Early Morning Visit

I was wakened at about 5:30 this morning to what sounded like a squeaky toy being stepped on. "Those durn dogs," I thought, "playing with their toy in the yard -- right by my window." But then I remembered we'd put the dogs in the pen last night before we went to the Rockies game, so... hmmm.... Well, maybe I'd imagined it. So I snuggled down to try to get back to sleep. But, then I heard it again. It sounded more like a crow now, though, a big crow. But, we've never seen crows here ~ a few starlings and the occasional blackbird, but never a crow. Strange...

I threw on my robe and slippers and went out in the half-light to have a look around. I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary at first. The songbirds were awake and starting to make a racket, but the chickens were sleeping in; not a one was out in the chicken yard, so the weird noise hadn't been one of them. I strolled around the perimeter of the garden fence looking out into the front ten pasture and didn't see a thing, so headed back to the house. It must have been my imagination. Maybe I was dreaming.

Nice morning, though. A little chilly, but the sun was just peeking over the eastern rim of the prairie, lighting up the yard a bit. I was just thinking that it'd probably warm up a bit and would be a good day to do some yardwork, when I noticed something hanging out of the tree by the baby swing. What the heck?

It was long and strangely fuzzy. I thought for a minute it was my eyes going fuzzy on me, until I looked up into the tree and saw what the long fuzzy thing was connected to...

You see it? This vagabond peacock perched on the treebranch for a while...

( Here he is in brighter daylight)

Then he flew over to the roof. Here he is walking across our roof.

I watched him for a while, wondering if I should go wake up the children. I did wake up Dan so he could have a look. But, I didn't have the heart to wake up the kids. It goes against every motherly instinct in me to do such a thing, ya know... The children would only come out and make a racket and scare him away, anyway. And, I had pictures. So, after a while, I went in and went back to bed. When I came back out about an hour later he was nowhere to be found. I wonder where he came from and where he went? I don't expect I'll ever know.

But it's a good thing I had my trusty camera on hand. The kids would never have believed me if I didn't have these pictures.