganders to best use. Argumentative. Probably too old to eat. But quite effective lawnmowers, guards and potential fathers of golden eggs, or at least eggs for eating, sale or hatching.

 

So I was pleased to find, the other day, an advert for Embden geese going for a tenner each. A couple of messages and a phone call later and I had secured myself four females. A very good find.

 

All I had to do was pick them up from up the coast in East Lincolnshire. This was a job for the posh trailer, not the horse box a friend always kindly lends me. But the posh trailer was unavailable again, so it was onto Plan B - the back of the car, lined with stock fence and cardboard and generously packed with straw.

Last time we transported geese in the back of the car, we were not quite so well prepared and they ended up in the front!

 

But the trek up country found us picking up four quite petite, quiet and placid geese. Beautiful, piercing blue eyes too. We hardly even heard them all the way back.

 

 

 

 

 



 I had already planned that they would go straight into a newly prepared stable. More timid than the previous geese, these ones needed carrying out of the back of the car! But they settled in well and seemed to approve of their new surroundings.

Meanwhile, the three boys fed in the veg garden, unaware of the new arrivals. I left it till almost dark before calling them into the stables - sometimes they come to my call, but more often they need driving in (that's driving in the old sense, not in a car). I march them at pace, so they don't have time to get distracted or to divert, through the veg garden gate, into the stable yard, turn left into the stable block and sharp left into their roosting room safe for the night. But today was different. The sharp left led to a closed stable door. Instead, they were coaxed anxiously to the end stable where they clapped eyes on the new arrivals. This plan seemed to work well. The established geese were thrown by the change of routine and the new dwelling. This made them less boisterous. Not only that, but there was a gang of four geese already there. They were outnumbered. And so first contact was made without any major arguments.

 

First contact.

Of course, there's till lonesome George to worry about. He has taken the loss of his mate to a fox very badly and has found no sympathy from the other two. He needed carrying into the new stable and stood on his own in a corner. I am hoping that the introcuction of four ladies may change the dynamics of the goose flock, but if he is still unhappy we will seek a new home for him.