Eventually, I started to get the feeling that we were in over our heads. It started the day I went over to our neighbor’s house for a chat and the goose trotted behind me, crossing the road and following me up the driveway to their front door.
A few days later, I got into my car to run some errands. To my surprise, the goose had followed me out to the top of our driveway and he didn’t stop there. He came right up to the driver’s side window and let out a few loud honks as if to tell me I had forgotten to invite him to come along.
There was another moment, a last straw of sorts, that I wish I didn’t feel so compelled to share. I was doing laundry in the basement and I realized I needed to add the clothes I was wearing to the wash. I stripped down and while standing there naked, I got that strange, eerie feeling you get when you know you’re being watched.
Sure enough, the goose was right outside the basement window, peering in through the glass with his head cocked to the side so that just one of his beady little eyes could watch me. We had a peeping-Tom!!!
He needed to go. And to no surprise, Greg was in total agreement, especially after he discovered that the goose had picked up a new habit of snatching our freshly planted vegetable seedlings out of the ground and eating them by the roots!
I turned to Craigslist – the solution to ridding oneself of all sorts of strange things – and posted an ad. Within a 1/2 hour, my inbox started to blow up.
“That’s one beautiful goose. I’d like to breed him.” “I want to show him in the county fair. Do you think he’s in good enough condition to be a show-animal? ” “How much do you think he weighs? My mother loves goose and I’d like to make her a special dinner.”
I turned down all of those propositions, knowing that we were desperate, but not this desperate. I waited for something, or rather someone, to feel right. And then it happened.
I got an email from a man who, in a matter of a few short paragraphs and one brief phone call, convinced me that he really, truly, absolutely, LOVED geese. And that he should be the goose’s new caretaker.
He told me how he built ponds for his pet geese. He told me about how he installed 24-hr video surveillance and electric fences to deter predators for his geese. And how he brought his geese for regular checkups with an avian vet and even grew nutritious sprouts for his geese!
He sealed the deal with this one line. “If you let me have your goose, it’ll be as if he won the lottery. This place is heaven.” How could I ever turn that down?
2 hours later, the man arrived. As I geared up to tell him about how he’d better be careful handling the goose because he had mean streak, the man scooped up the goose in his arms like a baby and carried him to his van. I was surprised. The goose didn’t even protest…much.
The man drove away with the goose in the back seat of his van and I felt, all at once, relieved and sad to have abruptly ended this strange cockeyed venture of ours.
I turned to look at Greg and saw that he, too, had big tears welling up in his eyes. We stood there in our driveway together and cried. And laughed. And hugged. And then…we got back to farming.
Your Farmers,
Jenney & Greg
PS- A few hours after we said our goodbyes, the man sent us an email with pictures of the goose in a big fancy pond with his new goose-friends. He really did look like he was in heaven.