She has done it! - Dec 2005

In archive 6 (Oct 2003) I mentioned what a bad sitter Samantha was. In all these years she has never managed to hatch a baby gosling. In September 2005 we had a disaster; our goose Jemima (the only one who had managed to hatch any babies) was killed and eaten one night by a wild caracal. This left Samantha, our only remaining goose, with the responsibility of preventing the goose family of Enchanted Garden from becoming extinct. Immediately she made her nest and very faithfully she sat and she sat and she sat.... she never moved from her nest for months. I was so worried that she may die of starvation or dehydration that I started taking food and water to her nest. Eventually she gave up and decided to leave her nest. When I went to check the eggs in the nest, they were all rotten.
In December she decided to try again. I saw that there were 4 eggs in her nest. She sat very faithfully and Solly and Jeremy waited very anxiously. Suddenly one morning she appeared with 2 baby goslings. Solly and Jeremy were delighted at the sight of the new babies and immediately they stepped into their role as doting fathers. Knowing that there were 4 eggs in the nest, I set off to investigate. One of the remaining eggs was rotten, but when I looked closer at the other egg, I saw a little hole in the shell and I heard a little "peep, peep" sound. Samantha had now left the nest and would not return. I took the egg to the children's bedroom, turned their underfloor heating on and the children and I watched and waited in anticipation while the little gosling pecked its way out of the shell. After a long struggle and a lot of hard work the gosling hatched. We called it Lucky. The next morning Lucky was trying to follow us. Every time we left the room he would be calling for us. When this got a bit much, I decided that it was time for Lucky to meet the rest of his family. Samantha accepted Lucky at once and the two fathers are fiercely protective of their 3 offspring.