I lost a goose today. No. He didn’t die. I just kind of misplaced him for a few hours.

He was around this morning and then I got busy and wasn’t paying attention to him and his obviously chosen mate. The female is a bit younger and doesn’t fly as well, but the male is testing his wings. I end up retrieving him from the duck pen, from Levi’s yard, from Ben and Sam’s yard….it’s a work in progress. He can get there, but can’t always figure out how to get back.

This afternoon I did notice that he was running around the yard willy-nilly while flapping his wings. By evening, I noticed he was gone. His little mate was wandering around the yard crying piteously. I felt so bad I left the beans I was prepping to dehydrate on the counter and went out looking for him. I checked in front, Jimmy checked in back.

Just as we were coming in the back door, we heard the bell ring. A woman who lives over a mile away was on the porch. She said she had a Canada Goose in her yard and figured it belonged here. We grabbed the net and followed her home. It was almost dark, but we could see her teenaged daughter herding a goose in the driveway.

As soon as I got out of the car he ran towards me, but with so many people around he wouldn’t let me pick him up. We used the net, his dignity was sorely bruised. Better his dignity, than my head. We got his wings under control and he rode quietly home on my lap. He would groom my hair, then my eyebrows and made a fair attempt at my old lady moustache by the we pulled in the drive.

As soon as he knew he was home, he got excited and It was not easy carrying him to the back yard. I had to pull the string to open the gate with my teeth, but we got there. He called out to his mate and she called back. I set him down and they ran to each other.

The reunion was truly touching. They chattered happily to each other and touched heads repeatedly. Finally they wandered off to their wading pool for a cool drink. All was well in their world.

I looked around the yard. I could smell the blooming phlox and night flowers. The solar lights were coming on one by one and a small bat flitted about my head catching mosquitoes. The moon was just rising and it’s nearly full. I could watch stars appear one by one just like my solar lights.

I sat out there for a while simply enjoying the night. Crickets sang and off somewhere in the yard I could hear the mother peacock cooing her babies to sleep. It was beautiful and I would have missed it if not for the lost goose. I have no idea how he ended up there, perhaps he tried to follow the wild geese as they came off the mill pond and he couldn’t quite keep up and landed. They said he seemed rather determined to walk home as I suppose he is not yet ready to fly at night.

It was getting chilly and I needed to finish the beans. For some reason I reached up and felt my ear. My left earring was gone. My favorite gold hoop earrings that I wear most days of the week. I started to feel sad and then I thought…..

I’d rather see that goose reunion than have all the gold earrings in the world

I knew that possums had a fair sense of smell, but holy cow, I had no idea just how good it is.

last night the pole dancing porcupine, Moon Pie, wanted a bottle. I really wonder if she will ever give it up, but then if she does she will probably exchange it for a beer bottle. Anyway, all the other animals were asleep, including the batch of baby possums I have in the studio.

Now these possums are probably somewhere between the size of a large mouse and a very small rat and they get baby food (otherwise known as “baby meat and baby slop” on the shopping list), with goatmilk poured over it. Sometimes if I’ve mixed up extra for the porcupine, they get squirrel milk (I really want to meet the guy that milks those squirrels)

They LOVE the squirrel formula. They tolerate the goat milk.

So about 11:15 Pm. I go and make Moon Pie her night bottle. She likes it with a little Gerber sweet potato with cinnamon mixed in. (Hey, none of that cheap-assed Sprout or Meijer for my girl, that’s for possums). I sit down with her in the desk chair and all of a sudden these little possum faces pop up out of the bottom of their cage. They ended up literally, drooling through the wire. They went from a sound sleep to ‘Hey I can smell that” is 10 seconds or less.

That’s a pretty good nose.

As an experiment, I gave them two dishes of milk. One squirrel, one goat. EVERYBODY was at the squirrel dish, except for Oscar,( there’s something not quite right about that boy). Then I gave them one dish of the Gerber cinnamon sweet potato and a dish of Meijer, squash, plumb and beets (yea, I know babies eat disgusting things). Oscar dove into the squash face first and wallowed. Everybody else just licked him off later.

Then I thought, “hey, there must be something to this and I TASTED the two formulas. I’d put that squirrel stuff in my coffee instead of creamer. It was that good. Too bad it’s so expensive.

So the take away on this? 1. I’ll do about anything after midnight. 2. We need to milk more squirrels. 3. Possums have very discerning noses and 4.I think Oscar and I have a lot in common brainwise.