A Peacock Moves In
One day this beautiful Peacock showed up on our farm. When I first saw her, I thought she was just one of the wild turkeys who roam our hills. I was sure she wouldn’t stay. Surely she was just passing through. She really loved hanging out with our chickens, eating their food and sticking close to the flock all day. I kept waiting for her to go home but she decided to stay here.
I notified neighbors of the peacock, hoping to find her owners. Days went by with no one claiming this beautiful bird. I considered keeping her since her owners couldn’t be found. There is just one problem with that big, beautiful bird: She really loved roosting on Noah’s car- and coincidentally scratching it. These were not little hairline scratches, no, they were long deep scratches.
Every time I looked outside, she was roosting on Noah’s car. I’d grab a broom and run out to the driveway yelling and waving the broom in the air to “shoo” her off the car, but it was useless. As soon as I turned my back, she was back on the car again. With frustration building I began to hatch a plan to get the peacock off our property.
Hatching a Plan…
One day I caught the naughty peacock as she was grabbing a snack in the chicken run. I raced as fast as I could to the chicken run door, just barely beating her to a narrow escape. I’m sure it was a funny sight to see- me frantically running to the coop in the middle of the afternoon! With the bird finally trapped in the chicken run, I quickly snapped some pictures and posted her “FREE” on a local farm page. Within an hour, a very happy young man showed up to take her home with him!
I wish I had a video of him catching her! The 6 1/2 foot tall fella entered the chicken run, cornered the peacock and swiftly grabbed her by the feet. With feathers flying, he brought her out of the run. I helped him tie her feet together and he carefully laid her in the back seat of his car for the drive home. We chatted for a minute and realized that I had planned to buy some goats from him earlier in the spring. I had to cancel the appointment when Jamey was injured. The young man was so happy to get the pea-hen, he promised me a “good deal” on a couple of young goats after we returned from the July mission trip to Belize.
We drove out to his farm one Saturday, planning to purchase one bottle baby doeling. He showed us all around his farm full of goats, turkeys, and even a few beautiful alpacas. He offered me an older nanny goat and another bottle baby boy. I really didn’t want another boy, since you can only have one in-tact male. At the last minute, he gave me a deal I couldn’t resist. We left with a nanny goat “Martha”, a doeling “Gracie”, and a wether boy “Rusty”.
So, that’s how we ended up with three more goats on the farm! You just can’t make this stuff up- farming truly is an adventure!
