my green goose

So my goose Saro is all grown up. This week she started laying her first eggs, which are HUGE compared to the chickens' usual deposits. They're fun to find, she lays them all around the coop in little hidden places. It's like a game trying to find the goose egg every day when I go to collect the daily room-and-board from the girls. When bring them inside and set them in the fridge next to the hens' they look like ridiculous cartoon eggs sitting beside them. They're tinted baby blue and one of them cracked into a pan is the same ratio as 2-3 chicken eggs. I had some scrambled goose egg this morning with grated Vermont cheddar and some pepper. Can't complain. That breakfast was the bee's knees.

Today however, Saro got a little...confused. I went into the coop to refill the birds' water fonts and give them their morning scoops of grain when I was jolted out of my usual routine by a loud honk. There at my feet, behind the grain bin, was little Saro, trying to lay in a new nest she was hiding. But this wasn't her usual temperment? I pride myself on having raised pacifist geese, and she was acting pretty preemptive. I don't take crap from poultry, so I gave her a little nudge to see what she was so fiercly protecting. She didn't want to move and hissed at me. "Hey Saro, quit it" I said, knowing she wouldn't bite me unless I pulled a shiv on her, so I moved her to the side. What the... something white, curly, and shiny was under her. It was a spiral of glass? Then I saw it.

She was laying on a compact fluorescent light bulb.

I died laughing. I removed it and pat her on the head, telling her "Al Gore would be so proud" and then put the bulb back on the shelf where it belonged. I have two bulbs I use in the coop for light. One is the heat bulb currently keeping the coop a comfortable 40 degrees during this freeze, and the other is a regular CFL lightbulb, the kind we're all used to seeing as the green alternative to the old (and might I add, more egg-shaped) bulbs. It must have fallen to the coop floor and Saro decided it was too large to be a hen egg, so it must be hers. Flawless logic. She was all hot and bothered when I left, but she'll get over it. Geese get over horrid PR incidents like this pretty quick. They're the Paris Hiltons of the of the poultry world.

It is nice to know I have livestock that so fervently support green energy. But hey this is Vermont, so none of us should be surprised.