Chilli and critters
We may think we run Brook Eden, but we don’t. Our diminutive jack-russel -terrier-whippet-cross, Chilli, actually does.
He might be the smallest, but he’s at the top of the pecking order. He’ll even stand up to Rooster, who has leg spurs that could earn him good money in a ring in any Thai village, and who’s been known to leg sweep both Sue and I as we chase the chooks out of the garden.
The ducks and peacocks might camp anywhere they please, but if it happens to be near where Chilli has a bone buried, then the odd feather flies.
Chilli has taken the plum job for himself, greeting all the visitors as they arrive, leading them to the cellar door, then leaving the wine tasting, chatting, selling, etc. for us to look after. All the stuff he finds a bit boring.
After a hard day of meet 'n' greet, Chilli assumes his rightful place of authority and surveys his domain from the fully lined comfort of his basket (which he somehow organises to have placed in the warmest spot in the house), unless Whitie the cat has already taken up residence, in which case he has to govern from his day bed, under the coffee table.
Not that much different from Louis XVI really, he used to meet 'n' greet from his daybed.
Elsewhere on the manor, the swans have had two new cygnets, we've somehow gained two Muscovy ducks, the male sporting a bright red neck band and beak, which, together with his black and white plumage and suggestion of a mowhawk cut to his head feathers, gives him a rather punk look. So he’s called Spike.
The Peacocks have had three chicks, which the hen is now teaching to fly, by encouraging them to walk up onto her back, then flutter off to the ground. An increasingly useful skill for critters who insist on digging for grubs right where Chilli has a bone buried.
New Developments
Update: November 2008
With nervous forebodings of never seeing them again, we released our first pair of Guinea fowl (Mr Waldorf and Gonzo) onto the vineyard last month.
Our fears were unfounded. After an initial foray into the neighbour’s paddocks to check out the grass greener, they were straight back to take up permanent residence in the chook pen.
Bizarre. What was once the sole domain of Roosty and the three hens has at various times in the last few months been home to: three broods of Muskovy ducklings; a pure-bred Peaking duck who can’t cope with the rough and tumble of the wetland ponds; whitey the cat, who occasionally gets locked in by mistake when he’s gone in to pinch an egg, or just have a snooze in the straw; the entire peacock family who fly in and out at will to swipe lettuce and tidbits the chooks haven’t been quick enough to scoff; the new batch of laying hens; and now the crazy guinea fowl. Or maybe not so crazy, because one of them, tired of losing her nested eggs to marauding crows, has had enough smarts to move her entire nest inside the hen house.
May 2007
Congratulations are in order. Spike and Miss Hissy are proud parents of 10 Muskovy ducklings.
All are healthy, very cute and doing well. So far Miss Hissy is proving to be a good mum, shepherding all 10 under her wings at the first sign of danger. But the marsh Harriers (hawks which breed each year on the wetlands) are back, a few large Crows are taking an interest and there may still be a quoll about, so mum’s going to be a bit busy for the next few weeks.
To do our bit to help Miss Hissy we’ve declared an APEC* exclusion zone around the chook shed for the next three weeks and the word must have spread, we’ve had about 50 people from Sydney visit the cellar door over the weekend.
(*) Aerial Predators and Evil Cats
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