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creature in my rearview mirror. It was now flapping free and pacing around the back of the station wagon, looking out of each window in turn. People coming toward us flashed their headlights, and people behind us honked their horns. One man pulled alongside and gestured in sign language through his closed window that we had something strange in the rear. I pretended not to see him, or the bird.
But we got to the farm safely, and I was able to catch hold of the goose the way I had been taught in England — right hand on the neck just behind the beak, left arm around the body.
Julia is more attuned to animal psychology than I am, and she arranged for the first meeting of goose and gander. She took Adam down to the stream, while I put the new goose and old nest in the goosehouse, which had a trellis siding. Adam knew something was different, and he waddled to the house.
He spotted the goose through the trellis, and she spotted him. Julia said it was “love at first sight.” The birds made honks, grunts and squeaks through a gap in the latticework which separated them. They were like Pyramus and Thisbe, those mythical lovers who whispered sweet words to each other through a crack in a wall.
When we let the gander into the goosehouse, he spurned the old nest. He spread hay all around the floor, and banged the metal feeder to show the new goose where the com was kept. Thinking of Eve, Julia renamed the pair “Adam and Eva.”
I suppose it’s all right to treat the founders of a flock somewhat as pets. That is what has happened with Adam and Eva. They eat well, particularly when they break into the vegetable garden. They keep close to the farmhouse, and warn us by loud honking when a vehicle comes down the long driveway. They peer at us through the farmhouse windows from high vantage points.
Adam no longer sits in Julia’s lap. Instead of attacking me, he has learned to attack the tires on pickups, for which I am grateful.
Sometimes I think I see a glint in Adam’s eye, and a corresponding reflection in Eva’s. Maybe one day our hoped-for flock will be foraging in the meadows, and dipping in the water of the branches.
Dr. Hawkins lives outside Woodville. He is a world-renowned author and astronomer, whose books include “Stonehenge Decoded” and “Beyond Stonehenge. ”
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