Mealworms – YUM!
Gutsy9 was in heaven!
A hot Christmas Day
The first picture is of my nephew and niece over here with my brother from the Solomon Islands for Christmas. As you can see Gutsy9 was a hit! The second is of my mother and brother talking to Anthony (who is unfortunately out of the shot), with an ecstatic harpist in the background.
It is Boxing Day here and warming up to be another stinking hot day. Christmas Day was, as predicted, 40C so I am very glad we had cold crayfish for lunch. I always make Anthony’s mother’s cocktail sauce which consists of cream, tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce and lemon juice – yum. I had purchased four enormous cooked crays and my hands are now covered in little cuts from peeling them but it was worth it.
There were only four of us – Anthony, Ming, my mother and me. We usually do a bigger family thing at my mothers on Christmas Eve, but Christmas Day has always been fairly quiet which is the way we like it. We sat in our only air-conditioned room and ate the crayfish cocktail on our laps. Then Ming served pavolova with cream and bananas and we watched an animated film called Brave that Ming had chosen for the day. Anthony wasn’t coping well with either the heat or the air conditioning and he was extremely immobile but I sat in my usual spot on the floor between his legs and he stroked my hair and kept kissing me on the head, his hands on my shoulders. He loved having Gutsy9 on his lap.
It was indescribably hard to see him off when the taxi came to pick him up and take him back to the nursing lodge but, all in all, it was a brilliant day.
Later in the evening I rang Ants a few times because he was very low and I caught myself thinking about how heartbreaking Christmas Day is for so many and I got a big lump in my throat.
“C’mon, Mum, have a laugh!”
One of things Ming says to me most often these days is “C’mon, Mum, have a laugh!” So today I will tell a funny story.
Gutsy9, the baby peacock, is now two weeks old and is quite happy to sleep in his box at night as long as he can spend the day on my shoulder. Well, when he was one day old, Ming and I had to go to town to do numerous things and I didn’t want to leave Gutsy9 alone for so long, so I took him tucked into my shirt. Ming had a gig to set up for, I had a lunch date with friends, then Ming had a counselling appointment and I was going to visit Ants (another reason I took Gutsy9 with me – I wanted to show him to Ants.)
Okay, so I dropped Ming off and went to the restaurant. Gutsy9 was asleep inside my shirt almost under my left arm so I kept my left hand on him through the shirt, sat down at the table with my friends and ordered. Gutsy9 was quiet to begin with but soon woke up and chirped, so I took him out and showed my friends who were rather aghast so I quickly chucked him back into my shirt and joined in the various conversations. A couple of hours later I picked Ming up to go to counselling and he’d forgotten I had Gutsy9 so said, “Oh that bloody bird – you’re the one who needs counselling.” He was quite nasty and I was hurt.
Anyway, the counsellor had asked me to come for the first bit of Ming’s session so I went in with him but said I couldn’t stay long because of the bird. I pulled Gutsy9 out of my shirt to show her and she looked, well, a bit surprised to say the least. Then we all sat down and she asked me how I was. It never ceases to amaze me how those three simple words ‘how are you?’ can reduce me to tears – which is what happened much to my horror. I said Ming and I had just had another altercation blah blah blah, and she suggested I stay for the whole session but I said no because I wanted to take Gutsy9 to show Anthony.
So I left and drove up the road to the nursing lodge and spent a very pleasant hour with Ants and Gutsy9 then went back to pick Ming up. By then, Ming was repentant but tentatively suggested that I should have some private counselling sessions of my own because he had been helped enormously. I told him I would think about it and we went home.
It was a few days later, when I was telling some other friends about the counselling experience, and they were laughing hysterically, that I realized how stark, raving mad I must have seemed to the counsellor and to my lunch companions!
Anthony, on the other hand, wasn’t the slightest bit nonplussed because he knows me, adores me and accepts me.
So, “C’mon, Ming, have a laugh!”
And guess what – we are both laughing today – yeeha!
Gutsy9 just hatched.
Gutsy9 – 2 weeks old today!
“You have a pied peacock!”
Well guess what I found out yesterday? Gutsy9 is definitely a male and he is also pied which means he is half blue and half white. So I was probably right about King being the father and one of the white peahens being the mother. A friend who was doing some painting here took one look at him and said “You have a pied peacock!” He was so surprised. Apparently we may find a few more little Gutsys around in the next few weeks but, since I haven’t been able to find any nests, it seems unlikely.
Here is a link to a website that shows pictures of what a pied peacock looks like when it’s fully grown. I found this very interesting.
http://database.amyspeacockparadise.com/blue_pied.html
It’s possible, of course, that Prince might be the father.
But all of the peahens tend to avoid Prince because he is so immature.
So this must be Mum.
And this must be Dad!
None of Gutsy9’s possible parents, however, will take him under their wings!
There is nothing like having a peacock on your shoulder!
Over the last few days I have derived an enormous amount of joy and comfort from an unexpected gift – Gutsy9 – the little peachick who mostly lives on my shoulder.
Flying
Gutsy9 is now a week and a day old and he can already fly. He can fly from the floor up to my lap and from my lap up to my shoulder! And if he falls off my shoulder, while I am walking around, he simply uses his little wings for a soft landing.
Peachick ponderings
I take Gutsy9 outside as often as I can but I can’t leave him alone because he’s nervous of the bigger birds.
This is King and Princess 1 wondering if Gutsy9 is theirs, but not willing to get too close.
Gutsy9 scurries back to me all the time!
Parkinson’s paradoxes
When most people hear the term ‘Parkinson’s Disease’, they tend to think of Michael J Fox and the Parkinson’s that make you shake, move haphazardly or suffer debilitating tremors. Anthony’s type of PD is not like that and is often termed ‘Parkinsonism’. His symptoms have included a dramatic loss of movement. In many ways this is a kinder PD because of the lack of tremors but on the other hand the crippling immobility of brain/body has been a long, slow series of gradual shocks. First his hands couldn’t do things like open a jar of vegemite, steer a car, operate a chainsaw; then his face stopped ‘working’ in the sense that he no longer smiled and he stopped blinking, so that his eyes took on a blank look. I have already written about some of these things in previous posts so I won’t repeat myself.
One of the most noticeable things about Anthony’s PD is his stillness. Before the nursing lodge he would sit for hours on the front verandah in complete stillness. Sometimes he would be so still that the blue wrens would alight on his lap not realizing he was a human. Sometimes he would be so still I would think he’d died. Sometimes he would be so still he would drop his cup of tea.
Well, today I took Gutsy9, the baby peacock, in again to see Ants at the nursing lodge and guess who loved Anthony’s stillness?
Rejection rescue
Peahen 4: What is that noisy thing?
Princess 2: It’s definitely not mine!
Gutsy9: MUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: Argh!
Okay, Gutsy9 is now around 4 days old. I have taken him outside to meet his potential mothers but none of them will take responsibility. They just look at him as if he is an alien and he keeps running back to me anyway. I will keep trying but obviously he will need to get a bit older before he is re-integrated.
In the meantime he is living on my shoulder. I love it!
jmgoyder 