Hi Sheila! Yes, they are totally sweet. I'll post a picture soon... have to get my son to show me what to do. I've heard good things about Romans... they are certainly beautiful and are supposed to be good-natured. After a year with one Pilgrim and one Buff, I'd have to say it is a tie. You won't go wrong with either breed. Willow, my Pilgrim, has a lot of personality and is more interactive, but my Buff is gentle, dignified and beautiful. She has remarkably expressive eyes that are both wise and amused, as though she knows the secrets of the world. I tend to favour the Pilgrims for myself because it is easy to tell the males and females apart. Also, being a smallish breed, they can't do the damage that larger geese can if they become aggressive during breeding season. The Pilgrims have been so inbred here in Ontario that it has affected their fertility. Jason Cain of Performance Poultry (from whom I always buy my birds) has imported goslings from Oregon this year... my two included. Willow comes from Californian stock. So I am hoping with two bloodlines that mine will breed well. Several of the seven goslings hatched here look like Pilgrims. The rest are more golden, like Buff was a year ago. It will be interesting to see what they look like as they grow. The purebred Pilgrims are wearing green bands on their legs so I can be sure which are which. My shop will sell what I think of as "everyday antiques". I have stripped some of the walls back to the original 1890 hemlock planks and bought scads of old-fashioned square nails to hang things from. I am grouping by theme: household and kitchenware, agricultural, tools, a few nice pieces of furniture, antique and vintage toys and games, ancient skates, skis, snowshoes and the like. Lots of old cast iron, lots of enamelware, bedwarmers, bellows, candlesticks, kettles... you name it, I've got it. And teddy bears. I have quite an assortment of vintage bears and I also design and handcraft my own. It will be a visually interesting shop, I think, almost like a miniature living history museum. I bought a lot of these things in France on my visits to my sister during the 12 years she lived there. They are not "fine antiques" but rather the kinds of things our ancestors would have used and enjoyed. I hope it does well... I need to start bringing regular money in to keep this place afloat. We can live here very cheaply and well, but it does take SOME money.

ahhhh....Autumn is in the air! From here, 3 miles north of Lake Thunderbird (NE Norman) all the sumac has turned a bright red to burgundy. The persimmons are also red. With all the damp, drizzly days we've had...lots of people here along Franklin Road have been burning brush piles the last couple of days so although I don't have a fireplace anymore...I can still smell the wonderful aroma of wood burning. The redbuds that are thick on our property have started dropping their leaves...so I can see more of the road in front and to the west. (I don't really like that so much.) All the hickory trees over at the In-laws are brown too....but so far, haven't heard the familiar ping of the nuts dropping on Pop's garage metal roof. Maybe the squirrels are getting them first?! And about the wildlife - this morning over the FAA I watched 5 or 6 geese flying Northwest. What's up with that? I wondered if they were just following the flight pattern of Will Roger's runways. They were HONKIN'!!! The deer coats are all turning gray and they're beginning to "herd" as DH calls it. Tonite laughed at The Twins we've been watching all summer. The Fiesty One decided to check out my jalepenos...and he didn't like what he smelled! Yes, we've already taken down the deer netting for the year. That also means that the deer have been feasting on my fall crop of green beans...but I can't deny them. They're tasty! As I watched the tails of The Twins & Momma trail off, I noticed one last lone straggler of a hummingbird at the feeder on the pecan tree out front. Made me feel better I'd filled the feeder and left it out. The migrators need food too! And Moni - Arthur decided he had to visit me too this past weekend. Guess that's what I get for thinking I'm still young enough to dig 6 large holes for the new blueberry bushes! But hey....they're gonna be worth it! We've got to get thru this season so we can get to next spring & next years garden! Paula

LOL! If Santa dropped in on that field, them geese would 'lighten' his load a bit. Those birds are mean! I have big dogs, and even they back down from them. I have some pics somewhere. I'll see if I can find them. Pretty much explains it all. 7 large dogs cowering in fear from 2 large geese. The partridge in the pear tree I can deal with. The geese in the backyard - Nah, I don't think so.

Canada Geese are hated here in NY because they do attack people. I visit a corporate office campus here once in a while. In trying to control these blasted birds, the campus facilities management installed many plastic wolves everywhere. Those wolves look very realistic, and they worked beautifully, for about three days. After that the Management decided to go high-tech. They installed electronic proximity triggers which turn on a loudspeaker with loud barking whenever a goose toddles nearby. Judging by the goose "gifts" around the electronic wolves, I assume that the high-tech strategy didn�t last that long either. But back on CF topic: I Googled goose recipes, there are plenty Canadian goose recipes./ Apparently they are very delicious. Are there laws regarding cooking your own Canadian goose? dcarch