jmgoyder

wings and things

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!

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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.

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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!

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“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”

Phoenix 1 (our golden pheasant) and King (our adult peacock) were perched together, but not together, in the avocado tree the other afternoon so here is a series of not-very-successful pictures of them. When I say ‘not-very-successful’, I mean that, despite my amazing photographic abilities (ha!) neither would look at me and pose properly. I will have to send them back to modelling school. Their contrasting colours are lovely though, and I will keep trying to get better photos of them now that they have developed this habit of hanging out together.

Oh, yeah, and who was it who said that “if at first…” thing?

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Fighting fugdom on Friday

Zaruma is in a fug because the turkeys keep bullying him. Some evenings I have to actually pick him up and put him in the yard for the night. One of his feet is a little damaged from the latest battle with Baby Turkey so I contemplated bringing him into the back veranda to convalesce with Doc (who has kind of rallied – vet tomorrow, Husband and you guys suggest) until Son gave me ‘the look’. ‘The look’ is an expression of incredulity and shock and it is very effective. Needless to say, Doc is in the back verandah and Zaruma is out in the yard, but Son has put the turkeys in with Daffy and Dotty, the Indian Runner ducks, in the adjacent yard. It’s not as complicated as it sounds.

The definition of being ‘in a fug’ is when:

1. you don’t collect the mail from the post office for a week and then  you leave it in the car for another week and then you bring it into the house and put it aside unopened for another week because it looks a bit billy

2. the tiniest of tasks seems insurmountable so that it seems a long way down to your feet to put your socks on

3. your mind does 50 laps while your body just hangs around drinking banana milkshakes

4. tomorrow becomes your favourite word

5. you forget to buy your grade 2 kid the left-handed scissors he needs for art class

The first time I was hit badly by fugdom was due to the last thing on the above list. My failure to remember the scissors for the third week in a row compelled Son’s teacher to ask me rather pleadingly to provide them and, mortified, I raced into town and bought the scissors and returned to the school and gave them to the teacher with my face squashed into a pretend smile. Then, driving home, I sobbed so hard about those scissors that I could hardly breathe.

The fugdom is back with a vengeance and there are many logical reasons for this, like anxiety about Husband, about Doc and Zaruma, about Son, who seems to have absorbed some of the fug, but there is also something illogical about it because of the hugely joyful balloon at the bottom of my stomach, waiting patiently.

So tomorrow – yes, tomorrow, Friday – I am going to take all of the mail into the nursing lodge and deal with it in the company of Husband’s moral support and I will not write another post until it is done – that’s my Friday challenge – hehe!

And hopefully, tomorrow, Zaruma will be back to normal!

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“Idiot child!”

My maternal grandfather used to call me ‘idiot child’ when I was little. He said this fondly, so it was a term of endearment but I think he might have been right, because I have always been fantastically good at making a fool of myself. So I am still that idiot child despite a few decades having passed by.

But I am not so much of an idiot that I can’t read between the lines of how this blog has altered in tone from light-hearted and somewhat hopeful, and mostly about birds, last November, to what it is now. It is certainly much more about things than about wings. I worry that it is beginning to be tinged with a death theme and I know what that’s about.

Son has berated me for this morning’s ‘Doc’ post because he saw it on Facebook and he was enraged that (a) I had given up on Doc, and (b) I told the “world”.

My mother says she couldn’t do a blog because she wouldn’t want to “bare her soul” which means I must seem like I am baring mine – how ghastly!

One of my best friends says, in a gobsmacked way, “I’m ringing to see if you are okay because I just read your post.” He was referring to one from some time ago in which I was bereft and he said, “You always have been so transparent with your emotions.”

Needless to say, these comments make me feel like an idiot – ha!

This afternoon, I went to visit Husband in the nursing lodge and it was great. We walked up to the corner of the lodge property and discovered yet another ocean view, some other friends came and we ended up in Husband’s room, having a few laughs and reminiscing and then Husband began to falter and I needed to go home to see what was happening with Doc (I had left Son in charge).

Tomorrow Husband wants to come home for the day to help us make the Doc decision, so that is a good thing. As I was leaving, I said to him “Do you think I am an idiot?”

Without hesitation, Husband replied, “No, you’re just Jules.” And his acceptance is, and always has been, my warmest blanket.

But, speaking of idiocy, it wasn’t until I looked at a blurred picture I took of Phoenix 1 the other day that I realized the avocadoes were ripening – can you see them?

If you can’t see them, you are an idiot!

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Dangerous divulgences!

I have noticed lately, that all of the blogs I subscribe to are written by people who are good people. I have also noticed that sometimes good people let something slip into their posts that is not-so-good, or not-so-pleasant, a kind of appeal to indulge the divulgence, a hesitantly heroic haha of honesty, a ferocious fault-line, a grinning uncertainty.

I like to smoke cigars

I like to sip beer

I like to swear

Obviously Godrey doesn’t approve but who cares – I am not a goose!

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Tina Turner

Husband has always adored Tina Turner and that song, “We don’t need another hero!” It’s easy to find on youtube but here is one link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1FPK5-Rm38

I hope the real Tina Turner doesn’t mind that we named a rooster (who we thought was a hen) after her, but the resemblance was uncanny and our Tina has the very same feistiness!

I rang Husband in the nursing lodge a moment ago and asked him to confirm that it was the Tina Turner song, “We don’t need another hero” that he loved so much. I even sang a bit of it on the phone which made us both laugh. He said yes.

Here are the lyrics to this famous song:“We Don’t Need Another Hero”

OUT OF THE RUINS OUT FROM THE WRECKAGE CAN`T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE THIS TIME WE ARE THE CHILDREN THE LAST GENERATION WE ARE THE ONES THEY LEFT BEHIND AND I WONDER WHEN WE ARE EVER GONNA CHANGE LIVING UNDER THE FEAR, TILL NOTHING ELSE REMAINS
WE DON`T NEED ANOTHER HERO WE DON`T NEED TO KNOW THE WAY HOME ALL WE WANT IS LIFE BEYOND THUNDERDOME
LOOKING FOR SOMETHING WE CAN RELY ON THERE`S GOTTA BE SOMETHING BETTER OUT THERE LOVE AND COMPASSION THEIR DAY IS COMING ALL ELSE ARE CASTLES BUILT IN THE AIR AND I WONDER WHEN WE ARE EVER GONNA CHANGE LIVING UNDER THE FEAR TILL NOTHING ELSE REMAINS
ALL THE CHILDREN SAY WE DON`T NEED ANOTHER HERO WE DON`T NEED TO KNOW THE WAY HOME ALL WE WANT IS LIFE BEYOND THUNDERDOME
SO WHAT DO WE DO WITH OUR LIFES WE LEAVE ONLY A MARK WILL OUR STORY SHINE LIKE A LIGHT OR END IN THE DARK GIVE IT ALL OR NOTHING
WE DON`T NEED ANOTHER HERO WE DON`T NEED TO KNOW THE WAY HOME ALL WE WANT IS LIFE BEYOND THUNDERDOME
I quite like the way my copy/paste of the above lyrics has accidentally crammed them altogether into a single wordy crush of feeling – a single paragraph and decades of meaning….
Thank you, Tina Turner.
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Shy

Woodroffe loves having his (her?) photo taken.

Diamond, on the other hand, is far too shy and – no offence to Woody – Diamond is much prettier!

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I should have kept my mouth shut!

Well, it’s drizzling rain and I have the flu, so I rather miserably went outside to let the gang out of their pens later than usual this morning and, almost immediately, all these fights broke out. Seli (one of the ganders) was attacking Baby Turkey; Tapper (duck) had left her nest of unhatched eggs to give one of the Bubbles (turkey) a huge bite on the bum; and then the other Bubble and Zaruma (Tapper’s ‘husband’) started fighting viciously- really viciously. I had seen them do this before but this was really horrible so I kept trying to break them up and then all of a sudden, as I was yelling “Stop it!” they both ended up in the slimy green pool at the centre of the yard and, because I was so close and yelling, my mouth and nostrils were immediately filled with the goop of their splash and a wave of it speckled me from head to toe.

This is the embattled Zaruma who is usually bright white with orange legs and feet, so all of the black stuff on him is the same as what catapulted into my mouth! I have used half a tube of toothpaste; next time there is an incident, I will definitely keep my mouth shut!

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