>> ELISA: The trio of geese make the farm so much more
resilient and yet their needs are very simple.
Geese
in the goosehouse is another
piece of a regenerative system, like hens in a henhouse,
potatoes in a potager, seedlings in a cold frame,
wood in a woodshed, rainbarrels at the roofs.
Now is a good time to lay the foundation.
The geese are caretakers, natural protectors,
they keep the flock safe from hawks, otters;
particularly the vulnerable ducklings,
the chicks.
Ducks on the pond now have guardians.
We people have few of those
skills in reading the sky, alerting to trouble.
Geese provide
other services too, mowing the lawn,
giving fertility to the land,
they snap up invading grass in the kitchen garden,
windfall apples and plums, bamboo shoots.
They’re like the old fashioned weeder geese,
so common before the age of pesticides.
They need only a secure
house at night,
good fresh water and plenty of forage,
which is copious here as the noise of mowers
reminds us.
Everything grows
rapidly in April.
The baby geese tripled in size in their first
two weeks of life,
so the goosehouse had to keep pace.
I learned some basic
carpentry from my father,
when we first hatched chicks a few years ago.
Given this age of isolation,
you might be pleased to hear that I learned
to build that henhouse long distance over video chat.
While I built the henhouse
almost
entirely
from reclaimed materials,
a quarantine is not an ideal moment for the sort of rummaging
and bargaining required. The goosehouse is mostly new.
A plain platform,
a simple roof of triangles along a ridge.
Knowing how to use a handsaw, a decent drill, a level.
The children help, learning the principles:
A squared plus B
squared equals C squared.
While the geese are great
protectors in the daytime, at night they're vulnerable.
They need their house to protect them and there's
a few basics that they require.
We like to make sure that our houses are up on stilts,
on top of stones, so that they stay dry.
Another reason to have the houses up on posts
is to provide cover for little chickens to run under and hide
from hawks or from the rain.
It's also less likely that a rodent will
gnaw a hole through,
leaving an opening for a mink to get in.
We use half inch hardware
cloth and we just secure
that with fencing nails, long staples.
Make sure that a raccoon can't push through it.
In hard times it makes
good sense to make what we need
with our own hands, using what's around us.
It's time we learned how to live sustainably.
Making what we need
with what we've got is always
a sound practice. Economically, ecologically, ethically.
If there's any security
in uncertain times it is in our
shared skills.
We've used a steel roof.
It's going to last a long time and it's a great
surface to collect water off.
We plan to put downspouts and collect into a rain barrel.
Geese are surprisingly nimble,
but we'd like to make sure that the ramp is easy
to climb up.
Another consideration that went into the design
of this little building was the height
of the geese to make sure they had space plus the deep
litter that they sleep on top of.
We want to make sure
the house is well ventilated
but we keep that ventilation
up high so there's no draft,
no wind blowing directly on them.
If they have that then they'll stay warm in their little cosy
house even in the coldest winter.
We planted this mulberry,
it will grow tall and give some shade to the house over
time and provide plenty of windfalls
for the geese and all the other members of the flock.
While the geese
are great protectors,
we want to make sure their house is secure.
Any of the closures,
we make sure are two or three steps. So,
a slide and a carabiner, for example.
We recently discovered
that the old folks kept geese
on this pond half a century ago.
They do make the place function beautifully.
They crop the grasses, they pick up all the windfalls,
they protect the flocks.
They give fertility to the trees.
All they really need
otherwise is a good
cozy secure house.
Okay. Yes.
And you don't like seeds, but I have seeds in my pocket.
I’m going to do it one more time.
Hi, hi.
The trio of geese make the farm
so much more resilient
and yet their needs are very simple.
You want another apple
don't you?
Yes, yes, yes.
You want me to take a bite first?
Is that nice?
The trio of geese
make the farm so much more resilient
and yet their needs are very simple.