New Life

One of the criteria when we were looking to move to Devon, was finding somewhere with enough land to "play with". Welle House has 1½ acres, and the back part had previously been separated off into a paddock. We ploughed a section of this up for vegetables, but this still left a large area unused. We put a few chickens on this (more on these in a later post), but these didn't keep the grass down, and cutting the lawns proper was taking enough time, without having to do the paddock as well. After much thought and debate, we settled on geese, and last spring bought 12 goslings from a breeder near Exeter. Over the course of the year, we lost one, but this was replaced by a gander owned by a friend in the village. Come Christmas, 7 of the original 12 became Christmas dinners for ourselves and others, and we were left with 2 ganders and 3 geese. The day after Valentines day, the geese started producing eggs, and 7 of these were placed in an incubator. 28 days later and the 3 citizens shown in the photograph duly appeared. At the time of the photo (early April) they were less than a week old. They are now on grass, still looking cute, but not nearly as cute as this And the real thrill (or frightening part) is that, after these 3 hatched, I put another 13 eggs in the incubator, and having checked last night, on Tuesday or Wednesday, we should have another 9 goslings to join these 3. AND I'm putting more eggs aside to incubate after they hatch. The question is, when will I find time for the Bed & Breakfast!