One thing over which I have little authority at my house is the number and the
variety of pets my household acquires. In the past, I have not only shared the
humble abode with the more usual pets like cats and dogs but we have also raised
squirrels; bantam chickens, who, being of the gregarious type, laid their eggs
in my bed; a tree snake; a piglet which, for fear of it being stolen, I carried
up the stairs of my house in South Pattaya every night, until it became too much
of a nuisance; a turtle (extremely dull company); white mice; geese and only
financial embarrassment prevented Ni, the ten year old son of the Isarn family I
have been nurturing for the last fifteen odd years, of purchasing a calf a while
ago. He tried to borrow the money off me - only four thousand baht he said, a
real bargain, he said. It may have been but this time I put my foot down. What
is one going to do with a full grown cow - or for that matter a bull -, in a
small garden? Who is going to graze it elsewhere when the young man is going to
get an education?
“Wammes
Waggel”, the intellectually underprivileged gander in the adventures of “Tom
Poes” by Marten Toonder
But it is geese which are occupying my mind these days as our latest
acquisitions are two “Australian” goslings. They are supposed to be very special
indeed because they are “Australian”, although I don’t see why that makes them
so desirable and pray, against better knowledge, that they are of the silent
kind. I was asked to give them names, which I did, one - the alleged female - I
called “Pricilla”, the Australian desert queen, and the supposed gander, “Wammes
Waggel”, after an extremely foolish character in a popular Dutch cartoon strip
called “Tom Poes”. Their sexual characteristics are still a bit vague, as they
are very young. In fact I am confused as they look exactly the same to me. One
is a bit bigger than the other, but that does not prove anything, does it? They
have been added to the five ducklings - I forgot to mention these birdies
earlier - in the a fenced - in corner of the garden away from the dogs and new
puppies and are given bran and vegetables to eat.
This is not the first time I have been “associating” with geese. My father used
to be partial to the countryside and when we lived in Cheribon, in the province
of West Java, he rented a house in the middle of the rice fields, far out of
town in the shadow of the mighty volcano Ceremai. For all its pastoral decor, it
had one disadvantage nobody had given consideration to: the numerous snakes -
benign and poisonous - paddy fields usually harbour. Not recognising any
boundaries, they considered our garden, and even the house, as their territories
as well. To get rid of the menace, somebody told my father, one should keep
geese. So we had geese and all I can say for the birds is that they were not
poisonous, but neither were most of the snakes. Otherwise, as a five year old
lad, I lived in constant dread of the aggressive and vicious birds. Whenever
they spotted me, they would screech with malice, lower their heads and zoom in
on my precious and tender calves. And, I recall, we still had serpents as well.
It must have been about ten years ago that here at my house on the road to
Naklua in North Pattaya, Malayan pit vipers, a particularly venomous species,
denizens of the jungle surrounding our compound on two sides, frequently visited
us. Not only in the garden but one was found sleeping under the bed of our
faithful Kanom, the Mae Bahn (house keeper). She was not amused. As in
Indonesia, Thai people believe that geese are the arch enemies of snakes, they
just detest each other and so two young but fully grown geese were added to our
menagerie. As I feared, they were of the most aggressive and asinine kind. They
threw a fit for practically no reason at all and as far as guarding the house
was concerned, they made so much and such frequent noise, that one was never
sure whether the hysterics were for a thief or that they were just having
serious doubts about the meaning of life. So, all through the night, hoping that
we were not being robbed, we just didn’t bother to look, ignored it and tried to
sleep through the infernal racket.
The last straw came when a green snake fell out of a tree right in front of
their silly eyes. This scene was watched by myself from the balcony and I am not
making it up. The two birds went into hysterics and like a couple of prim
Victorian ladies who spot a mouse, they screeched and danced around with their
wing flapping about without so much as approaching the harmless creature, let
alone attacking it. Frankly, they were obviously scared out of their wits. After
this ridiculous spectacle we donated the birds to some other misguided pet
lovers and enjoyed our peace again.
The history of geese in relation to humankind is most interesting, but I will
dwell upon it some other time. This week I will give you a recipe for Christmas
goose. Unfortunately I discovered that when you read this, Christmas is a thing
of the past and so we may call it “New Year’s Goose”. Nobody, except us, will
know the difference.
