Great December issue

There are so many great articles and gardens in it, and even the advertisements are informative. I was particularly interested in the article from Yotam Kay about geese.

We used to have geese, ducks and hens, when we lived in the country over 40 years ago. The pair of geese we had were Pilgrims. They never tried to escape from the orchard, but had they tried, I would have cut one of their wings, as I used to do to the hens if they started flying over into the garden. Our goose eggs were great for making sponge cakes but I would let the goose hatch eggs later in the laying season. We did eat the young ones for Christmas dinner and maybe Easter. They are good “watchdogs” and warned us if visitors were approaching, but never attacked us.

Unfortunately, as happens in the country sometimes, a ferret or pole cat killed the last hatching of our geese. So we let our old geese go back to the wild mob they came from as we didn’t want it to happen again. I think the same thing killed our bantam.

Celia Geary, Feilding