My weekend, or, WHY PEAFOWL ARE EVIL!!!!!
Dec. 17th, 2007 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonTasmania is a beautiful place, and if only LJ would allow me to stick in photos from my hard drive, I could show you. Alas, I will have to refer you to the tourism websites and contemplate joining the 21st century with a Flickr account sometime between now and my eventual death.
It's probably for the best, I am a terrible photographer and the only shots that were really good were those of the Following Chicken, the large white hen who kept me company on every walk I took around my friend's farm. At first I thought I was hallucinating, because who really has a Following Chicken? Then I suspected her of being a pecking hen, in a similar vein to that staple of my childhood Pixie the bum-biting pony, but no, she was just a friendly Following Chicken.
I found her charming, as did Bella the daughter of my farmer friend's fabulous new girlfriend. Bella is two and we spent a lot of time asking each other "Can you see the Following Chicken?" We thought this was HILARIOUS. Nearly as good as the fact that when you ask Bella to make the sound a snake makes, she starts speaking in Parseltongue. We bonded. Over Harry Potter and the Following Chicken. People don't believe you when you say that chickens can be charming, but they can!
Unlike peacocks, peahens and peachicks. Evil evil evil! And mad.
Now I should declare bias here. My grandparents' farm has always had peacocks and so my childhood was filled with nights where I was wakened from childish dreams by the unholy shrieks of Satan's own giant budgies. On two occasions people have tried to feed me peacock; a meat I find even less appetising than turkey and nearly as godawful as swan. When I was very little, the peacocks would run at me with their tails up high and stand and screech their mad cries.
Which I had rather put out of my head when I saw my Farmer Friend's lovely boy and declared "ooh, how pretty!" Ten hours later when I was clutching a pillow over my head, it all came rushing back.
The next day we played bird rearrangement. We threw the ducks down into the goat pond from their hiding spot under the tree ferns (where I could fit to scare them out, I am much shorter than Farmer), I rescued a duck that had managed to catch its head behind a stick of fuchsia, through a large gauge wire fence and finally in a chicken wire fence (I ended up pushing on its beak while keeping the neck steady, not an easy trick!) and we lost only about half the flock who ran away down the road (literally. With my v tall Farmer friend chasing them shrieking "Come back, ducks!")
Then the peahen appeared with her chicks. "We need to catch them!" he declared. "She managed to kill all the last hatching through neglect." I, foolishly, agreed to help. He set after the hen with a net, while we caught the chicks and stuck them in a bag. Four out of five chicks later, the peahen flew away into the remnant bush behind his house and sat up in a gum tree, glaring at us.
I had a vague idea we could tempt her with the chicks in an enclosure peeping for their mum, but we were thwarted by the remaining errant chick, which she rescued and popped up onto her back before running off with it into the wilderness. So Farmer had to build an incubator and we spent the night trying to acclimatise peeping peachicks to humans. Boy can those bastards peep.
That night, the peep of peachicks, the screech of the peacock and the aggrieved screams of the peahen were the soundtrack to my sleeping hours. And a waddle of ducks stampeding past my bedroom window quacking that since the lights were out now, it was probably safe to come home.
I advised my friend that his chickens were clearly the best part of his farm. Though the goats were cute, too.
anthimaeria, I saw no Tasmanian tigers, but I did buy you a postcard. It wasn't posted from Tassie due to sundry bird related disasters (let us not speak of the missed flight home), but you should receive it soon! snottygrrl, alas, no card for you. I will find something suitably stupid from Sydney instead!
Happy early birthday,jadzialove! I have a present for you but it may be a trifle late. Happy slightly late birthday to geoviki, you kind, smart, talented person, and happy slightly early birthday to nqdonne -- a generous soul who has tempted me into evil but in the good ways.
It's probably for the best, I am a terrible photographer and the only shots that were really good were those of the Following Chicken, the large white hen who kept me company on every walk I took around my friend's farm. At first I thought I was hallucinating, because who really has a Following Chicken? Then I suspected her of being a pecking hen, in a similar vein to that staple of my childhood Pixie the bum-biting pony, but no, she was just a friendly Following Chicken.
I found her charming, as did Bella the daughter of my farmer friend's fabulous new girlfriend. Bella is two and we spent a lot of time asking each other "Can you see the Following Chicken?" We thought this was HILARIOUS. Nearly as good as the fact that when you ask Bella to make the sound a snake makes, she starts speaking in Parseltongue. We bonded. Over Harry Potter and the Following Chicken. People don't believe you when you say that chickens can be charming, but they can!
Unlike peacocks, peahens and peachicks. Evil evil evil! And mad.
Now I should declare bias here. My grandparents' farm has always had peacocks and so my childhood was filled with nights where I was wakened from childish dreams by the unholy shrieks of Satan's own giant budgies. On two occasions people have tried to feed me peacock; a meat I find even less appetising than turkey and nearly as godawful as swan. When I was very little, the peacocks would run at me with their tails up high and stand and screech their mad cries.
Which I had rather put out of my head when I saw my Farmer Friend's lovely boy and declared "ooh, how pretty!" Ten hours later when I was clutching a pillow over my head, it all came rushing back.
The next day we played bird rearrangement. We threw the ducks down into the goat pond from their hiding spot under the tree ferns (where I could fit to scare them out, I am much shorter than Farmer), I rescued a duck that had managed to catch its head behind a stick of fuchsia, through a large gauge wire fence and finally in a chicken wire fence (I ended up pushing on its beak while keeping the neck steady, not an easy trick!) and we lost only about half the flock who ran away down the road (literally. With my v tall Farmer friend chasing them shrieking "Come back, ducks!")
Then the peahen appeared with her chicks. "We need to catch them!" he declared. "She managed to kill all the last hatching through neglect." I, foolishly, agreed to help. He set after the hen with a net, while we caught the chicks and stuck them in a bag. Four out of five chicks later, the peahen flew away into the remnant bush behind his house and sat up in a gum tree, glaring at us.
I had a vague idea we could tempt her with the chicks in an enclosure peeping for their mum, but we were thwarted by the remaining errant chick, which she rescued and popped up onto her back before running off with it into the wilderness. So Farmer had to build an incubator and we spent the night trying to acclimatise peeping peachicks to humans. Boy can those bastards peep.
That night, the peep of peachicks, the screech of the peacock and the aggrieved screams of the peahen were the soundtrack to my sleeping hours. And a waddle of ducks stampeding past my bedroom window quacking that since the lights were out now, it was probably safe to come home.
I advised my friend that his chickens were clearly the best part of his farm. Though the goats were cute, too.
anthimaeria, I saw no Tasmanian tigers, but I did buy you a postcard. It wasn't posted from Tassie due to sundry bird related disasters (let us not speak of the missed flight home), but you should receive it soon! snottygrrl, alas, no card for you. I will find something suitably stupid from Sydney instead!Happy early birthday,
jadzialove! I have a present for you but it may be a trifle late. Happy slightly late birthday to geoviki, you kind, smart, talented person, and happy slightly early birthday to nqdonne -- a generous soul who has tempted me into evil but in the good ways.
