Fowl Play?

I went to dinner last night with the other Moms in my neighborhood for our annual ornament exchange. Right as dinner was winding down, I found out that our resident peacock was found poisoned over a month ago! Apparently, I was the only one at the table who didn't already know this. Now, you are probably brimming over with a lot of follow-up questions like:

1. What do you mean "resident peacock"

2. How do you know he was poisoned?

3. Where did go for dinner?

4. What did you order?

5. Should I get my loved one a peacock for Christmas this year?



I'll answer each of these pressing questions in turn.

1. First, and probably most importantly, I'll explain my relationship with the above peacock. When my husband and I bought our house 4 years ago, we thought there was something really special about the neighborhood . It didn't feel like a typical subdivision. There were just 60 homes situated on one dead end street, which was flanked on all sides by family farms & woodlands. There were sidewalks and tons & tons of kids. It really seemed like Pleasantville. All we knew at the time was that we loved the house, the property and the feel of the place. What we didn't know when we purchased the house was that the neighborhood came with an extra "amenity" - it's very own wild peacock.



We, or I should say, Mr. Crackers, didn't discover this fact until he moved into the house alone (while waiting for my son & I to sell our house back in Atlanta) in June - which he came to discover is near the end of the peacock mating season.

He discovered this one night at about 4:00am after he heard what he at first thought were a woman's screams coming from the woods behind our house. After a long and sleepness night, he met a new neighbor, who asked him if he got any sleep with all the racket the peacock was making. Ummm, what? Peacock?

Mr. Crackers, being the inquisitive sort, asked a lot of questions about our new "friend" and then called me the next day filled with all sorts of interesting tidbits. We learned that the peacock had lived in the neighborhood since it had been built 15 years earlier, that he loved peanut butter Captain Crunch and perhaps most importantly that he was a confirmed bachelor with absolutely no peahen with which to mate. This was good news and bad news... The good news, was that there would be no little peacocks running around the street. The bad news was that mating season for this poor guy was a sad and lonely time punctuated by months of loud (& I mean LOUD!) mating calls. A typical mating season lasted from about April - early July. Oddly, the previous owners of our home never mentioned this amenity during the closing process. Hmmmm..

2. Now on to the next question. You know, the one about the peacock poisoning. Outside of mating season, when the peacock understandably, got a little grouchy (19 years is a long time to go without a mate!), he was usually a pretty docile and decent neighbor who would come by occasionally for visits & poop on my front porch, but would generally leave everyone alone. That is, until this year. This year for whatever reason - old age, pent up hormone problems, loneliness - he became really aggressive. He was particularly combative with any service people who happened to be on the street. This meant that garbage collectors, lawn care specialists or anyone else driving a large truck in our little subdivision was subject to the threat of peacock attack! So, when these service people were on our street, we would try to ensure, usually by spraying the peacock with a water hose, that no harm came to these brave men and women.

Unfortunately, I learned over dinner, we were too late to help a garbage collector about a month ago, who fell victim to a peacock attack in my neighbor's driveway. To add insult to injury, he tripped over the curb while fighting off the peacock and fell hard to the ground face first. Thankfully, my neighbor and another garbage collector were able to rush to his aid and chase off the peacock, who felt much less aggressive now that we was being pursued by 3 angry people. Luckily, the man was unhurt and although my neighbor was initially very concerned that he was missing all of his teeth, she learned from him that they were not knocked out in the fall, he just had not put them in that morning (this is completely true - I am not making that up.)

It was the next morning, I was told, that the peacock was found dead in a different neighbor's yard. I am not sure that he was actually poisoned (I don't think anyone actually performed an autopsy). It may have just been a coincidence that he passed on right after this latest attack, but regardless, he has ascended to the big peacock farm in the sky. He was given a modest burial in the land he had called home for the last 19 years.

Now before anyone gets upset & reports this incident to any authorities, I must tell you that he had been increasingly aggressive this year. In addition to besieging the service people I already mentioned, he had also attacked several neighbors, many of whom he had known for years. He was a wild animal, and everyone had grown increasingly nervous about his existence in a neighborhood so filled with small children. And I will state again, that I am not sure that there was any fowl play involved (get it?, and yes I know I am I complete dork).

3 & 4. Next, I'll answer these 2 important questions in tandem. We went to the new Melting Pot restaurant that just opened up in town. I had some cheese fondue followed by fillet mignon and then topped off with dark chocolate fondue. Most importantly, perhaps, I had a couple of their Pomegranate Cosmopolitans, which may have just been my favorite part of the whole meal. Is that so wrong?

5. Now onto our final question. Would a peacock make a good pet for your family? Should you purchase this bird for your loved one this holiday season?

Umm, no. Not unless your "loved one" likes to clean up lots of poop while armed with a push broom and watering hose to fend off attacks from a bird to whom they just fed a handful of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch.

In closing, let me just say that I will miss our peacock. He was a beautiful wild creature who until this year was a pretty good (although sometimes loud) neighbor. I know that he is now living out the rest of eternity in heaven on a peacock farm filled to the brim with peahens. Lots and lots of peahens.