{"id":1267,"date":"2018-04-29T15:27:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-29T19:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/?p=1267"},"modified":"2018-04-29T15:27:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-29T19:27:35","slug":"so-felicity-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=1267","title":{"rendered":"So, Felicity it is"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Felicity?\u00a0 I know, I know\u2026 not a great name for a Guinea Hen!\u00a0 But what could we do?\u00a0 The fancy, shmancy breeder had already named her Felicity!\u00a0 I wanted to name her Margaret, or Elizabeth, or Eleanor, or Sacagawea, or Dolly. {Stop right there!\u00a0 I know what you\u2019re thinking!!\u00a0 \u201cYeah, Jim! Sounds just like something sexist that you\u2019d think of! Dolly Parton & big breasts!\u201d Well\u2026 Margaret Meade had breasts, too! \u00a0Although maybe not as impressive. \u00a0 And besides, I was thinking of Dolly Madison!}. <\/em><\/p>\n

So, Felicity it is.<\/p>\n

Yes, I detect puzzlement in your expression.\u00a0 Wherefore Guinea hen?\u00a0 OK, so I was leafing thru a past issue of Smithsonian <\/em>and there was an article that caught my eye: \u201cThe Uncommon Intelligence of the Guinea Fowl.\u201d It turns out that these birds are more than your next dinner!\u00a0 Smart as a whip, they are!\u00a0 As smart as mynah birds, ravens, cockatoos\u2026 and according to the Director of Animals and Society Institute of Ann Arbor, Guinea fowl posses the intelligence on par, or better<\/em>, than an octopus or a common house cat. Although further study is needed, he said, and I quote, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be surprised after additional testing that a Guinea hen will be seen as intelligent as a bonobo ape, just lacking opposable thumbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

I admit that Sandy, while intrigued, was not keen on adding a Guinea Fowl to our household.\u00a0 I pointed out that she had previously excluded dogs, cats and silverback gorillas from our home\u2026 but no prohibitions about Guinea hens or wolverines.\u00a0 Would she rather have a hen or a wolverine?<\/p>\n

So, Felicity it is.<\/p>\n

The breeder, Mrs. deVargas, was a total whack-job, she insisted before signing the papers for Felicity, that Sandy and I prove that we had college degrees. We also had to sign a statement that we didn\u2019t smoke, and that we were vegan (yes, we lied about the vegan thing). We then all sang the Star Spangled Banner<\/em>. Ceremony and \u00a0paper work taken care of, Mrs. deVargas (I think that she was probably in covert-ops, and breeding Guinea fowl was just her cover), bid us farewell and sent us off with an \u201calphabet board\u201d, instruction pamphlet, well wishes and, oh one more thing\u2026 \u201cFelicity doesn\u2019t like reggae music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alphabet board?\u00a0 Let me explain.\u00a0 It turns out that Guinea fowl can be trained to understand commands and actually spell common words.\u00a0 This is done by placing food treats on squares on the alphabet board\u2026 each square containing a letter. I used pistachio nuts as an inducement to peck at specific letters. She actually preferred the shells to the nuts.\u00a0 Go figure.<\/p>\n

She was a quick study.\u00a0 Although she had trouble with vowels.\u00a0 After a particularly exhausting training session, I just lost it and asked her, \u201cWhy did the chicken cross the road?\u201d\u00a0 She glared at me and then pecked out, \u201dG fck yrslf.\u201d She came within an eyelash of being turned into Felicity ala Marsala<\/em>!<\/p>\n

This problem with vowels had gotten the gears in my mind spinning.\u00a0 Biblical Hebrew was written without vowels!\u00a0 Maybe Felicity was some sort of Orthodox hen?\u00a0I tinkered with the idea of creating a Hebrew alphabet board and seeing if I could train her to peck out the kiddush<\/em> (the blessing for wine).\u00a0 After some thought I decided against it, and put the alphabet board away.\u00a0 The entire exercise was proving too stressful for both Felicity and me.<\/p>\n

I have moved onto other avenues with her.\u00a0 Music.\u00a0 Did you know that female Guinea hens can chirp? Well, not really chirp<\/em>… more like half way between a chirp and a hum<\/em>.\u00a0 This behavior is not meant to attract males, but as a means of communicating and keeping track of new born chicks.\u00a0 After six months of training, Felicity had the Canon in D down! Although she prefers Irish drinking songs!\u00a0 And the best part is that mimicking music comes naturally to her, no need of going thru bags of pistachio nut treats. \u00a0As it turns out, pistachios, the nuts or the shells, give Felicity a world class case of gas. \u00a0And heaven help you if you are at \u201cground zero\u201d when Felicity cuts a fart!\u00a0 One time Sandy missed the early warning sign — Felicity raises her left leg, always the left.\u00a0 Unlucky, Sandy strayed too close to the blast zone and before she could retreat to safety the knee-buckling stench cracked the crystal on her wrist watch (and other gruesome things, too nauseating to mention here).<\/p>\n

In spite of this unfortunate gastric reaction to pistachios, I have to smile\u2026 Felicity is part of our family.\u00a0 I now use shredded mini-wheats instead of pistachios for treats. The grueling training sessions are past, and Felicity now enjoys being read to.\u00a0 She loves John Irving novels and Shakespeare.\u00a0 Shakespeare!\u00a0 I have to shake my head\u2026 it took me decades to begin to love Shakespeare! Oh, one last note \u2013 Mrs. deVargas had it right!\u00a0 Felicity does not like reggae! If she hears a Bob Marley track, she begins to raise her left leg and Sandy and I have to scramble to kill the song!\u00a0 Who is training who?<\/p>\n

Felicity\u2026 she is in command.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Felicity?\u00a0 I know, I know\u2026 not a great name for a Guinea Hen!\u00a0 But what could we do?\u00a0 The fancy, shmancy breeder had already named her Felicity!\u00a0 I wanted to name her Margaret, or Elizabeth, or Eleanor, or Sacagawea, or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories-brief-tales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1269,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions\/1269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}