First Day on Planet Earth
When we first moved to this little cottage in the canyon about seven years ago, it was for the excellent schools in the district. We bought the house the day it came on the market, outbidding several other offers–the neighborhood was beautiful, the street was pretty and the schools were blue ribbon winners–so who cared if all of our across the street neighbors had feathers? (For those of you who don’t live in Los Angeles, this may give you an indication of how nuts it can be to find a nice, affordable house in a good school district in Southern California.)
Shortly after move-in day, we met the actual human who lived across the street–a shy, retired old gent named Mr. Pruitt. The other neighbors had told us that back in his day, Mr. Pruitt had been a championship swimmer at USC and would have gone to the Olympics, but things were derailed–I think by a war. Now he just tended his flock of several white geese and one little brown female, took care of his fruit trees and drove his many tractors around his extensive property that extended deep into the canyon. For some reason, he seemed to spend alot of time moving big rocks and making new trails that crossed his old trails. I think he just liked riding around on his tractors.
He was shy, but friendly. One afternoon, as I pulled the mail out of my mailbox that borders on his property, I made an attempt at chatting. “We love the geese. The girls really enjoy them.”
He stared at the honking, babbling group. “Um hmmm. But you know these aren‘t the same geese you met here a few months ago when you bought the place.”
“Oh no?”
He put his foot on his shovel and comfortable, leaned into it, staring at the ground. “Naw. One night I left the gate open, went down to the club, got back a little late. The darn coyotes got in. Nothin’ left. I had to go and get another gaggle.”
I can tell you that for TWO YEARS after that conversation I would run out every time I heard those geese screaming, night or day until it finally sunk in that geese scream at everything–people walking their dogs, birds flying overhead, squirrels in the trees, us–every single time we went to get our mail! Geese make fantastic watchdogs, in fact there are a quite a few stories about the military keeping them around to police the borders of military bases. They’re loud, mean, they bite and they certainly aren‘t bribeable with a good steak and a scratch behind the ears.
A few years ago, there was a new goose in town. Mr. Pruitt had added a young brown male to the flock, hoping he would eventually breed, but the white geese were having nothing of it. They bullied that little goose unmercifully. They bit, screamed, hissed and did everything they could to torment him. The bullying wasn’t just distressing, it was soul destroying. One day I saw Mr. Pruitt watching them, his craggy old face lined with anguish as the outcast little brown goose tried desperately to stand next to the flock, only to be attacked, bit and driven off.
Wicked Mean
He nodded at me sadly and before turning back to his chores said, “I don’t know what that bird’s lesson is, but it is a hard one.”
Mr. Pruitt passed on about two years ago, right around Halloween, and we all held our breath as we waited for the bulldozers and the McMansion developers–because as you might imagine, his undeveloped acres of canyon property just twenty minutes or so from downtown Los Angeles is worth many, many millions of dollars. The Nature Conservacy sniffed around, we saw alot of trucks and other very scary things, but the only thing that came to live was a pretty little goat named April. Mr. Pruitt’s ex-wife Greta, who lived down the street and around the corner, took over the property and brought the lovely April, who, you may be pleased to know, greatly enjoys terrorizing the white geese by chasing them around the pen.
Over time, things evened out abit between all the geese, but there were still altercations. About two months ago, I drove up to see the biggest white goose hanging on the back of the outcast brown male–the brown goose was screaming, the others were honking and feathers were flying as he raced around in circles, trying to dislodge the other male goose. I thought, Do some things never change?
Well guess what? They do. Three weeks ago, early morning, I was looking out my living room window, drinking my coffee, when I saw a line of little yellow baby geese staying very close to…the outcast brown goose. Unbelievably, he was a daddy.
Greta was out there, filling the little goose swimming pool with fresh water and soaking the fruit trees. She said, “Somehow that brown male goose managed to woo my little brown female away from those white ones. Did you know my little female is so docile I can pick her up and cuddle her in my arms? She laid those eggs and sat on them until they hatched. Not like those white geese–they laid twelve eggs, sat for abit and then got bored and left. The ground squirrels had a feast.”
Second Week
The Happy Family
Today, the babies are just three weeks old and MUCH bigger. We watched as Dad gently herded his little flock, while Mom, Greta’s little brown female, brought up the rear. Greta grinned. “Would you look at him? He is so protective. He won’t let anything near his family. One of the babies has a black bill and black legs. Interesting mix. No idea where that came from. Maybe he got ahold of one of the white females too.”
I thought that might explain the fighting a couple of months ago.
Before she left, Greta said one of the whites laid another egg and was sitting on it. So who knows? Maybe we’ll have another baby goose in the neighborhood. As for us, we're all so thrilled for the brown goose. You have never seen a prouder papa and a happier extended family, that being all of us neighbors–sans feathers, of course.
A Goose of a Different Color
