Testing Times (and a Minor Miracle)

Little George looks a bit lost with Big-G and Black Feather

We have been witness (and enablers, we guess) to a minor miracle. The tiny gosling rejected by the parent group on day 2 and rescued by us for, we thought, hand rearing, is now back with his parents. In our (limited) experience these rejections are permanent and if you try to reintroduce the rejects they can be attacked and killed. Geese are big, powerful birds, and the damage can be very fast and serious. Even as we let the reunion happen we were anxious that we might have to dive in fast and re-rescue George (Junior).

It was a charming and almost 'magical' day, the day after all our fun and games with exploding eggs described in the last post. Like a Mum who knows she is pregnant but daren't tell anyone before the 2nd Scan lest they jinx the thing, I didn't dare report this till now; I wanted to see us survive the first 24 hours and the first night.  Now, though, I can tell the tale. As I opened the goose house door first thing in the morning, I expected just George to march out to the orchard, and the 2 'women' to stay sitting on the eggs. Not this time. Out marched Black Feather on the heels of the Gander and off to the orchard in a determined way, her involvement in sitting on eggs now obviously over as far as she was concerned. She was a free range goose again.

Up the bath ramp at Mum's feet, down again nudged by Dad.

It was also a lovely warm morning, so I wondered whether to try again with the meeting we arranged 2 days ago between Gander George in the orchard, and G-Junior, safe inside a wire crate. That had gone well, with lots of excited beak-to-beak nuzzling and chuntering. It convinced me that Junior was well imprinted on geese, not humans. I wondered how it would go with George AND a female goose (Mum or Aunt, we don't really know). I did not use the crate this time, but put the gosling outside the orchard fence. Baby straight away started homing in on big guys and they on him. I held my breath. There was a good bit of the nuzzling and some open beak 'mouthing' of baby by George. Suddenly the gosling did one of his little clock-work-toy scampers in through the fence and was as suddenly 'in there' between the parents and was as quickly accepted by both.

These buttercups are a bit tall Dad!

The little threesome walked about in the orchard and even ventured up the bath ramp. There was some sitting down with baby allowed to sit close but Liz and I, looking on and feeling the rather keen wind which had sprung up waited for that moment when baby, who had been nudging around the sitting shape of Mum, seemingly nibbling the ends of wing feathers, was properly invited in under the Maternal wing, into the warm. The rest is history, really. They stayed nicely together all day so that we decided that they were better off like that than if we tried to end the experiment and 'rescue' the gosling again. It would have been more like 'steal' the gosling and we couldn't imagine the grown up geese being too happy.

Back on the nest between the 2 ladies

So we left them be, checking them hourly till 'bed time' when I shepherded them home and Black Feather jumped back onto the nest hotly pursued by the gosling, though he had to make his peace first with his other Mum-Aunt, 'Smudge'. Since then they have been doing happy families. This morning it was chilly and windy and no-one came out to the orchard. They all stayed indoors sharing their time between sitting on eggs, standing guard and walking around. I supplied food and water for all ages indoors (little 2 inch high Tupperware for baby, builders bucket for grown ups!). There is still a possible confusion as to how this goes in terms of either female being willing to leave the eggs to go exploring with Junior, but we are a lot happier that he is being minded by the geese rather than us.

So that was the parenting skills tested on the day when Ireland went to the polls so that the Euro and Local candidates (plus a couple of by-elections) could test their democratic mandates, and today we had the NCT ( =MOT ) test on the Fiat and our Bee Keeper written test. The Fiat failed but only on the alignment of the off side headlight (dip beam aims too high), so I was a bit annoyed but also very happy and relieved that that was all. The Bee Keeper exam went well for both of us, with almost all the questions being ones we had seen before and practised on. We are both hoping for good scores, though we may only hear the results in pass/fail format. We have now heard that the practical 'exam' session is to be on Monday evening. It will be good to have that all over so quickly.

Kindergarten

The kindergarten grows from strength to strength. The pup, Towser, at 10 weeks has almost doubled in weight from his 7 week old arrival weight (1.2 kgs) to 2.2 kg now. The kittens, Blue and Rolo are now 1.2 kgs up from 700g or so and all have come on in leaps and bounds (literally) in terms of their mobility, stairs-climbing ability and pushing back the boundaries of the territory they explore when allowed out. The three of them all play well together, all be it, Towser sometimes gets a bit rough with Rolo, who seems to be his 'best mate'. I am slotting into 'Aunt' role very well, much to everyone's delight and while I never let anyone get tooooooo close (this first picture is a bit of a lie - Towser was in the bed first and this is me trying to 'cuckoo's nest' him out; I would never let him join me in bed if I was already in it!) I do tend and mind them all and occasionally let a bit of scampering play happen, especially if I can cuff the pup and bowl him ovber occasionally. This is just to show him I'm still bigger than he is.

Towser gets into a few scrapes like in the 2nd pic, where he was 'busted' by Dad breaking into the chicken run through a narrow gap under the door. Rolo nails his first shrew out in the yard and then runs around with it in his mouth growling very professionally at all comers including me, who wanted to get a look in. The three of them frequently accompany us out as far as the rabbit run now and here are some pics of various babies meeting Ginny and Padfoot. The buck rabbit 'Rogers' is still with us but manages to stay out of most of these pictures, leaving the camera time to his ladies.

They are all also generally on hand to assist with gardening jobs. We have a heap of soil in the bit of garden still called "The Bit We Don't Talk About" into which is mixed a decent supply of coal and anthracite after the mini digger driver scraped up a load of topsoil when clearing brambles and unknown to him, a rotten pallet of coal bags buried in the grass. This fuel is still useful so Mum and Dad decided to dig through the heap and liberate any useful sized coal lumps and anthracite 'nuts'. Towser decided to help and is pictured here in the bucket Mum was using to gather coal.

Finally just a few pics of babies because they are cute and fun. Enjoy!

Curmudgeonly Aunt Dog

It's Sunday July 22nd and life is currently all about bedding in the new pup and kittens with me, the “curmudgeonly Aunt dog” as I now seem to be called. We are getting there. Tomorrow is the big moment of truth day, when I get let off the lead to go kill small animals or not as takes my fancy. Not today. No, not a Monday. Mum will tell you... "Animals DIE on Mondays". It's a family superstition at this stage, with almost talismanic status. It was a bizarre day weather-wise, always cloudy and always just ever so slightly spitting in the wind but with a hooley of a breeze blowing through all day which was bizarrely warm like a Chinook or a Foehn or something. Mum and Dad are invited round to neighbour Una to pick her black currants. We are welcome to 'jam' them, she says, as she's done enough jam from the bushes and still has plenty growing. We likes Una!

23^rd

Light but persistent rain all day nearly had Dad giving up on plan A and mooping indoors, but decided that, blow it! He was not to be beaten. He will go do Plan A, he decides, get wet and grubby and THEN come back for shower and gorgeous home made soup - the remnant of the "most delicious lamb shanks in the history of the world" a few days back. I can vouch for the shanks having inherited most of the bones to either chew or bury where the pesky pup cannot find them.

Plan A was for Dad to nip round neighbour Una's (she of the blackcurrants) and chainsaw up for her a pile of old timber beams from her former hay barn. Sounds familiar? She is widow and no longer has chain-saw hefting bloke around so Dad is happy to oblige. He got wet but not a bother. You get so warm hefting the said saw (he says) that it's too sweaty inside his coat and hoodie, so he was working in ordinary cotton shirt and hoping his sweaty bod would dry the rain as soon as it landed. Sorry. Hope you're not all still eating your breakfast! Must have been minging!

Dad got an unexpected and warming buzz from realizing afterwards that he had been was sitting on a weather-worn chair, up at a battle-scarred table in a genuine Irish lady's farmhouse kitchen, being fed scones and jam and "a cup o' tay in yer hand", chatting about the weather and stuff. Not "brought there" by Mum but there, welcome and being hosted on my his own account because he’d just done her a neighbourly favour. He was feeling all 'accepted' and welcome. 

In 'train the dog not to kill small animals' we reach the planned final day of training and it does seem to be working. Although 'curmudgeonly Aunt' dog (me) is technically on the lead, in practise the lead is slack and I can go right up to the kittens and pup, lean over them, chase them about and (to a small extent) "play" with them as if I was off the lead. I have made no attempt to bite or damage kittens and seems, Dad says, indeed, to be playing mother-and-daughter games with them. At one point Mum and Dad think I may even have been 'protecting' one kit from the other as they were play-fighting. Rolo was in the small dog-bed and I squeezed in beside her facing out and batting off Blue. Bizarre (as well as exciting and optimism-inducing for tomorrow/today). Wish us luck. My only remaining vice and cause for concern (I am told) is the jealousy thing which comes out in snarling, growling and occasional snaps at pup when he approaches if I am on Dad’s lap. This is saved for the pup and does not apply to kittens. Luckily he (pup) speaks the same language and backs off. Wisdom in one so young! Mum and Dad tell everyone “We never did cure Deefer when it came to new-dog Coco” (or indeed, former matriarch dog Megan and patriarch dog Haggis) where I would try it on and generally get told to get lost.