Sound on/off
What's good for the goose...
« Return to Posts Published on 02/10/10 02:38PM by Maxine CottonI miss Begbie - if its at all possible to miss a goose who’s only aim in life was to cause as much pain as possible to whoever dared to get too close. I miss trying to dodge his beak as I put some grain in his bucket, I miss him running at me, wings flapping, hissing with fury and I miss having to rescue at least one of the children on a daily basis as they tried to collect the Hens eggs. I’m no longer aware as soon as anyone arrives on the farm, whether it on foot or by car, as arrivals are no longer announced by the loud honking of our big white goose and whichever particular female he had in tow. In short, the farm is a much quieter place now he’s gone.
Attacking anything that moved was sport as far as Begbie was concerned. Oliver often came off the worst. Several times Beggers had the back of his football shirt as Ollie squirmed and shouted. I’d like to think it had something to do with him not liking Liverpool FC, but alas as with all bullies, Begbie just picked on the small kid. If any of the other boys were required to go into his paddock, they were always armed - cricket bats, fence posts, shovels. Not that any of these scared this goose, he wasn’t called Begbie for nothing. When he could be bothered to fly over the gate, he would chase cars as they drove up our track. There was something rather comical about an irate gander trying to bite the tyres of a Nissan Micra. Begbie once sported a large black line across the back of his neck for a whole week - the result of a fight with the exhaust pipe of the Postie’s van.
Begbie Begbie
Despite Begbie’s obvious aggression, I was the only member of our family not to be hurt by him in some way. In fact all the injuries I’ve sustained on the farm have been from supposedly docile animals. I remember our very first ram, Gus, a particularly mean Southdown who looked like a Teddy Bear but was definitely not as cuddly. Someone told me that as long as I didn’t look him in the eye I’d be ok - probably one of the most useless pieces of advice I’ve ever been given. I spent the first few months stumbling around the field, desperately trying to keep tabs on how close he was to me, all the time making sure I was definitely not looking him in the eye. Despite my very poor Stevie Wonder impression, he butted me anyway and in the rush to get over the fence I caught the seat of my trousers on the barbed wire and fell flat on my face. Lets just say I was very badly scratched and bruised and leave it at that. I’ve also almost had my knee caps broken as I tried to empty a bucket of sheep nuts into a trough. There are two things that sheep excel at. One is dying (any excuse) the other is eating. Never EVER come between 8 greedy, overweight ewes and their grub.
Still, I survived,where as sadly Begbie didn’t. He wasn’t scared of people, he wasn’t scared of cars and tragically as it turned out, he wasn’t scared of fox’s either.
R.I.P Begbie we miss you.