jmgoyder

wings and things

Beautiful black swan

One of the reasons I’ve stayed in a rather lovely hotel on the river is because of all the beautiful bird life around here – ducks, swans, cockatoos and other various winged creatures. Early this morning I woke to a chorus of different bird songs but I drifted back to sleep. Later, when I got up, I went out to the balcony with my camera to take some photos and guess what? No birds.

I’ve been waiting over an hour now and still no birds!  I have to check out of the hotel soon and go and see Son, so I’ve decided to take some shots of the beautiful black swan in my room. He didn’t mind being photographed at all and remained very still for the close-ups.

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Nouns and verbs

Before the ‘bird thing’ happened to me, I was unaware of the noun, ‘birder’ and the verb ‘bird’ (as in, ‘to bird’ – you know, ‘birding’). I’d heard of bird watchers, of course, who were sometimes pictured on television, wearing strange safari-type hats, carrying binoculars and cameras, and whispering David Attenborough phrases.

I didn’t really notice these peculiar people with their bird-feeders and their bird baths; I didn’t notice the birds either until, like I said, the ‘bird thing’ happened to me. I think it was the peacocks that did it for me – I absolutely loved the sensation of being able to feed them by hand, and the rest, well the blog tells it all.

However, I am not really a birder yet, in the true sense of the word, because all of our many birds are domesticated. Real birders admire, and take brilliant photos of, the wild birds, and that is something I have a new respect for, thanks to these two incredible bloggers:

http://bobzeller.wordpress.com/http://

http://tootlepedal.wordpress.com/

If it hadn’t been for these guys I would never have noticed how many beautiful wild birds live on our farm, and I would never have bought a better camera!

Noun: Bob Zellar

Verb: Tootlepedal

King peacock: I’m a noun too, you know! If you want a verb, see Queenie….

I just love ‘the bird thing’! I’m going to get heaps of bird feeders tomorrow on my way back to the farm. This is NOT peculiar!

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Surreal

I’m back in Perth and Son has now been transferred to the hospital’s rehabilitation campus and today, for the first time, I saw him walk. Yes, indeed, we had an exhilarating stroll down to the toilets and back after which he was absolutely exhausted and had to lie down again. He had a craving for gravy and chips (yuck!) so I went and got him some from the cafeteria.

The grimace on his face is partly pain but mostly irritation at having his photo taken. This irritation with me is very encouraging as it means he is getting back to normal! On the phone the other day, he said, “Mum, do have to ring me all the time? You are really hard work. I just want to have a little nap.” Brat!

The surreal thing is this: walking down the corridor with him, I was disconcerted by his height-gain. He was already taller, but now he towers over me – really, really weird!

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Beauty

Real beauty never recognizes itself

It averts its face

It would rather splash around than look for its reflection

It searches for grubs

It ponders

Real beauty doesn’t know it’s beautiful….

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Don’t come any closer!

Tina Turner (Araucana rooster): Don’t come any closer, Phoenix.

Phoenix (Golden pheasant): It’s okay, I’m leaving!

Phoenix: Hi guys!

Peacocks: Hi Phoenix, ‘bye Phoenix.

Phoenix: No problems – I get it; I’ll just dance away on my own.

Phoenix: Don’t come any closer, Julie.

Me: I know what you mean, Phoenix.

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Torn between two lovers

Remember this song? If you aren’t old enough to remember it (hehe!) it’s worth a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1F5BLLFAeM

Here is our male Indian Runner duck following his girlfriend. When these ducks run, they look exactly like Basil from Fawlty Towers! I have never named these two because originally we had several until we realised we had a fox problem, so I just call our remaining couple “Duckies”. The male is the one I rescued from the fox that awful morning after the massacre of several poultry. I ran outside, in response to terrible squawking, to find the fox with its jaws around this duck’s neck. Ever since then, he hasn’t been able to quack normally. On the upside, he is very good at sex and never leaves his girlfriend alone; not only that, he tries it on with all the geese and, just recently, with little Tapper.

And here is Zaruma who, as of yesterday, proved his manhood by getting it together with Tapper.

I didn’t even realise Tapper was a girl until I witnessed both the Indian runner and Zaruma eyeing her off (I reckon that this is a gentler way of describing what really happens – hell! Unlike chooks, ducks kind of take awhile.)

So Tapper is now in great demand and has become a terrible flirt! She can’t seem to decide between the Indian Runner and Zaruma.

The funniest thing is that, while I always look away tactfully, whenever ‘it’ happens, the geese go crazy-loud like some sort of cheering squad. I do not approve!

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In a different way, I feel torn between the two people I love most in the world, Husband and Son. With Husband 20 kms south of the farm in the nursing lodge and Son 200 kms north in the hospital, Son is taking priority at the moment and I’m heading back up to Perth to see him soon. Yesterday I spent the afternoon with Husband and he and Son had their first phone conversation since Son’s surgery. I had to enable this because, although Husband can answer his phone, he’s not so good at ringing, and Son is too incapacitated at the moment to answer his phone – argh. Anyway when I finally got them phone-connected, one of the things Son said to Husband was “Now I really know how you feel, Dad.”

Here is a picture of them shaking hands a few days before Son’s surgery. We were at my brother’s place just down the road from the nursing lodge. It seems like a hundred years ago now!

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Stake-out

I now have a really good system happening when I let the emus out of their ‘safe-house’ yard. I park the car, or the ute, outside the gate to the house block and leave the engine running. Then I watch and wait in case the Emerys come sprinting down the driveway. The following picture is looking up the driveway into the farm.

So far, so good, but you never know with these marathon runners! The picture below is of the driveway that leads away from the farm and down to the road. It’s just a small country road but you never know when a truck is going to come through and that’s where the Emerys absconded to the other day. They know they are not allowed down there but, like all teenagers, they like to test the limits. Sometime I have to race them down this driveway in the car, beat them to the road, do a skiddy u-turn and herd them back up. It’s a bit hair-raising for them and for me.

It’s not that they want to get away. After all, they adore me – well, they adore cabbage – and are always perfectly happy to come back to their yard. The whole rigmarole takes a couple of hours!

Someone asked me if I would go back to lecturing at the local university soon but I think the skills I am developing in terms of the emus are equipping me far better for the police force!

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Pigeon ponderings

For some reason, I can’t stop thinking about that pigeon outside the hospital in Perth. I mentioned this pigeon in a previous post and put a photo in, but I took another photo that day because I was amazed by its happiness to peck around in the debris. I was also a bit curious about its colouring – brown.

I guess this preoccupation with that pigeon is a healthy distraction from anxiety about Son and about Husband … dunno!

On Sunday I will go back to Perth to see Son who is being transferred to the rehabilitation centre. I will take him his favourite chocolate – dark Cherry ripe – and I’ll bring a bit of bird seed for the pigeon.

When I told Husband about the pigeon, he was nonplussed but he understood.

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Tragi-comic

When something is funny but not funny, I think it falls into the category of slapstick, or black, comedy. Like this poor little pigeon outside the hospital, in amongst all the rubbish of urban, but having a ball!

Yesterday, when I left the hospital to come home to the farm, Son was still pretty ‘out of it’ and unable to move or eat. My mother took over staying with him and rang me later to say that he was like Lazarus in the afternoon and the physiotherapists and pain team were able to wind the bed up so he was nearly sitting up. He gobbled his lunch and didn’t vomit so all was going very well.

Late this morning, however, I found out that in the middle of the night he’d hallucinated. Here is a paraphrase of what Son told me on the phone:

“Oh Mum, I thought I was in a disco, so I got up and pulled all of my tubes out and went to the toilet, then I was doing this shaking dance move, then they rescued me but I didn’t get the pain button back for three hours so I wanted to die and what if I’ve ruined the operation?”

According to the nurses, all is well despite the incident but hell! I am now WAITING for the doctor who was called in to ring me – argh.

A friend rang yesterday afternoon, before Son’s midnight adventure, and I said, “I can’t believe I have a husband in a nursing home on my left and a son in hospital on my right, and they are both neurologically challenged and 200 kilometres apart!”

She said, “Are you okay?” and I said, “Yeah, I feel like I’m in one of those weird comedies!” and she said, “That’s a good way of looking at it.”

I mean crying gets really boring after awhile, so I’ve discovered bellylaughing; it’s much better for the soul – hehe!

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Wide shoulders

Shoulders are interesting things. Husband, Son and I all have wide shoulders. Before Husband became so ill, he had a bit of a weight-lifter appearance but as he has ankylosing spondylitis as well as Parkinson’s, he is very bent over now. And before Son’s scoliosis got the better of him, he had the look of an athlete, but pre-surgery, one shoulder was much lower than the other so he had begun to look a little bit deformed when seen with his shirt off. As for me, despite the fact that shoulder pads are back ‘in’ (I know this from having read the fashion magazines in the hotel the other day), I will not need them as my shoulders are so wide that when I am in a queue I am often mistaken, by the person behind me, for a man. “Excuse me, mate,” I get all the time, until I turn around and they see my bright red lipstick!

Baby Turkey’s way of standing and walking always looks like she is wearing a dress with shoulder pads.

I couldn’t figure out who she reminded me of until I found the following pictures.

The Bubbles (the other turkeys) don’t strut their stuff like Baby Turkey does! Of course I mean no disrespect to Bea, from The Golden Girls, Lady Di or Gaga, but you have to admit the resemblance is rather striking!

Wide shoulders: a symbol of strength. Yes!

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