jmgoyder

wings and things

Mar 9

Emu adventures

by jmgoyder

Yesterday’s emu fiasco went like this:

  • 6pm: Joyous discovery that the three Emerys were still in that paddock adjacent to our paddock (on the corner of two roads)
  • 6.10pm: Son and I cancel dinner with my mum and make a plan to herd emus back into our paddock
  • 6.15pm: We drive down our road and turn right into the other road and park near the gate to the paddock
  • 6.16pm: Son walks into the paddock to herd emus to the gate and out onto the road. The plan is to herd them, with me in the car, and Son on foot, up the road and around the corner into our road and up to our driveway and into our property
  • 6.40pm: Son gets the emus out of the paddock and into the road and, with my car lights flashing, I follow as Son walks them to the corner
  • 6.45pm: Two cars going in opposite directions on the road are forced to stop to allow us our slow journey. I have to jump in and out of the car to stop the Emerys from coming back. This is difficult as emus can run backwards!
  • 6.55pm: We eventually reach the corner and the people in both cars get out and help us to get the emus to turn into our road. Hilarity and thank yous are exchanged, then they all drive off
  • 7pm: With Son walking in front of the emus, and me driving behind, we gradually get them close to our driveway. Dusk is falling.
  • 7.10pm: The emus get to a little bridge and won’t cross it, so begin to run back towards my car. I leap out and shoo them back up
  • 7.12: The situation repeats itself
  • 7.14: And again. They will not cross the bridge
  • 7.15: Again – back and forth, back and forth. By now I have abandoned the car and I, too, am on foot
  • 7.30: Success at last; I have them running towards Son who is right next to our paddock. We decide to open a gate into our paddock instead of trying to get them all the way to our driveway, which is just past the stupid bridge
  • 7.31: Just before they get to our gate, they all push through into the same paddock (adjacent to ours) where they were in the first place
  • 7.32: Son begins to yell in frustration when I follow them (getting a nasty shock from the electric fence – I’m not quite sure why this didn’t deter the emus)
  • 7.33: I try herding them but, because it is now getting dark, they go all skittish and run in all directions. I have the vague hope of herding them through the fence into our paddock, but it doesn’t work
  • 7.40: Son screams ‘give up, Mum – it’s not worth it!’
  • 7.41: I walk back to the road and get into the car with Son who is exhausted in his back brace and in a rage
  • 7.42: We drive the tiny distance home in a frenzy of frustration
  • 8pm: The howling begins and ends
  • 8.30pm: Son and I agree that one day, in the far-off future, this might be a funny story….
  • 9pm: I find photos taken previously, during emu-walking, that illustrate this post
  • 9.05pm: Son tells me I am crazy and I tell him he is right
  • 9.10pm: We exchange a reluctant hug and begin to plan tomorrow’s emu adventure

Family Wings

10 Comments »
Mar 8

So close and yet so far away

by jmgoyder

The three Emerys are still in that paddock they absconded to! I can’t believe it! They must have been there all this time!

Son and I were about to go to my mother’s for tea when he spotted them in the distance (they are two paddocks away).

We tried to herd them back but, with dusk falling, had to give up again (long, tragi-comic story that I will post another time when I am less exhausted from emu-herding).

Tomorrow we will try again – yeeha! I’ll keep all you emu lovers posted….

Remember our very first Emery?

Wings

10 Comments »
Mar 8

Geese, glorious geese (and a few humans!)

by jmgoyder

Family Wings

2 Comments »
Mar 7

Peacock feathers

by jmgoyder

The other afternoon we had visitors and three little girls collected peacock feathers from the lawn and gleefully asked me if they could keep them. Of course I said yes, and they took the feathers back to where they were staying, their eyes alight with excitement.

Less than 15 minutes later, the feathers were returned. “We’re not allowed to have them because they’re bad luck,” said one.

I was gobsmacked. Obviously I had heard of this superstition before but I was amazed that something so beautiful, and in the hands of such beautiful children, could be rejected and rendered ugly. The following picture is of King before he shed his feathers. He will grow them back soon!

The myth of peacock feathers being bad luck is equally matched by the myth of peacock feathers being good luck. This has to do with whether you see the peacock feather’s ‘eye’ as malevolent or benevolent – whether you see it as watching you, or watching over you. It also has to do with whether you are superstitious or not. I’m not.

So I now have those rejected peacock feather in a vase next to me. Their eyes stare into mine with the kindness of centuries.

Never have I felt so safe.

Wings

18 Comments »
Mar 7

Eggs

by jmgoyder

Angelina: What are these things?

Phoenix 1: I’m not sure, but they look rather delicious.

Queenie: They’re chicken eggs, you morons. Well, I think they are … they dropped out of the woman’s bag of cabbage. Don’t touch them – they could be from the shop!

Tapper: How do you know they’re not duck eggs?

Wings

10 Comments »
Mar 7

Footsteps

by jmgoyder

Sometimes you have to collide with a corner before turning it and yesterday Son and I had one such collision. Don’t worry, we weren’t in a car or anything; we were just in the kitchen verbalizing a fair bit of angst with each other. Much later in the day, having extricated each other from the crash scene, we both realized that we were not angry with each other, but angry with ourselves, so we sat outside in the dusk and managed to turn the corner.

This morning, knowing that today we would be running in the same direction, I sipped my first coffee with a feeling of anticipation and waited for Son to wake up. It wasn’t until I was into my second coffee that I heard his footsteps in the house so I went into the kitchen and, thinking he was in his bedroom, I called out, “Good morning! I’m so glad we had that talk yesterday because I think it’s just that we’ve both been in a kind of rut so a bit later, when you feel up to it, we’ll get out of the house and go to town. We should go to a restaurant for lunch – do you want to go to that one on the beach?”

When there was no answer, I was a bit mystified until I went into the bedroom to find Son still fast asleep. Then I heard the footsteps again and realised it was King peacock on the roof!

You gotta laugh!

Family Wings

13 Comments »
Mar 6

Up close!

by jmgoyder

Since beginning this blog, and discovering the wonderful world of photography via other blogs, I have become really keen on developing my obvious natural skills. Take, for instance, this close-up of Woodroffe which I’ve decided to enter it into a ‘worst photo’ competition if there is such a thing. (If there isn’t, perhaps I should patent this idea?) Alternatively, it could be a poster for an up-and-coming horror movie? It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that this is simply Woody being affectionate with me.

This following photo of Seli is not much better. He seems to be saying, “focus, Julie, focus” Well, I was trying!

I have improved a little I think. This photo of an Emery isn’t bad. Yes, I know I’ve posted it before, but I can’t take anymore pictures, now that the emus have gone, can I.

And Angelina will do handstands, pirouettes, imitate the ‘swan-stance’ – anything at all, including standing very still – to get her photo onto the blog.

So I am thinking of adding the category of ‘photography’ to my blog but that is just as scary as the picture of Woody!

No, wait a minute, I just remembered a scarier thing; last night I took a close-up photo of my own face as an experiment.

Why, why, oh why did I do that?

Wings

18 Comments »
Mar 6

Smiling, sighing and starting again!

by jmgoyder

Today, I started again with Husband.

I took Husband back to the nursing lodge and, after the usual teary farewell, I walked from his room down the long hallway and then thought that was getting to be a really stupid, repetitive ritual. So I ran back up the hallway, startling a couple of nurses, and yippeed back into Husband’s room, startling him even more, and pounced on him, wiped the tears away from his cheeks and yelled “One more hug for the road!” I left him laughing his head off. Yes!

Today, I started again with Son.

Me: (washing dishes with Son) Sigh

Son: You sighed again

Me: No I didn’t

Son: Yes you did – you just sighed as if you wanted me to go away

Me: I didn’t sigh and I don’t want you to go away. Sigh

Son: See – you did it again!

Me: (holding breath) Okay, so I’ll try not to sigh

Son: I don’t understand your sighs – you do it all the time.

Me: If I sigh, it usually just means I’m tired.

Son: Tired of me or of Dad?

Me: What answer would you prefer?

Son: The truth

Me: Okay, I’m a bit tired from the busy weekend with Dad and everything else

Son: I’m so sorry about the emus, Mum

Me: It’s okay – let’s not talk about it. Sigh

Son: Mum, can we have a talk later on about stuff?

Me: Why can’t we have a talk now?

Son: Because I’m busy resting – seeya. Oh, do you want more help with the dishes?

Me: No thanks, darling. Sigh

Son: Are you sure? You just sighed again.

Me: Sorry. Sigh

Son: I’m actually just watching the Harry Potter series because I missed most of it in my youth

Me: I think that’s great!

Son: Okay, love you, Mum

Me: Love you too. Sigh

Son: (from his room) I heard that sigh

Me: (thundering down the hallway into his room with a teatowel as a weapon) It was a happy sigh, okay!

Son: (terrified) Okay, okay! Sigh

He’ll be back!

Today, I started again with the dogs-versus-birds dilemma

And I was rewarded by a small miracle – Doc and one of the Bubbles together. I was utterly amazed because Doc has attacked cattle, sheep, other dogs, rabbits, and plenty of birds, over the years. He is a real little killer, literally! So to see these two guys simply curious about each other made all the starting overs today worth it!

Today, I started again with the vegetable garden

No I didn’t – hehe!

Animal Family Wings

23 Comments »
Mar 5

Chasing Joy

by jmgoyder

You can’t chase joy and, if you try, it tends to get away.

and you can’t just sit there and wait for it to return either because joy doesn’t like lassitude.

You have to create joy in order to entice its proliferation

and you have to embrace it when it does accidentally bump into you on its way somewhere else.

There is a bird here called Joy and it flutters around in my hair, smoodges into the inside of my elbows, perches on the toes of my boots, sits comfortably in my pockets, and comes and goes as it pleases.

It isn’t real, this Joy – it’s more than real.

Yeah, I know, abstract poetry doesn’t work but what the hell!

Okay, so today is Husband’s third day home and two out of three of his nights here were good. During the second night he got that leg pain thing and the painkillers didn’t work so that was a bit horrible, but last night was peaceful for all of us. Today I can sense a strange restlessness in him, almost as if he wants to go back to the nursing lodge where the care is definitely far superior to mine (and the meals he said – hrmpph!)

It’s been a mixed long weekend – the three of us together but separate. A mixed weekend too because of unexpected traumas, expected tensions, mutual avoidance, remembered adoration.

Chasing joy is a futile exercise and you know why?

Because it’s often just around the corner waiting to say ‘BOO!’

Oh yeah, and Joy doesn’t like having its photo taken – sorry!

Family Uncategorized Wings

6 Comments »
Mar 5

Wanderlust

by jmgoyder

Well, another lesson learned. When the emu farmer delivered the Emerys several months ago, he did say that because they were already 6 months old, they would be difficult to tame. And yes, it took awhile for me to be able to handfeed and pat them but, now that they are gone, I’ve remembered another thing he said which was that free-ranging them could be tricky because of their tendency to go walkabout.

Yesterday, when I found them in the next door paddock they were actually having a great time eating grass and bugs and grit. Cabbage couldn’t compete and even though (I thought) they were relieved to see me, and they cheeped fondly, all of my attempts to herd them back through the various spaces in the fences became futile.

In retrospect I don’t think they could hold the contradiction of their fondness for me and their fondness for freedom in their heads so, in wandering away rather than back, it’s obvious that they chose freedom. After all, they are nomadic creatures and they love to wander. By the time dusk fell yesterday, despite sighting them in other adjacent paddocks (which proves they could get through various fences), I had to give up. This morning they are nowhere to be seen so I imagine, like Wantok, they are now kilometres away up in the hills with other creatures of their kind. They are big enough now to defend themselves against foxes and they are instinctively nomadic and self-sufficient.

The remorse of having accidentally injured one of them in getting him over the fence will probably remain in my rolling heart for some time; that was the darkest of yesterday’s moments.

If our 5 acres of garden and 100 acres of farmland wasn’t enough for them, then I guess they made the right decision and it’s my loss, their gain. I will miss them but I won’t worry about them because they have probably already forgotten me anyway. Yes indeed, another lesson learned.

Wings

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