Wrong way. Go back.
In Western Australia we have big signs wherever roadworks are being done in case people go the wrong way. This can be useful, but it can also be a bit confusing.
It’s a little bit like that with blogging because you get really curious to go down a certain blog path, you like what you are reading/seeing, but you are also uncertain of where exactly you are and sometimes the historical context of where you are, in that person’s blog, takes quite a bit of time, quite a bit of deciphering.
With my own blog, Wings and things, it’s obviously the same experience for new readers or followers because, of course, the latest post is always the most recent and, unless people have time to go back, they might not ‘get it’ that there are two different-but-same stories running parallel. The Love story is about the past but everything else is about the present.
As many of you already know, my husband has chronic Parkinson’s disease and terminal prostate cancer and is now in a nursing lodge close by. Our 18-year-old son recently had major spinal surgery. And me – I love birds!
I can’t keep up with the many blogs I am interested in, no matter how hard I try, but one thing I like to do is to go back and read the very beginnings of those blogs which is what I hope people will do with mine. It’s not that there is a wrong or a right way necessarily, but going back can be fantastic!
Oh yeah, and if you go back, you will find that I don’t usually do 4 posts in the day. I cheated today with the pics – hehe!
Oh, the beautiful peas!
King is our only adult peacock (not counting Queenie, his wife, who is a peahen) and, as some of you may recall, he moulted his magnificent tail feathers some time ago and is only now gradually growing them back. Until that happens, he prefers me to just take head shots. This photo is of him looking at himself longingly in the back veranda window reflection, wondering when he will get those feathers back!
And the following photo is of him flaunting himself (a few months ago) in a winning competition with our adolescent white peacock.
Unfortunately for King, the white peacock’s tail feathers are growing faster (perhaps because these will be his first?) This is him now.
I can’t wait to take a photo of this guy doing his display thing! It won’t be long….
Emus
For those of you who don’t know the emu back-story, here it is in brief. We got our first little emu as a chick and he bonded with the other babies – ducks, geese and turkeys, and with me. I named him Emery. I bought him from a hobby farmer who said all of Emery’s brothers and sisters had been bought and he was lonely.
I subsequently bought a couple more emu chicks from another hobby farmer, so we had three little Emerys. But, as they were, like all of the other birds, free-ranging, I lost all three to a fox in one afternoon, when they wandered off into a back paddock. It’s difficult to describe the horror I felt at the time.
Fast forward a bit: I then found a proper emu farmer who was willing to bring me six adolescent emus and, yes, I named them all ‘Emery’. It took me awhile to tame them, and we have lost three – one on arrival, one to digestive problems and another to paralysis (again, all of this was horrifying for me), but the remaining three are wonderfully happy and settled.
Several of my previous posts include various emu stories and other pictures, but the exciting news now is that, because the proper emu farmer ‘owes’ me a chick, I will soon be getting another baby Emery and this time I will be much more careful.
Wheat and chaff
Every morning and every afternoon, I refill the food containers with wheat for the throng of birds, and they all rush at me in a flood of colour. The only ‘odd-man-out’ is Phoenix 1, our golden pheasant, who tries to fit in with the rest of the birds but whose colours outshine everyone else’s, so he is a little excluded. They think he is the chaff but I think he is the wheat! As a result of these dynamics, he and I have become very close and I don’t think it will be long before he leaps onto my lap.
An over-abundance of masculinity
I just figured out why there is suddenly so much squabbling amongst our birds; there are too many males! I decided to do a count today and here are the statistics:
- four roosters (no hens);
- one golden pheasant (no females);
- ten peacocks (five peahens);
- two drakes (two ducks);
- five ganders (two geese);
- one emu (two emuettes);
- two turkey toms (one female); and
- one weiro.
The fact that we also have two male alpacas and two male dogs means that, if you include Son and me in the equation, and not counting the twelve gender-defying guinnea fowl, we roughly have a ratio of 3 to 1 in favour of the male presence here. It is definitely time to get some more hens!
I figure if there is more of a female presence here, Godfrey will stop trying to lord it over me!
Note: We did have a lot of hens but the fox got them so now I have a better yard, with higher fences. I hope this works!
Unhatched eggs
Well, it looks like little Tapper isn’t cut out to be a mother yet after all because, after weeks and weeks of sitting on those eggs, she has given up. She did try!
Bubble, the female turkey Tapper was brought up with (there is also a male Bubble), is absolutely delighted to have her best friend back out and about. They are very close as you can see.
Tapper: Motherhood isn’t everything, Bubs!
Bubble: Oh, okay, Taps.
New kid on the block
What on earth is it?
I’m not sure!
It’s quite ugly.
I think it’s quite cute!
I think we might be scaring it, guys – c’mon let it settle in.
Yes, okay, but what is it?
I’M A ROOSTER, YOU WEIRDOS!
Joy
I used to think that Joy just automatically flew into your soul
She doesn’t
She always waits patiently for you to stop feeling sorry for yourself
and she doesn’t tolerate grumbling, mumbling, bumbling, stumbling or crumbling
She waits for you to tell her that it is okay to fly away
but to come back soon.
You can’t just say ‘yes’ to Joy; you have to say ‘yes, please,’ because Joy is very polite
I said, ‘yes please’ to Joy a minute ago
and she just landed on my shoulders.
Joy was a bit abrupt when she told me to clean the cobwebs out of my soul,
but I followed her instructions with a bit of Ajax.
I quite like her!
jmgoyder 