I also mentioned briefly that Willow Crenshaw was one-eyed. She hatched this way and I do not believe it is genetic. Rather it does seem to be due to bad conditions for incubation which did not completely jeopardize Willow Crenshaw's development. 

We did not know what to do with Willow Crenshaw. We decided we would keep her and keep her as happy as we could. We did not really expect her to live to be a year old but here we are! On Tuesday Willow will be a year old! 

Willow Crenshaw does not act like she is only one-eyed. When she was first hatched she had a lot of trouble navigating. But being in a pen she has gotten very familiar with her surroundings and navigates pretty well. It just means she does not always get the other geese' warnings and it makes her hesitate a lot more to do things such as climbing into the water tub or leaving the coop through the coop door.

None of the geese treat her like she only has one eye. When I had Quaking Aspen who passed away in January last year she was treated poorly for whatever reason. It certainly was not because she had a hard time navigating because Willow does too.

Willow Crenshaw is treated so much so like another goose and acts so much like another goose that I think she might even be laying or considering too. And as previously mentioned Willow Crenshaw's defect does not appear to be genetic but rather due to bad incubation.

Willow Crenshaw has been a relief compared to all the struggles that I faced with Quaking Aspen and my younger goose Terebinth. She is a rather shy goose due to her natural personality and probably also her single eye. Her mother is Rocky Moutain Juniper who passed along that naturally shy personality. She also passed along a small, long-necked body to her daughter Willow.

If all three of these eggs were hers she is already and amazing layer since this is her first time laying. Today, November 13, 2020, she went to her nest in the barn to lay. If she keeps up her laying she may became the best layer that I have ever had. 

Currently her eggs are quite small but hopefully they will quite soon get bigger and bigger until they are hatching size.

​This is quite an exciting milestone. 

My last update on the white geese was when they were still fluffy little creamy yellow goslings with gray eyes. I had mentioned that I was not sure if they would have blue eyes or not. They do indeed have blue eyes. There is no uncertainty about that. I think it is especially amazing because it is not like the usual blue for animal coloring where it is a sort of gray that gives off a bluish appearance. This is a blue that is very obviously blue. White geese are lovely birds. They seem to be more into digging unfortunately and checking out plants to see if they like anything else. So more plant destruction. More destruction to the nice floor in the goose house... and more destruction in all the other buildings and the frontyard.. and also to little trees in the frontyard. But, at least, they are pretty. Their beaks are orange and their feathers are well, white. 

My favorite is still Pompeia. But she along with most of the other white geese except for Biscuit have been re-named. As I had mentioned previously I was thinking of giving Biscuit to someone but I think I will be keeping her. Pompeia was re-named to Southern Magnolia. She is a beautiful goose. What I really like about her is she seems simple. She just looks like a goose. Which is what makes her so pretty to me. Blue Jacaranda who was previously Buttercream seems to be quite the troublemaker but since they are all troublemakers I cannot place what rank of troublemaker she is. Then there is American Snowbell who I think was Vanilla. She is the second prettiest of the white geese. She seems to be a little shier than the others but Biscuit still takes the place as the shiest. But Biscuit still is not all that shy because she will still come to me for food and eat out of my hand. Last of all, there is Chickasaw Plum who I think was Whipped Cream. I like all the white geese. They all look nice. 

It will be fun when they finally start laying so that I can hatch fun colors from them. And I think they will lay quite well giving me a bunch of goslings. They hang out with three young ladies: Japanese Zelkova, Brazilian Rosewood, and Hawaiian Hibiscus. They also hang out with European Rowan, Ohio Buckeye, and Boxelder Maple which therefore means they sort of hang out with the ladies of that bunch - Green Ash and Nutmeg Hickory. They are a formidable force of loud, always wanting food, troublemakers. 

Before we knew anything about geese we ordered two Chinese geese. We did not know what Willow was. We did not know whether Willow was a boy or a girl. So we decided to get two female geese so that even if Willow turned out to be a female it would not matter because there would be no fighting. Our plans were ruined when Willow unexpectedly died. We got a lot of goslings and that was not the plan. We were going for only a few geese. We still planned to get the Chinese geese as well.

Tupelo is from Batch #005 along with other geese I love such as Stansbury Cliffrose and Gingko. She was originally called Sleepy because of her slow movements, tired looking eyes, and she liked to sleep a lot when she was a gosling. She had angel wing on one of her wings which we mended and there is no longer a sign of her having it. She sounds like her mother and looks somewhat like her. She inherited the wide-appearing eyes, beautiful feathers, and bright orange feet from her mother. She also has lighter feathers on the underpart of her wings compared to other geese. I believe this has to do with the fact that her mother has a white band on her. 

Both male and female geese are great fun. The females love to eat the grass, lay in in the grass, and walk on the grass. The ganders stand alert while the ones they care for carry out these procedures. What makes a female different from a male? It is definitely easy to tell when your female lays her egg but there are other ways to tell. The females are usually smaller and shaped differently. They tend to be lower to the ground. They also have a pouch in between their legs when they are mature.