A Quiet Moment at Pond’s Edge

This morning I pulled into the cranberry bog to run my dogs. It was a sticky eighty degrees and the air that hung over the pond was heavy and palpable with humidity. As the sun glinted through my windshield I noticed a gaggle of geese and their goslings. For the past month I’ve been watching them every morning. On the first days of spring that begrudgingly emerged from winter I noticed them pairing off, sailing deliberately around the pond in couplets. A few weeks later their goslings appeared as tiny fuzzy spots on the water that paddled between the bulk of their protective parents. I watched over several days as one adult pair had three, then two, then only one baby left and I wondered what had happened to the small babies in the twenty-four hours since my last hike. 

    A few days ago I noticed how big the goslings had grown, they were still awkward with big round bellies but they were about half the size of their parents. Their puffs of down were replaced with tawny feathers that shone sleek and glossy in the spring sunrise. From their nesting spot in the tall grass they ran in front of my car and towards the safety of the pond. Zoë, my half-pint Dobe, began yipping excitedly in the backseat. The goslings had tiny wings that stick up from their backs when they run, they look like a waddling version of a football with antennae. I burst into laughter at their awkward gate as Zoë kept up her excited yips. 

    But today was something different. They sat easily near the tall cattails at pond’s edge, and as we pulled in they lazily turned their heads towards the car then went back to grooming and eating. Like most wildlife at the bog, they had grown accustomed to our presence. Plus, they probably figured out that my Dobermans have a propensity to sink rather than swim, so they felt safe at waters edge. I’m grateful and proud that they feel comfy around me and my pack.

   I’m hoping that the wildlife at Three Dog Farm will feel the same way. Hubby and I are closing on our new house today-a Victorian home with a barn that is set on eight acres on the South Shore in Massachusetts. When our rowdy pack shows up, I wonder what the deer and squirrels and hummingbirds will think. I hope that over the years as The Man of the Place and I cultivate and nurture our garden and woods that all the wildlife, animal and human, that visit will come to know Three Dog Farm as a place where they can sit at water’s edge and relax, safe and comfortable and loved.

Zoë the Half-Pint Dobe sprinting by the pond this spring.