I love the little chickadees. I’m always asked where I got the bird feeder from. It’s actually a plant basket! And it works great for the blocks of bird seed, plus it makes for pretty pictures.
Little one is here. I managed 3,000 words yesterday on Highland Wolf, but I need to get Wolf Fever started too.
Pours. 19″ of rain, roads flooded, and schools are out today. We were under 40 flood watches last night, down to 10 flood watches today, and only 50% chance of rain this afternoon.
My daughter is off from work because of the flooding and we’re having a tea tasting party and watching a movie. Then I’m back to writing.
Ten days to go, and I still am a LONG way from getting the book done. Argh.
Have a super day! We finally got rain! And rain. And rain. And….
I’m off and running this morning. I wrote another 3,000 words yesterday, did all kinds of switching scenes around which changes things a lot. What? They were going to bed but now it’s daytime? Lunch is breakfast? This isn’t relevant. Oh, no, need more setup here now. Anyway, somehow with all the moving around of stuff, I still managed to write more. I’m at 95,000.
I’ve never seen a bird take a bath in the fountain. Smart bird. Hot day. This juvenile cardinal was having a ball.
I managed 2,000 words yesterday. I wanted to write more. I was reading an article about sleep. Six hours or less a day is equivalent to 2 days with no sleep as far as the brain functioning well. Okay, so I definitely need brain function to write. Now how do I sleep better????
Baby is on her way. Bug terminator better be on his way. I have a swarm of red wasps in my foyer. They don’t seem to be building a nest, not that I can see. Though I am avoiding the area. I tried taking pictures from inside the house. I had to have my daughter drop my granddaughter off in through the garage until the terminator gets here.
One day when I lived in Crawford, Texas, I was watching out the window as I was writing my story, and saw several bluebirds diving at a wasp nest they were building. Every time a new wasp showed up to add to the nest, one of the bluebirds would dive down and the wasp was history. It was wonderful!!! I was having a terrible time with the wasps. Hate using hornet spray, but the best little bug killers around? Bluebirds. I’ve never seen anything like it!
In the wild, the hummingbird is asserting its territorial right to all the zinnia flowers in the garden while the monarch butterfly is trying to ignore the bird. Yesterday, a giant yellow swallowtail was harassed by another hummingbird. Two hummingbirds chase each other off all the time too. And a red-bellied woodpecker is not happy that the cardinal is on HIS feeder, chowing down.
My two-year old granddaughter is the same way. “Mine,” I hear all day. Even when she knows it’s not, if she claims it, she feels she has a right to it, unless Grandma says, “No, that’s Grandma’s.” And even then, if it’s something she really wants, she will insist, “Mine.”
Depending on what it is, Grandma will let her play with it, but it’s still Grandma’s.
During my research, I’ve been reading about people who take metal detectors on “abandoned” property, looking for treasure. The property is owned by someone, maybe an absentee owner who still pays the taxes. So when the trespasser obtains the “treasure,” is it really…his? When someone finds something that’s of a huge value, after he’s bought the property, can he keep it? It seems that yes, sometimes, sometimes, no.
So I changed my story to the owner finding the treasures in her shop as part of her inheritance, rather than buying the property from someone who had inherited the property and sold it off. End of gray area. And it makes it more personal for the character also.
A point in fact: A master’s painting had been stolen from a museum. It had to be returned to the museum. A beautiful antique chest had a secret drawer and the new owner, while refurbishing the furniture, found it full of jewelry and cash. He could have kept it. But he didn’t. He contacted the owner and gave them their treasured possessions. He wanted the beautiful chest. That was the treasure to him.
In another case, a man was digging on his new property, to plant a garden, and discovered a cache of jewelry and other valuable items. It turned out his neighbor had been robbed by the previous owner and the items were buried in the backyard! If he’d tried to sell it, the police might have been alerted that the property had been stolen. And that would certainly be a new twist to a story, wouldn’t it.
So it’s something to think about when you find buried treasure. Hopefully…you won’t find buried bones.
Okay, I’m off to write. I wrote 2,000 words on my day “off.” Isn’t it awful to have a day off from writing, only to spend it babysitting? lol Though we have fun. I hope to take her to Galveston Island to the glass pyramids one day to see the aquarium and tropical pyramid.
Have a super day!!! I’m off to get busy. The days is all MINE.
“Look at my beautiful feathers. She’s sees these and that’s all she wrote.”
“Hmm,” the other bird said.
Yep, I speak bird.
Don’t you hate it when you can sleep finally, and the smoke detector (one of like 10 stupid detectors they install in these houses) starts beeping? It’s got such a shrill sound, there’s no ignoring it and it was on the other side of the house and it still sounds as bad as if it were in the same room. Well, nearly. It meant its battery needed changing. Since I have 10-foot ceilings, that meant getting the ladder out, carrying it into the house from the garage, getting a 9-volt battery, climbing the ladder, and pulling the old battery out. Paying attention to the way the other went in because I can’t see how the battery is supposed to go in, I’m proud of myself. Insert new battery after a humongous struggle, climb down ladder, walk to the kitchen, the detector starts beeping.
Return to the ladder, climb up, remove battery, reinsert battery after a horrible struggle–my dad used to say never force things because it isn’t meant to work that way if you have to force it–in this case, he’s wrong. It’s supposed to be in there that way. Wait this time before I climb down ladder.
Beep…………….beep……………beep. And it’s not just a beep-beep like Road Runner made. Nope. It’s a shrill, ear-piercing screech, right next to my head. Of course. I take it out, try to put it in the opposite way that I know isn’t right, and can’t get it in at all.
So I climb down the ladder and get ANOTHER new battery, climb up the ladder, remove the “old” new battery, slip in the “new” new battery and voila, no struggle to get it in.
Okay, okay, so maybe dad was right, even if the other should have worked. And yes, after waiting, no beep. Climbing down the ladder, no beep. Several minutes passed while writing the blog, no beep. Time to carry the ladder back to the garage. More sleep? Forget that. The dogs want out. Food, out, in.
Time to write.
Hope you have a sound sleep and no screeching Road Runner waking you from your dreams.
I did it! I got caught up! I had to write 8200 words to do it, but I did it! I’m at 10,000 words, 70,000 to go. I wrote all that yesterday. It’s not easy or I’d do it all the time. I also weeded and did my usual chores, and I even took pictures of butterflies and dragonflies and flowers. But I had so much conflict, so many scenes coming to me in watered-down movie versions that I just kept writing. I need to go back and flesh out the scenes, but I LOVE it when that happens.
So I’m caught up. Today, no word count because I’m babysitting, but I always try to get some done anyway so I can get ahead of the game until more edits come. I’m caught up! Can you tell how wonderful that makes me feel? Now, if only I could do that every day. lol
I love observing animal behavior. The baby has been eating on his own with his sister all this time. But here comes daddy cardinal and baby is opening his beak, flapping his wings, as if he were in the nest still, needing nourishment.
Daddy obliges, but then he was back to foraging for himself.
Silver Town Wolf: Home for the Holidays. It might sound like it’s a Hallmark Classic, but it’s my regular paranormal romantic suspense–dead bodies, ghosts, wolf shifters, romance, you know, the usual.
I’m off to write! Trying to get 3,000 words today. Managed 1,000 yesterday on baby day, but also got 60 books ready to ship, another 30 to go.
Still doggy sitting. Kids didn’t get in until really late last night. Even with running dogs in an out all day yesterday, I managed to get 4,000 words. Still 26,000 word behind from my original goal. (Due to stopping to write a novella, edit a book, and proof another–I have to remind myself.)
But yesterday, I kept noticing that every time I went out with the dogs, one or two at a time, a female cardinal was having fits. Normally, they fly off, but this time, she just kept chirping at all of us. So late last night while I was working on my computer, I saw two of them in the rosebush. I was thinking they were the momma and baby, but they’re two babies, their beaks not orange yet. The feeder is above them, but empty. The squirrels knocked all the food out of them on the ground, and they’ve claimed the feeders and the food on the ground for their own. lol
Tenacious little baby birds. Normally, the adult cardinals just fly off when the other birds come to eat–the blue jays, woodpeckers, mockingbirds, and doves. But these baby females are hungry and momma and daddy told them this food was for them.
Okay, hoping the kids don’t sleep in too late and come and pick up their furbabies soon. I’m trying for 3,000 a day to try and catch up. My goal is normally 2,000 a day. But now I have to write two more novellas, so I need to get cracking.
Have a beautiful day! We had a great storm yesterday, supposed to rain today, but it looks clear now. Hope to get some more baby bird pictures when it’s a little lighter out!
Remember, even if you’re trying to get stuff done, notice the wonders of life around you. It’s amazing what goes on outside of us.
