Writing Competition...judge the contest!!

[Justine]

Keep a look out at this space...there will be a writing competion here in a day or so with a book prize for the winner...winner to be chosen by consensus of readers...more details soon. xoxoxo, Justine

Note, all stories are in for this competition, now its time to vote your choice....

CW - Peacock / Racoon mother
Livia - Bobcat & dalmation
Willow - Woodland Nature Centre
Rina - Gorilla / Dog & mongoose / Swan family
WFTW - White heron
Astar - BlueJay

[crystal woman]

COOL ! What a good idea!

[cory su]

this is me keeping a look out..

[whitefeather treewicca]

...

[Justine]

ok, sneak preview..the ezine is not officially published yet (I know, I know, June is nearly over...) but its close enough and will be proofed tomorrow and the announcement sent out by Sunday...so, any one here who wants to get a jump...here is the link ; ))

http://www.susunweed.com/herbal_ezine/J ... oddess.htm
Read the story and then come back here to post your own..then all readers please wait a few weeks and then post your votes on which story should win...we will run the contest three months in a row, so there will be at least three winners, maybe more if any end in tie...

have fun and thanks for participating..

[crystal woman]

Justine - is there a limit to the number of words or paragraphs used? I'm assuming you don't want anything that takes up pages and pages and pages.

[sapphire kate]

This is exciting!

Justine, can I make a suggestion? Maybe chage the title of the thread to reflect that there is a writing competition happening. The forum is so busy now that I'm not reading anywhere near all the threads and could quite easily have missed this one. I'm sure others are the same.

thanks,
kate.

[Justine]

Crystal woman, there is no specific limit...just use your best wisdom to enter what you feel moved to share : )

Sapphire Kate, good call, have changed the title and also created a note in the announcements section as well...

[crystal woman]

Okay, you want stories about animals and healing, so here is my story about Fred, a beautiful blue peacock.


In Memory of Fred Peacock - who looked like this: http://biology.kenyon.edu/courses/biol1 ... e_mail.jpg

A true story by Crystal Woman
June 26, 2005

I met Fred Peacock when I moved onto a poultry and duck farm where I lived and worked for several years. He was one of the most delightful and most intelligent personalities I've ever met in the bird kingdom. Fred didn't belong to anyone on the farm, the farm belonged to Fred and he made sure everyone knew it. Nobody knew where Fred came from, he simply flew in early one spring morning, coming from the east on the first rays of golden sunlight rising on the dawn horizon - like a magnificent phoenix bird appearing out of the sun. He liked what he saw and decided to stay for 7 years.

He was already middle-aged, stately and dignified with a majestic train of a tail that stretched out 6 feet long behind him. Fred strutted his stuff daily like royalty from early mornings to late at nights. He took up tasks for himself as if it was a normal routine from his previous farm residence. He patrolled through the barns and yards ensuring that everything was running smoothly and acted as sentinal or guardian against intruders. His first act every dawn was to waken the roosters with his ear-splitting call, "EEYOW, EEYOW, EEYOW... CRONK!" He was a mimic with a vast range of vocalizations, including hoots, whistles, squeaks, grunts, peeps and chuckles, and was capable of making incredibly loud rattling, shivering and buzzing sounds with his wings and tail-feathers.

There were a lot of other types of free-ranging aimals resident on the farm - emus, turkeys, black swans, chickens, ducks, geese, goats, cats, dogs, plus a family of golden barn-owls in the rafters - they all respected Fred and paid attention to him. Fred used to break up fights between other birds, chase away the starlings that came to the feeding troughs, drive off the rats and crows that tried to steal eggs or babies. When the hens and ducks were laying eggs in nests, if one bird tried to hog a favorite nest too long after laying an egg while other birds waited in line to use the same nest, Fred would poke at her til she got off, then he'd step back and wait til the next bird in line was settled on the nest before he moved on. He used to inspect the nests regularly and lift out any broken eggs that he found to throw down in the aisles to waiting chickens who rushed over to eat them. Everybody always kept a close eye on Fred. If Fred called out "CRONK" three times they all knew it was a warning against some danger. They would run for safe cover while Fred spread his fantail open and loudly buzzed his tail-feathers menacingly at the intruder, like a rattle-snake. Fred would hold that stance until the dogs arrived to take up defensive positions. Very impressive!

Likewise, Fred was compelled to inspect all new visitors who came to the farm to buy eggs or birds. Fred knew a lot of human words and sounds. If people "oohed and aahed" and said the word "beautiful" he would put on an entertaining display of musical whistling, chuckling, dancing and whisper-swishy tail-flashing worthy of an Oscar nomination. If people rudely ignored him or mocked him he turned his back on them and tail-rattled while flashing his bum at them and vocalizing "Phuuutzz... phuuutzz ... hissss!" - just like the tom turkeys. He was a funny bird. Everybody loved him, especially the turkey-hens and me. He used to dance and drum his wings and display his tail for me when I was drumming outside.

About 2 years after his arrival I noticed that Fred was getting a hard swelling just under his eye. I mentioned it to another farmer who raised many peacocks for a living, who recognized it and regretfully informed me of very bad news. It was a rare disease particular to peacocks, turkeys and pheasants. A type of cancerous cyst under the skin that grew continuously out of the nasal passages and was practically impossible to remove surgically without killing the bird, even if it could be surgically removed there was no guarantee that it wouldn't just continue growing again, no remedies, no cures. No local vetrinarian was willing to attempt the procedure. We were advised to put Fred down because eventually the cheesy material inside the cyst would fill his nasal passages, push his eyes back into his skull against his brain and put increasing pressure on his face and head until he died. We were faced with a difficult decision and delayed taking action, just to see how things went for a few days. The cyst grew rapidly to the size of a golf ball over the course of the next 2 weeks and Fred began to show signs of acute distress.

Finally, the day came when we could procrastinate no longer and the farm manager and I stood beside Fred discussing our options. We could either put Fred down now, or we could take a risk and attempt to remove the cyst ourselves and hope for the best. Feeling very hesitant and unsure of ourselves, we finally decided to anaesthetize Fred and attempt the procedure. If we did that, it would mean setting up my kitchen as both surgery and infirmary while he (hopefully) recuperated. We walked away from the barns and headed up to the house to set up the kitchen and medical supplies. An hour later when I went to the kitchen door to go get fencing material for an indoor infirmary pen, Fred was standing outside at the kitchen door. He calmly walked in through the kitchen door, as if to say "Well, shall we get this over and done with?" He had never entered the house before, and that was the final deciding factor for us. Fred had already made the decision for us .... he wanted our help and was willing to enter the house on his own. This gave us more faith in ourselves.

Well, I won't go into all the gory details. But I will tell you this. Fred willingly swallowed the narcotic we gave him to put him to sleep, but he never did lose consciousness. He lay quietly in a semi-conscious stupor with his head steadied in my healing-hands while the manager (a meat cutter by profession) incised Fred's face with the skill of a surgeon and scraped out every bit of that cyst that was visible, right to the bloody root of it within the nasal passage. It took a very long time but Fred never flinched once. It wasn't possible or practical to stitch up the incision right away because the wound needed to be flushed several times every day with a healing infusion. He spent a full 3 weeks in my kitchen completely surrounded with crystals and receiving universal healing energy from my hands 4 times a day. And he slowly healed. The incision knit together on it's own without stitching, and the cyst never reappeared again.

For the following 5 years, life on the farm went on as usual. Fred continued on with his daily routines, except that he decided to move up to the house to roost in my big greenhouse at nights, right next to the kitchen door.

One evening just before dusk when he was due to arrive at his roost we all heard Fred give out a shrill, desperate sounding "Cronk!" that was cut off midway, and all the animals on the farm became utterly silent and watchful while the dogs raced to his defense in the direction of his call. When I arrived at the back of the barn, the dogs were in a heated battle with a pack of 5 marauding dogs from another farm. We were too late, Fred was already dead, having been ripped to shredded pieces by the pack. Nothing recognizable was left except for his tail, which had been completely torn away fully intact.

Yes, this was a sad ending ... but swift, no lingering. Fred appeared suddenly out of the rising sun and departed swiftly with the setting sun ... somehow that seems appropriate to me.

I still have Fred's tail, the entire fan, which I keep as a beautiful reminder of one of the bravest and most intelligent birds I have ever met.

[Justine]

what a sad ending...but i suppose ending are often sad...thanks for sharing that special experience of yours with mr. peacock ; )

[Livia]

The Bobcat and the Dalmatian

This is the story of our loveable Bobcat hybrid, with the unfortunately unimaginative name of “Bob” and our Missy dog. The story begins some 13 years ago when we first started moving into our old house and immediately noticed a very strong urine odor on the front porch, much stronger than a normal Tom. We guessed it was a Bobcat, but never saw the cat or any prints. We also quickly realized that we had a few feral cats around our house along with raccoons, possums, foxes, coyotes, snakes, lizards and all manner of birds. Time passed and we settled in and grew accustomed to our critter neighbors, but we never saw a wild cat of any kind. Then one spring we discovered a mama cat with 4 babies in our barn; the kittens were very obviously part Bobcat. They had little curly tails, black “wispies” on their ears and the telltale coloring of a Bobcat. As they grew older we would occasionally get a peek of them but they would never come near us or let us get close. They were extremely shy and wished to have nothing to do with us. If we moved so much as an inch toward one of them they would bolt and we wouldn’t see any of them for days. As they started to grow out of kittenhood we’d see them roaming around more, but they were still terrified of humans and would not even consider getting close to us.

Then one night I went outside to get some air and visit with the moon and stars and found one of the Bobcat kittens, not quite fully grown at this point, lying on the porch with blood all over its face. It was so weak and hurt and traumatized that it didn’t fight me at all as I leaned over it to investigate its wounds and comfort it. The kitty was a male and had a large, deep gash across his face. He appeared to have lost an eye and his nose and cheek were completely sliced open. He was so badly hurt that I didn’t know if he would even survive. I could feel his fear as I petted and spoke to him but I could also almost hear him say to me “help me because I cannot help myself”. After looking him over completely I decided that whatever attacked him might come back and that he would be better off inside the house. I felt that, even if he did die, he should be safe and surrounded by friendly souls. I also have a strict rule that if an animal is destined to die it should at least be as comfortable as possible as it leaves this world and moves on to the next. So, after carefully picking him up I carried him into the house and placed him on one of the couches. He was terrified into immobility and I feared that he would freak out or that a fight might break out around him. Strangely enough, our other animals, and there were many, were only curious and were very kind to him. I had been afraid that, given that he was wild and had so many different smells about him, that our domestic animals would consider him a threat. Boy, was I in for a surprise! We allowed our kitties to smell him and look him over, they accepted his presence and went about their business. Our Dalmatian, on the other hand, was a different story.

Missy was a very loving and excitable dog who loved kitties of all ages. Whenever we had kittens around she always acted as a babysitter for the mama kitty and would help keep them clean and safe. She loved kittens so much that we always said if she’d ever been pregnant she would be disappointed with her puppies because she’d be expecting and desiring kittens! Over the years she’d gotten really good at caring for kittens and was always eager to help. We held her back from the injured kitty at first as we were afraid that she might be too eager to check him out, but when she got a good look at his injuries she immediately calmed down and slowed her movements and took on a very gentle demeanor. As we tentatively let her smell the injured kitty we realized that she was trying to help. We had been too unsure of his wounds to begin trying to clean him up but we were amazed to see Missy start to lick the Bobcat clean! She made small comforting noises and as I watched her minister to the kitty I saw his muscles soften and relax. Missy was so gentle and sweet, she took her time and slowly cleaned his whole face. After his face was clean we realized that both his eyes were still there, one of them had just been covered by tissue from his nose. His wound was very deep and, as we were very worried about infection, we gave him a shot of antibiotic. After Missy finished cleaning Bob she cuddled up with him and made soft noises to keep him calm. They fell asleep on the couch together and spend the night in peace.

Over the next few days Bob gradually started investigating his new surroundings and making friends with our other animals. It was a while before he was fully settled in and he spent a lot of his time with Missy; she was his touchstone. Eventually Bob’s face healed and he got over his trauma. His face bears evidence of his wound as his eyes are uneven and his nose has a big dent in it. Because of this dent he’s often got a stuffy nose but, other than that, he’s perfectly healthy. He took to living indoors very well and is now an integral part of our furry family. We lost Missy just two years ago, she had a good life and lived fairly long but not as long as we think she could have. You see, we had treated her with Hartz flea treatment (a kind that has recently been recalled) and she didn’t live two weeks after the treatment. We miss her deeply, as does Bob. They were always buddies and slept curled up together often. Losing her was terribly painful but I know that, wherever Missy is, she is helping and loving those near her. I have no doubt that her sweet little soul will always love kittens and share her healing and comforting gifts.

Here's a picture of Bob, I don't have a picture of Missy as she died before we got a digital camera.

[crystal woman]

Well, I guess we're not supposed to post comments here, but I just wanted to say, Livia, this is such a heart-warming story.

So.... who's going to post the next story?

[Justine]

you are supposto post comments here, and so glad you did!! yeah, anyone else with a good story? I would share one but do not want to enter the contest (might be a conflict of interest) so I will refrain...

[crystal woman]

Justine, you could too submit a story, just refrain from being eligible for a prize. Heck, I don't want a prize myself, I just want to read other peoples' stories. C'mon ... you know ya wanna...

[Justine]

I DO wanna...but am also up to eyeballs in work, so WILL refrain...at least this week....