November 27,2011
As I rolled over in my warm bed trying to figure out what had wakened me I listened to the sounds outside my window. The cold late November air was pierced again with a sound I’ve became use to over the years.
“Aaaaaa” like rapid machine gun fire, something had the guinea fowl’s in an uproar, but it didn’t concern me. Anyone that has ever raised guinea fowl knows that all the guineas in the world share one brain cell and it is never your birds day to have it. Something as simple as a leaf blowing in the wind can set them in a tizzy.
As I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep the guineas continued sounding their alarm cry and soon Piper Peacock joined the chorus “Onk heee, Onk Hee” as the rooster crowed and the geese joined in honking their intruder alarm. The cacophony of startled bird cries was soon joined by Sir Oliver Inkwell sitting on the bedroom window sill meowing loudly.
Okay, so now the critters have my attention. Freeing myself from the bed covers I fumble for my eye glasses on the night stand and go to the window to see if I can see what is going on.
For several seconds I stood watching the birds to get a clue as to where the intruder was. The birds had the big cedar tree outside our bedroom window encircled. They definitely had something trapped under there, occasionally I could see rapid movement fleeing from one side to another under the skirts of the large tree’s ground touching branches.
Whatever it was it was fast, but moving as if possibly injured. Cat maybe? No I only saw two legs. Guinea after guinea would charge under the huge cedar at whatever it was and then dart back out as the quickly moving shadow would alternately run at the guineas and flee from them.
Piper Peacock paced nervously around the tree honking her dismay at the whole procedure. Piper doesn’t care for any changes in her world what so ever (well except for maybe wanting a male added to the flock). She honked and voiced her opinion loudly. The geese stood back watching the whole display cheering the guineas on honking their approval as each guinea charged under the tree. Repeat Rooster stood on the back porch railing crowing, but offering no real help as tiny Turk the Turken hid under the back deck.
I continued to watch as I reached for the clothing I had laid out the night before. Just then the shadow charged after another guinea foray and stepped out of the shadows of the tree.
A small young brown hawk ran limping from the tree to over by the house. The guineas soon cornered it near the compressor as it flapped its wings and charged back at them.
He was fully puffed out his speckled feathers standing on end and looking quite stressed. He made an effort to fly away from his tormentors, but hit the fence of the garden and landed in the flock of geese that had been watching the whole spectacle. The geese separated and looked at the small bird like “yeah right, You’re a chicken hawk, but we’re not chickens.” They didn’t even bother to run off because the bird was so small and obviously injured.
I turned and told Gary what was going on. He was quickly dressed and out the door. To see what needed to be done. While hawks aren’t welcome around here, we don’t want any animal suffering. The guineas were determined they were going to pay this young hawk back for every keet other hawks had ever carried off.
I kept an eye on the hawk from the window until I saw Gary going toward it. Then headed out to help him.
When I arrived in the side yard Gary was watching the sky. He said that the hawk had recovered from bouncing off the garden fence and in a panic when it saw him had gathered enough strength it had swooped skyward and flew off over the trees to the west of the house.
He said the flight was labored and it seemed to be dangling one foot a bit, but it had gone far enough the guineas couldn’t get to it and it had landed in a tree that he was pointing at. The tree was several acres away from our location, so we did not try to follow.
Of course the guineas strutted around for several minutes after that telling the world how they had beaten the mean old hawk, as the much wiser geese just looked at them indulgently.
Little Turk, who is the smallest of our free ranging birds finally came out from under the porch and snuggled up with Repeat as if to say “My hero.” Apparently the inexperienced young hawk had tried to get her not realizing he would not fit through the lattice of the porch like she would and had crashed into it injuring himself.
We surmised this by the hawk feathers near where Turk had been hiding. Earlier this week Turk had been running around with two chicks, they of course had disappeared. We figured this hawk is probably how they disappeared and he came back thinking he was a good enough hunter to get Momma bird too. Boy was he wrong.
I doubt that particular hawk will ever be back as long as the guinea crew is on duty.
Jan who is up for the day and ready to decorate for Christmas in OK
Showing posts with label peacocks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peacocks. Show all posts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Saturday, August 29, 2009
THAT’S GOING TO BE ONE EXPENSIVE PEACOCK!!!
OR When Will They Learn to Listen?
August 29, 2009
Ds, Sean, has his heart in the right place. I lost one of the remaining two peacocks this week. Without placing Precious and Piper next to each other we can’t tell which one it was. Piper was the bigger of the two hens. We aren’t sure what happened to the hen, Gary just found her dead.
So we’ve been calling the remaining one Pretty Purple Precious Piper Peacock. Sean knows how bad his mama wants a large flock of peacocks of all colors strutting all over the place. He announced he thinks we need to get Precious Piper a male so she will hang around.
In order to do that we need to repair the small pen and remove a large tree that died this year that hangs directly over the little coop there. So the male could be quarantined and acclimated to the place when it first arrives.
Sean wanted him and his father to remove that tree before we left again. The excuse was so it wouldn’t wipe out the coop this winter when it fell on its own. It’s a hollow oak tree, so a good ice storm would take it down. They are predicting a wet winter you know.
He confessed to me this evening that it was so he could start on the repairs and find a male for Precious Piper while we were gone on this next round of travels and surprise me.
Since my shops for today were local and I knew the locations well I told Gary I would go alone if he wanted to stay home and help Sean with outdoor chores. He thought it a great idea.
Some of you know me, so you know I have a little “gift”, it’s nothing I can control, but sometimes it is a very handy thing to have. You see I sometimes “know” when things are going to happen. Generally if I warn someone and they pay attention we get some indication of what we avoided. If they don’t, well they wish they had. It’s not and an all the time thing, or I’d win the lottery immediately—wait you have to buy a ticket for it first right? It’s something that just pops up when I least expect it.
Today was one of those days. I was headed for my first stop—to pick up scratch for the flock—before doing my shop. When I stopped and called home, I had an “uneasy” feeling. Gary told me they hadn’t started work yet but they had decided to remove that big tree. Boom! There it was.
Without even stopping to think I said “Both of you wear hard hats today.” He said he wasn’t sure if Sean had brought his home when he left his previous job. I said I didn’t want them out there without hard hats today. He said Okay, they’d find them.
I know they should always wear hard hats and safety goggles when cutting down limbs and trees, but they don’t. They wear the goggles and hearing protectors, but not the hard hats. So Gary KNEW I was serious when I said to wear them.
From the feed store I went to my first shop and completed it, then on to the second. As I left the second I had a very strong NEED to go home, but finances convinced me I need to do the final shop and the errand on in Tulsa. So instead of back tracking home for lunch I went and got a cheap quick meal at KFC and then headed for the final shop in Sand Springs, OK.
When I arrived at the location I automatically reached for my cell phone to turn off the ringer as I always do at shops. Only that “feeling” was still nagging at me so I left it on as I went in to do the merchandising assignment. If it had been a mystery shop I would have turned it off despite the nagging feeling of a problem, but I left it on for this assignment.
I was half way through the shop when the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was Sean, so I picked up while silently praying they wanted fast food and not what I KNEW was coming.
“Hey Mom, where you at?” he asked.
“Just finishing up that merchandising shop in Sand Springs. What happened?”
“How do you do that?” he replied.
“Never mind, whose bleeding?”
“It’s stopped now, but dad sort of dropped a pretty good sized tree limb on his head. He says he’s fine, but I think it needs stitches, I’m taking him to ER. He passed out on me once already.”
“I’ll meet you there. “
“Dad says he’s fine and for you to finish the job, he just didn’t want you to come home and find the bloody towel and… we’re in trouble aren’t we?”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
I finished up all the required steps of the merchandising shop in record time. The manager co-operated quickly and signed my paperwork so I could get to the hospital.
I drove as quickly and safely as I could legally do through the construction areas on the expressway toward the hospital while watching the gathering storm clouds. Praying that Gary was okay and that it wouldn’t rain before we got the feed home and out of the back of the truck. 30 bags of scratch ruined would not be a good thing.
The guys beat me there by less than 15 minutes.
They were just coming out of the check in part when I arrived. The left side of my husband’s beautiful silver hair and face were matted and streaked with blood. He was slurring his speech a little bit. I was too worried to be pissed at that point .
Sean told me Gary had passed out on him a second time on the way into town. Something you should know about my big gentle husband. He doesn’t do blood well, especially his own. He was passing out due to the blood, not the injury. The slurring speech and some vision troubles he was having worried me. The passing out did not.
After a while Gary was called back to see the doctor and a CT scan was ordered. I’ve been in far too many hospital emergency rooms I knew how long it was going to take. So while Gary was off getting his picture taken I went out and sent Sean and the feed home. Telling him to cover it for the night and I’d help him unload it in the daylight.
Once back in the room Gary kept drifting off to sleep and I kept waking him up. As time went on his speech improved and he told me he had seen red sparkles when the limb hit him, but they were gone now and he was seeing fine. It was a four inch in diameter limb and it fell from about 25 feet up. He’d seen it coming, but couldn’t move fast enough.
That is when I asked the golden question “Where was your hard hat?” He said he “forgot”. He got THE look, and he looked sheepish. “I thought you were being over protective.” More of THE look, “I’m in deep dog doo-doo aren’t I?” he whispered.
“Up to your hip joints Bud.” I told him. That’s all I said.
“After 36 years I should know to listen right.” He said softly. I gave no response.
After a long wait a very pregnant doctor came in to say she didn’t see a concussion on the scan, but a radiologist needed to look at it. She checked the wound and said it was maybe a one staple number, but it was already sealing up nicely so unless Gary really wanted it she wouldn’t disturb the healing that had already started. Gary said no staples.
During the discussion with her she asked him what happened. Being the joker he is he told her I hit him with a baseball bat!!! I jumped in on that one and told him I hadn’t but if he didn’t wear his hard hat in the future when I told him to I would. The doctor burst out laughing, then said “So she TOLD you to wear a hard hat and you didn’t?”
He nodded sheepishly.
She looked at me and said “Men, they never listen!” and then rubbed her 9 month belly. We both laughed.
Three hours later I was feeding my husband a cheap burger and he apologized for not listening. Sean and I have already told him he’s on litter box duty for the next 10 changes we are home for—that’s 4 boxes per time. Bet he remembers the next time I tell him to put on a hard hat.
So the freebie repair to get a cheap peacock, has now turned into an emergency room co-pay and over half the tree still needs to come down. Only Gary can’t work on it until 48 hours has passed. We are suppose to leave Wednesday. So the tree may not get finished in time.
Yep, that’s going to be one expensive peacock, Precious Piper better fall in love at first sight instead of snubbing him like she has the last two fellows.
Jan who asks the question “why didn’t he just listen?” in OK
August 29, 2009
Ds, Sean, has his heart in the right place. I lost one of the remaining two peacocks this week. Without placing Precious and Piper next to each other we can’t tell which one it was. Piper was the bigger of the two hens. We aren’t sure what happened to the hen, Gary just found her dead.
So we’ve been calling the remaining one Pretty Purple Precious Piper Peacock. Sean knows how bad his mama wants a large flock of peacocks of all colors strutting all over the place. He announced he thinks we need to get Precious Piper a male so she will hang around.
In order to do that we need to repair the small pen and remove a large tree that died this year that hangs directly over the little coop there. So the male could be quarantined and acclimated to the place when it first arrives.
Sean wanted him and his father to remove that tree before we left again. The excuse was so it wouldn’t wipe out the coop this winter when it fell on its own. It’s a hollow oak tree, so a good ice storm would take it down. They are predicting a wet winter you know.
He confessed to me this evening that it was so he could start on the repairs and find a male for Precious Piper while we were gone on this next round of travels and surprise me.
Since my shops for today were local and I knew the locations well I told Gary I would go alone if he wanted to stay home and help Sean with outdoor chores. He thought it a great idea.
Some of you know me, so you know I have a little “gift”, it’s nothing I can control, but sometimes it is a very handy thing to have. You see I sometimes “know” when things are going to happen. Generally if I warn someone and they pay attention we get some indication of what we avoided. If they don’t, well they wish they had. It’s not and an all the time thing, or I’d win the lottery immediately—wait you have to buy a ticket for it first right? It’s something that just pops up when I least expect it.
Today was one of those days. I was headed for my first stop—to pick up scratch for the flock—before doing my shop. When I stopped and called home, I had an “uneasy” feeling. Gary told me they hadn’t started work yet but they had decided to remove that big tree. Boom! There it was.
Without even stopping to think I said “Both of you wear hard hats today.” He said he wasn’t sure if Sean had brought his home when he left his previous job. I said I didn’t want them out there without hard hats today. He said Okay, they’d find them.
I know they should always wear hard hats and safety goggles when cutting down limbs and trees, but they don’t. They wear the goggles and hearing protectors, but not the hard hats. So Gary KNEW I was serious when I said to wear them.
From the feed store I went to my first shop and completed it, then on to the second. As I left the second I had a very strong NEED to go home, but finances convinced me I need to do the final shop and the errand on in Tulsa. So instead of back tracking home for lunch I went and got a cheap quick meal at KFC and then headed for the final shop in Sand Springs, OK.
When I arrived at the location I automatically reached for my cell phone to turn off the ringer as I always do at shops. Only that “feeling” was still nagging at me so I left it on as I went in to do the merchandising assignment. If it had been a mystery shop I would have turned it off despite the nagging feeling of a problem, but I left it on for this assignment.
I was half way through the shop when the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was Sean, so I picked up while silently praying they wanted fast food and not what I KNEW was coming.
“Hey Mom, where you at?” he asked.
“Just finishing up that merchandising shop in Sand Springs. What happened?”
“How do you do that?” he replied.
“Never mind, whose bleeding?”
“It’s stopped now, but dad sort of dropped a pretty good sized tree limb on his head. He says he’s fine, but I think it needs stitches, I’m taking him to ER. He passed out on me once already.”
“I’ll meet you there. “
“Dad says he’s fine and for you to finish the job, he just didn’t want you to come home and find the bloody towel and… we’re in trouble aren’t we?”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
I finished up all the required steps of the merchandising shop in record time. The manager co-operated quickly and signed my paperwork so I could get to the hospital.
I drove as quickly and safely as I could legally do through the construction areas on the expressway toward the hospital while watching the gathering storm clouds. Praying that Gary was okay and that it wouldn’t rain before we got the feed home and out of the back of the truck. 30 bags of scratch ruined would not be a good thing.
The guys beat me there by less than 15 minutes.
They were just coming out of the check in part when I arrived. The left side of my husband’s beautiful silver hair and face were matted and streaked with blood. He was slurring his speech a little bit. I was too worried to be pissed at that point .
Sean told me Gary had passed out on him a second time on the way into town. Something you should know about my big gentle husband. He doesn’t do blood well, especially his own. He was passing out due to the blood, not the injury. The slurring speech and some vision troubles he was having worried me. The passing out did not.
After a while Gary was called back to see the doctor and a CT scan was ordered. I’ve been in far too many hospital emergency rooms I knew how long it was going to take. So while Gary was off getting his picture taken I went out and sent Sean and the feed home. Telling him to cover it for the night and I’d help him unload it in the daylight.
Once back in the room Gary kept drifting off to sleep and I kept waking him up. As time went on his speech improved and he told me he had seen red sparkles when the limb hit him, but they were gone now and he was seeing fine. It was a four inch in diameter limb and it fell from about 25 feet up. He’d seen it coming, but couldn’t move fast enough.
That is when I asked the golden question “Where was your hard hat?” He said he “forgot”. He got THE look, and he looked sheepish. “I thought you were being over protective.” More of THE look, “I’m in deep dog doo-doo aren’t I?” he whispered.
“Up to your hip joints Bud.” I told him. That’s all I said.
“After 36 years I should know to listen right.” He said softly. I gave no response.
After a long wait a very pregnant doctor came in to say she didn’t see a concussion on the scan, but a radiologist needed to look at it. She checked the wound and said it was maybe a one staple number, but it was already sealing up nicely so unless Gary really wanted it she wouldn’t disturb the healing that had already started. Gary said no staples.
During the discussion with her she asked him what happened. Being the joker he is he told her I hit him with a baseball bat!!! I jumped in on that one and told him I hadn’t but if he didn’t wear his hard hat in the future when I told him to I would. The doctor burst out laughing, then said “So she TOLD you to wear a hard hat and you didn’t?”
He nodded sheepishly.
She looked at me and said “Men, they never listen!” and then rubbed her 9 month belly. We both laughed.
Three hours later I was feeding my husband a cheap burger and he apologized for not listening. Sean and I have already told him he’s on litter box duty for the next 10 changes we are home for—that’s 4 boxes per time. Bet he remembers the next time I tell him to put on a hard hat.
So the freebie repair to get a cheap peacock, has now turned into an emergency room co-pay and over half the tree still needs to come down. Only Gary can’t work on it until 48 hours has passed. We are suppose to leave Wednesday. So the tree may not get finished in time.
Yep, that’s going to be one expensive peacock, Precious Piper better fall in love at first sight instead of snubbing him like she has the last two fellows.
Jan who asks the question “why didn’t he just listen?” in OK
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