Birthday Brain

South Dakota Peacock Museum (my dining room)

I recently had a birthday. Yes, another one. That makes well over 35 of them now. And birthdays, like everything else in my life, are different since last October’s little BS (right ischemic brainstem stroke). My birthday gave me ample proof that my brain has become a whole 'nother can-O-worms...

It used to be that on my birthday, I wanted a BIG fuss—a 60’s themed Annette Funicello-ish beach party (girls in high-rise polkadot bikinis, boys with bongo drums); non-stop sushi & sake with 25 of my loudest, closest friends; a spontaneous roadtrip to Area 51; cliff-jumping in Mexico. Okay, maybe not cliff-jumping, but something wild and memorable. This year—and this is Proof #1 of an altered brain—I wanted home, calm, low lights, no drama, peace.

The SassCam 9000

Proof #2 was my birthday wish list. Past lists included things like guitars, clothes, shoes, jewels, a winemaking kit, or a sequined princess costume. This year, I’d already gotten Mom’s gift—a fabulous trip to Louisiana to see my nieces—and the only other things I wanted were a new Kindle I could read outside in bright light, and a digital trail camera. Seriously…what midlife woman in her right mind wants a Sasquatch camera for her birthday?!

Anyhoo, Ray gave me a Kindle Paperwhite and a lovely, relaxed dinner out with good friends; my youngest son gave me a frameable work of peacock art, friends gave me bird/peacock accoutrement galore, and…ta-da! My older boys gave me a 4 MP Simmons Whitetail Night Vision trail camera—my “SassCam.” I will finally catch (on SD card, at least) that Sasquatch, wolverine, hyena pack, chupacabra, pride of lions, or pteradactyl that’s been picking off our peacocks!

Where's my pattern for knit coyote sweaters?

So here’s our new routine: every evening, we walk the dogs and find a new spot for the SassCam. Every morning, Ray retrieves the camera, so we can see what was slinking around the night before. So far, we’ve “captured” coyotes, raccoons (many…often), and a feral cat, all potential pea-snackers.

Hamming it up for the camera.

We’re not big on shooting things (we’re a disaster at it, actually…see http://uncanneryrow.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-case-of-disappearing-peafowl.html), so we’ve come up with an alternate plan to protect our dwindling flock of four peacocks (possibly three…we haven’t seen our nesting hen for quite a while): Ray will “mark” our territory everywhere we’ve spotted wildlife, and I will dump cayenne pepper in any burrows we find. If that doesn’t work, I’ll knit some cozy catch & release snares. If that doesn’t work, we'll wire the pasture for sound and play Tiny Tim’s “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” 24/7. If that doesn’t work, we'll give up peacocks and start raising raccoons for the pet industry. If that doesn’t work, we'll import—only as a last resort, mind you—a velociraptor. (Proof #3?)

Spring Fever

Junior can't compete with Zorro

Easter has come & gone. We had a wonderful dinner at Mom’s, with two of our four kids, their partners, and our grandson, Clyde. I’m not a believer in the literal interpretation of the Christian Easter story, but I do love the resurrection metaphor. Even if the “greening” is just part of a natural cycle, there’s something miraculous about the coming-back-to-life of spring.

Clyde approves of the peep cake

Here on the Row, and in our little family, signs of new life are everywhere. The most beautiful signs are my daughter and quasi-daughter-in-law (QDIL or Cutie-IL), both of whom are preggers. So in late August and early September respectively, I will have two new grandchildren to annoy folks with on Facebook. Needless to say (why do people say that, when it’s always followed by whatever is “needless”…argh!), I’m knitting up a storm. Grandson Clyde, my daughter’s oldest, has pre-named his new sibling varying combinations of Ginger Cactus Punch Sprinkles, which I think is a fine name. I’m calling the other new baby Alba, and she will be the first for our youngest son. My oldest son has two teens, one of whom is now driving (O, the karmic satisfaction…).

Look closely...green stuff!

Our two male peacocks, Junior and Zorro, are working overtime. Zorro spends most of the day doing his fan dance on the front patio, in front of the greenhouse windows where he can admire himself. He takes occasional breaks to square off in midair kickboxing duels with Junior, who doesn’t seem to be making any points with our two hens, Debbie and Wanda. The girls stroll nonchalantly back & forth in the yard, hanging out near Zorro and secretly checking him out, while still keeping a safe distance. If they accidently get too close, Zorro lets out a fevered honk and pounces.

The Canada and Snow geese are northbound in flocks bigger than I’ve seen in years. I’ve been in South Dakota for three decades now, but the V’s overhead (hundreds of birds sometimes) can still stop me in my tracks, craning my neck and gaping, slack-jawed, hypnotized. The starlings are coming back too, and I’ve seen some spectacular murmurations—those undulating cloud-like ballets an entire flock does—on my drives to and from town.

The girls pretend not to notice

Breast Beanie cap for breastfeeding babies

People in year-round warm climates probably can’t understand the giddy joy and renewal of spirit that northern prairie people feel each spring. And every winter, when Ray and I talk, as we always do, about moving farther south, we eventually come back around to the wonder of spring and not wanting to miss these first telltale signs. 

So today, with sunshine and temps in the mid-50’s, I’ll make split pea soup out of leftover Easter ham, do some more knitting on a “breast beanie” for my Cutie-IL, do some PT by walking the dogs on the trail, and give thanks to the Universe for the resurrection of spring.

Empty Nest. Literally.

Yes, Ray and I rigged up an emergency incubator using a styrofoam cooler, clamp light, 40-watt bulb and several dishtowels. Yes, we are incubating 5 peacock eggs. Yes, we will turn the eggs 3-5 times a day, keep the temp at 100-103 degrees, and provide at least 60% humidity. And no, we have no idea what what we’ll do if they hatch.

It isn’t really my fault. Due to a genetic anomaly (see http://uncanneryrow.blogspot.com/search?q=HHN), I cannot leave the wise & gracious Universe to her own devices. So after a particularly brutal season for our peafowl flock, my heart broken, I stepped in.

The brutality started in early spring, when we lost several peacocks to various predators—at least one to a raptor, a couple to what appeared to be mink or weasel, and several more to something much larger, large enough to rip apart an adult peahen, drag it around, and leave chunks of it lying about. I figured word had finally gotten out that the Row was a veritable peacock buffet.

But this past week, the brutality escalated beyond our comprehension when, in a single day, 8 adult peas (2 males and 6 hens) went MIA. We have walked the property, and there is nary a fluff of down, no sign of what happened or where they went. I have theories, some of which involve human predators, adding to my post-Aurora, CO stupification at the human capacity for cruelty.

(Weird side note: Got a text from my son the morning the peas went missing, before I knew they were gone, asking if the peas were okay. He said he’d dreamed the peas were hanging on a neighbor’s barn. He fought with the neighbor to get them back, somehow tore off the neighbor’s face, and discovered the neighbor had an iPhone brain. I texted back that he should avoid burritos at bedtime. Still, spooky prophetic, and I did cruise the neighborhood once I discovered the peas were AWOL.)

I called the Big City zoo to tell them to keep an eye out for folks wanting to sell peacocks. I left a message with the county game warden. I warned our neighbors to be on the lookout for hooligans with guns, and to gauge their reaction, like some crazy Criminal Minds investigator. I figured I’d done about everything I could do. And then, when I called yesterday to alert the only other folks in the region I know have peacocks, they told me they were about to throw out a clutch of eggs their hen had just laid – they don’t want any more peacocks – and did I want the eggs? Every fiber of my being pushed me, slapped me, jabbed me to say no thank you. So of course, I said, “Absolutely.”

Here’s the trick: Peafowl are not like chickens. Peachicks do not come out of the egg knowing how to eat & drink & roost. Peachicks must be taught. They spend the first 2-3 weeks of their lives sleeping 15 feet off the ground, tucked up under their mother’s wings. For a couple of months or more, they follow their mother everywhere, watching her peck at the ground and listening for her back-of-the-throat cluck that means, “This is okay to eat.” Those are some enormous 4-toed shoes to fill.

Yes, I should have said no. But my heart was broken. I’d been pretty stoic until Day 3, when it finally hit me that our peas weren’t coming back (one of our two white peahens, Ike, had been with us a long time and was named for my son’s friend who’d committed suicide—both white hens are gone). I was attached to those peabrains, dammit. 

So, thanks to my aching heart and my hereditary HHN-i, I said yes. And I am enormously grateful for Saint Ray, who knows, loves, and fears me enough not to get in the way of my Panic Mothering. If by some miracle these eggs hatch, I will figure this thing out. And I have at least 18 days to grow some feathers…

A Young Pea's Fancy Turns to Love

It’s EXACTLY like Tennyson said here on the Row: In the Spring a young peacock's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Our pea-flock is holding steady at 13. The pea-massacre stopped (after some critter or critters took 16 birds since last fall), and I think I know why. A few weeks ago, someone nearby shot a doe. She ran into our shelterbelt to die, which makes me sad (thank the Universe I didn’t know right away, or you can bet I’d have been out there with gauze, a pillow, Polysporin, tweezers, a canteen and my surgical suture kit). But it was also a prairie kindness. Over the next couple of weeks, we watched the deer carcass disappear bit by bit. It had been dragged from the grass onto the trail, then ten feet down the trail, then another few feet into the tall grass—kinda made us think our critter may have been coyotes (plural), to drag a full-grown doe that far. Anyway, there’s hardly a sign she was ever here, except for a few bones and tufts of whitetail fur. We think this deer distracted and fed the varmints that had previously been feasting on peacocks.

So the peas are fattening up at their all-you-can-eat corn & cat food buffet, and they’re up to their spring tricks. Our yard is not unlike a giant singles bar. We have 4 breeding males (the ones with the long train feathers) divvying up the peadom into quadrants. They occasionally pick fights. Or they chase each other in circles around a tree, pump, pergola, car, etc., then face off for mid-air sparring with shivs...er...bony spurs on their legs. The hens hang back, look bored, fluff their feathers, pick lightly at the snacks, and compare notes on whether the size of a train really matters.

The boys are also doing that amazing peacock mating dance, often just outside our back door on the patio. They raise their trains and spread the feathers, vibrate their train, tail and wing feathers, bow their heads, and high-step…backwards. You can see Francoise doing his dance here, and at the very end of the vid, you can hear the fluttery feather vibrations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31yGZUszW5o). And, of course, the peacocks have all started doing that voodoo they do so well, the infamous mating cry that sounds like an old woman yelling, “HELP! HELP!”

The hens are wearing their “I could care less what you think” brown & buff. If a careless hen wanders too near a displaying male—maybe she’s on her way to the bathroom to check her beakstick—he’ll charge her, madly honking, with his train fully spread & quaking...much like the 20-something guys I’ve seen at our Little Town watering hole. Even our youngest male, with no long train feathers at all, will raise up his tail feathers and strut, while the girls at the birdbath roll their eyes and giggle.

At this point, the hens are smart enough to know that the weather is still too unstable to head out to nest in the tall grass—still too much danger of another heavy snow or a hard freeze. But soon, probably very soon, even their fancies will turn…

The Winter of Our Discontent

This winter will certainly go down in the Annals of the Bizarre here on the Row…a confounding conflagration of calamity…a sheit-storm of Really, Universe? Really?!?

Take the weather. Last week, on the day of The Great 2012 Tuneup (see previous post), it was a sun-soaked, record-breaking, 62-degree day in Sioux Falls. I could have sunbathed in my bikini on the veranda of the Heart Hospital, though that might have been too much (literally & figuratively) for a few too-fragile hearts, scaring them into permanent OFF. 


We’ve had very little snow so far, and the landscape remains mostly brown and gold. No icy roads, no white-out blizzards, no waiting for Tractor Man to dig us out. Corn-fused pea-boys are out fanning their half-grown tail feathers (they won’t have fully grown new “trains” until spring) in the faces of bewildered peahens. And I should be celebrating Mother Nature’s beneficence, but I recently read that the incidence of depression actually increases in northern climes during unusually mild winters, since there’s no snow to reflect what little SAD-preventing light we count on up here. Time to break out the full-spectrum bulbs and vitamin D.

Or take our peaflock. By mid-summer we had 29 peacocks—18 adults and 11 chicks. Then came The Marauder(s). Over the next few months, peas began to disappear. Or we’d come home to a half-eaten carcass. The first couple grisly scenes made us think it was a furry predator. Then we woke to a pile of cleanly-plucked feathers below a tree branch, which  made us think it was a raptor or very big owl. Then finding three or four headless but otherwise intact peabodies (I found the most recent headless peahen today) made us think raccoons. I finally decided that a local thug-critter got word out that the Row is a free, all-you-can-eat pea smorgasbord—a peaffet—and that we’re completely surrounded by predatory wildlife. So I did what any rebel farmwife would do: I wrapped the Roosting Tree with blinking Christmas lights. This strategy worked for a few days, until a squirrel chewed through the wire (paid off by the coyote down the road, I’m sure). Anyway, we’re down to 13 adult peacocks--not a single surviving summer chick. Some well-meaning friends suggest that Mother Nature simply knew I was in way over my head and “helped” me restore balance. But that’s a net loss of 16 peas in ONE season! So while I’m not a violent person, I’m now shopping for a patio duck blind/paintball gun combo.

Back to The Great 2012 Tuneup. In addition to Ray’s heart nudge (“attack” sounds so deliberate), my friend’s surgery to remove what she calls a “non-benign visitor” from her colon, and my other friend’s mom ending up as Ray’s roomie down the hall at the Heart Hospital, my oldest brother has had at least three surgeries on his eyeball this winter to repair (and repair and repair) a detached retina. This is unsettling because (1) he’s in Ecuador, where I can’t just pop over to help out, (2) he has to spend most of his time face-down and isn’t supposed to use his eye for a while, and (3) he makes his living working mostly as an online travel writer, which is hard to do if you’re not supposed to LOOK at anything. Then, Mom had to have a couple of teeth pulled. Dangerous, because I know a person can only stand so much blended split-pea soup before he or she loses it completely and starts trying to train his or her little dog to sing “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Amid all this, I had to keep plugging away to get ready for a new semester. Also, since about New Year’s, I’ve had the South Dakota Respiratory Plague, which means my best friends are Emergen-C, Advil, Puffs, Nyquil, chicken soup and my heating pad.

It's not one stressful event that does us in; it's the pile-up, when we don't have enough time between stressful events to recover or rally. So I’ve been in a sort of stunned pre-hibernation mode lately. I've been “closing ranks,” as my Mom would say. Holing up. Hiding out. Yes, I know there are bigger things going on out there in the Great Wide World and I may be thinking a little too locally. Yes, I know it’s only January. And yes, I know Jack Blizzard’s probably in Wessington Springs right now, having a beer and plotting on his bar napkin a trajectory that will lead him directly to our door. But for now, if I don't answer my door or my phone, it's because I'm curled up in a blanket-wrapped ball, knitting peacock chain maille and contemplating what surely will continue to be one mighty strange winter.

Peafowl Update

I have now spotted 12 new peachicks. And this morning, when I fed the flock, I counted 15 adults. Add to that the three hens with chicks (who won't come to feed with the flock until the chicks are bigger), and that makes 18, which means we have another interloper who's arrived from who-knows-where. I'm guessing that there's now an LED sign on I-29 advertising Uncannery Row Peafowl Paradise, and that we're starting to pick up fly-by's.

Peachicks have about a 75-80% mortality rate here at the Row (cats, raccoons, redtail hawks & turkey vultures, negligent moms, storms, etc.). This is proof of Mother Universe's sublime wisdom, because without it, we'd be up to 30 peacocks right now. And that would surely signal a threshold beyond which I begin to tuck peafeathers in my belt, give up human speech in favor of loud honks and screaming calls, drop all my long hair in late summer, and wander the pasture all day, pecking at clover & grasshoppers.

But I'm TOTALLY ordering these tights from modcloth.com...

The Perils of Pea-wifery

This is more than anyone wants to know about peacocks, but... Our flock includes 17 undomesticated adults with free run of our seven acres. We don't pen, corral, catch, vet or mess with them except to throw food out in the backyard every couple of days (okay...Ray might also put a brooding lamp up in the loafing shed rafters in the winter for the most brutally cold nights, when the peas will forsake their Roosting Tree for the less-windy rafters).

Peacock procreation is a delicate art that begins as soon as spring crocus (crocuses? croci? crocii?) peek through the snow. Our four adult males divvied up the farmyard into peadoms: Francois by the north fence, Ramon on the patio, Junior by the south fence, and Zorro, the youngest, in front of the greenhouse windows where he could admire himself. Then the show began: They fanned, thrummed, did the backward dance. You can watch Ramon here...toward the end of the video, you'll hear the vibrating train, a sound like ocean waves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31yGZUszW5o

By the first of June, half a dozen hens wandered off to nest. Peahens don’t build nests; they nest on the ground, tamping down a depression in brush or grass tall enough to hide them. They’re absolutely silent on the nest, so we only find nest locations by accident (except for silly young hens who try to nest in window wells).

One day in early June, however, all the nesting hens came back into the yard amid a loud pea-ruckus. For the next three days, the flock hunkered around the greenhouse and wouldn’t go beyond the yard. Clearly, some sort of critter had gotten all the eggs (hens won’t leave eggs except under threat of death), and whatever it was, it had scared the whole flock silly. Our neighbor down the road said he’d been having stare-downs across a field with a female coyote and had heard pups recently, so Coyote Mom could be the culprit. Raccoons will steal eggs if they get a chance, but a protective, unconfined peahen—the size of a wild turkey, with a sharp beak, talons, and horned “spurs” on their legs—can generally scare off a raccoon. Foxes will take eggs, but they’re also small enough to be intimidated by an angry hen. We found a burrow opening in the south pasture, so badger is a possibility. We don’t keep a gun here on Pacifist Acres, so I dumped cayenne in the burrow, gave the invisible critter a good talking-to, and we hoped for the best.

Apparently my scolding worked, because the males put their dancing shoes back on, and around the end of June, the hens bravely headed back out to the pasture to re-nest.

In a typical year, hatching/nestling goes like this: (1) Eggs hatch around the first of July. In the evening of about day 2, Mom goes up a tree and calls the chicks. They stumble, cry, and eventually, fly up into the tree, where Mom clucks until all the chicks are tucked under her wings and invisible to passersby. They roost like this every night for a while. (2) Around the 2^nd week of July, hens begin skirting the outer farmyard fences, trailing fluffy, scurrying chicks (like chicken chicks with long necks). I stand on the patio with binoculars, swatting mosquitos. After a couple days, the hen will let curious non-nester flock members within 10 feet for a look-see before she hurries the chicks back into tall brush. She will take them back to the hatchling roosting tree every night. (3) By the end of July, Mom and chicks are foraging the farmyard, strolling through the yard, and up by the house for the pea banquets provided by She Who Gives Corn, and they’re roosting in a tree within the fenceline now. (4) By mid-August, Mom and chicks have rejoined the flock, and all are now nesting in the communal Roosting Tree 20 feet from our house, within the safe all-night glow of our yard light.

But this is not a typical year. Mystery critter threw everything off. The males are dropping feathers as usual—they drop all long train feathers at once, within a 2-week period as soon as breeding is done; next spring's new train has already started and will grow all winter. But unlike other years, they're still trying in vain to display with scraggly, gapped trains, as if the breeding cycle hasn’t ended. (Note: Like humans, females control breeding, either through invitation/initiation or through snubbery.) And there’s no sign of chicks yet, which means if they hatch now and survive the first two weeks (always the trickiest time), they'll have a rough go packing on the size/weight they’ll need to survive their first South Dakota winter.

I’m trying to see this year as Nature’s wise & patient answer to my meddling. (Note: Regular feedings of corn, sunflower, and Walmart cat food exponentially increase pea-breeding success—there were six peacocks here when we bought the place five years ago.) Even if not a single chick survives this year, our little Row will still have peacocks a’plenty…a plethora of peas…we’ll still be a virtual pea paradise…a peadise, if you will. Or, wait a minute! I could bring the chicks inside, knit them little neckwarmers, feed them couscous and tofu…

Blizzard Survival Kit

Jack Blizzard had his first major tantrum of the season yesterday. It hit South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. It’s a gen-you-whine snow-in on the Row, with an impossible 7’ drift running the length of our long driveway. While we’re waiting for a kind-hearted tractor neighbor and/or county road crew, I thought I’d offer my essential Blizzard Survival Kit…

1. Coffee. You’ll need a couple pounds stored in an opaque, airtight container in the fridge. Then you’ll need another couple pounds stored in airtight bags in the freezer. You might consider ½-decaf if you’ll be snowed in with another human; you wouldn’t want to be too jumpy. But even worse—for all concerned—would be running out.

2. A larder. Out here on the prairie, you want a fully-stocked pantry at all times. Some people, I won’t mention names, have a pantry full of rice noodles, canned oysters, maple syrup, palm fruit pulp, pad thai sauce, canned tomatoes, refried beans, six kinds of crackers, microwave popcorn, and enough pickled jalapenos to stock every Taco Bell in the U.S. So maybe they don’t think in practical, menu-driven terms, but don’t judge; have you ever tried rice noodles with maple syrup and jalapenos? Yeah, I didn’t think so. They might also have a roasting hen, 5 lbs of tilapia, two boxes of henna, a bazillion wonton skins, a dozen candles, half a carrot cake, 3 lbs of coffee (see #1), an old bag of tater tots, 25 lbs of parrot food, a pound of dried parsley and 25 lbs of venison in the freezer.

3. Woolies. You may think you’re too cool for long underwear, but when the snow blows horizontally in a 50 mph wind, you’ll think again. Without the woolies, pale pink prairie skin looks like red cellophane after a 3-minute walk to the loafing shed.

4. A loafing shed. This is for your peacocks. They’ll want somewhere to roost out of the wind, preferably with a snow-free dirt floor below, where you can leave them cat food and black oil sunflower seeds, daily, at 10 a.m. sharp. A flock of 18 hungry peacocks marching toward your back door at 10:05 is a scary sight. Imagine the Skeksies in Dark Crystal, only leaner & meaner.

5. Chocolate. Four kinds of dark chocolate – with ginger, panko breadcrumbs, sea salt, and cayenne. Chocolate contains phenylethylamine, which causes the brain to release dopamine and oxytocin – chemicals involved in falling in love, relaxation, nurturing and orgasm. Avoid chocolate if you’re snowed in with relatives and/or ex’es.

6. Empty carbs. You’ll need Doritos, mashed potatoes, white bread with butter & sugar, and plenty of pasta with butter and parmie. These become especially important from Day 3 on in the event of a snow-in. The semi-comatose carb sedation will help prevent domestic unrest once the chocolate runs out.

7. Layered outerwear. You’ll want flannel-lined jeans and a sweatshirt, insulated coveralls, parka with a fur-lined hood, knee-high snow boots, a wool hat, insulated waterproof gloves, and a wool scarf to wrap around your face. You won’t be able to breathe, see or move, so you may as well stay inside…skip #7.

8. Dish TV. In the midst of a blizzard, all of your self-righteous pontificating about the evils of Bridezillas, Hell’s Kitchen, the golf channel and Nick Jr. goes out the window along with your heat. Trust me – you’ll be happy to stumble across that Petticoat Junction marathon.

9. Paper books and flashlights with fresh batteries. Your power WILL eventually go out. Books will help you survive the TV/Internet DT’s, which set in about 20 minutes after your power goes out.

10. Knitting. A good yarn stash and a 4-day snow-in could net you at least half a dozen adorable Christmas presents. Search the Web for fast, easy knitting patterns on Day 1, before you lose power. Remember, knitting needles are NOT weapons.

11. A wood stove. Have an ample supply of cut wood, dry and in the house. Have a folding Army cot or two near the stove. When the power goes out, pretend you’re camping in the Himalayas, on your way to meet the Dalai Lama. Chanting ohm nama shivaya ohm helps with the shivering.

12. Wine & Bailey’s. Ditto the importance of the semi-coma mentioned in #6.

13. Board/Bored games. On Days 1-2, these will help pass the time and create the illusion of an old-fashioned farm holiday season. On Days 3-4, they come in handy as non-lethal projectiles.

14. Binoculars. From Day 3 on, you’ll need these in order to stare longingly at the Interstate traffic ½-mile away. This will remind you to keep bathing, shaving your legs, and getting dressed in the morning—life is going on somewhere, and someday, you’ll be part of it again.

15. A comfy bed (if the heat is still on). If you’re not dug out by Day 4, take to your bed. Load up with carbs first for heavy, uninterrupted sleep. Pile on the down quilts. Know that when they dig you out, a kindly social worker will arrive to do a “well person” check called in by your mother. She will wake you to make sure you’re still breathing. Tell her you’ll get up as soon as the coffee’s ready.

Aversion Therapy & Home Industry

I’m easing into my post-fun summer penance now (and avoiding my new school year prep) by catching up on some home industry. I built a cage around my hearty wisteria, because the peacocks recently discovered it’s a delightful pea-dessert, and they ate the bottom half of the vine down to sticks in a single day. I remind the flock daily now that in Indonesia, peacocks are FOOD.

I’m doing a little aversion therapy with the peas, too. Peacocks mostly eat grasses and vegetation, but what they really love is cat food. So it didn’t take them long to discover that our adopted outside cat, Rickie Lee, has food on the back porch ledge. In fact, Zorro, our only black peacock and a flock hoodlum, is obsessed with Rickie’s food. He’s taken to hanging out on the back patio, and I’ve caught him several times on the ledge, polishing off the food in Rickie’s dish. I tried a billowy prayer flag pea-barricade, but the darn birds realized they could fly. So now when I feed Rickie, I stand by with a squirt bottle of water and zap Zorro (or the wayward girls he influences) whenever he makes a move for the cat food. This is what I’ve come to…shooing peacocks off my back porch. Who’d’a thunk…

In spite of serious, persistent spring and summer flooding in South Dakota (two main thoroughfares between our house and Little Town are still closed & under water), and the resulting constant buzzing clouds of bazillions of mosquitoes the likes of which I’ve never seen in all my years here, I’ve been picking, cooking and preserving our garden bounty: gooseberries, acorn squash, yellow squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and the sweet corn a friend gave us. I’ve stocked the freezer with whole grain blueberry muffins and bison mini-meatloaves, and we’ll have apples and wild plums to deal with soon.

Have I mentioned before that I love red wine? So Ray got me a winemaking kit last Christmas, and early this summer I turned the lower level of the greenhouse into my own little winery. I have my second batch of wine going now, a Chilean Malbec. I was encouraged to make another batch when I discovered (at our family reunion) that my first batch, The Damn Merlot (have you not seen Sideways yet?!?), is AWESOME!

I’ve also been knitting up a storm in accordance with a basic mathematical principle: Knitting + Discovery Channel = I’m not a slacker. I think I have several felted bags and 5 pairs of fingerless gloves now (not to spill the beans about what all my kids will be getting for Christmas).

I can also allay my slacker guilt knowing that I worked all summer doing freelance copywriting for the ad agency where I worked a few years back. Creative writing and copywriting are two extremes on the writing spectrum, so it was good exercise for me to strip things down to “Your Community Partner.” I wrote a couple video scripts, a few 30-second TV spots, some poster/banner copy, and lots of ads. Best of all, I got to hang with my old friends, who are a light-hearted, zany bunch of mad[wo]men.

Today I’m baking blueberry scones and blueberry buckle in preparation for a wild women’s weekend. I’m having a Row henna party Saturday, then when we’re all henna’d up, we’ll head to Little Town for another night of dancing when Ray’s band plays at our fave watering hole. Then on Sunday, I’m off to another Sisters of Perpetual Disorder women’s dinner, with a “picnic” theme this time.

Then I promise I’ll get to that school prep. Right after I organize my PEZ dispenser collection and re-grout the tub…

Our Little Darwinian Hothouse

It’s late fall at Uncannery Row. The ground is covered with leaves in that perfect late stage of crunchiness. Farmers are combining late into the night, and the corn and soybean fields are shaved almost bare. Squirrels, when they aren’t running from Yogi, the Great Hunting Schnoodle, are carting off black walnuts as fast as their fat legs can carry them. No sign of barn cats for a while now; they may have gotten tired of Yogi’s pestering and skulked off to find a more cat-friendly acreage. But something’s eating the cat food I keep putting out in the pyramid shed…

Speaking of food, the repercussions of my meddling in Nature have come home to roost this fall, so to speak. I may have mentioned before that there were 6 peacocks here when we moved in a little over three years ago—they came with the house. When we bought the place, I asked the previous owners how to care for the peas. She said, “Oh, they take care of themselves. I toss a little cat food out once in a great while when I’m feeding the cats.” So, that’s what I did. Toss a little cat food out, maybe a little too often. Then I noticed the peas would saunter into the yard just after I filled the feeders, to catch the spillage. I thought to myself, “Self? Why not toss a little bird food on the ground every now and then, so the peas can have their own?” Then one day I noticed the peas gorging on spilled field corn in the road. I thought, “Self? Why not add a little cracked corn to the bird food, since the peas like it so much?”

Yesterday, I counted 22 peacocks in the yard. They’d heard me take the metal lid off the bird food can, and they came RUNNING. Watching 22 peacocks run at you is like starring in your own Roadrunner cartoon, in fly-lens perspective. And if I so much as turn in the direction of the pyramid, where the cat food is stored, the peas FLY in, a honking aerial assault.

Peacocks aren’t supposed to get their train feathers, those “eye” tail feathers for which they’re famous, until they’re around 3 years old. And although they can breed in their second year, the boys can’t usually attract the mostly stuck-up hens until they have that swanky train (the pea-quivalent of a red 1975 Camaro). And breeding season is usually Feb-Sept or so. But we now have three 1-year-old black-shouldered males, each with a sprinkling of teeny tiny eye feathers they shouldn’t have yet, high-stepping back and forth on the back patio daily. In mid-November! It’s evolutionary hyperdrive, I tell you, probably resulting from excessive protein (cat food and corn), or Gore-bal warming (no seasonal cues to signal breeding seasons), or both. Directly or indirectly, it’s my pesky meddling in Nature. I might as well be out in the yard stocking an all-you-can-eat Atkins/South Beach pea-buffet while firing off a dozen aerosol cans.

Calculating the possible future pea-population is dizzying. The cost of corn. The hopscotch over pea-droppings. The no-room-at-the-inn Roosting Tree. The “Crazy Pea-lady” sniggers at the Co-op elevator. So today, while Yogi conserves hunting energy in Ray’s lap, I’ll be in the greenhouse grading papers, watching our bulked-up peas clumsily leapfrog in the yard, bickering over leftover bird seed. I will try to tone down my interference. I will try to appreciate and let alone the beautiful balance of Nature. I will sit on my hands if I have to. From now on, I will only feed the peas, cats, dogs, little birds (and occasional wild turkeys) on days ending in “-day.” Honest.

Post-Snow Pea Census

After a couple days of bone-chilling cold and bitter northern winds, the temp climbed enough yesterday to result in hours of hypnotic snowfall. Jack Blizzard has cleaned up the dingy brown of prairie winter with a beautiful blanket of white. A good snow muffles sound, too, so the Row is exceptionally quiet today. I’ve got a batch of bison jerky in the dehydrator, a pot of vegetable soup cooked up, two hats and a pair of fingerless gloves to finish knitting, and—argh—a late faculty evaluation to get done.

Ray was out early with the snowblower, making peacock paths. We lost another of the ABBA boys sometime over the past two days. He’d been limping around on legs that looked broken or splayed, until finally, he wasn’t able to roost or make it to the food. Ray found him this morning, a peasicle tucked out of the wind behind the bird food can. He’ll go in the burning cage later today, ashes to ashes. So now we are 13.

I’m not pining, though. Mom reminds me that had the pea-boy lived, I would have done myself in trying to rig up some sort of pea-walker to help him get around. And when I run the numbers in my head—6 peacocks when we moved in, 13 now a year-and-a-half later—it’s scary. I have visions of myself wandering the acreage one day…I’ll be reading poetry, dressed only in peacock feathers, nibbling on gamebird pellets, with 2 panting dogs and 150 high-stepping peafowl in tow. I’ll lose my capacity for human vocalization. I’ll scratch up grass seed with my overgrown toenails. I’ll sleep at night perched on the footrail of our brass bed frame. Tourists will drive by slowly, hoping to catch a glimpse of the “crazy peacock lady.” Poor Ray will have to arm himself against the reporters crouching in the brush, their high-powered telephoto lenses perched on tree branches.

X-Treme nurturing seems hereditary in my family—my mom keeps her mail carrier supplied with Chex mix—and it could very well be my undoing if Jack Blizzard and Mother Nature, in their infinite wisdom, didn’t occasionally step in to even up the scales. But Ray carved out a beautiful path to the pyramid building, so I’ll ponder life’s amazing tendancy toward balance as I head out to feed the barn cats…

You look smashing in your John Wayne pajama pants...

I haven’t had time yet to indulge in the post-holiday blahs. Semester grades were due last night at midnight, and I finished my 48-hour grading marathon at 10 p.m. It’s pure procrastination, of which I am the reigning Queen.

So this morning, in order to work out the “teacher’s neck” from hunching over my pile of portfolios for two days, I went out and wandered the yard. Ray had alerted me early this morning to a downed peacock on the road. It was one of the ABBA quads, a male. He had gone to that Great Roost in the Ether. I didn’t see any obvious signs of trauma, so I’m assuming this is the boy who’s been moping around since Christmas, apparently ill. I scooped him off the road, said good-bye, and left him as a tribute meal for the coyote Ray saw dart across the mile road last Friday. Corn-fed peacock. I noticed this morning that the other ABBA boy is lame, one foot curled under, forcing him to limp along on the back of the foot. Frostbite? Varmint bite? Battle wound? Two decades of inbreeding? Whatever the problem, injury, disease, or tired genes, he managed to make his way into the yard for corn and bird seed this morning, and the rest of the flock seems very patient with him.

The baby possum Ray found hunkered down in the loafing shed yesterday morning is gone, although I saw Shadow, the black barn cat, working intently on something near the shed yesterday afternoon. I haven’t seen Snowball, the white cat, for days, but the cat food in the pyramid shed keeps disappearing.

Jack Blizzard can drive even the most passive among us to hunt, I guess. Which reminds me, I just finished Cormac McCarthy’s (No Country for Old Men, All the Pretty Horses) The Road. It reminded me of my favorite American novelist, my buddy Bill Faulkner—the writer we love to hate—in terms of intensity and poetic rhythm of language. It occurs to me that the current and future generations not only won’t CHOOSE to read Faulkner, they won’t have the vocabulary for it. Sad. The Road is a beautifully written post-apocalyptic survival (or not) story, which I recommend without reservation, but don’t read it before bed if you’re hoping for fluffy, happy dreams.

Christmas was wonderful. After a flurry of last-minute arranging, Ray’s family was able to come for dinner on Christmas Eve. His oldest son was here from the Cities, so it was a warm surprise to have the family together (and his niece gave me the highly-coveted Kopi Luwak coffee beans). On Christmas Day, we had a smallish gathering at Mom’s, just Mom, Ray, the kids, and the dogs. There was no Jell-O salad (although Mom snuck her ubiquitous redhot candies onto the otherwise perfect sugar cookies), Mom made every kind of comfort food imaginable, and we played Catch Phrase, men against women. The women rocked. Mom has a tradition of getting all the men in the family identical gifts, and this year it was flannel John Wayne cowboy pajama pants. I suggested they all model the pants for a holiday picture, but no dice. Ray got me the perfect present--a Nintendo DS--my new procrastination tool.

Today, the sun is shining, it’s 30+ degrees, and Mom and I are going to ward off the blahs (and my urge to weep over the dead pea-boy) with shoe shopping in the City. There’s nothing like a new pair of shoes to shuffle out from under Jack’s heavy hand.

A Good Day for Snowetry

The first real, sticky snow is falling on Uncannery Row today. It looks like a Currier & Ives calendar. It makes me want to wrap presents. Mull cider. String cranberries. Sing carols. I can’t help it—I’m a hopeless, really hopeless, romantic.

We lost Snowflake, our wild barn kitty, last week after the first hard freeze. She’d always been a little wobbly, so I suspect a generally weak constitution. It’s sad, though, and I’ll admit I cried a little even though she’d never let me get closer than 5 feet to her. I haven’t seen much of her mom, Snowball, since, but she's eating the food I put out for her in the pyramid. There’s a black cat, too, we call him Spook, but I haven’t seen him for a while, either.

The flock is fine, though, still 15 strong, and this year’s babies are getting hard to pick out from the adults. They’re all roosting in the communal Tree in the yard at night, and there’s prolonged fussing & whining at night as they jockey for spots. Fifteen is a lot of big birds for one small ash tree.

I got to attend a reception in the Big City last weekend for poets and artists who collaborated on paired works of poems with paintings, drawings, or photos. The poem I selected for the exhibit is St. John of God, printed below. I wrote it when my friend Dave died alone and miserable after years of alcoholism. I wondered how the outcome might have changed—how everyone’s life would change— if we knew (& believed) how loved we’ve really been, all along.

Many good friends were at the reception, Ray, my daughter and her paramour, a friend who designed a poetry book I put together, my midlife lifelines, some of the Wild Women. These people are gifted poets themselves or amazingly talented artists in other mediums—words, counsel, hospitality, building materials & power tools, food, graphic deisgn, humor. So as this gorgeous snow drifts down, I’m grateful for every delicate flake, and for the beautiful, creative people around me. Told ya. Hopeless romantic.

ST. JOHN OF GOD
for the dead

What if there is no dreaming, no dancing,
no opalescent mist in which we float
suddenly weightless or winged,
what if trumpets don’t sound
and in no distant fog
do chords come clean from harps,
what if there never were seraphim
swallowed in flames of love
so radiant we turn our heads.

What if there is only a pause
a mirrored moment in which we see,
most of us for the first time,
our selves, and in that moment know
with certainty that we have been bathed
in love since the beginning
that all along while we wept and prayed
saved unanswered letters
left the receiver on the hook

we were pure love twisted into human shapes
so, like impulse and receptor cell
we fit, and could only spark together,
blood and bone going up in a flash of love
so radiant people turned their heads.
What if that moment is all we have,
one gauzy white curtain drawn quickly
over a small dim window
then out, out, into the long night.

St. John, was it looking out
too soon that drove you mad?
Or could you bless me with that moment now,
walk me past the mirror now,
with the window still wide open,
curtain billowing like a sail
until I know love, love, love,
that sea of flame and beautiful sorrow
so radiant I turn my head?

(Amen.)

Uncannery Ambush

Uncannery Row was the scene of hidden horrors and ensuing mayhem this morning. We were sleeping in after late-night carousing at the traditional Labor Day potluck. The party has been going on yearly for 20+ years and, after moving locations a couple of times, is now at the country home of friends. There’s nothing quite like it anywhere. I would guess that well over 100 people show up to stake out their lawn chair spots then spread several tables with the most exceptional food around, accoutrement for the fabulous pork roasted by the hosts. Various musicians play all night long, friends reconnect, dance, eat, drink, and there’s even a retired U. professor who twirls her fiery baton wearing a sequined costume she still fits into perfectly after 40 years. She twirled last night to “Oh Mama, Mama” by Commander Cody. But I digress…

So at around 10:00 this morning, we awoke to the entire flock of peacocks calling. They have several calls, but one, which sounds like hee-haw, is used to locate other flock members. Another honking sound is used by hens to gather chicks that have wandered too far off. So the flock was hee-hawing and honking like crazy, out by the north pasture’s roof-high wild sunflowers. We went outside and saw all the adults, but not a baby in sight. By noon, 5 of the 7 babies had reappeared, but the flock was obviously rattled and hunkered down by the greenhouse windows, where they continued to call. By late afternoon, the flock seemed resigned to the loss of 2 of the 4 Abba quads, as the calling had stopped. By 6:00 tonight, one more of the quads had found its was back from the nether regions. So as the birds jockey tonight for positions in the communal sleeping tree, it appears that now we are 14 instead of 15.

We figure a fox or maybe a raccoon caught the flock out in the pasture, where predators have excellent sunflower cover (Ray went out almost immediately and mowed pastures until the mower tire went flat). Whatever it was, it seems to have nabbed one baby and scattered the rest, and it took a long, worried day to get the survivors back together.

I admit to crying just for a minute this afternoon as I listened to the hens call and call. I can’t say what peahens feel, but I imagine hope, heartache, love, and an occasional profound sense of helplessness--I have chicks, too.

Peafowl Primer - Chapter One: Feathers

When we inherited a flock of six adult peacocks last summer (they came with the house…actually written into the contract), I did what any former city girl and novice peaherder would do—I went to the Internet. I was startled at how little information is out there. I emailed the former homeowners relentlessly, but once the restraining order was in place, I turned to Amazon and ordered the only book on peacock care I could find. I was disappointed to find out it was a slim tome written by a guy who’d once had a few birds, about how much he “liked ‘em.” There were a couple of websites, but nothing I found seemed complete—for example, I couldn’t find anything that told me typical peachick color/feather markings, and whether that indicated the chicks’ sex.

So I’ve decided to blog my own peafowl primer. Granted, it’s anecdotal, but I’m dangerously obsessive about closely observing our little flock—the neighborhood’s abuzz with rumors of “that weirdo” with the binoculars and bag of Funyums who crouches in the spirea bushes. And hey, I figure if I was a total pea-gnoramus, then whatever I can offer will help other pea-gnoramuses (pea-gnorami?).

Peafowl come originally from India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. In the wild, they’re forest-dwellers, with a dominant male having a harem of females. In the barnyards of South Dakota, males will take whatever they can get.

The most common peafowl is the India Blue, the bird with which most of us are familiar. There are also greens, pieds (mottled with white), albino whites, and other varieties. Males have that amazing “train” of tail feathers that includes long, wispy iridescent “eye” and “sword” feathers, held up when they display by a fan of shorter, stiff, dull-brown feathers (see Francoise in the picture, shown from behind, displaying for a lawn chair, poor dear). Wing feathers are brown or white with black bars, and they have a bank of russet feathers on their lower sides, which they beat rapidly when displaying—more crazy peafowl percussion. Their long necks are iridescent blue-green. Legs are featherless, beige, with heavy-duty nails and a bony “spur” on the inside of each leg a few inches above the foot, used for mid-air sword-fighting with other males.

India Blue peahens are mostly brown with barred or plain brown wing feathers, white chest feathers, an iridescent greenish sheen on their upper necks, and short dull-brown tails (see pic of Junior, an immature male with no train, and Debbie on the fence). Peachicks can be a variety of colors, I'm learning, but in the two seasons we've had chicks, the females have ended up looking identical to adult hens by the end of the first summer, while male chicks remain a variety of colors (see Ike, Tina, and Wilke in the greenhouse window—Ike is a yearling now and still mostly white; Tina is identical to all the other females; Wilke, colored like Ike, met an untimely predatory end). Ike is a year old now and still white, although we don’t know yet if that means he's a male or that he’s a mutant and will stay white. Of Wanda’s four new babies, two already look like adult females, and two are cream, rust and brown, although again, we don't know if that means they're males. Debbie and Mitzi's chicks are clearly females. All peafowl have a topknot that consists of a cluster of erect, bare feather shafts tipped by tiny iridescent blue fan feathers.

Peacocks are sexually mature at 2-3 years, although males have a comical train the first year, with a few scraggly eye feathers sticking up here & there. The hens gather around the birdbath, point and snicker. The mature males kick sand at the poor guy. Peacocks drop all of their long tail feathers in a week or two in late July when the breeding season is over, so we make daily rounds to gather the feathers. They grow a new train over the winter and are ready to go again in early spring. Each year the train is more impressive, fuller and with bigger “eyes,” until the peacock is in his prime.

Both males and females can raise their tails. Without a train, this looks a lot like a turkey spreading its tail fan, and peacocks will fan when startled or to threaten small, delinquent puppies.

When the boys do their courtship thing, which they’ll do for just about anything—females, yard art, dogs, wind, lawn mowers (see Ramon’s ironic wooing of the Virgin Mary)—they fan their train and vibrate the feathers, making a sound like a soft drum roll, which they alternate with the rapid staccato beating of the russet side feathers. When they really get going, they’ll high-step in a halting march toward the object of their affection with neck erect, head bowed, and train fluttering. They also do a fancy back-stepping dance, and if a hen ventures really close, they charge. The whole process is remarkably similar to the courtship behavior of first-year college students with fake IDs in a downtown bar. Only waaaay prettier.