animals – Page 27 – don't confuse the narrator

bisy; backson

Like Christopher Robin, I have been “BISY” and there haven’t been as many updates to the blog recently as I’d have liked.

I found this feather while walking to the village the other day. I assume it’s a woodpecker feather, though I suppose it could belong to a hoopoe – we certainly see the abubilla more often than the pájaro carpintero, which I hear sometimes but catch sight of only on very rare occasions.

The feather markings made me think of the Spotted or Herbaceous Backson, although, of course, the Backson isn’t the only mythical beast that is spotted.
Continue reading “bisy; backson”

food for thought

I went into the local agricultural supplies store to buy cat food and the guy looked up and said “¿pienso?”.

I’ll admit I was sorely tempted to reply, “lo dudo” as he’s not the brightest crayon in the box: he’s more the sort who “just sits” without much in the way of thinking going on.

(That was meant as a reference to “sometimes I sits and thinks, and then again I just sits.”, but now I’ve added a photo, I find that “I have a Gumbie Cat in mind”. Hmm. Tangents are fun things.)

Anyway, he really meant pienso as a noun – alimento para el ganado. Well, I’d never thought of our semi-ferals as livestock, but there’s certainly a small herd of them. (And, as the guy in the EDS advert says, “Herding cats? don’t let anybody tell you it’s easy.”)
Continue reading “food for thought”

blame the reds

We’re still having intermittent internet and phone outages, and still waiting for them to change the poste at the end of the garden – which is riddled with woodworm and carpenter bee tunnels – and, hopefully, install a new cable at the same time.

This morning, having glimpsed a red squirrel run across the road ahead of me, I was reminded that last time we had problems, the telecom guy blamed las ardillas. He re-strung several lengths of cable before we realised that in fact someone had cut through the cable while trying to tidy up the excess ivy. (However much I complain about the telephone company, I’ll admit they were more than reasonable when they didn’t charge us for that.)
Continue reading “blame the reds”

the marrow of life

My elderly mother lives alone. One of her main interests is the vegetable garden, which keeps her busy and fairly fit, but I guess I do occasionally worry that there would be no one there to help in an emergency.

Mind you, this headline from the BBC reasssures me that, while her garden continues productive, she has the means at hand to deal with certain dangers.

Only, I really do think it’d take more than a courgette to deter a ‘200lb (91kg) black bear’. (Some other sites are referring to the weapon as a zucchini, but both the BBC and the Telegraph call it a courgette.)
Continue reading “the marrow of life”

autumn

It’s the first day of autumn, and last night there was a harvest moon. That makes me think I should be posting some poetry, but I can’t find anything particularly suitable.

Still, the weather really is quite autumnal today, and if it stays this way, it wouldn’t surprise me if the swallows started gathering early for migration. I’ve had telephone wires and communications on my mind a lot recently, so maybe this will fit the bill:
Continue reading “autumn”