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Geese are love
Dec. 20th, 2021 02:33 pmThere's been a harvest, a slaughter, a reaping. Maybe that latter is the best word: "harvest" has been used more often lately and I believe softens the act more than it should, while "slaughter" doesn't contain the purposefulness of the act.
Anyhow, as always after killing animals for food I am left with awe at the bounty they present. Today I am in awe of geese, I love them, and I am going to write about them at great length: I will write about how they fit into the energy balance of a human farm and small-scale agriculture; I will write about how they fit into the landscape and what kinds of landscape they fit into; I will write about their social fabric and their personality; I will write about the varieties that live here and maybe something of that history.
Everything that's alive is made up of the landscape: of the sun that falls on it, of the atoms that make it up. Geese are a part of the landscape; geese are grass. Wild geese migrate because they follow the first bite of grass as green ripples north across the hemisphere; they move to places where plants and grass are abundant to fatten and to raise young. On an ideal goose farm it's the farmer's job to maintain grass as much as possible in that first, new growth stage; on a goose farm it's the goose's job to go out and gather that grass with wide, webbed feet that will not tear vegetation or compact soil where even human feet punch through marshy turf if it's trodden repeatedly. The geese can go out day after day, though, harvest and fertilize the grass and stir up the puddles and muddy bits. They tend the grass lovingly and they bring it back for the community to eat in the form of their bodies, in the form of their energy-rich fat that is so concentrated and can be so resource-intensive in an agricultural system.
Thus in wet landscapes geese are particularly well-suited to feed us; they don't require draining the tiny percentage of wetlands that are left, and in fact with geese we can allow wetlands to creep back. In spring goslings hatch out into abundance. They grow fat and happy on grass and water and more grass over the spring and summer; they can fatten on the abundance of apples and the detritus of gardens and gain fields in the fall; then as winter comes and the grass is gone they can either be harvested and cured into confit and prosciutto and jerky or they can use their insulation of feathers and stored grass-as-fat and a little grain to live comfortably, without elaborate infrastructure, until they are needed to nourish us one-by-one. And they are a good animal to be slaughtered as needed: they have enough meat and fat to feed many, but not to need extensive space in a refrigerator or cold room at butchering time. Breeding geese can be kept over winter and the whole cycle will begin next year.
This lightness on the land, the symbiosis with grass wetlands, is one of the beauties of geese. They replace expensive and fuel-intensive resources for draining and ploughing fields or cutting hay with natural behaviours that make them happy; they allow us to skim a percentage of the productivity of a landscape without enormously altering it and without using energy and resources -- except the genetic resources inherent in the geese, the behaviours of breeds with instincts to survive and thrive that have not yet been extinguished by our modern form of domestication.
Because the my geese haven't been so heavily domesticated even the ones that have been most heavily bred behave in ways that support their life cycle of good use of the land. In the winter they come together into one big amiable flock: hungry predators will avoid a large flock of geese; they share heat and are easier for a farmer to protect when they're closer together; there are fewer geese after harvest and the large group is less damaging to the land; and in my case the ground is frozen so the concentration of geese doesn't pack down the mud but instead enriches the closer-in gardens for spring. During this close time they're in constant communication with each other: they call and respond quietly throughout the day, always aware of their friends and neighbours.
Conversely in the summer small breeding groups of two or three or sometimes four will spread out across the whole landscape, if they have enough space choosing nests distant from each other so no patch of grass is too heavily grazed as the first tiny blades of green emerge. At this time they grow more assertive towards visitors, both to protect themselves from predators since they lack the protection of the flock and to protect their precious eggs. A goose's social cycle is fit to its environment.
Different breeds of goose fit into their environments a little differently. My Chinese geese with their upright stance evolved to be herded out to wet fields during the day and to be herded back in at night: they're intensely friendly with humans and the angle of their bodies allows them to walk greater distances more gracefully while their small size and grace let them weed between rows without trampling plants. My pilgrims were bred in North America as a farmyard goose, more and almost indifferent to humans, and the different colours of males and females meant that as more land was co-opted by settlers the females could be more easily kept and spread to fill that land quickly. My Embdens are a more modern breed with huge bodies suited to more domesticated landscapes with more intensive meat production and less distance to travel. My Romans are the oldest domesticated breed of goose, vanishingly rare to find without a fashionable knob of feathers on their heads, engaged and assertive with humans and with a chatty habit that summons help when needed. I'd speak about my Pomeranian saddlebacks with their great parenting and their cleverness that supports both friendliness and survival appropriately but-- they are my first geese, and I am biased.
That's all to say geese can be a beautiful part of a landscape's pattern, especially a wet landscape. They're deeply social creatures who reach out vocally to establish relationships with people near them. Both their company over so many centuries of domestication and the food of their bodies is a real gift, and it's important they continue to exist on this earth in relationship with us.
Anyhow, as always after killing animals for food I am left with awe at the bounty they present. Today I am in awe of geese, I love them, and I am going to write about them at great length: I will write about how they fit into the energy balance of a human farm and small-scale agriculture; I will write about how they fit into the landscape and what kinds of landscape they fit into; I will write about their social fabric and their personality; I will write about the varieties that live here and maybe something of that history.
Everything that's alive is made up of the landscape: of the sun that falls on it, of the atoms that make it up. Geese are a part of the landscape; geese are grass. Wild geese migrate because they follow the first bite of grass as green ripples north across the hemisphere; they move to places where plants and grass are abundant to fatten and to raise young. On an ideal goose farm it's the farmer's job to maintain grass as much as possible in that first, new growth stage; on a goose farm it's the goose's job to go out and gather that grass with wide, webbed feet that will not tear vegetation or compact soil where even human feet punch through marshy turf if it's trodden repeatedly. The geese can go out day after day, though, harvest and fertilize the grass and stir up the puddles and muddy bits. They tend the grass lovingly and they bring it back for the community to eat in the form of their bodies, in the form of their energy-rich fat that is so concentrated and can be so resource-intensive in an agricultural system.
Thus in wet landscapes geese are particularly well-suited to feed us; they don't require draining the tiny percentage of wetlands that are left, and in fact with geese we can allow wetlands to creep back. In spring goslings hatch out into abundance. They grow fat and happy on grass and water and more grass over the spring and summer; they can fatten on the abundance of apples and the detritus of gardens and gain fields in the fall; then as winter comes and the grass is gone they can either be harvested and cured into confit and prosciutto and jerky or they can use their insulation of feathers and stored grass-as-fat and a little grain to live comfortably, without elaborate infrastructure, until they are needed to nourish us one-by-one. And they are a good animal to be slaughtered as needed: they have enough meat and fat to feed many, but not to need extensive space in a refrigerator or cold room at butchering time. Breeding geese can be kept over winter and the whole cycle will begin next year.
This lightness on the land, the symbiosis with grass wetlands, is one of the beauties of geese. They replace expensive and fuel-intensive resources for draining and ploughing fields or cutting hay with natural behaviours that make them happy; they allow us to skim a percentage of the productivity of a landscape without enormously altering it and without using energy and resources -- except the genetic resources inherent in the geese, the behaviours of breeds with instincts to survive and thrive that have not yet been extinguished by our modern form of domestication.
Because the my geese haven't been so heavily domesticated even the ones that have been most heavily bred behave in ways that support their life cycle of good use of the land. In the winter they come together into one big amiable flock: hungry predators will avoid a large flock of geese; they share heat and are easier for a farmer to protect when they're closer together; there are fewer geese after harvest and the large group is less damaging to the land; and in my case the ground is frozen so the concentration of geese doesn't pack down the mud but instead enriches the closer-in gardens for spring. During this close time they're in constant communication with each other: they call and respond quietly throughout the day, always aware of their friends and neighbours.
Conversely in the summer small breeding groups of two or three or sometimes four will spread out across the whole landscape, if they have enough space choosing nests distant from each other so no patch of grass is too heavily grazed as the first tiny blades of green emerge. At this time they grow more assertive towards visitors, both to protect themselves from predators since they lack the protection of the flock and to protect their precious eggs. A goose's social cycle is fit to its environment.
Different breeds of goose fit into their environments a little differently. My Chinese geese with their upright stance evolved to be herded out to wet fields during the day and to be herded back in at night: they're intensely friendly with humans and the angle of their bodies allows them to walk greater distances more gracefully while their small size and grace let them weed between rows without trampling plants. My pilgrims were bred in North America as a farmyard goose, more and almost indifferent to humans, and the different colours of males and females meant that as more land was co-opted by settlers the females could be more easily kept and spread to fill that land quickly. My Embdens are a more modern breed with huge bodies suited to more domesticated landscapes with more intensive meat production and less distance to travel. My Romans are the oldest domesticated breed of goose, vanishingly rare to find without a fashionable knob of feathers on their heads, engaged and assertive with humans and with a chatty habit that summons help when needed. I'd speak about my Pomeranian saddlebacks with their great parenting and their cleverness that supports both friendliness and survival appropriately but-- they are my first geese, and I am biased.
That's all to say geese can be a beautiful part of a landscape's pattern, especially a wet landscape. They're deeply social creatures who reach out vocally to establish relationships with people near them. Both their company over so many centuries of domestication and the food of their bodies is a real gift, and it's important they continue to exist on this earth in relationship with us.
