Chicken Pools, Revisions & Silk . . .

You know it's getting warm outside when . . .

. . . this happens.

I went to town the other day and came home to find a cluster of thirsty hens gathered around their newly installed oasis in the back yard. This was our daughter's idea; we have a resident duck who thinks she's a chicken living in the coop, so she bought her a swimming pool. My husband built a wooden ramp up to the edge, and now it looks like we have five or six feathered Greg Louganises.

This is Chuck. Get it? She's a chicken-duck.

Chuck has not yet taken to the pool like a duck-to-you-know-what, but I bet she will.
It's good to be fowl at the Duke Poultry Farm. Things are going swimmingly.
My wonderful son thinks maybe we should make it an in-ground pool, and Jay seems to consider that a cool idea. In that case, I'll be sorely tempted to add goldfish. I'm not just being koi.
(sorry)
At the moment, it's functioning as a lagoon for the dogs, Pepper the cat, the chickens and Chuck.

 Ah, Spring.


Chapters one and two of Delaney's People are now fully edited and revised. The work is progressing very smoothly. I have discovered things about my writing, such as: the word "just" creeps in sometimes.

In "Jewels" (the opener), for instance, my editor allowed me only one precious "just". I just had no idea I'd typed that word so often. It's completely unjustified. I just used it about four times. Just got carried away. If there's any justice in the world, I've learned my just lesson.

I've adjusted nicely.

If your name is Justin, Justinian or Justus, you may not come to my house. Just kidding.

Chapter two was not plagued with "justs". I just had to add some dialog and change some verb tenses, and it was just peachy.

The truth is, I'm having a great deal of fun with the revisions, and grateful to have a good editor to go over my work. I just hope the next eighteen chapters go as easily as these did.


For those who are feeling artistic, or simply want to play with something fun, I present "Silk - a magical interactive artwork". It's Yuri Vishnevsky's experiment in generative art. I love this thing . . . it's like a Spirograph on steroids. Try it. Click and drag, then watch the amazing designs fill your screen.
Silk - a magical interactive artwork
Thank you, Yuri. Beautifully done.





Love from Delta.

On Daffodils and Fishing

I gathered these daffodils yesterday while walking with my husband. They usually herald Spring around here, but we’re surely in for more Winter.

After all, March is usually the snowiest month in Delta.

That’s what they tell me, anyway.

Out at our local (read: beautiful, sparkling, peaceful) lake, the trees are greening up. You can find little buds on the oak tree in the yard, on the blackberry vines, on various flora everywhere. It’s a lovely time of year.

This is exploring weather for me. It makes me long for the verdant pastures of Ireland (we’ve viewed those forty shades of green a number of times), the cool mountains of Breckenridge, the primeval forests of Yosemite. We’ve traveled to some pretty amazing places. Perched high above Lake Tahoe, we found Heavenly heavenly.

I still like the Talladega National Forest the best. The panorama you can take in from Bald Rock on Cheaha Mountain is amazing.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings said it well, in Cross Creek:

“And along with our deep knowledge of the earth is a preference of each of us for certain different kinds of it, for the earth is various as we are various. One man longs for the mountains, and does not even need to have been a child of the mountains to have this longing; and another man yearns for the valleys or the plains.”
 

I think I have always yearned for mountains, though climbing them is best left to my brother or husband or sister-in-law, Ann.  
(I have pretty darned good footing on rock formations, but I am not very mountain-goatish.)
 

‘Snot dodgy’* for me, as British-Irish darling Annie would say. 

*Let me translate: this is Ann’s way of asking if you can handle climbing out onto a rock, as in, “Are you okay, Beth? Snot dodgy for you, is it?”

Anyway, it was a lovely walk, and I enjoyed exploring our faux-Spring. I might even want to go fishing sometime soon (haven’t done that in awhile).

Speaking of fishing . . . this had to hit the blog eventually (somewhere, my daughter is rolling her eyes):

THE BAIT.
by John Donne



COME live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.

There will the river whisp'ring run
Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun ;
And there th' enamour'd fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,
By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest ;
Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait :
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas! is wiser far than I.



Source:
Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 47-49.

 

Whatever you’re doing this weekend—it’s pretty muddy in Delta right now—hope you have a lot of fun.

Here’s an apropos Brad Paisley video:


Brad Paisley - Mud on the Tires


Love from Delta.