Geese

This morning a flock of geese flew over. I heard them before I saw them, flying in the clear blue sky in a ‘V’ formation.

All of a sudden I was transported back to over 30 years ago when I lived on the farm. Flocks of geese would arrive to make short work of the new shoots of wheat. Come harvest time there would be quite a bald patch in the corner of the field. I used to go out for a walk with my collie, Elkie. Although she wasn’t trained to herd sheep, she definitely had the herding instinct and would go down onto her tummy and shuffle silently towards the geese. Then she would wait for my command, struggling to stop her tail wagging. “Sedemoff!” (send them off) meant that she had permission to rush at them barking and they would rise into the air, a noisy cloud of surprised geese.

For a little while I had a lump in my throat, Elkie is long gone, the farm is no longer a farm and I live in a different country.