The Importance of Pets

When it comes to our kids, we have four-n-more. When it comes to our pets, we have more-n-more. Our long pet list keeps getting longer. Friday, we added six geese. Geese are very different from ducks. That is why we need ducks and geese (this is how Aaron explains it to me). Alysha, my sister-in-law, reminded me of when we were "pet haters" I guess now, that makes us "reformed pet haters".

The goslings were hatched on Thursday, placed in a box, and overnighted from New Mexico to Utah. We paid extra to have their gender determined (no, I don't know, or want to know how they did that). The girls came with red paint on their nose and the boys had blue paint. This is important for raising geese because they mate for life and therefore, it is not good to have more boys than girls for obvious reasons. When they are hatched, there is little or no human contact until they are purchased in order for the geese to imprint properly with their new owners. Our six geese: Gulliver, Joan of Arc (JOA), Buckbeak (Bucky), Gwendolyn, and Julius Caesar now believe we are their parents since we were the first humans they had contact with.
Saturday afternoon we took them outside to enjoy the grass and the sunshine. It is fun to see them explore their new world.

On a sad note, Gulliver Goose died on Sunday morning. We are not sure of the cause of death. We were all saddened by the news and held a funeral out in our pasture. Aaron gave a short talk and Esteban said a very appropriate prayer. We all cried. Ethan and AJ took it very hard. Later, Savanah asked me when Gulliver was going to wake up. I told her that he wasn't going to. She said, "Well, I prayed that he would." We sat together as I explained about Gulliver's body that we buried and his spirit that is now in heaven. We talked about the Resurrection and how, because of Jesus Christ, we would all be reunited someday.I think having pets teaches kids so many things: responsibility, working hard, caring for another living thing, where babies come from, and yes, losing a loved one. Some lessons are harder to learn than others.