Last Sunday we headed south to Dorset for the weekly farmer’s market. For us: Pascal’s gourmet sausages, Swiss chard, and purple-and-white-striped beans. For Chuck and David, to be called on after: sweet Sun Gold cherry tomatoes and a bouquet of zinnias mixed red, yellow, fuchsia, purple.
We bumped into neighbors and made plans for the sharing of food and drink. The sky was breezy bright blue.
And then, the loud honking, and right over our heads, low-flying Canada geese—a vee of twenty or so, the sun somehow bouncing off their bellies with the flap up of wings—heading farther south than the Dorset Sunday farmer’s market. Probably much farther south.
No, not yet, I whispered. Then, bon voyage.
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8 comments:
There was a large property a mile or two south of me when I lived in Vermont. An Estate, really, with a Very Large Pond looking appropriately postcardish amid the trees and winding golf cart paths. (They had a two-or-three hole course, above and to the right of the tennis courts.)
Twice a year, migrating Canada geese would stop at that pond for several days' rest. I heard the owners were not particularly fond of them, and had once or twice tried to dissuade them, with little success.
So they put up with the amazing noise and the chaos of wings for a few days each spring and fall, and we would be blessed with a joyful cacophony that was audible for miles.
I tend to think people prefer Canada geese when they're in the sky... one place I worked at had a full-time pooper-scooper, whose job it was to pick up after the resident Canada geese. They obviously had no sense of the 49th parallel since the place was in New York state.
Indigo, have you read The Bird Artist (Howard Norman)? As soon as I started it I thought of you; it's full of mini-descriptions of Newfoundland birdlife, and it seems that almost any story set in Newfoundland is automatically imbued with that province's colourful ... hmm, trying to find the right word here... energy? presence? magic?
We have lots of geese to spare. Take as many as you like.
It IS that time of year isn't it? The godwits have just arrived in New Zealand, heralding the start of spring ... at last! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6988720.stm
oops I mean http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6988720.stm
M: I love the idea of you and Mrs. S moving into the warm weather just as it leaves us. To think I have a little regular contact with NZ...!
I don't think I've ever seen a godwit. As I'm not an actual lister, I'm not 100% sure, because I could have seen one during its migration on one of my trips to Chincoteague/Assateague many years ago and simply not recall—but probably I've never been in the right place at the right time.
SY: Money Pond.
H: Admittedly, I would not want to be the pooper scooper. I took a look at The Bird Artist in the bookstore yesterday. Intriguing. It's on the list. (But I left with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which has been on my list for a long time and which I could barely put down last night.) You won't be surprised to find out, though, that because I read for a living, my personal reading life tends to happen very slowly...
D: Thanks.
I wish you'd hurry up backwards to the letter D. It's not like I have forever.
D: I respect that. I have got to get over this block, or apathy, or whatever it is...
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