Peakie

Look who was hanging out in our yard this morning? It's mating or hatching season (or both) and the males have their full tails now. Did you know they don't have them year-around? It's true. In the summer, the long feathers fall out leaving them with shorter tails for the winter. We have a herd of somewhere between 6 and 12 peacocks living in our neighborhood. When we moved in there were 2 but each year they have more babies and while several have "disappeared" thanks to our local coyote, they keep adding to their numbers. Some people hate them, I think their kind of neat. This time of year they can be noisy, especially when their nest is threatened at night but other than that they just wander through our front yard once or twice a day eating bugs and whatever else they can find. When Miss E was little and there were only 2, she called the male "Peakie" and to this day, that is the name of all the males in the herd.

I walked out of work this afternoon for the last time until almost the end of May. This week was crazy, I had a ton of stuff to do but it's done and that is one more thing finished up before my trip. Our customs saga continues, they are claiming the clothes are in "import", despite the fact that we are picking them up after we backpack and then taking them back to the States with us. We have been told there is "no way" this package will get out of customs duty free but if we would like to change our declared value, they might lower the fee. This feels a lot like extortion to me, but we are going to end up paying it.  All fingers crossed that our box is in Santiago when we get there! Otherwise I may come home with several new Spanish outfits.