The day started out pretty much as usual - exercise for me while Stuart caught up on emails and social media, followed by me sitting down at my computer to start some work. Straight after breakfast, Stuart headed into Pescia to attempt to put some credit on the mobile and register the SIM at the newsagent that deals with Lycamobile. After he'd said cheerio, I listened out carefully to hear whether or not the car started. Of course it started first time, so off he went.
He was back again within the hour, having topped up the credit on the phone, but not having managed to register the SIM - the man in the newsagent simply wasn't interested in doing that for him. Oh well, at least we now know that we only have to go as far as Pescia to top up our credit.
After telling me this, he excitedly thrust a piece of paper into my hands. On it was simply an address and a telephone number written in Italian hand writing (yes, there is a difference). I looked at him quizzically, then humoured him by asking him to explain what it was.
My clever husband had been into the pet shop in Pescia (an idea that was suggested to us by Amanda yesterday when we asked her if she knew anywhere that would sell us geese) and asked where we could buy some geese. The lady in the shop had thumbed through a book of phone numbers, made a quick phone call, then written out the address of somewhere in Borgo di Buggiano where - apparently - there were geese for sale! Well, that was pretty exciting! Up until now, all we'd had were people scratching their heads and saying 'maybe try this place?', but nothing concrete. This seemed like a dead cert.
I went back to my work for a couple of hours, and could hear Stuart hammering and sawing outside - when I joined him for an early lunch on the patio I saw that he had spent the morning constructing some ramps for geese to move between the terraces. Although we still wanted to get a water butt set up and a pool put in, we really were pretty much ready for some feathered friends!
Stuart was keen to get lunch dispatched and go to Borgo di Buggiano to look at geese, so as soon as lunch was cleared away we hopped in the car (which started again...) and drove off on our voyage of discovery.
We found the road without any problem. We were looking for number 24. We drove past 18, 20, 22 ... but couldn't see no. 24. There were a couple of houses at the end of the road that backed onto scrubland/farmland and to all intents and purposes looked like the sort out house where you would find geese (don't ask about my reasoning here, just bear with me!). We got out of the car and circled the houses on foot - quickly realised that one was number 26, and the other had no number outside. Stuart bravely rang the bell, but there was no answer.
We'd spotted the geese while we were circling the houses. There was an enclosure that was clearly full of chickens, but in the back, poking up from behind a tree stump, I spotted the unmistakable shape of a goose's head and beak! It really was quite exciting to think that we might actually get our long-planned-for geese at some point soon!
We went a bit closer to the enclosure to have a better look - it was packed with birds of all different shapes and sizes: two different types of geese, at least five different types of chickens, some ducks, lots of pigeons (in cages inside the shed) and a dog!
 |
| There were chickens of multiple varieties, pigeons, geese, ducks and a dog in here! |
We were just about to give up, having not been able to get an answer from the house that we thought was no. 24, when Stuart walked back up the road a fraction and said 'but this is no. 24!' We had driven straight past it. It wasn't hidden in any way, it was clearly numbered. I've no idea why we didn't see it in the first place...
We had already seen signs of life from this house - there was a lady and a toddler on the balcony upstairs, and a cat sitting on the steps. We rang the bell and an elderly chap came out, looking at us with some suspicion. When he eventually made it down the steps to the gate, Stuart explained that the lady in the pet shop had given us his address and we wanted to buy some geese. He seemed to understand this straight away and asked us how many. We said 'two - a pair' and he asked if we wanted them now! We hadn't really planned to come away from this visit with a pair of geese, but the guy seemed keen, and there was no real reason why we shouldn't take them away with us right away, so we said yes!
The chap padded off to go and put his proper shoes on, then walked across the road with us to the enclosure. After first going in alone to make sure the (rather elderly looking and certainly not very scary) dog was safely in its own pen, he invited us into the enclosure with him.
He then grabbed what looked like an over-sized butterfly net and proceeded to hobble around the enclosure trying to catch a goose.
After a few comedy Benny Hill type moments, with him chasing them one way and then the other, he finally managed to net one - a female. Within seconds, he had grabbed her out of the netting, tied her legs together with string, stuck her in a cardboard box and secured the lid:
 |
| There's a live goose in there! |
Next, he was back out with his net trying to get a male for us, and eventually he netted one, tied its legs together, and stuck it in a sack (cutting a couple of holes in the sack for ventilation).
 |
| Tying the male's legs together with string. |
Bish, bash, bosh, job done!
He helped us load the birds into the car, we paid him his €60 (€30 per bird, based on their weight), and bade him farewell!
Somewhat shocked at the speed with which things had happened, we drove home with two birds in the car!
We got home, unloaded, and took the box and the sack up to Goose Island.
Stuart opened the box, cut the string from around the female's legs, and set her free!
He then did the same with the male, and we, along with Florence, who had snuck in under the gate to see what we were doing, stood back and watched as they both scrambled as best they could up the bank to the highest terrace.
I think Florence was a bit shocked - she'd been used to Goose Island being her playground, and she wasn't quite sure what to make of the new arrivals. She decided to hide underneath the goose house to have a think about it - and had to be coaxed out (so that we could secure Goose Island, putting blocks underneath the gate to stop visitors from crawling underneath it) with a packed of cat treats.
Geese installed, next on our agenda was a visit to Donatella and Alex's house up the valley. After having met them when they stopped by our house a few weeks ago, we'd been looking forward to going to visit them and to seeing their place. We gave them a quick call to let them know we were on our way, then headed out in the car (yep, it started again!).
Donatella and Alex live very close to Vellano, but on a road that runs up the side of the hill beneath the main village, which is best approached from the road to Lanciole. Our car just about made it up their hill, but we both remarked that we were glad we weren't cycling up it, and would think twice about driving up it in winter!
We were greeted by Donatella and Alex and their many animals - they have a dog, cats, rabbits and chickens, and live in an absolutely beautiful spot. As soon as we arrived, I had house envy, olive tree envy, lawn envy, strimmed terrace envy, vegetable-growing envy... and the list goes on! They have clearly worked incredibly hard over the three years since they arrived to get the place looking fantastic as well as being very productive on the fruit and vegetable growing front. I can only hope that by the time we have been here for three years we will have managed to achieve as much.
We spent a very enjoyable afternoon chatting with Donatella and Alex, sipping coffee, eating delicious cake and having a look around their place. We swapped stories about the hurdles we've faced and our experiences as newcomers to the area, took away some useful advice, and all round had a very enjoyable afternoon. As the icing on the cake for a lovely afternoon, we left with: a barrel that we can use as a water butt, an enormous pumpkin, and a box of eggs! We hope that one day soon we will be able to return the favour with goose eggs and our own home grown veg.
We knew that we needed to go and buy some hay and some food for the geese, but since we had been away from the house for a few hours, we decided that instead of heading straight back to Borgo di Buggiano (where we knew there was an agragria that sells hay and animal feed), we would quickly pop back to the house to make sure the geese were still there...
Much to our relief, when we got to the bottom of the drive, there were still two white faces looking at us from the top terrace of Goose Island, and they appeared to be eating grass, which was a good sign. A little disappointingly, they didn't honk at our arrival - in fact, we didn't hear a peep from them - but, as Stuart pointed out, they probably need to get used to their new surroundings first before they start getting territorial over it!
Satisfied that all was well at the house and at Goose Island, we did an about turn and headed to Borgo di Buggiano for the second time today. This time, we headed to one of the two agrarias that stand at opposite corners of a small square in the town.
We spotted bales of hay outside and, realising that we didn't know the Italian word for hay, Stuart took a strand of hay out of one of them to take into the shop with us to use as a visual aid. He handed the strand of hay to the lady at the counter and told her that we didn't know the Italian word for this, but we wanted some. She turned it over in her hands, looking a bit puzzled for a while, and then realised what we were after: 'ah, fieno!'. She asked us if we had a horse, to which we replied 'no, geese' - and she seemed to understand. She called a chap over to help us, who grabbed a sack trolley and went to load a bale of hay onto it to take to our car. We decided to get two bales, and then asked the very friendly and helpful guy if he also had food for geese. Of course he did. He took us into a warehouse that was stacked with sacks of animal feed that seemed to cover all shapes and sizes of animal that you could possibly hope to keep.
He showed us two different types of goose feed and explained that one of them should be mixed with dried bread that has been soaked in water. We got a bit confused over the details, and we're still a little hazy over the exact instructions, but we took a bag of each type of feed in any case. Oh and then asked him how the food should be given to the birds - he pointed to a (large)bird feeder, so we added that to our shopping list as well.
We left the agraria with two bales of hay, two sacks of goose food and a feeder, and headed home. By the time we unloaded the car, it looked like we were preparing for some sort of harvest festival:
 |
| Harvest festival! |
It was getting on for 6.30pm by the time we'd got home, and we knew that darkness was but a half-hour away, so Stuart set about putting some hay into the goose house to make it cosy and inviting, and charging the feeder with some of the less complicated-sounding food. Goose house all set up, it was time for us to try to coax our new neighbours into their new house for the first night. Looking back at where we had got the geese from, we felt (in our humble opinion) that we were presenting them with five-star accommodation - the Ritz Carlton compared with their previous Travelodge experience.
The geese, however, begged to differ. They had clearly become accustomed to the Travelodge, and weren't going to be tricked into the Ritz under any circumstances. Well, that is until Stuart caught the female and thrust her into the house. Once she was in, it certainly didn't take her long to get used to her new, plush surroundings (typical female?)!
The gander wasn't having any of it though. Despite his mate clearly making herself comfortable on the bed of hay in the house and clucking (do geese cluck??) away to him outdoors - clearly trying to tell him that it was pretty nice in there and he really ought to go in and join her - he point blank refused to go in, obviously thinking that it was some sort of trick. By now it had started to rain gently, and Stuart and I were getting damp and somewhat frustrated - every time we managed to herd the goose close to the open door of the house, he would waver, turn around, then run behind the house instead of into it. I tried talking to him, although my gentle coaxing soon turned into the slightly more aggressive 'go into the house you stupid bird', and other phrases along those lines (some of which shouldn't be repeated in print)...
Eventually, after having been out there for a good 15 minutes or so, he put one foot on the ramp that leads into the house. Then another. We both held our breath until FINALLY, he ventured all the way into the Ritz to see what his mate was up to. I triumphantly closed the door and shut the latch tight!
 |
| Finally! Two geese happy on their bed of hay. |
I very much hope that, as we become more accustomed to the geese and they become more used to their new abode (and realise that the house really is quite nice and warm and dry), it will be a little easier and less time-consuming to coax them in at night. Otherwise, I can see that, what with the blog to write, the geese to put to bed, the apartment to check on, the vegetables to water, dinner to cook... we won't be getting to bed before midnight for the rest of our lives here!
Current suggestions for names are:
Goose Willis
Goose Forsyth
Goose Springsteen
Goose Lee
Goosie Liu
Goose Kelley
More suggestions on a postcard please...
No comments:
Post a Comment