peahens | jmgoyder

A stern word

by jmgoyder

King: I have had a stern word with the boys and they have promised not to go over to the neighbours’ house again.
Me:Thanks, King.

Queenie: I have had a meeting with the girls this morning and told them that they must stay here.
Me: Thanks, Queenie.

Prince: Julie, we never go over to the neighbours’ place. It’s just those stupid blue peas that do that.

Princess 1: Yes, be assured, Julie – Princess 2 and I never leave here.

Peacock teen 1: I was just trying to get a bit of privacy with my girlfriend. How was I supposed to know I wasn’t allowed to go over the road?
Peacock teen 2: You’re not talking about Penny I hope.
Peacock teen 1: Yes, isn’t she gorgeous!
Peacock teen 2: Penny is my girlfriend, you idiot.
Peacock teen 1: Oh, sorry, they all look the same!

Animal 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!

Animal Family Wings

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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 »

Wanderlust 2

by jmgoyder

Well, I don’t think I will have to get that peacock horn after all because all of the peafowl seem to be back home. According to a rather unpleasant email from a neighbour, they had been roosting on their roof for a few days. I did a bit of research and a bit of thinking and have realized a few interesting things. Firstly, during mating season, the females can be rather coy and may try to get away from the showoffy males; secondly, the females may be looking for places to lay eggs and nest; and thirdly, it isn’t that hard to shoo them away if you have a water hose.

Today Ming went over the road to the neighbour’s and actually ‘mustered’ the few that were still there back home so I am hoping they will stop wandering around the adjacent farms and settle. This remains to be seen but I have suggested to the complaining neighbours that they continue to hose them away until the peafowl get the message, or else simply ring Ming again.

Apart from King and Queenie, our two adults, we got the rest as non-sexed chicks so it wasn’t until they grew up that we realized we had a ratio of one male to one female (which means we have an overabundance of males). So we may need to re-home some of these males and I have made some enquiries, not because of the traumatized neighbours but because I think the peahens may be a little overhwelmed by all the male attention.

Anthony is coming home at some stage on the weekend so I hope I will have sorted things out by then because he loves those peafowl as much as I do now. After today, Ming is a little disenchanted!

Animal Family Friendship Wings

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Wanderlust

by jmgoyder

The peafowl have taken to wandering off the property during the days (I think it’s something to do with their mating season adventurousness!) So I am searching for a peacock horn to call them back. Most of them have returned this evening for their bread treat and wheat, and to roost in the wattle trees, but some are still off having adventures.

Maybe I will have to buy a trumpet!

Any suggestions?

Wings

32 Comments »

The wheelchair taxi woman

by jmgoyder

When Anthony has been wheelchair-taxied home and back he has had a variety of drivers. One of those drivers is a lovely woman who dropped in unexpectedly yesterday morning on her day off to ask about buying peachicks. We exchanged phone numbers so that I could ring her if we are lucky to get any hatchlings but admitted that I wasn’t sure what the chances were due to our fox problem. Also the peafowl are very independent so I don’t know if and where the peahens are laying (I obviously need to do some research!)

Anyway, during our short conversation, she asked when ‘hubby’ was coming home again and I said I had begun to think this was a bad idea because it upset him so much to go back to the nursing lodge after being here with us. She disagreed and said that even though he is upset each time she takes him back, it is well worth it for his sake, to be home even if it’s only briefly. “It’s the same for every person,” she said, “Don’t stop bringing him home.”

So guess what? Anthony is being wheelchair-taxied home in around 2 hours, for lunch and the afternoon. Wish us luck!

Oh no – I better hurry up and hide those two pots with the dead azaleas in them! On the other hand, Anthony does know that I am not a gardener.

Family Friendship Wings

46 Comments »

Just for fun!

by jmgoyder

Just for fun, I sent my kissing peafowl photo to Robyn at http://throughthehealinglens.com/ to see if she could improve it. And look what she’s done – amazing difference!

Here is the ‘before’:

And here is the ‘after’ – Robyn’s version:

I love it! Thank you, Robyn.

blogging Friendship Wings

24 Comments »

Looking up

by jmgoyder

I’ve been asked a few times now about the rationale behind having so many birds when life is already complicated enough with Anthony’s Parkinson’s Disease, the nursing lodge transition traumas, Ming’s back surgery and subsequent life adjustments. So here is an explanation:

Last year, when Anthony was still living here at home and the idea of a nursing lodge had not even been contemplated, and I was already on an extended leave arrangement from my job as a lecturer at the local university, I decided to do everything possible to make our lives brighter. It began with the guinnea fowl because Anthony has always loved them; then poultry; then the peafowl (that was my idea). We had chookyards built, began to reap the delight of fresh eggs and the guinnea fowl (a dozen) made a very interestingly noisy addition to what had become an overly quiet life.

I befriended all of the birds and, to some extent, tamed them but it wasn’t until that first dusk when I watched, amazed, as all of the guinneas and peafowl flew up into the trees to sleep, that I realized I was hooked. Why? Because for the first time in years I was looking up.

Wings

55 Comments »

Indifference

by jmgoyder

I read once that the opposite of love is indifference, not hatred, and I think this makes a lot of sense. Indifference has a deceptive blandness to it, but is actually much more effective than hatred which, in my opinion, is a rather stupid emotion but does fuel a multiplicity of wars – within families, within countries, across history and geography. Hatred gobbles itself up in a futile way because it cannot forgive.

Indifference, on the other hand, is a wonderful emotional tool because you can use it to forgive and forget, and it is much gentler than hatred. The only problem with indifference is that, because it is so subtle, sometimes the indifferenced don’t get it. I have learned these wisdoms from the antics of peafowl – ha!