Today, we caught 7 geese. Austin and I were pretty excited for the adventure because 1. it felt so far out of left field and 2. we were both pumped to join French folks our parents' age catch geese. Dorothée invited us which I shared a little bit about in the "New friends" post.

In the late morning, we hopped in the car with Bertrand and Isabelle and one of their friends, Elizabeth, to drive to Dorothée and Benoît's countryside home. Their home was stunning, I felt like I was in a movie there! It was a large piece of property with a big grassy area, a pond with ducklings and geese (soon to be geese-less), a pool, a couple of old, stone garages, and then exactly what you would imagine a French countryside home to look like: stone, vines growing on the home, and a wooden shingle roof.

Once we got to their place, we saw the table was set for about 15 people. This was a BIG goose-catching party and we were pretty excited to see who all showed up. When we got there, Dorothée made Aperol Spritz (yummmz) and we munched on hor devours as their friends arrived. It ended up being a few couples and a few other friends; all of the women knew each other from elementary school and have been friends for quite some time. Their whole friend group gets together nearly once a month for a long weekend trip or all day event. We were so thankful they included us at their lunch party / goose-catching extravaganza. 

For lunch, we started with a caprese salad and phew, tomatoes are incredible here. Actually, each part of the dish was so delicious and flavorful. Dorothée snagged the basil from her garden to toss into the dish right before serving. For the main course, we had a rice dish with tomatoes and chicken. That was so yummy, too. Next was the cheese course; we had five excellent cheeses ranging from all different regions of France. I liked some better than others but again, so delicious! After cheese, we had fruit and a flourless chocolate cake. Flourless chocolate cake is a top 2 favorite dessert of mine so I was pretty stoked. It truly melted in your mouth! I snagged the recipe from Beatrice who made it so I plan to make it in the future, I am just not sure when! After dessert, everyone who wanted espresso had some, it was a beautiful meal with some great people.

Post lunch meant goose-catching time. Dorothée was organized and a drill sergeant! She had clearly thought through all scenarios and had a plan. We split up into three groups: (1) agitators: two people in a row boat to agitate / help move the geese out of the pond onto the land, (2) guiders: three people guiding the geese to the trappers, (3) trappers: four people with a big tarp helping trap the geese in a particular spot. I was a guider and Austin was a trapper. Wine was flowing throughout lunch so that made everything about this that much more hilarious. Dorothée also volun-told Austin he is jumping into the trapped geese pin to wrangle them into the cages. I mean, if you know Austin, this is a great job for him. Also, when I say cages here, I mean 3x2.5x1 ft plastic cages and the hole to put the geese in was about 8x8 in. We had 2 big geese and 5 babies to fit between 2 cages, haha.

Once the boat was ready to launch, it was go-time. Bertrand and Beatrice jumped in the boat to start pushing the geese toward the land. The guiders ran around the pond to the other side to ensure they didn't escape the wrong side of the pond and to try to push them onto land toward the trappers. Once the geese exited the pond in the guided spot, the trappers drew them to a corner of a shed with the big tarp. Honestly, I was shocked with how well this worked, it worked perfectly like clockwork. Once the geese were trapped, Austin and Bertrand manhandled all of the geese and were able to squeeze them into the 2 cages. The whole operation took 5-10 minutes in total. Dorothée, Bertrand, and Isabelle headed off to the 30 minute drive to take them to the bird sanctuary. What a wild, odd, but very pleasant day!