jmgoyder

wings and things

Mar 19

Halycon days

by jmgoyder

I received some feedback about yesterday’s ‘lassitude’ post which has got me thinking that I may have portrayed Son as somewhat of a navel-gazer, so I feel kind of bad about that because that’s probably a better description of me at the moment!

Son is doing the best he can four weeks after having his spine fused and eight weeks after Husband became a permanent resident at the nursing lodge. He’s 18 years old and wearing a chest-to-hip brace, so he is unable to bend far enough to gaze at his navel – hehe!

As a lecturer in English and creative writing you would think I knew what ‘halycon days’ meant – not so. I thought it meant those glorious fun-filled days of youth….

Son is on the left here with one of his best friends. Obviously this was before his operation.

And here he is (bottom centre) with all his wonderful cousins on my side of the family, and Grandma (top centre) last Christmas.

‘Halycon days’ actually means days of calm and tranquility so perhaps, during these days of post-operative convalescence, lassitude is okay; perhaps these are our halycon days and we should embrace them.

Family Friendship

6 Comments »
Mar 18

Lassitude

by jmgoyder

Today, Son and I had an argument interesting conversation:

Son: What is wrong with me? I don’t have energy – I HATE this! I’m sick of sleeping and wasting all this time!

Me: You had major surgery four weeks ago – it’s all normal. Every day you are getting better and your spine is healing. If you want to sleep, sleep and stop worrying about it.

Son: But I can’t stand it, Mum, and what about you – what’s wrong with you? Why are you so lazy and blah?

Me: It’s called lassitude.

Son: What the hell is that?

Me: It’s what we both have – this inability to get off our bums and move on; it’s my broken heart about Dad and….

Son: I’m sick of your broken heart.

Me: I’m sick of it too.

Son: And my spine isn’t straight anyway – it’s still crooked and I wanted to be perfect.

Me: Nobody’s spine is perfect and it’s a miracle of medical science that you have been straightened this much. Please stop this miserable whining.

Son: Then you stop crying!

Me: I’m just tired.

Son: So do we both have this lassitude thing?

Me: Yes, but it’ll pass.

Son: Mum, I love Dad too but I just can’t….

Me: I know.

Son: That’s a good word – lassitude – I’m going to remember that one.

Me: Yeah, and I’m going to lassoo it and take it to the dump.

Son: When?

Me: After I have a little nap….

Son: Okay, call me when you need a hand.

How come Woodroffe gets to do lassitude in peace?

This evening, Husband and I had an interesting conversation on the phone:

Me: He’s got lassitude-with-an-attitude now – argh!

Husband: Tell him to go easy on himself.

Me: What about going easy on me?

Husband: That too … are you okay?

Me: No, I miss you and I miss the way it was when….

Husband: Bring the brat in here tomorrow and I’ll straighten him out.

Me: Okay – good idea – brilliant idea!

Husband: ‘Night then – I’m watching a show on the ABC.

Me: Oh, okay – love you….

The lassitude is gone!

Family Wings

52 Comments »
Mar 18

Okami and Uluru

by jmgoyder

Our two alpacas, Okami and Uluru, are the gentlest creatures I have ever come across. Son gave them their names when we first got them and, because we’d been told that their presence here would deter the foxes that lurk somewhere out there, their names reflect this. ‘Okami’ is a Japanese word that roughly translates to ‘wolf with spiritual powers’ (my paraphrase), and ‘Uluru’ is, of course, the Aboriginal word for that big brown ‘pebble’ in the centre of Australia, previously known as Ayers Rock. Somehow their heavily symbolic names don’t seem to match their placid personalities. I don’t think they could kill a fly, let alone a fox!

Here are some recent photos of them:

They do everything very slowly; they wander around slowly, chew grass and the wheat I give them slowly, stare and blink slowly. When my heartbeat is galloping I only have to watch Okami and Uluru for a minute or so and their tranquility calms me down.

This morning I tried to beat Okami in an unblinking competition but he easily won. Perhaps this is how they deter the foxes?

Animal

29 Comments »
Mar 17

Tapper

by jmgoyder

Tapper gravitates between the turkeys she was brought up with, the drakes and ganders who find her attractive, and lots and lots of alone time. She went missing over the last two days and I was worried but then, as I was putting the gang away tonight, she reappeared and flew willingly into a yard full of amorously- confused geese and one lone drake (Zaruma). Mmmm.

In case you haven’t noticed, I am a bit of a novice when it comes to the sexual antics of poultry and other birds and what I witnessed yesterday afternoon was a little disturbing to say the least. Zaruma started it, then Godfrey tried to fight Zaruma off then the shy Seli tried too. I was gobsmacked watching this and was on-the-ready to rescue Tapper, but she didn’t seem to mind, whereas I felt like I was watching one of those disturbing rite-of-passage movies.

Until 18 months ago I was a university lecturer living on a farm; now I am, as Husband puts it, with a twinkle in his eye, a farm girl – ha! As for Son, it’s probably best not to share his current definition of me (another ‘ha’).

I guess I just want things to go back in time – just a little bit.

Wings

16 Comments »
Mar 16

The humming of heroism

by jmgoyder

Today.

I went in and picked Husband up this morning from the nursing lodge to spend the day with Son and me.

Several hours later, I had to take Husband back for dinner and medication. When I had to say goodbye, a feeling of such deafening bereftness made my ears ring until Husband kissed my hand and said, “This is all right; I am all right. There is nothing else we could have done so go on, go home and look after our son.”

Driving home, I hummed one of Husband’s favourite songs – Michael Jackson’s “We are the world”, sobbing to have lost half of my world – this hero of a husband who has always cared more about others than he has ever cared about himself …

I have so much more to say about this heroic husband of mine but this is probably a post I should continue when I get my sense of humour back.

Tomorrow.

Family

22 Comments »
Mar 16

Hold your head up high

by jmgoyder

Geese have a natural ability to hold their heads up high. You’ve all seen pictures of Godfrey doing this, but the younger ones are getting good at it too. Diamond, on the left, is getting particularly good at it, whereas Seli still doesn’t have it down to a fine art.

The following photo is of my wonderful, unusual, brilliant friend, Nathalie Collins who, amongst other things, has enhanced my neck-stretching abilities by showing me how to hold my head up high. She herself (not that I am comparing her to a goose!) has a very natural ability to do so which, before I met her, I lacked. You can find Nathalie here and it’s definitely worth a gander (sorry that is a really bad play on words but I couldn’t help myself!)

http://theinfinitegame.org/cv/

Nathalie got me into blogging in the first place and set me up with WordPress when I didn’t even really know what blogging was. In fact, I am such a technophobe that I only just discovered that, after all these months, I wasn’t even properly signed up to her own blog (this is quite embarrassing and I hope she will forgive me!)

This is what Nathalie had to say about the picture:

“These “angel wing” crystal earrings were purchased in the USA, but the fashion has since migrated south to Australia. Silver and gold feathers are “in” at the moment and were part of my outfit in the “wear a hat to work day” I recently experienced.

 By the way, the hat was an original, Summer White House Press Hat from the Clinton Administration, given to me by a friend who covered the that president during his summer in Martha’s Vinyard. Now matter how the vote went no one else at work had a hat that cool

The hat that won the vote? A straw hat with peacock feathers! I was devastated.

The thing about the earrings is that they remind me of Julie…the bird bit mainly, but also the sparkly bit. In her own way, Julie is as bright and shiny (and cheerful) as the crystals in my earrings.”

Nathalie is my Diamond and I am her Seli. Some friendships are definitely worth feathering….

Friendship Wings

6 Comments »
Mar 15

In search of a wife

by jmgoyder

Phoenix 1, our remaining golden pheasant, is in search of a wife – yes indeed. This morning I was amazed to see him flirting with Malay (one of our roosters which might be a hen). Here is Malay in front of one of the old sheds. Malay is the grown up chick belonging to the first Malay who was one of the many hens to disappear courtesy of the fox. S/he is twice the size of Phoenix 1.

Originally we had four pheasants – two brothers from one farm and two sisters from another. All was well until one of the females died and the brothers fought over the remaining female and Phoenix 1 banished Phoenix 2 to one of the neighbouring properties (I wrote about this in my first post). Subsequently, and unfortunately, the other female was also killed by the fox so, in a matter of days, we went from four pheasants to one very lonely male.

When there were four of them, Phoenix 1 and Phoenix 2 spent the bulk of their time flirting with the female pheasants. It was relentless and hilarious. What they did was to flit very fast around the females, do a kind of hoppy dance and then enlarge the striped feathers around their necks, one side at a time – left, then right, then left and so on. It resembled the opening of an old-fashioned fan and I was never able to get a photo of this because they move too quickly. Needless to say, the females (a grey-brown colour) were just as fast in their attempts to escape this constant attention.

So here is another person’s photo of another pheasant doing the fan thing.

Well,  I haven’t seen Phoenix 1 do this for months due to the absence of a female pheasant. So, this morning, as I was sitting on the back doorstep feeding bread to the peacocks, I heard the trilling noise that accompanies the pheasant flirting ritual and was amazed to see Phoenix 1 pursuing Malay, who was also amazed – and alarmed! The chase scenes were like something out of a Disney movie!

What next?

Wings

14 Comments »
Mar 15

Advice

by jmgoyder

Advice is a strange thing. Sometimes you want it, need it even, and sometimes you don’t. I have always been very careful not to give advice unless it is asked for because I don’t like it when, in the middle of a relaxed conversation with a friend or family member, the person says “You should ….” Yeah, I don’t like that word, ‘should’ either!

Yesterday and today I asked for advice and, because I asked for the advice, I gave it a big hug when it was given to me. My three chosen advisors (one a handyman, one an accountant and the other an entrepeuneur) gave me pragmatic, do-able advice and I wanted to hug them too but thought that might be presumptuous.

Everything seems to have changed so quickly. All the birds I accumulated to make our lives more cheerful in the face of Husband’s physical deterioration live here happily while Husband himself lives in the nursing lodge. And the cuckoo clock I bought him for Christmas chimes every half hour all by itself in the living room where Husband and I watched television – a room Son and I hardly go into now because we are each doing ‘our own thing’.

Tonight, at dusk, I stood outside and looked at one of Husband’s favourite trees. It stands old, stark and defiant in the front paddock and its leaves whisper in the wind. I remember the time hundreds of crows bombarded it with a noise like thunder and scared us all until they flew away again. I remember the time one of our dacshunds burrowed so far under this tree, chasing rabbits that, by the time she emerged her nose was all swollen. I remember too, that this was Husband’s mother’s favourite tree.

“I think that tree is dying,” said one of my advisors.

Does anyone have any advice?

Family Wings

37 Comments »
Mar 14

Time travel

by jmgoyder

This morning I was about to run into the bedroom and wake Husband up to ask him a question about the flame trees, then remembered he wasn’t here. That hasn’t happened to me before and he has been at the nursing lodge for nearly two months. Missing his presence here is a bit of a mixed bag because my nostalgia tends to yoyo back and forth in time to when Husband was well, to when became ill, to when he was well, to when his condition worsened – and so on….

Anyway, I rang him instead and after our usual catching up chatter, and telling him I’d be in later to see him, our conversation went like this:

Me: I’m writing a little blog on the flame trees. How old do you think they are?

Husband: Well over 100 years.

Me: So did you plant them or were they here when your family bought the farm?

There was a rather long pause

Husband: Jules?

Me: Yes?

Husband: I’m not that old.

Well, that gave us both a laugh.

Husband: You’re not very bright in the mornings are you.

Me: Shut up!

Well, here are the flame trees! They are bright red in the winter months and bright green in the summer months. The reason I took this picture was because, during one of my searches for the emus, I thought one of the flame tree branches was an emu. That was probably in the morning too!

Family Wings

29 Comments »
Mar 13

Avian antics

by jmgoyder

I didn’t mean to chop this turkey’s head off in the photo, however yesterday evening I wanted to do it literally because Bubble got trapped behind a fence and Son and I had to herd him into our garden and back to the yard. Okay, to explain – both of our original turkeys are named Bubble. This one is obviously a male because he is much bigger than the other Bubble who, at the time of this ridiculous incident, was already in the yard with Baby Turkey and the gang. Now the reason I describe this situation as ‘ridiculous’ is because I don’t understand why this Bubble had to be herded when he can fly!

It’s as if he wanted to do it the hard way, rather than the easy way – or perhaps he just lacks commonsense. I understand both, I guess, as I often choose the more difficult route unintentionally due to an innate (it would seem) inability to see the commonsense solution.

The most ironic thing is that, once Bubble was in the yard with the gang, he flew straight into the adjacent emu yard anyway! The Emerys love him because he stops Baby Turkey from giving them nightmares.

And then Tapper did her evening indecision dance. She perches on top of the fence between the gang’s yard and the Indian Runner’s yard, as if to say, “Which one of you guys wants me most?” This flirtatiousness has given her a rather bad reputation so, in the end, she usually just flies out of all of the yards and goes back to the bath to meditate.

And poor King peacock now hides in the avocado tree because he is (I assume) so embarrassed that his feather aren’t growing back as quickly as was expected, so now all of the adolescent peacocks are surpassing him.

Husband’s nursing lodge is in ‘lockdown’ at the moment due to a virus outbreak so, even though I have snuck in a couple of times, I’ve been told not to visit, or bring him home, until it is safe. Apparently tomorrow it will be ‘all clear’ again. In the meantime, Son’s post-surgery convalescence is having its ups and downs.

Last night I dreamed I was a bird – just a tiny bird, the size of a sparrow – and I was flying over this farm and our house trying to shed my little leftover feathers onto all of the things that needed fixing, but I couldn’t because my feathers were made of steel. My wings got more and more cement-like and, eventually, I fell to the ground.

Perhaps I need to get a non-Avian hobby – hehe!

Family Wings

13 Comments »
«Older Entries
Newer Entries »
Blog at WordPress.com.