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.

Thank you so much for the wondeful comments. I am sorry that I did not reply sooner, but I do not have internet access over the weekend, so I had to wait until this morning! Bobbi

What a beautiful family. By the happy smile on your face I can see you are one proud Father. The flowers are lovely and I really like the color of the bridesmaid dresses, they're perfect for a fall wedding. And since I'm just across the bridge from you in S. Jersey I know you also lucked out with the weather. You must be doing something right.

Thank you, Radar. I really don't know what he thinks of it, but I do wonder that, too. If he's talked to DH about it, I know my husband did not mention to him that Sue came on to him, as well. Perhaps, after they got back together, they were hoping that we would call and arrange to do something together again. When we didn't, because (1) I was very angry still at Sue for trying to have an affair or whatever with my husband and (2) because we were both very upset and, yes, angry at how Sue helped destroy our mutual friends' marriage they most likely thought that it was because of the latter reason. Thankfully, though, it hasn't ruined DH and Jim's longtime golf games together. But, from what I've been told, the talk during golf and after in the clubhouse is pretty much just about everything golf related.