Some years back a family we met in the next county south of us decided to make the move to sunnier climates. They sold off most of their livestock, intending to re-purchase what they needed when they established their new homestead.

Even at fire-sale prices, they were having trouble finding willing buyers and were starting to get desperate. I went down and looked at a couple of their goats and liked what I saw but had learned over the years to never make a decision without the good wife's acquiescence. I felt it was particularly important in this case, since she would be the primary milker.

Now, I should have really thought the matter through more thoroughly. If I had, life would have likely turned out a bit more serene. I already knew that these folks had more livestock than they knew what to do with. I also knew my wife's penchant for exotic critters or for that matter, just about any living, breathing animal she can add to the menagerie.

Fortunately, she agreed with my choice, so while the male half of the homesteader couple and I settled financial details over a snort of some liquid refreshment in the barn, the ladies were touring the rest of the place while exchanging cookie recipes.

As we were loading and securing the goats in the back of our truck, the wife approached with a huge grin on her face and requested we leave room for the peacocks the generous lady had agreed to throw into the deal as boot.

I'd admired peacocks ever since seeing my first one as a child on TV. If you are old enough, maybe you remember it. One of the broadcast networks used it as an icon for color television. Unfortunately, that was the extent of my knowledge on the fowl.

Had I been more perceptive, I'd have given more weight to the male half of the other homestead couple. He kept looking at his boots while slowly shaking his head.

The peacocks' introduction to our place was short lived. They took one look at the place and decided it was beneath their stature and promptly went to live in the woods, except that is until feeding time, when the gluttons swallowed their pride, along with copious amounts of grain.

Life went on, the peacocks continued to live in the woods. We always knew they were surviving because of their distinctive, really loud yelps and their presence at feeding time.

Our place is 110 acres, mostly in a small valley, traversed by a county road and with Forest Service on two sides. Sound tends to carry a long ways here, echoing back and forth down the valley.

I happened to be out in the garden area one fine spring afternoon constructing yet another raised bed, when two county sheriff cars, lights ablazing, approached down the road in a lickety-split manner. They garnered my full attention as I pondered what dire emergency had transpired further up the road. Help the neighbors syndrome kicked in and I was running to my old pickup, shovel in hand, ready to follow the officers to see if assistance was required. Quick as you could blink, I found myself inundated in a cloud of dust with a cop car on either side of me. I was in a panic by this time thinking the rest of the family, in town doing laundry had been involved in some horrible accident.

The two officers were not very forth coming with information and insisted on questioning me before sharing any information. They demanded to know why I ran as they approached, and eyeing the newly, partially constructed raised bed, asked what exactly I had been doing with the shovel. They asked to see the rest of the family, who I explained were in town at the launder mat. We stood around suspiciously, as one of the officers used his radio and one of the other cops in town to confirm that they were indeed where I said they were before explaining the nature of their visit.

It seems that new neighbors had moved onto their land up the valley from us and called the sheriff to report repeated yells for help followed by a series of gunshots further down the road. I was truly puzzled, as I had been outside nearly all morning and had heard no yelling. I explained that to the officers and assured them I had been the source of the gunshots as I had dispatched a couple gophers earlier.

While we are all standing around trying to figure out the connection, both officers attention was drawn to a particularly loud and high-pitched Yelp!! from one of the peacocks sitting in a tree across the field.

Seems everyone at the time found this highly amusing except me. If you value your freedom, avoid noisy livestock.

-- Tis I (really_tis_i@yahoo.com), February 28, 2002

Answers

Too funny !!!!!

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@hotmail.com), February 28, 2002.

Ah, I see you can't stand them birds for the same reason I can't.

Back when my brother and I were kids my parents pulled up stakes and moved to a new place in another town. It was the middle of the school year at Christmas break. Well, we were far enough out of town to need to ride the school bus in which was a first for us. Come the first day of school after the end of the break we got up, did our chores and headed on down to the bus stop. The bus only ran on the main road and the stop was at the end of a different street than ours so it was maybe 3/8ths of a mile from our gate to the bus stop. It was foggy in that layered sort of way that we get and just getting light enough to see any real distance when we reached the end of our road. We were about to walk up the main road to the next road where the stop was when this horrible screaming split the morning stillness!

Man, it sounded like someone was killing a woman with a knife or something. Here we are brand new to the area, not knowing anyone or anything about the place and we were dumbstruck looking at each other trying to decide whether we should run back to the house to phone the sheriff or run to the screaming and try to affect a rescue. It took about zip seconds to decide by the time we could get back to the house, phone the sheriff and he could get someone there the murderer would have finished killing the woman and have had time to bury her and take a bath! With that in mind we took off at a dead run towards the sounds, through a mud filled ditch, a wide band of briars, over a barbed wire fence and a manure filled barn yard and were just rounding the corner of the barn when this PEACOCK came around the corner and screamed at us!

In spite of our passionate desire we did not stomp the peacock into goo but just quietly shook ourselves out, gathered our dignity and walked on back home to change clothes and explain to our parents why we'd missed the bus.

To this day I can't stand the damned things.

......Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlantic.net), February 28, 2002.

That is funny! I had my shepherd herding and while awaiting his turn he got so excited just started barking his head off. There was a Peacock up in the tree behind us who gave out a yell that sounded much like 'QUIET', I've never seen that dog shut his mouth so fast.

-- Leslie in Western WA (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), February 28, 2002.

Our across the street neighbor in Belton had peafowl. Lovely birds. lol. We must've moved there right at peacock mating season. They regularly woke us up at night for some time with what sounded to me like about a dozen cats "singing"(read:in heat). Not pretty. Took me awhile to figure out it was the peacock. That screaming sound they make during the day doesn't even compare. lol. They also took a morning constitutional across the next door neighbor's roof, past my persimmon tree and through my south garden.

Anyway, nice that your law enforcement team had a good laugh! lol

-- mary (marylgarcia@aol.com), February 28, 2002.

Good stories. I like Leslie's way of shutting up a noisy dog, too!

I agree that about the only thing that makes a Guinea less foul is comparing its squeak of a squawk to the paean of the peahen.

(Couldn't fit "peafowl" or "peacock" in the above).

-- Audie (paxtours@alaska.net), February 28, 2002.

Had a similar experience several years ago. My folks have a swimming pool, which up here in wisconsin is one short season. One mornig a peacock was drinking out of the pool. My folks lived in the middle of about 200 acres of woods. Well Mom was so surprised to see the peacock that she got a camera and took its picture, so people would beleive her that there really was a peacock .

Well the next day sure as heck the peacock was back with a girlfriend. This went on for several days until the birds finally did't show up one morning. Mom could hear them in the woods though for aseveral weeks. The next time she saw the peacocks they had four chicks with the hen. She never saw the male again, but the hen raised her family and moved on that fall.

I think that this might have been a feral pair that escaped from some hobbyist or from a farm. Ever heard of peacocks going wild. John Clark

-- John Clark (johndiclrk@Elroynet.com), February 28, 2002.

Back a few years ago while out riding on my well broke horse we were riding by a gated home we had riden by 100's of times. A piercing scream suddenly shattered our otherwise tranquil ride. We both recovered from our out of body experience at about the same time and turned and looked. There sat a peacock about 10 feet away, sitting on a post, looking quite smug. Never again did my calm collected mare walk by that place without eyeing that gate.

-- Stacia in OK (OneClassyCowgirl@aol.com), February 28, 2002.

We have some peacocks living in the woods near us as well. I've never seen them, but I hear them all the time.

-- Rudy (rbakker@wcrtc.net), February 28, 2002.

My daughter says I have no sense of humor but when I come to the countryside forum I always have a good laugh. Last night was the chili and tonight it's the peacocks. By the way, the men are funnier than the women.

-- Sheila in NC (nannie@intrstar.net), February 28, 2002.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAKK!

Ok, I'll bite: why would anyone own such an annoying bird? Can you eat them? Do they lay eggs?

-- james in ID (jlfinkbeiner@yahoo.com), March 02, 2002.

Because they are so beautiful???

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), March 02, 2002.

And here's *another* reason why I don't like PEACOCKS!

I've been steadily cleaning out the workshop here at DunHagan of the accumulated junk left behind by the previous owner. This morning I loaded and hauled three drums full of scrap iron that pretty well maxxed what my poor old Mazda pickup will carry. A slow front is moving through so it was raining. So, OK, I'm on the way to the dump and up ahead I see a large flock of something in the road ditch. They looked pretty big and they were close to the road so I slowed down out of general caution. About the time I got within fity yards or so I can see that it's a flock of a dozen or more peafowl.

Knowing how stupid these birds are I slow down to about thirty or so as I pass, just in case, and SURE ENOUGH one of the !@#$!@#$! peacocks takes to the air and crosses the road just as I pass. WHUMP!!! I saw him take flight with just enough time to step on the brakes but with better than 600lbs of scrap iron in the back on a wet road I wasn't able to significantly slow much before he impacted my grill.

Man, it looked like that damn bird exploded for the feathers that went everywhere, most of them seemingly pasting themselves to the outside of my truck. May well have killed the doggone thing but he bounced a couple of times down the road in front of me and took off over the fence into the trees. There were no houses in sight so I have no idea who they belonged to and the bird was gone so there wasn't much to do other than continue on to the dump. When I got there I realized he'd cracked my headlight and people were staring at my gaudily befeathered truck. Naturally, it wouldn't rain hard enough to actually wash the feathers off, I had to wait until I could get home to use the hose.

@#$!@#$!@#$!@# peacocks!

........Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlantic.net), March 02, 2002.