Monday, June 15, 2009

What's New on the Farm?

A couple of weeks ago I received a call from dear friend, Julie. Julie has chickens and guineas and geese and turkeys on her little farmette outside of Charlotte. Pilgrim, the heritage breed Pilgrim goose and his two goslings decided that her lovely pool made a lovely pond. They took up residence. Few people get a kick out of swimming with geese. Not to mention all the other things that might be swimming in the pool if the geese spend much time there.

She called. Could the happy little geese family take up residence at a real pond? In Virginia?

Of course.

Pilgrim and Lily and Daisy immediately took to the pond at Full Circle Farm. They swam, ate pond weeds and preened for us. The ducks made their acquaintance. The guineas barked at them and let them know that by no means were they to get the idea that they were in any way dominant. That is the guineas' role. The cattle and sheep just took a look and went on to their grazing. We are thoroughly enjoying the view of those lovely geese on our pond.

Welcome to the farm, Pilgrim, Lily and Daisy! We are glad you are here!

And thanks a lot, Julie! Pilgrim probably misses you and the cement pond, but we hope he will be happy here.

By the way, a few days ago our little hen, Specky, hatched out by another hen on the farm two years ago, hatched out eight little red chickies! We are proud of her for doing her thing. They will stay in the barn for a couple of weeks til they get large enough to handle the big out doors. We let the mama ducks take their baby ducklings out way too soon and those silly mamas lost their babies. Sad. They were so cute while they lasted. We have snapping turtles in the pond and we assume that they had teeny baby duck for their meal the other day. Next year we will lock the mama ducks and their babies in the barn for a couple of weeks, too.

Live and learn. At least we hope the new babies will live to learn...

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