Life in a petting zoo...

It’s Father’s Day on the Row, Summer Solstice tomorrow. It’s been an incredibly wet spring so far, and it looks like more rain today. Our gardens are thriving, though we humans could use a bit more sun. By the time it’s dry enough to mow, we’ll need a jungle brush-clearer to do it.


Our two adult male peacocks are still rattling their train feathers in showy displays and vibrating primary wing feathers like castanets, in spite of the fact that the four adult hens are long past breeding for the season. Four peahens nested this year; two have already made appearances in the yard with four chicks each (bringing our “those crazy peacock people” flock count up to 24), and the other two hens should be showing up any day, toddlers in tow. The young girls completely ignore the old geezers’ parading. Four yearling males are also fanning and strutting and mid-air sparring, but the hens won’t even roll their eyes at the hapless boys until next spring, when the hooligans finally get their first long trains.

 
We took on a new Row resident this spring. Our son’s cat, Rickie Lee, came to live on the farm after she turned up her nose at a new brand of kitty litter, then at litter boxes in general. So she’s learning to be an outdoor cat, although she spends a good deal of time curled up on the rug by the back door. If she sees us peeking out the window, wild meowing ensues, and each trip outside means an extended kitty-petting session on the patio. We’d rather she had a home where she could be an indoor cat again, re-learning her lost litter box skills and curling up in someone’s lap in the evening, but she can’t be an inside cat here, because we also live with… 

Stella Faye and Polly Hester. Stella, the African Grey, is 12 this year, and Polly, the Lilac Crown Amazon, is around 17 we think. Stella keeps us entertained with long unintelligible conversations in a perfectly mimicked Ray tone & inflection, punctuated with laughs, coughs, sneezes, and occasional microwave beeps. She calls for water when her dish runs low. Polly doesn’t speak English, but she’s picked up a few parroty-English – penglish – sounds. She adores Ray. If I give Polly an almond, she’ll drop it, then call incessantly till Ray comes with another one.

Meanwhile, our two canine companions, 2-year-old Schnoodle Yogi, and rescued 9-year-old Aussie Jada, are obsessing over the new kitty on the porch. Yogi, in his obnoxious schnauzerly way, nips at the patient kitty, trying to get her to play. Jada desperately, compulsively, tries to herd Rickie onto the porch ledge.

So life is good at the Row petting zoo, although we may have to start holding fundraisers to keep the peas in corn (bad veggie humor). Stella could sing the Popeye theme…Yogi could do Schnauzer spins…I could sew little sequined gowns for the peahens…