Chicken | jmgoyder

Comedies of errors

by jmgoyder

1. With a heart full of love and gratitude to Ming who had mowed lawns all day, then fed and put the gang away, I re-heated my chicken noodle soup made from scratch (yes, I boiled a chicken, boned it, removed the disgusting fat the next day, added noodles, vegetables and spices and voila!)

So tonight is the third night of the chicken soup. On night 1, Ming said it was like heaven; on night 2, he said it tasted even better. Alas, tonight, he said, “Mum, this dinner thing is becoming such an ordeal for me.”

Brat!

2. I rang the hospital this afternoon to confirm the booking for Anthony’s skin cancer operation tomorrow and not only was there no record of this, there was also no record of the original date. So I had to make several more phonecalls to figure out if Anthony and I were real people etc.

I just rang again and apparently we do exist so that is a great relief.

3. At 4pm I answered the phone hoping it was the peacock rescuer man but it was Ants who had asked a nurse to ring me. He was completely disorientated and kept begging me to love him again. It took a long time to reassure him about where he was, and remind him about tomorrow’s operation.

I said “I love you, Ants” so many times, until he finally believed me.

Animal Family Friendship LOVE STORY

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An interesting courtship – or two

by jmgoyder

I just found this ‘leftover’ photo in my files, ready to delete because it’s so blurry. It was taken ages ago before I knew that Phoenix 1 (golden pheasant) had ‘a thing for’ Malay (hen that looks like a rooster).

I have since done a bit of delving into whether pheasants and chickens can make a go of things and, apparently, yes they can but the eggs will be unfertilized. While I was doing this extraordinary googling, I also discovered that geese and ducks can also have relationships but, again, none of the eggs will be fertile.

So things are beginning to make more sense around here. The only problem now is that there are 9 eggs in the middle of one of Husband’s many shrubs and we don’t know whose eggs they are!

Wings

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Afternoon delight

by jmgoyder

I usually go out to the back yard at around 4-5pm to put the ducks, geese and turkeys into their yards for the night. The chickens all sleep in the trees now, just like the guinnea fowl and peacocks; they have learned the hard way to be scared of the foxes.

The gang all head to their yard of their own accord. They are much more routine-orientated than I am, so sometimes I find them waiting patiently inside the yard and, when I arrive with lettuce, they make a lot of noise and I’m never sure if they’re saying ‘oh, goody, lettuce’ or ‘well, it’s about time!’ I think it’s probably the latter.

The three Indian runner ducks are a bit more difficult to round up. They still don’t seem to understand that they are in danger from foxes and they run away from me in that Basil Fawlty way that is both funny and frustrating. I have to put them in a separate yard from the gang because the male duck keeps trying to flirt (that is an understatement) with the female geese.

Once the ducks, geese and turkeys are all settled in their yards, I sit down at one of the adjacent picnic tables and have a drink while I feed the chooks. Sometimes I am joined by a particularly friendly peacock. No, he’s not really interested in the beer; he wants to steal some of the chook food!