{"id":1067,"date":"2011-02-21T23:10:40","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T05:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1067"},"modified":"2011-02-21T23:10:40","modified_gmt":"2011-02-22T05:10:40","slug":"ants-words-books-birds-more-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1067","title":{"rendered":"Ants, Words, Books, Birds, More Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

The morning began with the discovery (not unexpected by me!) that the dozen or so ants on the counter yesterday had become a superhighway of ants along the edge of the counter, up the wall, and into one of the cabinets.\u00a0 They had also constructed a network of smaller routes on the counter itself.\u00a0 Some of them had crossed the Great Chasm between counter and stove top, with the result that the sugar bowl (these are sugar ants, much to be preferred if you must have ants) had ants in it.<\/p>\n

Sugar ants rarely bite (they will do, if they wander up under a sleeve and you rub them accidentally, but who wouldn’t?) and their bite is mild.\u00a0\u00a0 They do tickle.\u00a0 And they look…like a river of ants.\u00a0\u00a0 Sugar ants are small, but very numerous.\u00a0 Very VERY numerous. \u00a0\u00a0 They like white sugar, brown sugar, sugar inside screw-top glass jars (which is how I store sugar–you find them trying desperately trying to squeeze through the thread-glass space.) \u00a0\u00a0 They are of course wildly fond of honey. \u00a0\u00a0 Or molasses.\u00a0\u00a0 Unlike picnic ants, they ignore bread crumbs after a test-nibble.<\/p>\n

Breakfast, therefore, was deferred until ant-ridding had taken place.\u00a0\u00a0 Starting with taking everything (EVERYTHING) off the counter.\u00a0\u00a0 Soon I left the ant-ridding to Himself,\u00a0 and\u00a0 slouched back to my workplace and went on working on revisions.\u00a0\u00a0 The day turned lovely.\u00a0\u00a0 It was driving me nuts.\u00a0\u00a0 I finally gave up\u00a0 and went outside with the camera because it’s the last day of the Great Backyard Bird Count.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The first bird I took a picture of was this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Buteo jamaicensis, <\/em>Red-tailed Hawk, southwestern form<\/p>\n

This is a large bird, who at first sight (sorry, no picture of this) was being mobbed by several blue jays and mockingbirds, all much smaller.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It tried to hide in a juniper growing next to the horse lot fence,\u00a0 was pursued to ground, and literally fought its way up the fence until it could get to flying room.\u00a0\u00a0 It perched briefly in a tree a little ways down the fence and then took off.<\/p>\n

I went back in to work again, wishing I could stay out, but…and stuck it out to the end of Editor Revisions.\u00a0 Yay!\u00a0\u00a0 I was starting the final check to be sure the chapter heads had stayed where I put them (they don’t always) when I heard a truck in the driveway.\u00a0 I thought it was the tractor repair crew (Bombadil, our larger tractor, had refused to start and was suspected of having other problems.\u00a0 Anyway, after 8 years it’s about time it had a professional working over.)\u00a0\u00a0 But it wasn’t–it was a FedEx truck with a small package from Publisher.<\/p>\n

Yes.\u00a0\u00a0 I can certify that printing has occurred.\u00a0 Kings of the North<\/em> exists as a real object (for those who want a real object as opposed to a virtual object.)\u00a0\u00a0 I whipped it open to see how the map looks…and did an indecently smug dance step down the hall to email Editor and thank her, in the same email as returning the revised ms. for Crisis of Vision<\/em> (once I’d done the final check of where the chapter titles are on the page. ) \u00a0\u00a0 The paperback of Oath<\/em> looks sharp too.<\/p>\n

So, having that email away, I thought I might just dip into The Shiny when another truck arrived, this one towing a long flatbed trailer on which to haul Bombadil away if Bombadil would cooperate by starting up.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tractor repair crew had brought a new battery…started opening things and removing grills and made the unfortunate discovery that Bombadil’s battery cable end-thingies (hey, I know what a rock-shaft-valve’s right name is–I don’t have to know what the end-thingies are called)\u00a0 had rusted onto the battery terminals with such finality that they had to be cut off.<\/p>\n

Need I mention that some of the words spoken or thought or uttered in avian language today were on the warm side?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fairly early on in the process of getting Bombadil to move, I decided that I was not helping the process and could well go into the house and start putting things back on the kitchen counter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe even fold laundry.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But let grumpy looking guys get on with whatever they wanted to do or say without my presence.\u00a0\u00a0 I imagined it would include comments about how I had neglected Bombadil.<\/p>\n

After quite a bit of time,\u00a0 Himself came back in to report that it had been necessary for someone (not Himself) to hold the cut ends of the cables to the terminals of the new battery to get Bombadil started, and then the brakes had given trouble, but the rock shaft valve had performed just fine.\u00a0\u00a0 Bombadil was (as I could see out the window) loaded onto the flatbed and was about to be hauled away for service.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Suggestions had indeed been made about how I should have done this and that and the other thing that I did for years until last year.\u00a0 There were reasons.\u00a0 Some might call them excuses, but I call them reasons, why last year was Different.<\/p>\n

I went back out with the camera to celebrate the day, and found the mockingbird clan,\u00a0 all furious with one another, zipping around the yard playing an unfriendly game of chase.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mimus polyglottus<\/em>, Northern Mockingbird (in a snit)<\/p>\n

Yes, this bird was in just the mood he appears to be in.\u00a0 Fluffed out aggressively and not at all happy to have a big lens aimed at him.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Shortly thereafter he took off after another mockingbird, screeching and threatening doom.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Far overhead, one\u00a0 red-tailed hawk had found another and they went somewhere else.<\/p>\n

So:\u00a0 ants ridded (for the time being–it’s never permanent), words written, books delivered,\u00a0 tractor hauled away, birds seen and counted and photographed, words said.\u00a0 A full day.<\/p>\n

(And Himself came in while I was writing this to tell me that Christchurch in New Zealand was hit by another earthquake and lost the steeple from its cathedral plus much damage elsewhere.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wishing the best possible outcome to anyone affected by this quake. )<\/p>\n


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The morning began with the discovery (not unexpected by me!) that the dozen or so ants on the counter yesterday had become a superhighway of ants along the edge of the counter, up the wall, and into one of the cabinets.\u00a0 They had also constructed a network of smaller routes on the counter itself.\u00a0 Some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,81,53,75,45,5],"tags":[112,20,51,107],"class_list":["post-1067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crisis-of-vision","category-kings-of-the-north","category-life-beyond-writing","category-oath-of-fealty","category-revisions","category-the-writing-life","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-progress-report","tag-revision","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1071,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067\/revisions\/1071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}