The Birds of farmer Joseph
Once a farmer lived in a valley of full bearings. His name was Joseph. He planted fabulous gardens amongst century old trees. His roses and flowery shrubs beckoned the groggy bees from miles. His fruit trees were full of cindrous peaches, flushing pears and honey coloured almonds. People from far countries admired the plants of farmer Joseph.
But the neighbouring farmers didn’t envy farmer Joseph for his plants but for his birds. The sounds of twitter always could be heared in his orchard, light of the brilliant colourful feathers blinked from everywhere. The birds stormed from branch to branch. Many people wanted to find out the secret of the farmer. How can it be possible that these many rare birds stay at the farm when the other valleys meet only with ordinary orioles and nightingales?
One day a distant friend came to farmer Joseph for a treat. Sure enough he wondered and asked a lot about the birds but the farmer just smiled and didn’t answer him. Nearly one week passed by the friend was still curious but he didn’t become smarter.
Finally on Saturday evening some stranger arrived to the farmer’s house but the farmer greeted him as an old friend. He brought some kind of big rustling thing but the shapes could not be seen due to the dark. Next morning it turned out that a beautiful bird stayed in a cage. The door of the cage was open but still the bird looked outside mistrustfully…
„People come to me from time to time and I buy their birds. They get a really good prize for them” said farmer Joseph. My birds are fed with the food they would not stay away from. I feed them with my best fruits and seeds. After a while they realise that I had opened the door of the cage. Some fly out immediately and some of them perish because they can’t find food for themselves out in the wild. Others like this one here slowly recognise they are free.
Most of the birds stay at my place and live in my gardens. They give me joy with their songs and when the sun shines on them their beauty delights my eyes. If you look around carefully you can see there are several birds my jelaous neighbours don’t even notice. They are the little and grey ones. But their stomachs are full and their feathers are shining from health. All have different stories but they all know me.
The guest started to think and scratched the top of his head. Somehow this whole story was really familiar to him. But he couldn’t say why.
