Hawking

We have known for awhile now that we have hawks in our area. “Our area” meant somewhere out here in the boonies, and we would occasionally see one flying around, or hear one flying around, as they are quite the chatty cathy birds.

Now, we can say we have hawks, plural, and they must be nesting somewhere very close to us, as we have a visit from one almost every day (and several days ago, I saw two). It/They like to hang around in the trees back by the beeyard. Sometimes, though, they come to the fence by the driveway and hang out for a bit.

I had seen some squirrels running about in the front this morning, and maybe that appealed to this hawk: the opportunity for an easy meal.

Or maybe they were taking a break. Either way, it stayed for quite some time, looking quite stern.

At one point, it hopped off the fence and into the grass.

It examined a clump of weeds I’d pulled out from the berry line along the fence on which it had been sitting. Disappointed that it was just dirt and plant matter, it jumped up back to the fence. A few minutes later, it took off, to go through whatever agenda it had for the day. I don’t think I will ever get tired of seeing the wildlife that has come to the property I have worked so hard to rehab over these years.

After those fifteen minutes with the hawk, the day went right to shit. I didn’t do anything on the list for today, as work beckoned. I got through it, but much of the day was over by then. I did, however, get a few things done: mowed the chicken yard and got their food and water done. Got their tote with sand and DE in it back in the coop so they can do their dust baths. Collected the eggs – we’re consistently getting at least half a dozen a day, and usually seven or eight. We are awash in eggs, and we even gave my accountant a dozen eggs when she came out to do her magic with Quickbooks so we can get my taxes in by March 15 (the filing deadline for biz people like me).

Previously when I’ve planted seed directly, I’ve waited until the entire row in clear of weeds. But last week, i took a chance, and planted green bean seed in the first area I cleared in the back garden. I took a look today, and half a dozen are up. Not bad, and I hope they make it through the weirdness that will be our weather over the next few days.

We’ve been having the best “winter” so far, with only two days below freezing here at the ranch. Tomorrow night through Thursday night, it’s supposed to be in the 30sF, near freezing. I hope it doesn’t, as I’d ate to lose the germination of the first directly sown seeds, but the upside of that is that the seed I’ve put in is cheap and can easily be resown. That “seed is cheap” think is also why I wind up buying a zillion varieties of tomatoes and corn and peppers and such. I refrained from that this year, I’m happy to report, and once I had put in my modest orders to the places from which I get my seed, I trashed all the seed catalogs, so as not to have the temptation in my face.

I still have the beeyard tale to tell, but this is getting long, so I’ll save it for another time. Until that time: be well, peeps.

 

 

 

 

Review: Big Magic

Edit: this was supposed to go up yesterday, but clearly I need to focus more and have more coffee before trying that function (and check to make sure it ran).

I finished Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love fame). Over on GoodReads, I gave it three stars, because as far as self-help/pump-you-up  books, it’s ok. I’m not really a believer in the “the muse touched me”, “the universe talked to me”, “I can’t not write” stuff. Especially the latter, and not because I can’t stand double negatives – but because of course you can not write. It’s called not writing, and billions of people do it (or not, as the case may be).

Gilbert is heavy into the touchy-feely thing about being an artist (of any kind), and is also (strangely to me) apparently a fan of telling people just ho hard pursuing your art can be and how you will never make money and how MFAs suck and are unnecessary, pointing out that there has never been a Pulitzer (or maybe Nobel, this is how much it stuck with me) awarded to a writer who had an MFA. Who cares, was my first thought. My second thought was that while I may not have a use for an MFA myself, some people like that, and why shouldn’t they pursue them?

She also loves to drop (famous person) references and their little chats and so forth. My attitude as I rushed through the last hundred pages that when this came up in the last third, I was literally shouting “DON’T CARE!” at my Fire Tablet.

There’s some rah-rah, you can do this material, but I think if you just watch her first TED talk, you’d get the same “you can do your art!” material in less than twenty minutes.

That’s it, the short and sweet (for a change!) of it for this book.  I’m also reading Red Sparrow, but it is so poorly written I’m having a tough time getting past 5% on it. In the meantime, I’m cleansing my reading palate with Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway) and Mark Greaney (Mission Critical, a continuation of the Gray Man series).

Until next time, peeps: be well.