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WHAT BETTER way to note the arrival of spring than relating a newborn tale of international romance at George Washington Birthplace?
This story of love and livestock, shared by birthplace farm manager Dick Lahey, could goose us right into this new season.
Lahey, who last year shared the story of a bull named Valentino brought in to revive a cattle herd there, got in touch this time to share a story of two little puffballs, "tennis balls with feet."
He's talking about two young goslings that earlier this month became the latest additions to the gaggle of geese that call the Westmoreland County national monument home.
But we're getting a little ahead of the story.
To get the full feel of this tale, we have to go back to last July, a month or so after Lahey arrived.
"It was then that one of our farm geese hatched out a lone gosling, and since the park had not had a hatch in recent memory, I took it as a sign that moving back to Virginia was a good thing," said Lahey, who'd worked at the park years earlier.
Lahey said watching the young goose grow up was a hoot.
"Farm geese spend most of the day with their chests out, honking and clumsily promenading around the barnyard," he said. "True to species, the little gosling spent her early months with her chest out, comically issuing high-pitched peeps instead of the more mature honks."
Lahey said that the young gosling grew to a mature size, and on Jan. 2 of this year, didn't appear with the others in the small flock to be fed and led into their two small sheds for the night.
"The sky and Pope's Creek were crowded with Canada geese for several days, so to make myself feel better about our missing bird, I rationalized that she had taken up with the Canadas in the creek," he said.
Lahey said that he had noticed a chubby farm goose or two with the Canada flock before, so the rationalization wasn't that far-fetched.
"But in truth, I thought it more likely that a fox had nabbed her as she went out exploring the world beyond the fence," he said.
Weeks went by and then, on Jan. 21, Lahey opened the door to the goose shed that morning and the missing bird was there, having been put away the night before by a new ranger who didn't recognize the runaway.
"My feel-good theory must have been what really happened," he said. "She must have stayed in the creek with several succeeding flocks of Canadas until they started to thin out. Farm geese can swim and walk as well as Canadas, but they are no good for flying more than a few yards, much less to Pennsylvania and points north."
At any rate, when the missing goose returned, it truly had come home to roost. The prodigal goose immediately began to sit on a nest she had made, leaving it only for a few hours each day for food and water.
On March 3, farm volunteer Fred Bright opened the goose house, turned to Lahey and announced the two newest members of the George Washington Birthplace family: "two fluffy, little yellow-and-black balls of questionable paternity."
Lahey said he's not totally sure that a fertile cross of the different geese species is possible, but it will be fun to watch them grow and possibly provide an answer to that question.
I visited the birthplace recently to take a look at the young goslings.
It's true, they don't quite look entirely like either of the two species on the farm. They're darker than one type, but have beaks unlike the other.
The day I was there, the goslings got their first taste of swimming, floating atop a little pond with no trouble at all.
Lahey said there are other signs of spring on the farm, including new lambs, a set of triplets and a pair of twins.
So far, no Valentino Jrs. yet, but Lahey said a more experienced farmer has told him that that could change with the next full moon.
The same one that can cause romance to break out for any young humans who pause to take a gander.
ROB HEDELT can be reached at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; by fax at 373-8455; by phone at 374-5415; or by e-mail at rhedelt@freelance star.com.