King has finally grown all his feathers back and he likes nothing better than to stand ontop of anything – tables, chairs, roofs – and, here, one of the feed bins, to show them off! He seems to like appearing to be taller than he is.
I love sitting quietly with him in the late afternoons (before being surrounded by Godfrey’s gang). King will take bread from my hand but I am not allowed to touch his feathers; it is an unspoken rule.
Guinnea fowl [they always chatter in unison]: This feather littering has to stop. It ruins the look of the lawn.
It’s about time we saw Julie about this and reminded her that we were here first and we do NOT shed feathers like those rotten peacocks, especially the white ones. Look at this beautiful lawn – its aesthetics are ruined by white feathers!
Okay, let’s have a chat to Julie right now! The back veranda door is the best place. Come on!
JULIE!!!! JULIE!!!!!!
Oh, that is just great isn’t it. That white peacock or peahen or whatever it is beat us to it and now Julie is laughing at us. It isn’t fair!
Angelina [our smallest white peahen]: Are they gone yet, Julie?
Julie: You can feather-dust the lawn anytime, Angelina.
Yesterday I posted a photo of our male white peacock’s budding relationship with one of our two white female peahens. Here are three more pictures of the same scene. Aren’t they beautiful?
Ages ago, the other white peahen formed a relationship with one of the colorful peacocks. What amazes me about the peafowl is the delicacy with which they approach each other – so different from the loud and very public ‘frolicking’ of the geese, ducks and, now that I have allowed the roosters to meet the hens, those guys too!
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I am stuck at home today because Centrelink (Australian social security organization) have booked me for a telephone appointment in order to put me on something called ‘Newstart’ (not this isn’t a drug!) while I look for a job now that I have had to resign from the university. They were supposed to have rung nearly and hour ago so I am beginning to get annoyed. Ming also has a phone appointment at 2pm to discuss what benefits he may be entitled to. I have been in and out of Centrelink since late last year when it became obvious that Anthony would have to be temporarily ‘placed’ in care on a trial basis so that I could go to Perth to be with Ming during his spinal surgery. Since then I have been somewhat remiss in providing information this organization has asked for so have done so in a haphazard way in between having several nervous breakdowny episodes, you know, getting down in the dumps!
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Yesterday I had the best visit to Anthony’s nursing lodge ever. Instead of sitting in his room to sort out the Golden Valley photos, we sat in the dining room with the big box of photos and, surrounded by nurses and carers going to and fro, we managed to find several more photos of Golden Valley from Anthony’s childhood time there, including of trees he himself planted.
During our treasure hunting I found a couple of photos of Ants as a young man and showed some of the staff and there was a lot of laughing and banter because he was posing rather arrogantly in just short shorts with his muscles flexing and looked a hell of a lot like Ming does now. The couple of hours I was there broke the ice as I have, so far, been quite nervous of the staff and almost sychophantically grateful. I am rather loud and laughy and Ants and I are in an unusual category in the sense that most of the people in his ward are either alone or have spouses who are also quite old.
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I am so proud of Ming. He has taken over in a way and is just like Ants. Ming has arranged for the termite people to do their thing (long overdue); cleaned out the garage of all the junk that Ants, being a hoarder, wouldn’t do and, in collaboration, we have had the nearly 30-year-old BMW serviced and ready to drive and now fixed up the nearly dead ute. We are getting some long overdue stuff done and it is such a great feeling! It makes me want to kiss the breeze.
Our three white peafowl are treated as inferior beings by the coloured peafowl (except for the two who flirt with each other).
Thanks for the leftovers guys!
This morning the peafowl are doing something I haven’t seen before. They are playing some sort of chasing game around and around the house – almost like ‘tag’ in its old-fashioned sense. Mostly they are sprinting but, whenever one gets close to another, the one ‘tagged’ will fly up onto the roof, scramble across and jump down on the other side, and the chase begins again. To begin with I thought it was some sort of flirting game with the peacocks chasing the peahens but I have been watching, enthralled, for some time now and both males and females are chasing each other. They are doing this anti-clockwise around the house, over and over, and I cannot stop laughing.
My argument with Anthony in the nursing lodge yesterday has made me realize that I need to rethink a few things when it comes to explaining to him that coming home for good is out of the question. Of course this has been said before, but always a little evasively, with averted eyes and falsely hopeful half-phrases like, maybe tomorrow, let’s see if you’re up to it on the weekend, the restaurant on the beach possibly, not sure but I could get someone to help me lift you etc. Yesterday, I reminded Anthony that he had willingly signed into the nursing lodge as a permanent resident months ago, that it had become increasingly difficult to bring him home due to his deterioration with Parkinson’s Disease and this is how the conversation went. It was just after lunch, my mother had left and I closed the door to Anthony’s room so we could argue in relative privacy.
Anthony: So I’m here forever until I die am I?
Me: Don’t you remember? You were here for respite because we had to find somewhere for you to stay when Ming had his operation, then this room became available for you permanently and we had to make a decision or miss out and be put on a waiting list and we both decided, together, that this was a good idea.
Anthony: I just want to be home with you and Ming.
Me: I know, I know, but it’s impossible. You are high maintenance – you need nursing care. I did it for four years, Ants, and took leave from work for two years. I got exhausted from the night shifts with you and ended up in hospital myself – twice!
Anthony: But why can’t we just give it another try?
Me: Give what a try?
Anthony: Me coming home for the night.
Me: We’ve tried that – a few weeks after Ming’s surgery, I brought you home for the night and it was a disaster, and then we tried it again a few times and you were too heavy for me and then we decided to just do the day thing.
Anthony: But I can improve.
Me: How? You have Parkinson’s Disease and it’s getting worse. It’s not your fault and you can’t make yourself any better.
Anthony: So I’m going to die here.
Me: But I see you most days, talk to you several times a day on the phone, and bring you home once a week – why can’t that be enough?
Anthony: I just want to be home, Jules.
Me: Okay, listen to me. You want to be home. I want you to be home. We don’t always get what we want do we. I didn’t want a sick husband, I didn’t want to be alone – you think you are the only one alone? You are surrounded day and night by people who care for you – I’m the one alone.
Anthony: You have Ming.
Me: Ming is 18 – he’s out most of the time and good on him.
Anthony: Well make him stay home.
Me: No! I’m not going to trap him too!
Anthony: But you said you were lonely.
Me: I’m not lonely in general, you idiot – I’m lonely for you.
Anthony: That’s why I want to come home.
Me: Okay, this is what happens when I bring you home. You hardly speak on the way home; it takes me at least half an hour to get you from the car into the house and comfortable; you eat whatever I have prepared for lunch but leave most of it; it takes another half an hour to get you to the loo and out and back into an armchair; you fall asleep for a couple of hours; it takes half an hour to get you back into the car to go back to the lodge; it takes help from staff to get you out of the car and into the lodge and your room; and when I say goodbye you ask why I am always in a hurry and you make me feel guilty.
Anthony: Yes, but I love being at home anyway and I didn’t know I was going to be here forever.
Me: You did know! This is permanent Ants, you have to accept it – please. I am beginning to dread visiting you because you do this every single time and I can’t stand it. You can’t see beyond you, you, you, can you! What about me – why don’t you care about me? I am going to wreck my back, if you keep making me take you home.
Anthony: Jules, please don’t cry. I’m sorry.
Me: You are so selfish! I’m going to use your bathroom and then I am going home to a freezing cold house with no husband in it.
Anthony: Please, Jules, I’m sorry – I love you.
Me: I’ve got my sunglasses on now, in case I bump into any staff.
Anthony: Let me walk you out to the car. Just help me go to the loo first.
Me: I want to go home now – not in an hour.
Anthony: Okay, just give me a kiss, Jules – I’m so sorry.
Me: Here is your kiss. I have to go, Ants – sorry – I love you so much but you have to stop doing this to me, please …. I’ll ring you later. Oh, and another thing: sometimes when I ring you don’t know where the hell you are anyway.
And that was yesterday: give me today anytime because watching peafowl running in circles beats the hell out of yesterday.
Some mornings it sounds like the clicking of highheels back and forth across the roof. Other times it sounds like running races. This morning it was like a herd of buffalo. I do not need an alarm clock!
I am getting more attuned to the sounds of our many peafowl; their rooftop antics, their honking, their gentle clucking when I feed them bits of bread.
One of the sounds that took me awhile to figure out was the feather-rustling sound when a peacock displays his (and sometimes her) feathers into the beautiful fan they are famous for. Okay, this might sound odd, but it sounds exactly like the kettle boiling over on the Aga – that sizzling sound. Other times, it sounds like the whoosh of light aircraft – a wind sound.
All of our peacocks (most of them are teenagers) are displaying their ‘fans’ almost constantly now. I think they are practising for spring as it is winter here now. They obviously have very good muscle control because, once they’ve achieved the ‘fan’, they then turn circles, very gradually, and with incredible poise and balance. As they turn around and around, they continually rustle their fan feathers (that’s the sound that makes me think the kettle is boiling over).
They remind me so much of catwalk models (even when they are scrambling around on the rooftop, fighting to be the best).
I love them so much; they are a lesson in sound, beauty and strangeness.
Odd friendships (Emery 2 and Baby Turkey)
Intimidating friendships (Bubble 1 and Uluru)
Alliance friendships (Tapper and one of the guinneas)
Fashion friendships (Tina Turner and Phoenix 1)
Uneasy friendships (Queenie and Phoenix 1)
Terrifying friendships (Doc with the two Bubbles)
Supervised friendships (The Bubbles, Baby Turkey and Jack)
Childhood friendships (Zaruma 1 and Bubble 1)
Avocado tree friendships (Phoenix 1 and King)
In the interests of equalizing the male/female ratio here, I have now purchased six pullets (‘teenage’ hens about to lay eggs) and have confined them to the original chook pen where they are adjusting with a mixture of trepidation and delight. Surrounded by peafowl and guinnea fowl – who fly in and out of the pen whenever they feel like it – the six new chooks are experiencing a kind of culture shock I guess. All four roosters are not allowed into the pen yet so they cockadoodledoo outside the pen constantly but they don’t seem particularly amorous, more curious – maybe even alarmed.
One of my BFFs (being acronymically challenged, I didn’t even know what this meant until last week) helped me pick the new chooks up and gave me some chook advice, as she has had chooks for years.
Daffy wants to join the newbies since Dotty, his ‘wife’ seems to have disappeared. I suspect she is sitting on eggs somewhere but have not been able to find her and Daffy quacks all day for her – his loneliness is gutwrenching. I hope she hasn’t been taken by that fox.
So – another new poultry mini-chapter. Let’s hope it all works out because I want eggs again!
I love peacocks,
and peahens!
15 is a good number to own!
jmgoyder 