From the Garden and Geese Pictures

I've been remiss posting about what I've gotten from the garden.  It's hard to keep up with it because so much is going on the bird front, but here goes.  Tonight, we had a salad made almost exclusively from lettuce in the garden and several ripe cherry tomatoes.  The peas are looking like I should pick them tomorrow.  The herbs in the garden are doing awesome as are the onions.  I'm not sure what's up with the cucumber or eggplant, because both seem a little slow to do anything.  It's halfway through the growing season, sadly, and I'll probably not have cucumbers from my garden this year.

Anyway this is an earlier shot of the kind of stuff I'm getting in a day.  Herbs are at the top, followed by green onion, and lettuce below.  Today this was the bag of lettuce and cherry tomatoes I picked. As you can see, it's quite a bit.  I've been take a couple leaves from my green leaf lettuce, my red leaf lettuce and my romaine lettuce to make salads.  The cherry tomatoes came from two different plants (one is a big producer!)

I've been meaning to post pictures of the geese.  I have two geese: an African and a Toulouse.  The African goose is the one with the black knobby bill; the Toulouse has an orange bill.  Both are production varieties without the huge dewlaps you see on the websites.

The Toulouse is named Louis and the African is named Ee-qua (sp?).  I don't know if they're geese or ganders and really won't until someone lays an egg. That won't be until next year.

I got geese because I wanted watch geese.  Geese are known to make better watch dogs than some dogs (perish the thought!).  Having watch geese makes it a little easier to hear if something is breaking into the barn or bothering the chickens.  The geese are unlikely to eat my chickens, so there is little fear of them hurting the chickens should they get out.  Geese, by the way, are very silly and not aggressive.  (At least mine aren't).  They bluff a good game, but in the end, they're big cowards.

I remember as a kid being frightened by geese or ducks as I was feeding them.  (I think many people have that happen.)  These geese have gotten me over my fear of birds completely and because they're so silly, they're easy to sit and watch.  One thing they will do is honk at me when it is late and I'm supposed to bring them in from the outside.  They'll peer over the barrier from the outside pen and honk at me as if to say "hurry up!!"  In the picture to the left you see the two geese and the turkey waiting to come into the barn.

Did you know that geese live to about 25 years?  I didn't until I read it somewhre, but if these geese behave themselves (and lay eggs), they're likely to live a long and happy life.