Be proud of your poultry

Michael Manners, Know Manners, Philip Shaw - one of these is a goose, one has no beard, one has no glasses, but they all know a thing or three about wine.

Standing in the blend block the other day, pruning my way along a row of restless Cabernet Franc vines, I had a very strong feeling of pride in our livestock. An investigatory vehicle had rolled up to the cellar door and, as is usual in these cases, Mum and Dad struggled out of the front seats, while a phalanx of kids, freshly blooded greyhounds that they were, bolted from the back of the vehicle and raced towards the dam. A stylised stretch of the "ol' back" from Dad and a casual glance by Mum in the general direction of the rapidly disappearing offspring acted as the usual introduction to this quite normal domestic passion play. Says Dad, "and don't go near the bloody dam youse kids. Simon, Lizzy, Mark, Ed, Phil, Trina - did ya hear me? Bloody keep outa the water!". Their familial duty done, Mum and Dad repaired to the cellar door for a quiet tipple in the magical afternoon sunshine, just as the first innocent greyhound ran up onto the dam wall.

Now, long suffering readers of this newsletter will have learnt, from time to time, of the extraordinary exploits of Bill and Ben, our psychotic Embden geese. You will have some memory of the mighty "Brian The Bull" versus "Bill and Ben" belly-flop championships conducted on the irrigation dam over the course of last summer. This was where Brian, (nose flaring in the stifling dust and emitting so much smoke from his ears that a casual observer could be forgiven if they came to the conclusion that he had just elected himself Pope), would hurl his terrible black bulk into the dam in tormented pursuit of these feathered avengers, only to find them behind him on the bank, honking their honks off in derision at his indignity. You may also remember the case of the terrorised cyclist, the manure heap, and the complete indifference of both Bill and Ben to the whole smelly affair. It wasn't the poor cyclist's fault that they, at the very beginning of an energetic spring breeding season, had just come to the terrible realisation that neither of them was a goose and, ergo, both of them must therefore be ganders. But what they did to the pneumatic interloper is best not revisited here. Suffice it to say, in short, without any more ado, these particular geese are very nasty bastards.

And so to the scene at hand: picture if you will, both Ben and Bill, awakened from their early afternoon slumber by the pitter patter of little feet, approaching at oblivious speed from a South Easterly direction. This, after a boring winter of hassling wood duck and persecuting pathetic plovers. It was almost too good to be true! They looked at each other for an instant before going into what could only be described as a vicious kind of all-white goose haka without the war paint, and set sail for glory, two robotic psychotics in pursuit of, well, kiddies. It really was no match. In an impressive display of battle tactics which would have brought joy to Napoleon's heart, Bill and Ben out-maneuvered and regrouped the junior infidels with such glorious precision that it wasn't long before they had herded them back to the car, just so many kiddie cowboys, wagon-trained into submission. It was a wonderful sight, akin to the mechanical ducks in a shooting gallery suddenly developing the ability to turn front on and fire back. And what did Dad say as he emerged from the shed? "I thought I told you kids to stay away from the dam, and Simon, stop fooling with them ducks".

Ah yes, in a world where the small joys of life are too often overlooked, it does one good to be proud of one's poultry.