Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from ACM, which has journalists in every state and territory. Sign up here to get it by email, or here to forward it to a friend.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
When my partner and I bought our little parcel of land we planned on a lot of things.
We planned on planting a heap of fruit trees, tick; getting bees, tick; having a huge vegetable garden, tick.
What we didn't plan on was getting geese.
But here we are. Seven years on and with geese.
How they came to be here is a short story about friends, with geese, moving interstate, and needing a new home for the feathered friends that couldn't tag along.
Sure, we had acreage, so we took them.
What we didn't know was how much they .... ummm ... well, poo.
(seriously.... it's everywhere)
So we built a fence to keep them away from the house and down near the dam.
But that didn't cure the other problem - their beautiful nature (that's sarcasm font there in case you missed it).
They are every bit as friendly as you've heard.
Oh and have I mentioned they've got teeth? To be technical, the 'teeth' are actually a hard spiky cartilage known as tomium. But it acts and looks like teeth, its sharp and pointy, like teeth. These 'teeth' are found on the inside of their beaks, and their tongue. Yes. Tongue.
My partner, he keeps telling me they'll be great guards for the chickens, when we get them.
He's probably right.
But for now, Ryan (the large white male in the picture above) is rather a handful.
In his defence, at the moment he's on guard, Daphne (the brown female) is sitting on eggs and he's determined to keep her safe.
All points to him for great parenting. Not so much for the bruise on my leg.
But the thing with Daphne sitting on eggs is, well, that means more geese.
- In case you are interested in filtering your pandemic coverage down to just once a day, why not sign up for The Informer newsletter?
More stuff happening around Australia ...
- Your local media just wants a fair go
- Australians have listed their most important trait in a politician
- White shark feeding on whale carcase off WA coast
- Tanya Hosch is South Australia's 2021 Australian of the Year
- Is working from home good for wellbeing?
- Town's distinctive teddies sign goes walkabout
- Clever fake or just a toy firearm, police worries grow
- The local council turning poo into power
Sign up to get our Voice of Real Australia updates straight to your inbox