[TheForge] OT snowfall

[John Husvar]

On 12/28/06 7:46 PM, "Steve Smith" <sos at alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> 
> Peacocks sound like someone is torturing cats. The sound carries quite a
>   distance.

Carries? More like assaults the night with all the delicate subtlety and
discretion of your average D9 Caterpillar at full throttle, accompanied by
an M1 Abrams, both with unlubricated drivers and idlers.

> 

When still in school I was visiting at my friends' farm, where they had
about 25 peafowl at the time.

We were commenting on how suburbanized the area was becoming when we were
distracted by flashing lights and a couple of deputies waving their
flashlights about, looking for who knew what.

Naturally we all went out to see why they showed up more or less in force.

They said they'd had a report of women screaming, apparently in extreme
distress, possibly in the woods or somewhere near the farm. They could hear
the screams but couldn't pinpoint the source.

Seems neither the newly transplanted suburbanites nor the (young) deputies
had ever heard peafowl really sound off. The birds were doing so even louder
and with great vigor at the disturbance.

It's an eerie sound from a distance at night; worse up close, especially
when the birds are roosting in trees in summer foliage and can hardly be
seen. Finally, one of the deputies caught sight of one of the birds and
promptly asked: "What the Hell _is_ that?"

Sneak up on a house where peafowl, guinea hens or geese reside? Yeah, you
and what Klingon cloaking device?