For me this is one of the most amazing and exciting of the Spring rituals here on the island. Our flock of Sebastopol geese has dropped over the past few years from 13 to one breeding pair and they seem uncertain about how to propagate their species (not very successful in a Darwinian sense) so we had to call in reinforcements. Today 10 eggs showed up in the mail having traveled from a little farm in Missouri 2500 miles via USPS. Those 10, hopefully fertile eggs have a week to 10 days of viability. Once their core temperature is raised to 99.5 degrees they will all simultaneously start developing and 28-31 days later out comes a fully formed gosling. Weve done this a couple of times in the past and its always incredible to watch a process that represents an unbroken chain of events dating back hundreds of millions of years. I suspect that technically its no more or less amazing than any other of natures processes albeit the first blossoms on the apple tree each spring or the return of the swans to the Skagit valley each Winter but for some reason this has always stood out.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 20:39:20 +0000
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