Fowl Weather

by Bob Tarte

The description of a household full of pets, where two people live with over thirty animals including parrots, ducks, geese, chickens, rabbits, a few cats. Oh, and occasional wild birds that people bring over to be cared for until they can fly free. I was expecting to read mostly about what life was like with so many animals, but to my surprise it had a similar theme to the last book I read- dealing with a parent's advancing age. In this case, the onset of dementia and eventually alzheimer's. Also meddlesome neighbors, inept applicants for jobs, the search for a competent pet sitter, and many awkward moments dealing with cold weather and wading-pool duck ponds. It was curious and amusing, but only to a point. Nearly every other sentence seems to be stuffed with sarcasm and forced humor, so much that sometimes I had to stop and read a sentence over again to get what he was really saying. Maybe I was too tired, but sometimes I just wanted a straight description, without the adding joking. I was also interested to find that Tarte likes bird-watching, believes in omens and is suspicious of the supernatural when strange noises are heard at night. Those last two, with all their accompanying detail, got really old on me. And I'll give you fair warning: lots of animals die in this book. Of old age, unforseen accidents, illness, sometimes no known reason at all.

I read a previous book by this author, and saw this one at the library, thought it might be good too. He's got another one about cats, someday I'll probably get to that book.

Rating: 2/5     305 pages, 2007

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