January 2010

Happy New Year. I was determined to get back to my blog before a year passed since my last post, and here I am, several months early. Not that it was easy. The password I had recorded in my password notebook (Volume IV, Issue 63) didn't work, but good old Google still had me in its database and let me set a new one (not that different to the old one).

I have been creating. I've written 2 poems this month, and done some work on my epic, though not as much as I would have liked. I've also revived my handcraft interest, and knitted 2 cakes, a muffin and a donut, so I can feel a little bit virtuous about spending the last hour of every weekday watching Buffy. I'm managing an hour in the garden most days, which is looking much better for it, and still getting a bit of work done in the afternoons and evenings.

We have an explosion of ducks. One of our girls went AWOL and I knew she was nesting as she was appearing at tea-time every night, hoeing into the food, and disappearing again. Wally and I got up close and personal with every blackberry bush and shrub in all the back yards in our neighbourhood, knowing we had less than 28 days to find her. We didn't, and just after Christmas she finally appeared in the daytime; I could hear her next door. I whipped over the fence and there she was, with a batch of fluffy brown peepers hanging about her. When she tried to disappear at the sight of me (because of course I am a lethal enemy) she headed for the space under the neighbour's back porch. No wonder we couldn't find her.

Anyway, I grabbed her, stuffed her under one arm, and went back home for a bucket. With Mum quacking, "Beware, beware! Mortal danger!", I managed to catch them one at a time and put them in the bucket (a bucket of ducklings - that'll turn up in a poem some time) and took them home, to live happily in a disused rabbit cage (the rabbits are free-range). There were 8 of the little darlings. Apparently mother hasn't read the internet article that affirms that Khaki Campbells don't raise their own ducklings. She's been doing a damn fine job of it so far, though 2 of them sadly succumbed to an inability to swim when they tried before they were ready.

And as if a second batch of Khaki Campbells isn't enough, on top of the 10 we already have, a week later a random mallard duckling appeared from nowhere on our front porch. As s/he is a fluffy yellow creature, s/he has naturally acquired the Lynley Dodd-inspired name of Zachary Quack. Unfortunately s/he's too much smaller than the KCs to be raised with them, so is inside. Like I need more animals to intensively tend.

I'm selling my late Dad's house, on the basis that we rarely pay anyone to do something we're perfectly capable of doing ourselves. Sunday open homes in Waikanae are proving a bit of a trial, but there's quite a bit of interest. Several people have gone through the house and loved it, but not enough to sign on the dotted line yet.

That's enough for now. Don't want to tire myself out. Time I started promoting this year's international poetry competition.