#fancybird

2/5/2018

What? Who wouldn’t want to be around a bird who put all their stat points into Has No Chill and Has Yes Volume? That’s clearly the best possible combination of traits in a neighbour! :)

The chickens care about Things I Can Eat and Things That Can Eat Me; the ducks add Things I Can Have Sex With to that list. Anything you don’t feed on, flee from, or fornicate with might as well not exist to them; they stop paying attention the instant they figure out none of the categories apply. They like humans, but it’s mostly because we give them hard boiled egg sometimes.

It’s not that the peacocks are smarter, but for some reason they care about things that don’t matter. Things they know don’t matter. If you’re out in the pasture and you move a shovel, the peacocks will notice and will come by and look at it in its new place. I’m pretty sure they know they can’t eat a shovel, they just want to know what’s up with it. It’s hilarious and endearing. They’ll put their heads right up next to it and inspect it like they’re looking for shovel contraband, then without moving their feet, they’ll snake their necks around to the back and inspect that side too.

All the things that are irrelevant backdrops to the ducks and chickens must be carefully inspected if you’re a peacock: fallen leaves, a pinecone someone kicked accidentally, boots if the shoelaces are tied differently than earlier, flowers that opened since yesterday, cats sleeping in the sun, hoofprints in muddy ground, tools, tree shadows on the walls of the chicken house, spiderwebs, lily pads, salamanders.They look at the tiny splashy waterfalls in the creek from all angles. I’m reasonably sure I’ve seen them stare at the moon.

3/5/2018 According to the Book of the Four Dooms, Which Has Been Burnt To Ash And Yet Will Be Read By The Pale Star-Extinguishing Emperor, there are three sounds whose hearing can destroy a human soul:

The B♭ 57 octaves below middle C, as sung by the black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster

The Mister Softee ice cream truck jingle, played with creeping slowness  by random kiosks in New York City

Being in an enclosed space, such as a garage, with a peacock at full volume

27/4/2018 Trees(tm): now, due to popular demand, available in Rainbow Swirl!

We have an official appointment to import the poultry May 1st! Hooray!

Since I was a child, I have studied for this day. Specifically, I have listened to my mother's stories of that time when she was hauling a Horse Trailer Full Of Very Fancy Birds across the United States, and stopped for the night at a small motel in Oklahoma. At about 3 AM, the peacocks decided it was time for a command performance of Concerto For Clown Horns In D Sharp Minor.

(For those of you who have never heard a peacock, perhaps this will help: the official scientific term for this particular noise is actually "bu-girk", though "bu-GIRK" would be a little more accurate. Seriously. Here's a citation. Very Serious Ethologists studying peacocks find the noise so enirely bu-girkful it could not possibly be called anything else. People have to present at conferences and put graphs on the screen and say things like "As you can see here, the frequency of bu-girks..." while trying to keep a straight face.)

A fellow motel guest inexplicably decided some sort of crime was being committed in the Trailer of Clown Horns and called the police to put a stop to it. My mother, exhausted and used to Honks, did not awaken, which is how some police showed up, equally inexplicably agreed that that was definitely a Trailer Full Of Honks And Crime If I've Ever Seen One, and unleashed a flock of cranky thousand-eyed honk-demons on a motel in Oklahoma at 3AM.

So, this is my destiny, handed down through the generations. I was born for this: to cram some fancybirds in a station wagon and drive them across an international border.

I am a Peacock-Ferryer, from a long line of Peacock-Ferryers, and before I go to fulfill the destiny I for which I was made, I leave you this wisdom:

1/2/2017 Today was one of the rare days that the temperature went below freezing in our area. It happens maybe twice a year, so all the animals forget it’s a thing, and are like, “Didn’t water used to be drinkable?” and stand around bonking their various noses and beaks in their water troughs confusedly.

I let the ducks out to free range and they attempted to jump in the pond and went skittering around sideways, with many angry quacks. Pond You Can Walk On is not their favorite.