white peacocks | jmgoyder

Spring storms

by jmgoyder

It is the third week of Spring over here in the southwest of Western Australia and we have only had one week of sunshine. Today the winds are whipping up, the rain is relentless and the forecast for tonight includes gusts of 100kms – mmm.

The animals get nervous when it’s like this and so do I!

Yesterday, some guys I’ve never met before arrived to chainsaw and clean up the debris of fallen wattle trees from the last storm. In a couple of hours they did what seemed to me to be an insurmountable task and they didn’t even charge very much. They said that if we had another storm, the remaining old trees at the back might fall over too because they are ant-ridden. There was no sign of today’s storm yesterday – weird!

I think Ming may have organized for them to come (he is very keen to be the man of the house!) but when I asked the main guy, he said, “God sent me!”

I wasn’t sure whether he was joking or serious so I just shook his hand – mmmm!

Animal Wings

61 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

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What is my name?

by jmgoyder

Animal Wings

27 Comments »

An (un)successful day

by jmgoyder

It was a day of contradictions with a good dose of anger thrown in. Ming was angry with me (characteristically) for not warning him that Anthony was being wheelchair-taxied home for lunch; I was angry with Ming for not going with the flow; and Anthony was angry with me (uncharacteristically) when the taxi came to pick him up to take him back to the nursing lodge after only 3 hours of being home.

However (and thank goodness for however) it was a sunny day, I cooked a lovely lunch, we sat outside and Ming played his guitar and a friend came over to see us later on and she was there when Ants was taxied away and she tolerated my mixed emotions about a whole lot of stuff – a good friend who also tolerated the fact that I have still not pruned the roses!

When I kissed Ants goodbye, he was quite nasty to me. No, that’s not quite accurate; he was quite unhappy with me – for sending him back. We had had several tail-chasing conversations during the day about him wanting to stay the night, about the impossibility of this because I cannot lift him etc. Ming became impatient and told us both to shut up and I have to admit I just wanted the whole ordeal over and done with.

So, when Ants had been taxied off and Ming had gone off to milk cows, and I was alone, I waited for the usual sobbing to happen, but it didn’t!

Instead, I decided to look at a few pictures I’d taken earlier in the day, to see if they worked out. Here they are – our one white peacock (we have two white peahens as well) finally grown up enough to display!

Animal Family Wings

67 Comments »

Feather-dusting

by jmgoyder

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.

Wings

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It’s nearly spring!

by jmgoyder

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.

Family Friendship Wings

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Love story 86 – Now and then…

by jmgoyder

My fantastic husband, Anthony, has now been living at the nursing lodge for around 6 months, during which time it has become more and more difficult to bring him home. At first we did overnighters but, due to many of his Parkinson’s disease symptoms, this gradually became impossible. Then Ming and I tried to bring Anthony home just for the day and that, too, became difficult due to his increasing immobility and other factors.

Just recently, I have utilized the services of a wheelchair taxi and that has been relatively successful, though expensive until I fill out the 500 page form and produce a zillion bits of ID. I don’t tell Ants about the expense because he has always been a money worrier. The following picture is of just before Ants went into the nursing lodge. Our little alien is in the background climbing onto to the roof to dance again.

I have only just rediscovered this photo and it makes me wonder because Anthony has an expressionless face (Parkinson’s disease does that), but he’s still giving a ‘thumbs up’! I think this was around two years ago. A lot has happened since then.

Sometimes I miss Anthony being home to the point where I soak my pillow with sobbing; sometimes I feel a stab of relief that I no longer have to do what we used to call ‘the night shift’; sometimes I miss the past so much that I want to go back …

… to the day we got married