Neighbours | jmgoyder

Neighbours from heaven!

by jmgoyder

Anthony was in his 60s when he retired from dairy farming, due to a combination of factors including ill health. Now Ming, at 19, has been forced to retire from his job as dairy hand for our neighbours due to his back. Once he is over this second surgery you never know, he may be able to return but in the meantime he has been replaced.

Ming’s boss’s mother came over just before Christmas with a whole bag of different chocolate treats for him; she is such a gem! Below are two photos she took of Ming milking a little while ago. I was so proud of him walking in his dad’s boots and she is so glad they now have someone who can hang up the hose properly better than Ming – ha!

Despite the sadness that Ming has had to give up a job that he’d only just begun to do full-time, the fantastic thing is that we have gotten to know these amazing neighbours over the last three years and they have given us their friendship and support throughout our various ordeals. Ming said to me the other day that his boss’s mother is like his own ‘second’ mother!

I wish this extended family all the very best for 2014 and we feel indebted to them in so many ways. They are dairy farmers from way back which makes them heroes in an era when this kind of farming has become unpopular (due to the necessary 24/7 commitment).

Family Friendship Grief Happiness

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Peafowl ‘prantics’!

by jmgoyder

Here is a link to a very short youtube of a guy in China using some sort of peafowl horn to call peas down from mountains. I definitely need to find this guy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_A3Tt8tcI

I looked online for one of these horn things but the one I thought would be good turned out to be an antique ornament and not a real one and, since then, I have given up because one of my blog friends suggested I imitate the call myself, so I have been doing that but now I’ve lost my voice!

Okay, so for anyone who needs a recap of the situation, it is mating season and a few of our adolescent peas are experiencing wanderlust and adventuring off to forbidden territories (the neighbours’ roof). This has caused a fair bit of high drama:

Email from neighbours:

FOR SOME TIME NOW YOUR 3 PEACOCKS AND 20 ODD PEAHENS HAVE BEEN SPENDING MOST DAYS AND NIGHTS OVER HERE AND HAVE BEEN MAKING AN AWFUL MESS EVERYWHERE. THEY HAVE BEEN FLYING ON THE ROOF AND MESSING IN OUR DRINKING WATER. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!

PLEASE CONTAIN THE BIRDS ON YOUR SIDE OF THE FARM. SURELY, IF YOU KEEP EXOTIC BIRDS YOU SHOULD LOOK AFTER THEM PROPERLY. UNLESS YOU WANT THEM IMPOUNDED BY THE RANGER, I SUGGEST YOU KEEP THEM PENNED.

My response:

Don’t stress. Except for King and Queenie (the adult couple), this is their first mating season, so they’re experiencing a bit of wanderlust. It won’t last long. We only have a total of 15 peafowl (12 blues and 3 whites), so I have no idea where the others are coming from. I feed ours at around 5pm and they roost in the wattle trees at the back every night.

A further comforting response from me:

I think all of the peafowl are back here now. If they return to your place again, simply point a hose at them and shoo them away in our direction. You can hose them off the roof or out of the tree this way. If you do this to a peahen, the peacock will follow … As I said in my previous email, this wanderlust is a seasonal thing and will not last. However the girls may be looking for nesting spots so you will need to persevere with the above methods. I’ve rung and left a message with two peafowl-savvy friends who will come and get them if the‘problem’ persists. Some of them may need to be re-homed.

So sorry but, again, this is a passing phase and I have spoken to the ranger and he’ll alert me if you alert him. Much better, though, if you simply ring me.

Email from neighbours:

CONSIDERATION IS THE OPERATIVE WORD!!! Your Peafowl are over here all the time and it has gone far enough! They are making such a mess (as Ming saw), the worst thing is that they have polluted our drinking water by defecating on the roof and everywhere else. Advice from the Ranger and the Shire (Clause 480 of the local Govt. Act) is that we are to give you 7 days notice to remove your birds or we will dispose of them ourselves, one way or the other. It is a week since we notified you of this problem and has made no difference.

My response:

I’ve come to the conclusion that you actually like fighting with people – so sad. I don’t understand why you are so angry and miserable; it must be exhausting. Ah yes, the frolicking peafowl: I will take the seven days notice as of today, and make some phone-calls. There is a waiting list for peafowl so it shouldn’t be a problem to re-home some of them. Have you tried hosing them away, as I suggested, or even shooting the gun into the air? The latter is bound to work …. As I said before, this is a passing phase, due to mating season, and may require a bit of latitude on your part. Do you not have a water filter for your tank?

……

Now obviously I have omitted names from the above cut/paste, but you get the gist. Since then (due to reports to the ranger and his emails to interested parties), I have had several people ringing me who want the peas and I have finally decided the guy up the road with a more isolated property, and with a great sense of humour, is the one who I will give a few males to. Now we just have to catch them!

I sat outside tonight, as usual, and did the bread ritual and I counted 12 peafowl zooming up into the trees, so 3 are missing and I guess they are on the neighbours’ roof again – argh! I got Ming to ring and leave a message that all is in hand now. But somehow I feel this drama isn’t over!

Prince: What the hell is going on now?

I think Julie is in trouble again

Animal Family Friendship Wings

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‘Neighbours’

by jmgoyder

You know that very successful Australian soap opera, Neighbours? Well I have decided to audition for a part in an episode I will write myself. It will have to be set just outside the town on a small rural property and the drama will unfold around my character’s peafowl frolicking on the neighbours’ roof, and the climax will be when the neigbours threaten to exterminate them. This could possibly be lengthened to three episodes.

Yes, this is tongue in cheek of course and the situation is real, not fictitious. Okay, for a week or so some of our peafowl have been wandering further afield than usual because, as I described in a previous post, we have an overabundance of males and the girls are trying to get away from all the attention. It is mating season. I thought they had stopped going over to the neighbours’ house and I have told them to hose them away or else shoot the gun into the air to scare them. I understand the neighbours’ irritation; people either love or hate peacocks. This elderly couple hate them. Their complaint is not unreasonable as the few that wander over fly onto their roof and poop so they are worried about their drinking water being contaminated. I suggested getting a water filter but that didn’t go down too well.

So, in response to two shouting emails from the neighbours (you know – emails that are capitalized and punctuated by lots of exclamation marks), I have made some calls and found several people who are willing to re-home a few of them (there are three that keep absconding). I am happy about this because I would rather re-home these renegades than have my neighbours shoot or poison them which is a definite possibility.

I don’t see this as a loss because when I purchased the unsexed chicks I didn’t know so many would be males, so it will be good to place them elsewhere so that the females aren’t so overwhelmed. Hopefully this will appease the neighbours’ wrath but I don’t think so because the wrath was already there. In fact, these are the very same people that I nicknamed ‘the horribles’ many posts ago. They absolutely love a fight and the peafowl are a wonderful opportunity. Unfortunately for them, I do not like fighting, so I have apologized and reassured them that someone will soon come and get the peafowl who like their roof so much. Problem solved.

I will ring the executive producer of Neighbours right now – hahaha!