Sad past few days with a funeral and tons of doctor appointments for family members and torrential downpours on top of that. BUT, everything is green and rich and happily fertile and teeming with life. And the geese are back...
Wild geese migrating south for the summer used to be a profound mystery, and according to old mariners' stories, there were goose trees growing north of Scotland on the shores of the Orkney Islands. The trees supposedly bloomed and reached maturity with barnacles as fruit, which fell into the sea when they were ripe. Behold, geese would emerge.
Apparently, the similarity between a certain species of barnacle and an embryonic goose was uncanny. Botanists and zoologists of the 16th c reported in earnest about the existence of goose trees and barnacle geese, and some scientists even included the specimens in their herbals (above engraving THE BREEDE OF BARNAKLES, from Gerard's Herball, London 1597).
Today, the riddle has been solved but the scientific terms have stuck.
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