jmgoyder

wings and things

Mar 4

My first commenter

by jmgoyder

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The first person to comment on my blog (apart from my mother) was Lynda whose blog, Life in the Farmlet (http://pixilatedtoo.wordpress.com/), has entranced me from the start of my blog journey. She likes geese and so do I and that is how our friendship began.

One of the things I have discovered in following Lynda’s blog is that she is a woman of many talents. For example, she is really crafty (in the literal sense) i.e. her sewing abilities far surpass my own inability to sew a button back on a shirt. She is an artist.

Well, guess what? Lynda has sent me a gift! Here is the post in which she describes it:

http://pixilatedtoo.wordpress.com/just-something-i-made/

This apron is so exquisite, I don’t think I can possibly wear it – I want to frame it! I love it!

Lynda, you absolutely shine. Thank you from the bottom and top of my heart!

blogging Family Friendship Wings

64 Comments »
Jan 28

Enough is enough

by jmgoyder

I never intended for this blog to become so personal and I certainly didn’t intend for it to become so sad. It was a blog about our adventures with birds – a way of cheering the three of us (Anthony, Ming and me) UP!

How was I supposed to know that Anthony’s Parkinson’s would escalate, then collide with Ming’s spinal surgery? How was I supposed to know that we would have to find a nursing home, that I would have to resign from my job, that I would have to figure out Ming’s post-op. requirements, that we would lose many of our birds to foxes?

How was I supposed to know what last year would entail – Ming’s anger, Anthony’s sorrow, my despair? Obviously I don’t have very good foresight.

I do, however, have pretty good hindsight and tonight I have realized that enough is enough, that I am not going to allow myself to die because Ants is dying, that I am not going to allow myself get angry because Ming is angry, that I am not going to allow myself to sink into this self-pitying quicksand of despair.

Apologies for recent posts.

Enough is enough!

Animal Family LOVE STORY Wings

85 Comments »
Jan 14

Learning about loss

by jmgoyder

This morning Ming had to put our beautiful Malay rooster out of its misery because it had been injured by one of our dogs who somehow got to him despite pen arrangements.

Malay was one of the chicks that hatched here under a shed and grew up to be majestic, proud and confident. He was able to fly up into a tree if he sensed danger. He must have been taken by surprise and I feel a sense of devastation and guilt.

Blaze (miniature dachschund) and Jack (Irish terrier) have never attempted to kill any of the peafowl or guinnea fowl, or even the geese. They go for the chooks, so I have decided that it is too risky to have chooks anymore. The wild foxes get them too despite all my protective methods (fox lights, sturdy yards etc.)

I am learning a lot about loss lately.

http://www.mamamia.com.au/social/i-am-a-murderer-but-i-do-it-for-love/

Animal Friendship Wings

61 Comments »
Dec 9

A chick called 9

by jmgoyder

I got home from seeing Ants and went out to feed, and commune with, the birds and whammo! Some tiny scurrying thing caught my eye – a chick! All by itself! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I sat at my picnic table watching it for awhile to see whose chick it was but, despite a lot of interest from the gang and the chooks and peafowl and the guinneas, not one of them came to the party, so I had to catch it (sounds easy but it took about 9 hours!)

So here he/she is, in Ming’s hands. We have no idea what kind of chick this is, but it might be a peachick!

And its name?

9!

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We have now cosied 9 into a box with some straw, water and crumbles but 9 is already addicted to cuddles.

I wonder what 9 is!

Animal Family Friendship Wings

70 Comments »
Dec 9

Godfrey becomes godly

by jmgoyder

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Godfrey: I’m sorry I bit you yesterday, Julie.

Me: No you’re not!

Godfrey hissing

Godfrey: Yes I AM!

Me: No you’re NOT!

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Godfrey: I think you are jealous of me, Julie – face it!

Me: Godsy, it is the other way around! I love the gang as much as you do but, and I hate to break this to you, they love me much more than they love you.

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Godfrey: But why?

Me: Well, you scare them. You are so overbearing and bossy and your habit of biting the hand that feeds you is not fashionable anymore.

Godfrey: Oh I think I am going to cry, Julie.

Me: Let yourself, Godsy, and try to remember how we began….

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Godfrey: I’m so sorry, Julie.

Me: Good!

Animal Family Friendship Wings

23 Comments »
Nov 8

The excursion

by jmgoyder

This morning, the nursing lodge bus came out at 10am with ‘the men’s group’. It was a great success!

Staff, residents and volunteers

Morning tea

Godfrey’s gang did their contortionist act but were outshone by an impromptu perfomance by the turkeys

Anthony and me

Family Friendship Wings

48 Comments »
Nov 7

Why didn’t I think of this before?

by jmgoyder

Every Thursday morning the nursing lodge has a bus excursion and Anthony usually goes. Last Thursday I arrived at the nursing lodge at around noon to be told that Anthony was still out and that the excursion was to Dardanup (our town!) They’d gone up to the hills just past our farm. So, when the bus returned and Ants was being helped back to his room by the nurse in charge of the excursion, I asked if it would be possible for the bus to come to our place and she said yes!

So tomorrow, they are coming here and I am so excited. The nurse said they might make it a semi-regular thing and I wanted to kiss her feet! This would be a stress-free way of getting Anthony home for a few hours and I am sure the other residents will enjoy it too. They always bring their own morning tea and there are enough staff for any toilet emergencies, so I am definitely in yeeha mode! Anthony seems to think it is a great idea too.

I have told the birds that they will have an audience tomorrow between 9.30 and 11.30am, so they are all practising for Godfrey’s contortionist competition.

Another contortionist

A competing peahen

Woodroffe thinks he will win the competition

Pearl will be performing in the pond

Animal Family Friendship Wings

29 Comments »
Nov 5

Contortions!

by jmgoyder

Godfrey may soon need a chiropractor

I wish I could do this!

Animal Wings

11 Comments »
Oct 26

I am pregnant!

by jmgoyder

I bet that shocked you! Of course I am not pregnant; after all I am 53 and Anthony is in a nursing lodge. But I keep having dreams about being pregnant and they are so real that I wake up in the morning and am surprised that I am not pregnant.

Last night, everything in the dream was initially as it is in real life: Ants was in the nursing lodge and Ming was 18. Then it got really bizarre because in the dream I had only just given birth to a beautiful little girl, to find myself pregnant again. I was bewildered at how this could be possible and my friends were looking at me askance as if I were some sort of alien, or else had dabbled in an affair. I woke up whilst still pregnant and trying to figure out how and why this had happened.

I don’t find these dreams disturbing at all; I find them rather interesting adventures. Also it is easy to see why I might be having these dreams: (a) the birds are madly mating, and loudly, because it is Spring; (b) Anthony has begun to think I have found another man; (c) Ming is giving me the whoops; and (d) Tapper, the duck, is still sitting on her eggs hoping they will hatch. As for deeper, psychological interpretations, well that is probably a minefield that I would rather avoid at the moment.

Perhaps these dreams are a signal that something really great is about to be born. That would be good!

[Or perhaps it’s just that we are inundated with eggs, the peafowl keep pooping on the chookhouse, or I need to go to the gym? Who knows!]

Family Wings

51 Comments »
Oct 19

Whose egg is this?

by jmgoyder

The chooks lay all of their eggs in the same place – in the chook house – and Tapper, the duck, lays hers there too. The geese, on the other hand lay them anywhere and everywhere. There aren’t that many goose eggs but every now and then I see one in the middle of the lawn and I wonder whose egg it is. Then, the other day, I was sitting at my little picnic table near the bird yards and Ola just popped one out right in front of me (it’s the same one I put into Ming’s scrambled eggs the other night).

I have now asked Ola if she wouldn’t mind laying her eggs in the yard. She has agreed.

Wings

19 Comments »
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