Prince
I only have one white peacock (named Prince) and two white peahens. Prince’s tail feathers are fully grown now. I will try to get a photo of him doing the fantail thing soon.
My young human prince (son, Ming) has rediscovered his princely ways. Obviously a lot of his recent angst was to do with having unwittingly fractured some of the titanium in his spine post scoliosis surgery, and having to quit milking cows, and feeling emasculated by not being able to ever lift anything heavy. We have now seen the surgeon again and Ming is scheduled for revision surgery in the next couple of months. It has been a bit of a dramatic couple of weeks with tears etc. but over that now and have bought ramps and a trolley to help us lift stuff that is too heavy. Example: as we don’t get a rubbish collection, we have to take stuff to the local dump. Today it was some heavy stuff but the trolley + ramp thing worked beautifully! Such a relief.
Ming’s biggest sorrow is that he won’t be able to carry his bride over the threshold! (BTW there is no impending bride yet!)
Ouchy
Yesterday I went to the dentist to have what I thought would be a routine filling, but the tooth was too far gone so it had to be yanked out.
Now that I’ve grossed you out, here is a picture of this morning. Prince’s tail feathers are almost as long as King’s.
I don’t think I’m much good at this daily diary thing – I can’t seem to get the coherence right!
Gutsy9’s growth
G9 is now too big to be taken by a crow, fast enough to avoid the pecks of the pecking order, and can fly up to the height of a picnic table or low branch. His wonky leg is almost normal and he no longer walks with a limp. He sleeps happily all night with the ducks, Zaruma and Tapper, spends a few hours on my lap during the day and is nearly old enough to free range around the farm with the others. My biggest worry is he will fall into the pond and not be able to get out but yesterday he actually did fall in and flew out quite easily.
But guess what? I think he might be a she! The reason is that all of the adult males have a spur on each leg whereas the females don’t, and neither does G9.
I’m not eating THAT!
As a baby, then a toddler, then a kid beginning school, Ming had absolutely no interest in sustenance. It was a nightmare trying to breastfeed or get him to drink from a bottle and he seemed to be able to survive on air. It all worked out in the end but argh.
And now Gutsy9 is doing the same thing – so funny!
Parenting
Post publication note: For some reason this post is backwards! Sorry. I hope it still makes sense!
I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.
Can we go back inside now, Julie?
She said yes too but then she pecked me!
Are you my mum?
Could this be my real mum, Julie?
He said yes!
Are you my dad?
Is that my dad, Julie?
“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!
jmgoyder 