I saw her for the first time down the street about a mile. I thought, "No. I did not just see her here." She was so out of her element. She was all by herself, not necessarily safe, and just strutting around like the world was her oyster. A week later I realized she was in my back yard. I looked up her profile on the internet. I was not mistaken. She was a guinea fowl.
Then I started to read her qualities and job description. All of a sudden I thought of the prospect of getting about six more just like her next spring. She eats ticks. She kills snakes. AND ... at 6:15 a.m. every morning she marches around the perimeter of my house, positions herself where she sees a light coming through a window (or just goes to MY bedroom window) and yells: "Chuck-chuck-chuck" and then punctuates it with a sound like a scream and a chainsaw combined. The first time you hear it you can skip your morning coffee. I'm just sayin'.
She is chilling with the ducks in the back yard. They march around doing what they do, fairly merrily. As my friend Joan once said, "don't get ducks. We HAD ducks growing up. They eat everything in front of them, and poop everything behind them." She was not wrong. However, now I have a guinea fowl on Staff, eating up all the ticks and hopefully killing snakes for me, although I've seen two I wish I had not seen alive...
Guinea hens, it is said, do not need a coop. I wonder what the plan is when winter comes, will she hop in the coop with the ducks when it is negative twenty degrees? What she does now is: "Roost." I was helping my neighbor tuck the ducks into their coop one night and I said to her, "Where's the guinea hen?" She said teasingly, "I think she likes you. She is always walking near your house." That was not the question. She took her flashlight and shot it straight up over our heads. There was the guinea hen roosting on the black walnut tree branch about 10-15 feet up. Wow. It made me wonder, if she falls asleep and loses her grip, then what happens? Is it like people when we have a dream like we are falling, and JOLT?!
I have been rather pre-occupied with looking at potential coops if she is still hanging around in a few months when it gets cold. I just wish I would hit the lottery or something so I could do right by her.
But she is not the only new-comer in the 'hood. At the start of summer, a funky looking calico cat showed up after just having birthed a few kittens. Mostly they lived on the edge of the woods and skittered back into the leaves and underbrush any time her human fan club tried to visit them. One neighbor took charge of the feeding and counting of the cats. Some days we thought there were two kittens, other days, three, and then a fourth was reported at the farm nearby. They reported to her that they had found the kitten "on the side of the road," and she presumed that meant DEAD. In fact, it was not, it was just, quite literally on the side of the road. So they took it into the horse barn, and now one kitten has a Place.
I reported to the Cat Coordinator (my neighbor) that I heard on the radio last month the SPCA was trying to place 96 cats. That would be: ninety-six, as in four less than one hundred. Talk about a story that is not going to end well. So Cat Coordinator reached out to the local shelter and after many messages, they finally said, they would take the mommy cat because... by now it was evidenced that she is expecting yet Another Litter. We saw the male cat come to visit a few times. I nick-named him "Lucky" for obvious reasons. The momma cat I called Carmen. So Carmen and Load #2 ready for delivery got to go to the no-kill shelter. Three babies remained outside. My resolve buckled and I took the young female... reluctantly.
I had to wait until after I came back from vacation because the dogs in my house are avid cat-fans. I wanted to be home to supervise, and not stick my dog sitter with that nightmare. So in my living room, I have two big crates for dogs, one dog roams free, and then a medium crate for the kitty. (I should probably just throw the couch out and let them take over completely.) The medium crate actually looks like a mahogany coffee table with a kennel under it. Inside the kennel is a layer of potty pads, a small hand towel for her to sleep on, food & water, and a small litter pan. I give her credit she has made expeditious use of the litter pan. So Day #1 was just her sitting in her pan all day looking muy nervioso. Today the dogs have decided that they like, like, and even Facebook-like her. I have pictures of wagging butts as they jam their heads on both sides of her kennel. Unfortunately my chocolate-colored spaniel has decided that the kitty is "HERS" - as in, "get-the-hell-out-she's-mine" to the other dogs. So I supervise my chocolate crab apple very carefully.
Yesterday afternoon, having been the first full day with her, I was quite anxious to get her vetted and cleared so as to not accidentally bring disease into my household. She got a clean bill of health. BUT, we had to wait for literally over TWO HOURS on the sidewalk outside the store that hosts the vet clinic. It was 80 something degrees. When I finally got to drive us home I could feel my energy ebbing out of me like low tide at its lowest... this morning I woke up and realized I probably was dehydrated with heat stroke or whatever. I laid on the couch most of the day hoping life would return to me.
Meanwhile, 3 dogs, one cat, one kitten and two birdies later ... I am keeping the Lysol people in business, and the veterinarian will probably put his other kid through college this year with my help. Next spring, when Princess Sophia has her first litter of the most amazing spaniels ever, think about adding one. It's the way the dogs pay for the cat food.
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