Flight of the…. Guinea Fowl?

The evening began with Josh running around the house gathering the emergency kit, Nalgene bottle, and boots. I followed behind peppering him with questions about the child that had gone missing at the Christmas tree farm down the road which we knew about because of a police roadblock Josh passed through en route to the house. We drove down to our friends’ house (because they were a quick jog to the area being searched). Upon pulling up, we saw someone in the yard and I rolled down the window to ask if we could park at the house while helping with the search. She told us that the little girl had just been found curled up by the electric fence about 100 yards from her home. The child was fine and quickly returned to her parents. Relief washed over us and we sat in the driveway chatting with our friends while a long line of cars belonging to volunteers streamed by.

This community is not the type to bring you a ham when they find out your grandmother died or even invite you over for dinner to welcome you. In fact, you may never see them unless they are riding a lawnmower alongside the road and you can just make them out through the red clay dustcloud. BUT if your child wanders from your sight or a powerline is down and has struck your vehicle — in a few short moments, you will be surrounded by altruistic country folks with gentle south-Georgia drawls, who heard about your situation and dropped everything in their lives to help you.

And that is exactly what happened last night.

Of course, while all of this was going on… one of our guineas was plotting escape. Maybe it was the flashing lights in the distance and Little Man (our wayward guinea fowl) thought the disco was in town. Who knows? He was certainly dressed for it:

After Josh finished eating, I went to close up the guinea house and discovered that Little Man was bedded down in the neighbor’s lot. Now if he had been up in a tree, we would have left him alone but this winged and flight-capable bird decided to abandon all logic and curl up a few yards from the fox’ den of iniquity (certain death for a ground-dwelling guinea fowl). Josh brought out a blanket to throw over Little Man and I held the flashlight beam in his eyes. So Little Man waited patiently for his daddy to scale the fence and come within one foot of him to launch himself deeper into the dark woods. Josh and I ran with flashlight beams darting this way and that as we tripped, leapt, and fell over fallen trees and brush.

This is where it would have been nice to have my pick of superpowers. (Come on, like you never thought about it…) I’m thinking that x-ray vision, invisibility, and super-speed would have been just about perfect for guinea wrangling. Which would you choose?

We crashed around the front lot and attempted to herd our winged fugitive towards the guinea house where our three normal birds were snuggled on their branch with tiny white heads tucked into gray polka dot wings. Just as we rounded the corner of the house, the flood lights came on and away Little Man ran. It was close to midnight when Josh and I finally cornered Little Man between the house and backyard fence. Josh threw the blanket over our runaway, picked him up, and carried him to the guinea house. I remember the time when one of them got injured and required the services of an emergency veterinarian. But all was well on the Razor Farm. The best part? I got to cuddle up safe in the arms of my Superhero on the front porch after he’d saved the world. Golly, I love my husband.

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