Saturday, May 3, 2008

   day 19
Almost to the twenty day mark.

Today:
I came to the realisation that after the goslings come I'm leaving for the summer. Not only that, but if I get into this film school I'll be leaving and not coming back. I spent so much time with the Fire group and the Spice group last spring that I was able to do my work with Ember and Fennel this spring. That's a lot of time invested. So, I brought my little brother to the nest with me so that I could teach him how to work with Ember and Fennel so that he can take over while I go away. I made him walk down to the nest. I eased Ember into having someone else there and showed my brother how to hand-feed her. I didn't let him do it, but I did show him how to get the peice of bread inthe water dish so that he could do that. I showed him how to give her more sticks for the nest. That still is her favorite thing. My brother didn't do so well there. He kept tossing them at her instead of handing them to her. Ember seemed to really enjoy the extra attention I was giving her. She barely hissed at me. She did hiss when my brother got too close after I had stepped away, so maybe she does still have a strong instict against humans. I took my brother over to see Fennel. Fennel was standing by the side of the road waiting for me. It was really cute. He saw me with bread and came running over. He was so excited that he was close enough to eat from our hands but everytime he tried he would pull back and wait for us to throw te food. I showed my brother how to identify Fennel from other ganders. The white smudge on his forehead is very useful that way. I went back and cleaned Ember's water dish before leaving. It was a much longer visit then I wanted, but it was productive.

Notes:
There's a whole big group of geese not far from the residental pond Basil was staying at. If he's not among them then he could be the gander in the pair that just hatched some goslings a few days ago. I'm going to have to drive over and see. Fennel is still very lonely and watches Ember from across the street. I think he knows that the time is near. Ember's doing very well except for being tired. It's been windy and she has no wind block. She's a very dedicated first time mother to be though.

SGAH
FYWR
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