Honk if You Love Picking Weeds in a Strawberry Patch

--What came in the mail, lives in an old school bus and weeds the strawberry patch? The flock of white Chinese geese that waddles around Jim and Evelyn Boston’s 10-acre pick-your-own plot near Salem, Ohio. “The first few years we had the geese, our strawberry production doubled to about 5,000 quarts an acre,” Boston said. “They’ll eat a few strawberry plants at first, but they taste bitter to them. You’ll see them get hold of one and shake their heads, as if to say, ‘Bleah.’ ” Boston, 31, said he clears the weeds between the rows of strawberry plants and the geese gobble the weeds and grass between the plants. “I’ve seen them line up single file and walk down one row, eating from one end of the field to the other,” Boston said. “I sometimes see customers in the next field stop picking and watch them work.” The geese will eat the berries, so they work in the newly planted fields, not in the fields where customers are picking. The latest flock of 100 chirping goslings arrived in the mail, fresh from a hatchery, in April. And they live in an old school bus that doubles as a brooding house, the Bostons said.

--Sitting alongside New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, entertainer Ben Vereen, former Olympic star Bruce Jenner and other celebrities who were named National Fathers of the Year at a New York City ceremony was a “brokenhearted dad” honored because he lost a son. “I wouldn’t be here if it was not for my little boy, Adam. It’s a tough day, but a good day,” said John Walsh, whose 6-year-old son was abducted near their Hollywood, Fla., home in 1981 and found murdered two weeks later. Ted Kaufman, National Father’s Day Committee chairman, described Walsh, who is helping create the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as “our Everyman father of the year.”

--Britain’s Prince Charles, with a wife and family to support, has given himself a 27% pay raise and boosted his income to more than a million pounds ($1.3 million) for the first time. The Prince of Wales is entitled to the profits from the Duchy of Cornwall, a 125,000-acre estate that was established in 1337 to provide money for the heir to the throne. Unlike his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, and other members of the royal family, Charles received no money from the state for Princess Diana and the young princes, William and Henry.