Hazily coming up out of a semi-good night’s sleep, I heard what I thought was a duck being strangled. Then Ms Bean’s bark was added to a chorus of early morning, pre-dawn sounds. Bob was heading into the hospital, and I was stumbling toward the door to see if our small brown shelter dog thought she was a large golden retriever. There, sitting regally in the top of a tree near our driveway, was a very real, very mad peahen!
Once upon a time I had purchased 2 peacocks, who are always male, for my brother Mike’s birthday. His home in MS has a beautiful 14 acre park for a backyard and I thought this would be the best lawn decoration ever. As soon as they were delivered to the manse, one flew into a tree and proceeded to squawk to his buddy, “Hey let’s split this place, no peahens!” Here is a picture of the family at my niece’s wedding in a beautiful, but peacock-less Japanese garden.
And while I am writing this, I’ve been informed by my daughter via text that she is indeed having a girl! She and her husband are in the doctor’s office and she has managed to text me a picture of the ultrasound. I am beyond jubilant and think my peahen was announcing this like a trumpeter to the Queen of Little Sleep this morning, “Wake up, wake up, it’s going to be a girl!” And honey, I’m ordering this onsie for you right now. 
Cause you know it’s not a war on caterpillars we’ve been fighting ever since your Great Great Grandmother Anna Robinson, my Nana, got the vote, as one Republican has opined. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rnc-chair-reince-priebus-compares-war-on-women-to-war-on-caterpillars-its-a-fiction/
We’re going to dream big for you baby girl. It’s going to be cups and ice all the way, in a land where peacocks and peahens play.
MountainMornings 