Down the road a piece is a farm that has all sorts of strange animals. Critters like dromedaries, zebras, ugly geese, pretty geese, democrats, er, donkeys, horses, cows, llamas, and both technicolor and plain white peafowl..
You never know what they will have in view when you drive past, but you need to be observant of two things. You must watch for tourists who were driving by, saw a camel (or any of the other beasts) and stop dead in the middle of the road to gawk. Did I mention that the road has a posted 45mph limit with hills and curves to limit clear sighting distance? I'm waiting for a tourist to get their carload of gawkers creamed..
And the second thing you must be observant of is wandering wildlife. (I did mention that the road is posted at 45 mph with hills and curves, right?) Seems the owner/operator of this establishment believes in free range livestock. You could find a camel in the middle of the road. Normally the larger critters tend to hang in the fields behind the barn (and thus off-road) since that is where the hay gets piled at chow time. The fowl of various stripes on the other hand tend to wander out in the road. All the time. Every day. The geese seem to think they own the road since they challenge your car (you know, head down, hissing and squawking as the stupid bird charges at your car - while you are doing the speed limit coming around the curve down the hill directly towards him. I assume it's a him, but it isn't always the gander that gets territorial. While the geese actively try to have you assist in their suicide by charging at you, the peafowl tend to just wander out in front of you because they can. It is not safe to assume that just because the peacockhen is pecking something on the ground on the shoulder of the road that it will stay there. As a matter of fact, it seems that the closer in proximity the approaching vehicle is, the more urgent the peabrained fowl feels it is to cross the road to peck at something on the other side of the road.
I have not managed to flattenate any of their birdtype critters, but I would not be surprised at all if they loose some every year.
And on another totally unrelated note, I just finished changing a circuit board in my main/newest/mostexpensive keyboard. Seems I lost the use of my sustain pedal a while back, and whatever was causing that created other strange noises that tended to sustain themselves. Only way to clear it was to power off/power on and hope it didn't come back. Got so bad I started using my older less capable keyboard just so I wouldn't have to fuss with the continuing problem. Anyway, got a new 'jack board assembly' and installed it tonight. Preliminary testing says that the problem is rectified. I didn't test any of the other inputs that are on that pcb - the MIDI, and all the audio inputs and outputs (I plugged my headphones into the phone output to check the hold pedal fix.)
I will know more later today whether it is all better since it will get a workout both for morning service and for the new 'contemporary service' at another church I was asked to play for this evening..
And now to bed.
“I inadvertently invented praise metal dubstep..”