Reprint: First Rights to Pennsylvania Magazine; local Kutztown Historical Newsletter
Our farm, located near the village of Monterey in Berks County, was known as “The Peacock Farm,” since my mother raised a number of peafowl on it.
It all started with mom’s attraction to the birds colored plumage that spreads across the back and touches the ground on both sides. She felt that she had to have one of her own. And so she purchased her first peacock from a brother-in-law who raised turkeys, as well as a few peafowl.
The bird rode to the farm on mom’s lap. This ride is when my mother decided that the beauty of the bird far outweighed its vengeful nature.
This first peacock, “Wando,” was mom’s favorite. At first he was penned up with the chickens, but soon mom decided he should be allowed to wander. My father was against it, though, “He’ll run away,” he warned.
Mom turned Wando loose anyway. The instant he was free, his blazing flight landed him in the farm pond. From there a sweeping hurl landed him in the crevice of a tree. Eventually a few pieces of corn enticed him to come out of the tree. He never did leave the farm.
It wasn’t long before mom felt that Wando should have a female friend. She mail-ordered a friend, “Wanda” from a western peafowl raiser. Soon after this we had Little Wanda and Wando strutting around the barnyard.
Wando had a personality. My mother and Wando had a talking relationship. She’d often call for him from the front porch. He always answered her call in a loud eerie shriek, then spread his coverlet of feathers and strut puritanically across the lawn to perch himself on the porch rail and announced the dawn. As a teenager, this was not the way I liked to awaken in the mornings.
During the yearly Kutztown Folk Festival, mom accommodated guests. The guests were always warned, “No need for an alarm clock-Wando will be around to awaken you for an early start to the festival.” The other peafowl, up to eight in number at one time, were always somewhere in the barnyard to entertain the visitors, as well.
On display, throughout the house, were peacock feathers. (When courting season is over for the peacock, he loses his feathers and goes into hiding until new ones grow.) Relatives and visitors always went home with an array of gorgeous plumage in hand.
Mom had an ongoing joke which she pulled on her visitors: “What color eggs does a peacock lay?”
The answer: None, the peacock doesn’t lay eggs, for he is the male species. The female is the peahen. Together, they are called peafowl.
Most peahens lay three eggs in a season. One day one of Wanda’s eggs cracked. The next morning at the breakfast table, mom announced, “Pop, today you’re having the most expensive egg you can get on your potatoes!”
Wonder drugs were a specialty with mom. Upon finding a peacock bleeding profusely at the throat, she smothered his throat with Mazola oil. After a few days of the same treatment the peacock was well again. “Never need a doctor at this place,” Mom beamed, “long as I’m around.”
I think even peacocks would have been proud of the peacock hat Mom wore to church. She used only the eyes of the feathers and sewed them on one of her small, black hats. Even as a teen, I thought it was quite pretty.
There never was a prouder woman than mom at the sight of her peafowl brood. And there never were prouder peacocks, “struttin’ their stuff” across the lawn, for the eyes of their adopted mom. Who says beauty is in the eyes of the beholder? Sometimes it goes both ways.
Carole Christman Koch grew up in Berks County and has been published in numerous publications. She has a passion for writing and has many stories from growing up on a farm to raising children to humorous stories about her and her husband to everyday stories to season stories and more.