Apifera Farm - where art, story, animals & woman merge. Home to artist Katherine Dunn

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Thursday, August 05, 2021

Trauma for The Goose, and me...

 

I’m raising money for an unexpected need…$1500 to cover pressure treated posts and boards and no climb fence-materials are more expensive now. For the past months, the two male ducks have really been trouble. They keep squeezing under and through fence areas despite my efforts and harass The Goose. They also harass the three lady ducks and older goats if they get in that area. I am literally adjusting fencing almost daily…but they can contort under. 

I thought I had it down but yesterday was the last straw. I found The Goose battered, panting and panicked. It took me about 30 minutes to calm him, by holding him, stroking him and just sitting with him until he stopped panting. If you have had male ducks you know they get on the back of an animal and pin their neck with their beaks [much like roosters]. Love making to a duck or chicken is the opposite of the word, it is aggressive. They’ve drawn blood now on animals and that’s the last straw. I want to recreate an area near the pigs where they will not get out…I will also rehome them to another duck home if someone out there comes along. For now they are in outer barn until I can get material to contain them. 

 One of the biggest ways I use energy, and creativity, is to constantly be thinking of solutions when things like this arise-and they arise all the time. It is one reason I don't travel [I did my fair of traveling, I am very content as a homebody, believe me]. Even a trip to the grocery store can  have be come home to a surprise situation. I am not complaining, but to people that ask me about starting a sanctuary...I always tell them, you have to be present in mind and body and drop everything to fix or rearrange or interfere.

The Goose was brought to us becasue he was always getting beat up by the other geese. On his arrival, it was clear he was a sensitive soul, seeking out the ill or dying. First it was Rosie the pig who he stayed with, then Birdie. He would stick close to many who were in their final days. He would preen Muddy's cancerous leg. Whenever he starts gravitating to an animal, I listen and watch. He is a spirit animal to me and he deserves to be left alone. I told him I was sorry that once again I had let him down. While I am not the aggressor, I am his caretaker and I keep telling him it won't happen again, but it does and this time was especially bad. So toomorrow and through the weekend I will get it done.

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