Thursday, January 12

 Eric Bogle used to sing, 

                                       'Theres's no drought or starving stock,

                                        On a sewered suburban block."

Well, we have a sewered suburban block but, unfortunately, we also have some livestock just next door.  Either the bloke next door to us hasn't heard of Eric Bogle or believes the sentiments don't apply to him because he has decided that his life will only be complete when he has some chooks.

It's a big block, one of the originals in the area, and the bloke in question looks like one of the original inhabitants.  I can see over the fence and there are signs of old flower beds, and evidence that it was once a  lot more cultivated than it is now.  It's a country town and there has always been the sound of chooks in the distance but this current development means that a rooster now lives just about 20 feet from my lounge room chair.  There's at least one hen as well but I suspect more will follow.

Something has to change!  I wonder what the Council thinks so I go to the website and it's obviously not kept up to date.  I type 'chooks' in an appropriate place. but nothing happens.  Anyway, a country town Council is likely to be comfortable with the occasional chook.  If I wanted city living, I should have chosen a city.

I check the dangers to my ears of frequent cock-a-doodle-doos and find that a rooster's crow can reach 145 decibels while a rock band only reaches 110.  If I complained to the Council about a rock band living next door, I suspect they would do something but I reckon a complaint about chooks would be laughed away.

Marilyn says I should go round and offer to give him a dozen eggs a week if he gets rid of the rooster but I'm sure it's not about the eggs; it's something much more elemental, a link, perhaps, with a more pastoral past.

I'll just have to grin and bear it and, in the meantime, I'll continue to wear the ear muffs.