3 THINGS…
THING 1
Hey Everyone…Halls has a new Farmers Market every Tuesday from 3-6pm!
Located in the Ace Hardware/Goodwill parking lot on Maynardville Pike. Last Tuesday was our first week and they hope to add more vendors each week. The Market offers plants, spices, lotions, essential oils, woodworking, fresh eggs and more! Stop by and support your local small business.
THING 2
I have an idea…let’s raise goslings…in our dining room!!!
So, I’ve wanted these fancy geese for a long time now. They’re Sebastopols and they come with a hefty price tag to match their elegant appearance. I was so excited to find two goslings because the goose only lays for a few months a year and then she’s done. If you miss the spring window, you’re out of luck until next year. Hopefully, we end up with a male and a female.
As do all our young babies, they start out in a large plastic tub in our dining room with a heat lamp as they need to be kept warm for the first few weeks. When they were the size of a baseball, that wasn’t such a big deal. But as you can guess, they didn’t stay small very long. Now they are the size of a medium chicken and the plastic tub just isn’t cutting it.
These babies have personality plus. They are very talkative. They talk A LOT. Often, they talk ALL NIGHT. I know this because the dining room is just on the other side of our bedroom. It seems they are planning to take over the world or maybe there’s a lot of goose-gossip, I don’t know for sure. But being that we wanted to make sure they stayed healthy, plus we want them to be people friendly, we decided we had to keep them in the house for awhile. (God bless my husband for going along with this idea!)
In addition to their incessant jabbering, they are extremely messy. Like a toddler who tries peas for the first time and spits them all the over the room. They take a bite of food, mix it with water, (talking with their mouth full the whole time) then shake their head back and forth until no area within 6 feet is left uncovered. The little chicks in the pen next to them are covered in goose feed. The walls are covered in goose feed. The floor and the dining table is covered in goose feed. And once goose food dries, it’s like trying to chisel old cereal from a bowl your daughter (whose name may or may not be Alexi) left in her room last summer. Then finally, they tromp through the water, sit in the water and bathe in the water, wetting the entire pen in about 30 seconds after cleaning. I guess I should point out that I’m so very grateful they don’t sling their poop like their food. There is a silver lining :)
Despite their challenges, these water fowl actually enjoy hanging out with their human, chatting about their day and talking about planting crops. Lest you get bored of hearing about what they think of the latest weather report and try to walk away from them, they will happily follow you around and keep talking all the while.
And man, they grow extremely fast! I swear you can see the growth overnight. Which brings me to our next dilemma. These guys barely have enough room to turn around in their plastic container, so I’ve upgraded their daytime quarters to the fenced area in the backyard. Every morning, I carry them outside and fill up their baby pool so they can swim laps and harass the birds and squirrels with their views on politics and the latest Youtube video reviews. I’m still trying to decide what to do with them at night until they’re a little bigger and can go to the barn with the rest of the flock. Maybe I can turn my bathtub/master bathroom into a temporary goose sanctuary??
THING 3
Mother’s Day was last Sunday, but us Moms never stop loving, never stop giving, never stop caring, never stop thinking of our kids.
