Robins! We have robins!
. . . I got to supper at the mews late, which is not a surprise, but the manner in which I was late was a little unusual. Peter had asked me to ring before I started down, so he’d know when to put the asparagus on. I rang. I climbed in the car* (with hellhounds) and I’d already arrived when a nasty little voice in the back of my mind got very much louder and shouted, WHERE’S YOUR MEMORY [STICK], YOU STUPID COW?** Back at the cottage, with the robin photo on it.
So I turned around, snarling, and raced back to the cottage, hellhounds hanging on with their teeth and their extra-long tails. And then of course I couldn’t find the wretched thing, because I’d pulled it out of the computer already and laid it down somewhere on my way to put it in my knapsack. Arrrrrrgh. I know it’s one of their virtues that they’re tiny and portable and utterly invisible but . . .
So I got all the way to the mews rather late. As I walked in, I said, I’m sorry, I . . .
Peter said, It’s all right, they rang.
Goldfish-mouth fish-face from me.
The palace, Peter went on. They told me that you had to wait in for the phone call from the Duke of Edinburgh, who wanted to tell you how much he enjoyed reading SUNSHINE aloud to the queen in bed.
At this point I think I had to lean against the wall or sit down or something. The Duke of . . . in bed with . . . ewwwwww. I’m not sure I’d wait in for a phone call from the Duke of Edinburgh, I said.
I thought you’d have mixed feelings about it, Peter said.***
It had been a slightly surreal day already. In the first place PEGASUS continues to move at a pace strongly reminiscent of molasses in January or hellhounds in July† so I am what might politely be termed out of sorts. But we had something almost passing for sunlight this afternoon so I had a long whack in the garden, mostly at the cottage. Where I’d more or less given up on the robin’s nest. I always check cautiously for occupants when I first go out there but there never are any. She was in there sitting–and looking remarkably cranky, I might add–once, or maybe twice, that I didn’t manage to scare her†† and although there’s been an awful lot of robin activity††† in the garden there isn’t any in the nest box. So I’d given up. And when I first went out there this afternoon there wasn’t anybody in the nest box and I was only checking because I’m now in the habit of checking and because I’m horribly disappointed because I was looking forward to baby robins‡ plus having told several people‡‡ I had a robin’s nest in my greenhouse again this year I was going eventually to have to say that nobody had laid any eggs in it.
And then when I went out the last time to tidy‡‡‡ up . . . there were robins. And these are big guys. I missed it! I’ve missed almost the whole shebang! How do you miss something this large? These guys are nearly fledged! I think robins do a chick-moving deal the way cats move kittens! They’ve been somewhere else till 7 pm this evening! I’ve missed all the baby bird stuff, and am going to be plunged almost instantly into the nerve-wracking tiny-hopping-shadows-at-ankle-level stage! And I may be dumb as a post and blind with it, but mum and dad are missing a trick, because if they’d made more of a fuss over the happy event I’d've been providing mealworms right along.
Better late than never. Mealworms tomorrow, as soon as the pet shop opens.
* * *
* Yes, I use the car way too much for the commute to the mews, which is seven minutes on foot. However I’m usually coming back to the cottage at around 1 am, so tired it’s an effort to recall which end of a hellhound you fasten a leash to, and I’m usually transporting something in at least one direction I would dislike carrying. This evening, for example, I brought the sack trolley from Third House to the mews. Peter did offer to trundle it down the main street on foot–I don’t think I could manage a sack trolley and hellhounds, unless I attached them to it as a kind of land sleigh-but . . . we have a car. If the governments of the world had got together on this years ago when the predictions on air pollution and fossil fuels started getting scary, we would have been spared SUVs, America would have a passenger train system and Britain would have a better one^, and I would have a double-ended lead so I’d have a hand free for wrestling sack trolleys.^^
^ The rest of you will have to invent your own mass transit. Do they really make that cross-country train in Australia pay for itself? Or is it one of those theoretic forms of transport that doesn’t really exist except on alternate Tuesdays when the moon is full and involving sixty-seven changes, several of which don’t exist either, the way Amtrak is in the States?
^^ Although I’d need some kind of safety harness to prevent the hellhounds from taking my arm off at the shoulder. I’m sure Abraham Whistler could run me up something.+
+ He is not dead, and if they’d just hire me to write the screenplay, Blade IV would be the best of the series. I could get it done by the time Snipes gets out of jail.
** There, that will look good on amazon’s opening page.
*** Maybe we could leak it to the press in time to make the reissued SUNSHINE this autumn really sell.^
^ No! True! Really! I’m going to have another of my five minutes of in-printness in the country I live in this September!
† The long range forecast is that June and July are going to be unusually wet. The government is trying to pass a bill to provide free snorkelling gear for every citizen.
†† I’ve told you, haven’t I, that the apparent trick about robins is that they don’t mind how close you are so long as you’re below them. The greenhouse shelf with the nest box on it is chest high. You figure it out.
The other thing that fascinates me even though I know this is because birds are used to trees, duh, is that you can grab the shelf or put things on it or take things off it–from behind, where she can’t see you–and the rattling and shaking don’t bother her at all.
††† It’s making me crazy that I can’t get a photo of the robin sitting on the top of the hanging basket pole. But photos come out grey when I shoot through the glass of the kitchen door–and yes, since you ask, it’s been washed recently!–which means I can only do it if the door is already open and have the camera handy. He or she also sits on the top of Eden Rose’s climbing frame, which is just as maddening. One of these days.
‡ Because I am crazy, see previous footnote. It’s a huge stupid nuisance having robins in your greenhouse! See footnote before that!
‡‡ I mean aside from the blog, if my life has an aside from the blog any more
‡‡‡ Tidy, you understand, being a relative concept
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Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.
Tidy is always a relative condition, just as organised is always a bit of a joke. Surviving and working on general well-being is good, living your life rather than tidying up is better. So long as nothing smells bad and you can make your way from desk, to kitchen, to bathroom, to bedroom, you are doing fine!
. . . to *greenhouse.* :)
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By the way, just this morning (I now have time and can stop avoiding my book piles) I re-read Marsh-Magic from Silver Birch, Blood Moon (procured some time ago by my sister from a rather good Science Fiction / Fantasy bookstore in Stockholm – how far and wide we have travelled to acquire your books!). I enjoyed it tremendously. Thank you so much for writing these books that have given me such pleasure and comfort over the years.
Eeep. No rudeness? No backhandedness? Dear woman, are you feeling quite well? :)
I have satisfied the book addiction just a tad, so I am feeling sated and content. Fear not. As the next project looms on the horizon I will cut back on book reading (so that it doesn’t take over my life) and sleep and my general level of sarcasm and irritability will rise. ;)
Oh well that’s a relief! :) You got the ancient psychoanalysts off your desk, did you?
When I was young I wanted to be the Duke of Avon when I grew up, or at very least to be able to hand out put-downs in that manner. I never achieved my ambition but I keep practicing :)
I never got past wanting to be Leonie. :)
I did get the ancient psychiatrists / neurologists / psychologists and psychoanalysts off my desk. I have now, unfortunately, agreed to an extra read through with post-editorial corrections, i.e. third draft, for which, however, I will be paid extra. Oh well, a weekend of rest was good. A week without stress better.
Hee, I think the marketing geeks at — *checks book spine* — Jove ought to know about this and get blurbs for the next edition. That’s pretty awesome! Yay!
Also, cute robin!
Okay, middle aged brain moment again here . . . Jove?
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I dunno? That’s what it says on the spine for SUNSHINE. Checking again… Ah hah. Penguin.
Hmm. I’ll have to check when I get back to the cottage. (Peter has been complaining for YEARS that I haven’t given him a set of my books for the mews. Oops.) It should say Berkley or Ace.
Most of them do, which was why I was surprised at this one. (That sounds really stalkery, but I swear, it’s not what you think! Or maybe it is just what you think. *giggle*)
It IS Jove (having gone home and checked). Okay, I’m confused. . . .
When you find out what happened, tell me! I’m curious!
Um, what? I can’t easily read back through comments from here.
Sorry. I meant about Jove/Penguin and Ace and what happened there.
I always forget that WordPress doesn’t do the “replying to this comment” thing like LJ. *sigh!*
Yes, it’s a nuisance. It’s just it has so many other virtues. (And lj’s still involved TOO MANY CLICKS.)
Yes, I meant to ask . . . we’re busy discussing the jacket of the paperback DRAGON now.
Oh my!
Peter has an AWFUL lot to answer for now…
…I may need counselling to get the image of the Duke of Edinburgh reading Sunshine to the Queen, in bed, out of my head!
(and of course, I’m sat here giggling like a loon at the thought of the expressions that must have crossed your face when Peter greeted you with that comment….)
But YAY for baby robins, and for forthcoming in-printness-over-here of Sunshine! (although they COULD have done it BEFORE I got a copy shipped in from the States as a birthday gift for a friend… ;-) )
I may need counselling
********* Yes, that was exactly my reaction! :)
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Well, no WONDER you didn’t see any babies–their box is SIDEWAYS. How could anyone raise a family in a SIDEWAYS house? No; they would just have to return the chicks when they were a bit older and not as likely to bounce off the walls. Floors and ceilings, rather.
Oh, of course . . .
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I’m sure that next year you’ll fix the box. :)
It’s on the list. :)
I’ve been meaning to post these two recipes for some time now.
The first recipe is for a sweet flatbread. I’ve adapted it from a Swedish recipe and adjusted ingredients to make it closer to Tolkien’s lembas. They make a handy grab-and-run breakfast or snack.
Lembas
1 cups sour milk or buttermilk
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 to 1 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon cardamom (very important)
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
about 3 1/2 cups flour
Combine ingredients and work with hands into a soft, pliable dough. Divide the dough into two pieces and roll about 1/8 or 1/4 inch thick. Cut into squares, circles, or other fun shapes (I like to use cookie cutters). Bake on a lightly floured griddle over VERY low heat until done, flipping after 10 min or so. They should turn a light brown color on both sides but not burn. I like to use 2 or 3 griddles at once so I’m not standing at the stove all evening.
These are good with butter, cheese, or jam, but I like them best plain.
Here is my favorite waffle recipe. I suggest the use of an electric mixer to make the egg whites very fluffy. These waffles are best when cooked in a Belgian waffle iron, because the large holes allow you to insert fresh fruit and real maple syrup. Leftovers are good slightly toasted.
Waffles
2-4 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup oil or melted butter
1-2 tablespoons brown sugar or honey
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour . . . whole wheat or combo wheat & white
2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
Beat egg whites until stiff. In a large bowl, beat yolks with milk. Add remaining ingredients, beating after each addition. Fold in beaten egg whites. Pour into lightly greased pre-heated (medium-hot, 375 deg) waffle iron and bake until it stops steaming or until the iron beeps. This will make enough waffles to feed 4 people, possibly with leftovers.
Optional waffle additions: 1/3 cup chopped nuts, 1 cup chopped apples, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, etc.
Yes, I believe you about the cardamom. And I love that kind of big airy waffle. (Of COURSE real maple syrup! :))
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Yay for waffles! I don’t cook much (don’t have time during the week, but I am trying to get back in the habit of making stuff on the weekend to freeze and reheat…), but I got a Belgian waffle iron for Christmas and have been trying different kinds almost every weekend. I just finished my last sweet potato waffles (from a mix), which were great, but I think the best ones I’ve made from scratch were Norwegian Waffles (I used real butter instead of shortening, of course). I’m weird and prefer my waffles with nothing on them, and these are quite tasty that way.
I’ll have to try yours next, though!
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I like them plain when they have spices in them. But I’m a sucker for maple syrup.
Thought I saw Sunshine at my local Borders in a cover I’d not seen before, the other day… but could be it was just the trade version, as I tend to buy mass-market size. Or could be I’m not paying close attention in the first place, as I loaned my copy to a friend about 2 years ago, and she and I both vaguely remember her returning it to me, but I can’t find the damn thing anyway. Pity, it’s the one you signed at Wiscon in lieu of my forgotten copy of Outlaws.
The robins are lovely! I think the reason they don’t respond at all to your assaults on the shelf from sides or back is that they’re geared to threats that make eye contact with them; it’s always in their best interest to stay completely still and quiet when they think there’s a chance you’re unaware they’re there. But at front, they can see your eyes, they know you’ve seen them, and then it’s all about trying to frighten you off before you eat the babies.
I’ve always found it fascinating that the turtles in the canal that runs past my house will happily sun themselves in plain sight right below the walking path; dozens of people walk past them in an hour and they don’t move an inch. But the moment you stop walking to look at them, even for a second–bam! they’re gone. They’re completely attuned to whether we passersby are behaving in what they see as a predatory manner, which is to say stopping and focusing our attention on the water below.
Hmm. Cats sneak up from behind. Hawks strike from above without eye contact.
The new SUNSHINE shouldn’t be out till September, I think. The old cover is red and has a chandelier on it. And is much prettier. Sigh. The new one has a young woman in a red dress chained to a wall. This is called ‘commercial’ I’m told.
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well it doesn’t always WORK, ergo the world not being covered in robins. :) but cats and hawks don’t shake the shelf before striking either–or they shouldn’t, if they’re worth their salt…
eh. animals. go figure ‘em.
ergo the world not being covered in robins. :)
******** LOL!
eh. animals. go figure ‘em.
********* Indeed. Do you read any of the current crop of ethologists?
Oh, ew.
Indeed. Do you read any of the current crop of ethologists?
Not in a while. Got recommendations?
Not anyone new. De Waal is probably still my favourite; I got badly put off Grandin because I think some of her horse work is horribly wrong.
I just thought of something. I absolutely *hate* when whomever is in charge of designing the cover puts *faces* on the supposed characters. It doesn’t actually ruin it for me, but I spend the rest of the book doggedly ignoring what the artist thought the main character should look like.
(and the ‘ew’ was for the girl in chains… obviously aiming at the Laurel K. Hamilton fanclub… maybe it will work to sell more books for you… but… ew)
Agree on all fronts. But I would like to finish paying for Third House’s loft conversion instead of leaving it to my heirs to sort out.
You mean the actual Queen? Of England? I am astounded. Does this mean I have the same literary taste as the Queen of England?
I always knew I liked that country.
Wish I knew about this sooner, though. School got out on Friday so it’s kind of too late to do any Sunshine-promoting among my classmates with the fact that EVEN THE QUEEN LIKES IT.
Not that this has anything to do with robins (the bird) or SUNSHINE (has Jodi told you about her novel-in-progress it’s inspired?), but I found this in today’s Times and thought you might like to see it.
http://health.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-chronicfatigue-ess.html
I shall go crawl back under my rock (known as the stomach virus from hell), and attempt to learn to knit socks between digestive incidents. =)
Thank you! Yes, I prefer to call it ME because it sounds scarier. Sigh.
You didn’t go to Wiscon, did you?
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Robin said: “You didn’t go to Wiscon, did you?”
I didn’t go to Wiscon….
At least I have doctors who believe me when I tell them that it’s not natural to not be able to eat anything but crackers or applesauce for a solid week straight. (And no, not pregnant; they checked for that at the hospital when I visited Saturday morning, due to excessive vomiting… I ate pasta, sue me.)
Back to the rock. =)
That just made a very funny thought in my mind… Me is scarier. ie. *I* am scarier… (;
*peers hopefully at the Blog for today’s entry*
Robins! Is that the mother or the baby? How adorable!
I have finally taken a closer look at the long-suffering camellia in the driveway, rather than just carefully dribbling its allocated cup of water at its feet. (Don’t look at me. It’s suffering because of the decade-long drought; I’d be happy to give it all the water it could drink.) It’s the most gorgeous pale pink with a darker edge – yes, Desire! And then I had to dig up your old LJ post about camellias and wade through all the pretty pictures…
Oh yes, and I’ve also identified my birthday present from my parents. May I present my bromeliad, Spike: http://www.bromeliad.org.au/pictures/Tillandsia/cyanea_b.jpg
That’s the whacking HUGE baby. There’s three of them, I think. You can just see the other two–one is hiding behind the door in front and the other is hiding behind his/her brother/sister in back.
NEXT year I’ll take my OWN camellia pics. :)
Oooh! PINK Spike! :)
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Awwww cute!
Here are the robins we have …
http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/finder/display.cfm?id=165
And today I saw some Fairy Wrens in the garden. This is great because it is only a new garden and it means that there are actually *plants* and *insects* and maybe even a *habitat* developing!! yay! They are so cute :)
http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/finder/display.cfm?id=3
‘Superb Fairy-Wren’ is worth it for the name alone. :)
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Maybe the little mites were just so well camouflaged that you didn’t notice them? (Like your memory stick:)
Mommy birds always look irritable. Or, maybe that’s just mommies in general… (checks own irritation level)
New issue of Sunshine? Excellent. I know what to get some friends for Christmas, then.
I hope you have LOTS of friends. :)
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Not so much… but, I’ll do my best…
“*** Maybe we could leak it to the press in time to make the reissued SUNSHINE this autumn really sell.^
^ No! True! Really! I’m going to have another of my five minutes of in-printness in the country I live in this September!”
Ah, well, we do definitely need a UK-based ‘RobinCon’ in that case, in the near future…:) How much would you like to annoy your neighbours at 3rd House…?Though if your current UK publisher has a hand in the publicity, I wouldn’t think they’ll have got round to a press release by September, let alone anything positively constructive. Not being even remotely connected with the book trade myself, I have no idea what the difficulties are with providing effective publicity for reissues* but I suspect that sometimes things aren’t actioned because organisations aren’t willing to re-think a position in the light of changed circumstances, ie, something will/won’t work because ‘that’s the way it always has been’, rather than thinking about what might work now. Sometimes it helps, not knowing how something is ‘supposed’ to work.
* Although presumably some factor has caused the new issue to come into being and could be capitalised on?
I’m hiding under the bed. I spend a lot of time under here. With the boxes of books. And the hellhounds. IT’S GETTING PRETTY CROWDED.
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“I’m hiding under the bed.”
LOL! If I thought for one second that you’d taken me seriously I’d be deeply apologetic. As it is, I shall go off to brave today’s crop of trains fortified by a lovely image of three pairs of eyes peering out from the darkness under a bed, rather like three baby birds in an overcroweded nest…:)
Probably only three eyes. We each open one, languorously, and close it again almost at once. :)
No, it’s just . . . don’t get me STARTED on the publishing industry, you know? But as for why, because my American publisher is reissueing it with a new cover, and my overachieving agent, who is almost as cranky as I am about it selling three copies and disappearing over here, decided to hold my British editor’s children to ransom (I don’t think she has any children . . . ) till she agreed to reissue it with the new US cover too. It’s witchcraft, though, that she succeeded. I will commission an extra line on Merrilee’s tombstone (or leave it in my will to have it done) ‘convinced Brit publisher to reissue SUNSHINE’
Um, if you’re too tired/out-of-it to walk home, what are you doing DRIVING?!? Oh, THAT’s what happened to the neighbor’s pot….
*grin* when looking at the comments, there’s this note that says (comments won’t nest below this level) Bet you wish robins came with that feature turned on!
They sell, at vast price, nest boxes with built in cameras over here. But little European robins like open-fronted boxes so I’m not sure you can get one for robins. American robins like open nests in trees, don’t they?
The Duke of Edinborough. Reading vampire baking novels. To the Queen. In bed.
My head just asploded.
But congratulations! I think! And aren’t I grateful that I have the original cover on my copy of Sunshine. A chained- up girl? I hope at least she has weird hair and a fierce expression.
Which reminds me that I need to just new copies of The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, because the covers have fallen off mine. And Deerskin, come to think of it.
Which reminds me that I need to just new copies of The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, because the covers have fallen off mine. And Deerskin, come to think of it.
********** OH good. :)
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