The Criminal Element

There are criminals on our farm. Yes, they are professionals at Breaking & Entering, always looking for a weakness in the fencing or gates. They are called GOATS. (And a lot of other things I'd best not repeat here....)

Yesterday evening after their warden, otherwise known as The Farmer, went off to choir practice, I grabbed my camera to go outside and look for some good photo opportunities. Little did I know I was going into investigative reporting, and would catch the criminal element at work. The dogs are on the left watching the goats. The llama is in the back watching. The guineas are on top of their pen looking. Everyone sees the criminals at work!
Yes, right before my eyes, I saw the brazen little beasts had gained entry into the aviary AGAIN, and let the peafowl loose AGAIN.

They’re lucky it was only a camera I used to shoot them. Rotten little brats!

It would seem that yesterday morning I must have only slid the latch over on the door, and neglected to flip it downward to let it catch in the notch to lock it. Mind you, this bolt does NOT slide easily, so it never occurred to me it would be any problem if I didn’t latch it down.

Well, I was wrong. Apparently the goats bounced against the door enough that the latch worked loose, and they must also have bounced enough that the door bounced open, and they took advantage to get it WIDE OPEN. Then they went in, and all but two of the peafowl went out.
Here we go again! Fortunately, Young Son was home, so I went in and enlisted his help. We’ve done this so many times, we figure we can call ourselves Professional Peafowl Herders, or maybe Professional Peafowl Wranglers. We’ve certainly got enough experience at rounding up the wandering peafowl, thanks to the baaaaaad goats who keep finding ways to let them loose.

Our first task was putting the goats back in a pen and out of the way. Then we started looking for our wandering fowl.

We found a couple of peahens just sauntering around the yard, and a couple more in the guineas night pen. The peacock was in the chicken’s roosting area.

After we got all the peafowl we saw running loose back in the aviary, we discovered we were still missing two peahens. We walked all around, looking up in the trees, and discovered nothing but squirrels. We were about to give up when Toby started barking. He had discovered a peahen in an enclosure made by wiring upright pallets together to make a fence around my lilac bush and trumpet vine. (And in case you’re wondering why we did that, it was to keep the same B&E experts from stripping those plants bare of bark.)

Anyway, we cut the wires between two of the pallets and opened them up. Experience has taught us it is better to gently, slowly, ease the peahens along in the direction you want them to go. Trying to net them or hurry them along usually results in peahens HIGH UP in a tree where no man (or woman) has gone before.

About the time we got that peahen in the aviary, we heard that loud whoosh of wings that heralds a large bird overhead. There came the last peahen from somewhere across the road, and landed in a walnut tree close to the aviary.
By this time it was almost dark, and she showed no inclination to come down. The guineas were a bit disgruntled because that strange fowl had taken up residence in their roosting tree, but eventually decided to join her.

She spent the entire night in the tree, and it was the middle of the morning before we looked out and noticed her communing with her sister through the netting next to the aviary door. Once again the Professional Peafowl Herders swung into action, and got the last stray fowl into the pen. Yes!

If there's something strange in your neighborhood (like peafowl), who ya gonna call!??
Not the Ghostbusters!

You need the Professional Peafowl Wranglers, at 1-IRO-UND-EMUP!