Book Entry 185: 1987 The Peacock and the Black Out

           It was early afternoon on a Saturday.  We were all in the living room watching "Gun smoke" on TV.  The two main characters were arguing while a third was sneaking in to ambush them.  Someone fired a gun but to this day I don't know which character fired or if anyone was shot. 

          At the very instant the gun was fired we all heard a terrifying explosion outside our house.  The electricity went out but the echo of the loud explosion remained.  We all jumped and screamed.  The timing of the noise could not have fit the movie any better.  Larry and I went outside to see if there had been an accident on our road causing the loud sound and the loss of electricity.  After looking for a few minutes we found a huge bird literally blown apart and smoldering in the driveway under the power lines by the orchard.  We looked at the bird for a few seconds before we realized it was one of our peacocks.  It actually smelled like burnt feathers and fried chicken!

Larry called the electric company and in a few minutes a truck pulled up.  We showed the line worker what had happened.  He laughed looking at us grinning and said,  This is an odd bird, it is certainly not a sparrow or a hawk or a barn owl.  I will put on my report the electricity was shorted out at this address by an unknown bird." 

We looked at him and laughed when he continued,  “I see feathers that look a lot like peacock feathers here beside the dead bird but because the poor thing is blown to pieces I cannot say it was a peacock for certain.  That is lucky for you because if it was your pet peacock you would be responsible for the cost of this call and the repair. But like I said it is so badly blown apart and burned I’m going to call it an unidentified bird and electric company will pick up the bill.”