Captain’s Log: Other Duties

It appears that the long arm of the Boyer Bunny Ranch has reached out and wrapped much of the Fallon Media Co. staff into the fold. Last week, we had the shop bunny and the emu in this space, and of course, the week I finally write about the emu, they run away.

Ben and Dot are the emus. They’re still babies, but roughly the size of the peacocks, only on stilts with giraffe necks. They live in a pen with their own house in the middle of the yard so they can acclimate to all the other creatures and feel at home.

They do not feel at home. In fact, observation suggests the only thing they ever feel is panic. I’ve yet to see them relax. Emus are weird.

The other night at chore time Ben or Dot — who knows which, they are indistinguishable — ran off. Just like in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” she R-U-N-N-O-F-T. I still can’t tell how she escaped, but there she was trotting around the yard with complete abandon while the other frantically called from the pen. I figured it was as good a time as any to get them used to free ranging and let them both out to explore, figuring they would go back into their house when everyone else found their way to bed.

No. No, that’s not how emus work.

It began well — blissful farmyard joy, chirping and clucking, Great Dane mingling, cats playing around, peacocks bossing everyone around — when the great big, loud, whooping helicopters from the base passed directly over the house at three feet above the cottonwood trees on their way to training in parts west.

It’s quite an experience as a human to see those machines, doors open, sailors or soldiers or whatever they are in the doorway so close you could almost shake hands. The sound, though, is so powerful you feel it more than hear it. I can imagine if you’re a defenseless, freaky little bird what that would be like.

And apparently the emus agreed. They both levitated in panic and took off out the back of the yard, across the back of the property into the desert. Think roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote from the old cartoons, complete with the sound effect.

And coyotes were my first thought.

So Clio and I went out after them, through the brush, to no avail. The neighborhood group text was alerted to be on the lookout for escaped emu (you never know what will happen on the Boyer thread). The next morning, I was hopeful they would have shown up in their little house, but no. Neither later that night. Late into the following day, Nancy — our Nancy at the paper, who also lives down the road on Boyer — sent a photo on the text thread of Ben and Dot in her yard, happily helping themselves to her horses’ hay.

The capture of Ben and Dot is another chapter in this ongoing saga, and thankfully Nancy is still speaking to me after she bodily carried an emu across her sandy arena, but suffice it to say, the emu are home and housed in their permanent enclosure with the goats.

Which is also a story for another day — with the great shearing caper finally happening last night courtesy of Riggin and Christina, more trusty FMCo. staff — intern and customer service — saving the day.

So, while we try not to take advantage of the famous job description addendum, “Other Duties as Assigned,” we’ll always be right here…

…Keeping you Posted.

Rach