A Sunny Sunday

I'm sure that you know about my love of snow, but after some heavy rain it's finally gone. This morning was glorious and showed that Spring is thinking about making an appearance. The fields were pretty waterlogged before the snow and rain arrived so it's no surprise that we have the makings of our very own lake at the moment.

The geese are thrilled with 'lake Cymraeg' and took full advantage by preening themselves. I really love the geese as they have such character. I'm still not quite sure what to expect come Spring time as some people say that they can be a little aggressive when the females start to lay. We have eight geese altogether, five that I bought as five year old adults from a goose producer in Norfolk (they were the breeding stock that were no longer commercially viable) and three that I bought as six week old goslings. Once the goslings became adults they were left to roam freely together with the adults. They all live together as one big family - sometimes happy, sometimes not so.  At the beginning the young male often challenged the older male and gets put back in his place immediately and then he sulks and sometimes limps for a couple of days! It was always supervised and never got really nasty, it was lots of noise and flapping.  I wanted to get geese as a deterrent as we have had a quite a few poultry thefts.  They do make an awful racket when strangers visit, and when they all run towards you with their wings outstretched and honking, well, it is not for the faint-hearted!