Scotto is away for a few days in Melbourne. He went to his niece’s wedding. She held her wedding midweek... just like her sister did, and I’m beginning to suspect his family hates me and doesn’t want me attending family ceremonies and thus plan their weddings around my work schedule.
Hmmm.
Anyway, I’ve been stuck here with the eighteen animals while Scotto is gallumphing around in the big smoke.
Juggling parent teacher interviews after school and making it home before dark to feed the menagerie, has been a challenge.
Anyway, I’ve been stuck here with the eighteen animals while Scotto is gallumphing around in the big smoke.
Juggling parent teacher interviews after school and making it home before dark to feed the menagerie, has been a challenge.
One evening, just on dusk, I arrived home to find twelve chickens standing resolutely at the back door, pecking ravenously at the glass and staring at me with an evil gimlet eye. It was like a scene from The Birds.
The twelve psychotic chickens at the back window were framed by the silhouettes of my insatiable German Shepherd (think a starving Cujo) and the Silky Terrier (think a very angry Benji). Their tongues slobbered onto the veranda in menacing anticipation of meat.
The usually resentful and elusive hare, Mixy, somersaulted around in her cage like an expert aerial performer in Circus de Soleil in an attempt to get my attention. The Chihuahua and Fox Terrier yipped around my feet whilst the cat clawed a chunk out of my ankles as I rushed past her in a desperate stagger towards the pantry and the canned food.
With trembling hands, I dithered about who to feed first, but quickly elected to appease the German Shepherd at once (in case he lost his Teutonic composure and tore my bloody arm off in a ravenous fit of savagery... or attacked an emotional chicken).
Amidst a cacophony of cackling, crowing, barking, yipping and caterwauling, I somehow sated the crazed feeding frenzy without any of them eating each other… or me.
Just so you know… they all get fed breakfast.
One morning before work, I walked down the yard to let the chickens out of the coops and I saw about eight alien chickens foraging in the garden. The neighbours’ chickens had clearly heard rumours about the cushy conditions at our place and found a hole in the fence.
Pablo, the Chihuahua, immediately recognised the intruders weren’t ‘of our flock’ and chased them back through the hole, scoring some delicious plumage in his muzzle.
I wasn’t even positive they weren’t our chickens at first. They looked exactly the same. They were black with feathers… so I don’t know how the Chihuahua could tell.
Intra-species racism? Next he'll be building a wall.
Anyway, it's all been chaotic and I will be glad when Scotto returns home because I’m frightened it’s turned into Animal Farm here.
You know what I mean… all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than humans.
The usually resentful and elusive hare, Mixy, somersaulted around in her cage like an expert aerial performer in Circus de Soleil in an attempt to get my attention. The Chihuahua and Fox Terrier yipped around my feet whilst the cat clawed a chunk out of my ankles as I rushed past her in a desperate stagger towards the pantry and the canned food.
With trembling hands, I dithered about who to feed first, but quickly elected to appease the German Shepherd at once (in case he lost his Teutonic composure and tore my bloody arm off in a ravenous fit of savagery... or attacked an emotional chicken).
Amidst a cacophony of cackling, crowing, barking, yipping and caterwauling, I somehow sated the crazed feeding frenzy without any of them eating each other… or me.
Just so you know… they all get fed breakfast.
One morning before work, I walked down the yard to let the chickens out of the coops and I saw about eight alien chickens foraging in the garden. The neighbours’ chickens had clearly heard rumours about the cushy conditions at our place and found a hole in the fence.
Pablo, the Chihuahua, immediately recognised the intruders weren’t ‘of our flock’ and chased them back through the hole, scoring some delicious plumage in his muzzle.
I wasn’t even positive they weren’t our chickens at first. They looked exactly the same. They were black with feathers… so I don’t know how the Chihuahua could tell.
Intra-species racism? Next he'll be building a wall.
Anyway, it's all been chaotic and I will be glad when Scotto returns home because I’m frightened it’s turned into Animal Farm here.
You know what I mean… all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than humans.
