(2nd installment from stories written about 12 years ago.)
I guess I had about every kind of fowl at one time or
another. I asked Danny for a white gosling for my birthday. He bought a dozen of them. Instead of having
one goose that would follow me around like a pet, we had a pack, a herd of
marauding geese. Actually, it was a gaggle of geese, but gaggle sounds fun like
giggle and they weren’t the least bit funny. They were some of the meanest
things we ever owned. My youngest son, Clint, stood toe to toe and eye to eye
with them except it was usually beak to back, their beaks and toenails on his
back. Clint would check to see if the geese were at the front or back door
before he went outside and use whichever one was goose-less. They scarred him
for life, he’ll forever be afraid of down.
One of the geese
was a leg flogger similar to what small dogs do, but a lot scarier because of
an eight-foot wing span and a beak reaching about crotch high. At one family
get together, I was standing with two uncles talking when the flogger walked up
to one of them, Uncle Morris, and started nuzzling his knee. I knew what was
coming next but couldn’t stop it. The goose latched hold of my uncle’s leg and
proceeded to scale the pants with strategic beak and claw placement. Uncle
Morris tried to slap away the serpent-like head that was bobbing in front of
his face, but he was no match for the goose. Taylor took the broom that we kept
for such occasions and began to beat them both. The goose lost interest. Uncle
Morris just lost it. The bad thing was this uncle was married to the aunt that
had been attacked by my raccoon a few years earlier in much the same manner, a
mating frenzy.
To thin the flock,
we gave some of the geese to unsuspecting former friends. Of course, the final straw came when one of
the ganders flew up in Danny’s face. He
took his six-shooter out and blew that sucker away. Freezer Food.
Rhode Island Reds, "Domineckers," ones with top knots, ones with feathers on their feet - I love
chickens of any sort because they are such fun to watch. Chickens enjoy sharing
the moment of a friend’s found treasure then trying to take it away. After all,
they are just chickens and everything has a pecking order. It was like an
Easter egg hunt everyday with my free-range chickens. Luckily they were
creatures of habit and tended to lay in the same spots.
Our first dozen chicks
were first run which means someone at a feed store grabs a box, puts newly
hatched chicks in it, and a couple of months later you know what sex they are.
Unfortunately, out of our first dozen chicks, there were only two hens; two
hard ridden hens. One rooster is normally needed to “service” a dozen hens for
biddy production but roosters are superfluous for egg production. Those poor
featherless girls didn’t have time to eat or sleep let alone lay eggs. Danny
didn’t have the heart to ring the roosters’ necks, so he and the .22 put eight
of them in the freezer.
Turkeys were my
best-behaved animals. They’re not nearly as stupid as the jokes imply; I never
had a single one drown in the rain. I guess there are reasons why they lay over
two dozen eggs in a clutch and only one or two reach maturity. The turkey moms are
easily distracted and the babies are slowly picked off or lost in the woods.
Turkeys are not quite the majestic bird Benjamin Franklin professed either, but
when that gobbler strikes the ground with those wings, fans his beautiful tail
and puffs out his chest, it is an awesome sight. Bird dogs eventually wiped out
my small flock and broke my heart. Death is an ever-present part of farm life.
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