What · Fresh · Hell · is · This?

A Kid for Two Farthings is threatening to turn sad so I've decided it's time to set the book down and write up the bird report instead. One could wonder why it is that I can read child abuse with discomfort, yes, but not inability to continue reading, but the mere threat of a sickly goat is enough to cause me to set the book down and look anxiously about. It could be that Mr. Welsh's book is clearly for adults and Wolf Mankowitz is writing, if not exactly for children, in a more childlike manner. There must have been a stretch of time during which books written in the style of William Saroyan's The Human Comedy were all the rage. "Saroyanesque" it's called, according to the linked website. Huh. You get echoes of it in Salinger's short stories and in the framing story of The Princess Bride (though that was written much later, of course, most likely in a deliberate aping of the older style) but I don't know that you could seriously get away with it today. There's a weird innocence to that style which is odd, maybe, since it is at the same time so self-consciously arch. Maybe. Me, I just want the goat to be okay.

Birds
black-capped chickadees
dark-eyed juncos (Oregon)
starlings
yellow-rumped warbler
house sparrows
Anna's hummingbirds (three--none of them in my backyard)
robins
crows
gulls
pigeons
a fine house finch couple
mallard ducks
Canada geese
double-crested cormorants
one lone Barrow's goldeneye (you visited just in time, alexfandra
grebes (western or Clark's; they were too far away to go distinguishing bill color or facial expressions for goodness' sake)

Book
A Kid for Two Farthings (page 102)

I've also baked gingerbread this evening and, really, I need an old appliance repair-person, "old" modifying the appliance, not the person. Can the Imaginary Reader recommend a competent, not outrageously priced someone to look at my 1940s/50s-era stove and tell me whether it can be repaired? If not I'm going to have to replace it which brings up the whole ball of hell of whether it's possible to convert the kitchen to gas. I can't deal with the potential death of a goat that was fictional in 1953; do I look like I have the emotional reserves to cope with questions of major appliances?

With apologies to CCT but I'm tired.

Birds
northern flicker
dark-eyed juncos (Oregon)
black-capped chickadees
hummingbirds (four! one the usual Anna's in the backyard and three in other locations and too far away to identify positively though they all made the rusty bicycle chain noise)
starlings
robins
house sparrows
song sparrow
mallard duck couple
Canada geese
goldeneyes, presumably Barrow's
a pair of grebes
pigeons
crows
possibly a ruby-crowned kinglet

Book
A Kid for Two Farthings (page 42 ... racing through it, I am)

Birds
northern flickers (three!)
starlings (sigh)
American goldfinches
dark-eyed juncos (Oregon)
black-capped chickadees
orange-crowned warbler
yellow-rumped warbler
Bewick's wren
Anna's hummingbirds (two)
bushtits (many--do they come any other way?)
house sparrows
house finches
song sparrow
crows
gulls
pigeons
robins
also something a little larger and rounder than the average sparrow with a spotted breast and a very bright and black eye that made me think "ovenbird" though I know that's not what it was...

Book
Crime (page 341, aka finished)
Next up, either The Manual of Detection or A Kid for Two Farthings

First, though, Crime. A few days ago I didn't really know what I thought about it and now that I've finished, I'm still not so sure though I will have to say the final 60 pages or so read more like the author's notes for a book than the book itself. "Hey, what if it's a redemptive book in which, ohmygodthisissounexpected!, the main character was abused as a child and haunted by it, and He Learns A Lesson? That means there will have to be a bunch of back story in which his childhood trauma is outlined and his general upbringing covered, right? What say we just make that the final third of the book?" is how it all felt so, ummm, okay. I believe the same author handled the same general sort of thing in Marabou Stork Nightmares considerably more deftly though, of course, MSN is not at all redemptive. So maybe it's the happy ending that I found unbelievable. I donno. Not Mr. Welsh's best work but nor is it his worse.

The Planting Report, were I including one, would note that I had weeded one of the rose beds this afternoon, and then planted the flamenco oriental poppy that I bought at the Flower and Garden Show. Fingers crossed that something comes up and blooms prettily. This year?

Today was another obsessive camera and birds day resulting in...


Oh sure, now that you know I'm an orange-crowned warbler, I'll talk...I'll never shut my mouth, even..."



Yellow-rumped warbler glares at the camera.



It's all yellow birds! A male American goldfinch (midway through molting) against a backdrop of budding apricot



Who knew the (female Pacific) bushtit had such eyes?

Today I was supposed to go help a friend do some painting but the commitment wasn't complete and it was such a beautiful day (sorry, lotusice; it was sixty degrees under sunny blue skies in Seattle) that I thought maybe there'd be time to have tea outdoors, take some photos, plant some of yesterday's purchases, and maybe implement some of those pruning tips before getting onto a bus and doing some roller work on Capital Hill. In truth, it was elijah_brown who was dedicated to starting in on the fruit trees while I pretty much stalked birds, with mixed success (see previous entry but also photos below). Eli did quite the job on the plum tree while I made a few cautious forays on the apricot. Fingers crossed and goodness knows there's plenty more to be done. I've planted the lily of the valley and the bleeding heart near Noel who has settled into a mossy patch under the lilac (which will have its own pruning in a few months, after it has flowered).

Mostly, though, I've spent the day obsessing on the birds. So, hey, though it's not yet dark, how about a list?
Birds
male northern flicker
dark-eyed juncos
bushtits
black-capped chickadees
starlings
gulls
crows
female Wilson's warbler orange-crowned warbler (thanks, Warbler guy!)
house sparrows
song sparrow (? see photo below)
Anna's hummingbirds


Northern flicker who, soon after this photo was snapped, settled in for a nice meal of suet



New to the backyard, we think it's a song sparrow (though it lacks the black spot on its chest and it wasn't singing)



Amusingly, I was actually trying to photograph a junco at the feeder when I noticed my mysterious yellow caller.



How often does one get such a fine belly shot?



Slightly out of focus but it's been such a junco-rich day that it seems wrong not to include one snap of the bird.

A few minutes ago, as Eli and I were looking out at the yard (admiring and/or containing our alarm at the plum pruning), Miss Wilson posed a few feet away on the grape arbor, before diving into the bird bath for a quick wash. "Little Yellow Bitch" is what I called her then, but lovingly.

Book
Still Crime (all of page 207)
A Bear Called Paddington (page 81)

Last night we learned that Paddington "had several expressions he kept for emergencies. There was his thoughtful expression, when he stared into space and rested his chin on a paw. Then there was his innocent one which wasn't really an expression at all." He also has "a very persistent stare. One which Aunt Lucy had taught him and which he kept for special occasions."




Should the Imaginary Reader tire of identification shots, an Anna's hummingbird in flight

Updated to add: Thanks to Daniel Edelstein, aka "the warbler guy" I now know that what I've been insisting was a female Wilson's warbler that didn't belong in my backyard in January is actually an orange-crowned warbler, which also has little business in these here parts in January.


Am I a bad photo of a female Wilson's warbler?



Am I also a blurry Miss Wilson?



Am I an elongated female Wilson's warbler whose beak is hidden by the suet feeder?


If not, who the hell am I?

Continuing my attempt to avoid actively boring the Imaginary Reader I will include photos and non-bird and non-reading related material in this post. It's particularly easy today since my bird-viewing was far from spectacular and my reading has been essentially nonexistent. Oh, I tried for birds this morning, with the following rather dismal results:

Birds
American goldfinch
Anna's hummingbird ( see new icon )
dark-eyed juncos
house sparrows
starlings
crows
black-capped chickadees
(likely) robins
(most likely) eagle (soaring over the Luna Park neighborhood)

The list is short, in part, because elijah_brown and I had a date to boost the local economy by attending the Flower and Garden Show today and, my!, but did we do our part to improve February consumer confidence numbers. I very wisely opted to endure the bother of carrying a five-foot garden stake through the crowds for several hours. I cannot say how many people admired it as I was carrying it about but I can say I was quite right not to count on Renee's Home & Garden having any of the stakes left by the end of the day. After that purchase opened the floodgates, we were buying tubers from The Lily Pad Bulb Farm, tiles from Convergence Design and my old favorite Red Step Studio, a t-shirt from the extremely laconic and low-key Stephanie Korschun and a truly absurd but utterly fabulous goat (yes, a goat!) from Home & Garden Art LLC of Ballard. Oh, and a gardening tool from someone whose card I didn't happen to pick up. It's the ice ax looking thing in the photo below. We stopped short of arranging for milk delivery from Smith Brothers Farms and ordering a rain barrel from some company up on Aurora--the latter only because they said we could likely get the show special even if we call in a few days and I want to see if we can't get the same thing from the city for free (or cheap).

alexfandra wanted a report on how the garden show was being handled by new management. It has been several many years since I last went to the show so, really, I can't offer a proper comparison. It was less crowded than in my memory and I could find neither leather rose-pruning gloves nor plain white calla lilies for sale but clearly that didn't limit my ability to do plenty of shopping. I wasn't as thrilled with some of the jewelry in person as I'd expected to be so I didn't buy any of that but I'll be planting some lily of valley (the woman clearly thought I was insane to be buying so invasive a spreader), a bleeding heart, and a fancy new poppy this weekend; we'll see what survives. (Hey, Ms. Fandra, any chance of getting a new Solomon's seal volunteer from you?) We went to one seminar--on pruning--presented by Mallory Gwynn. His main point was that it was nearly impossible to kill a deciduous plant by pruning it so we should pretty much just get in there with the pruners and see how it all turns out. I remain nervous but I half expected Eli to be going at the cherry tree by flashlight this evening. In short, it seemed a good show. We learned some stuff; were mildly inspired to do some new planting and yard work; and, as I say, we boosted the local economy. Who, afterall, doesn't want to ride the bus with a rusty old plant stake and a goat made from an old oil can? The display gardens were nice enough though, I must admit, not so fabulous as they were the first year I went to the show; on the other hand, they weren't so reliant on pots of primroses as I remember them being some subsequent years. Live chickens were big.

Say, how about some pictures?


Miscellaneous Garden Plunder



Top of the enviable plant stake



We call him Noel.


Book
Crime (page 200)

So the earlier part of this evening was spent having "a drink" with CCT at Porterhouse in West Seattle. The drink was actually several seabreezes for me, two gin and tonics for her, and a couple of plates of fish and chips, all of which was quite fine (see again "several seabreezes"). She complained however, that "lists of birds and numbers are boring" so I'm attempting to add something more to this post. The pull to list birds is, however, overwhelming:

Birds
house sparrows
American goldfinches
black-capped chickadees
yellow-rumped warbler (see photos!)
northern flicker
crows
gulls
pigeons
American robins
(most likely) song sparrows
Canada geese
Barrow's goldeneyes
house finches
belted kingfisher
**No** starlings (yay!)

(Apologies for the size of these bird photos; I forgot to size them before uploading them.)

Yellow rumped warbler, Exhibit 1



Blurry but what I think of as the Paul Bannick shot of a yellow rumped warbler #2

The above photos were taken this morning with the new camera (which met with CCT's approval; we'll see what she says about the images) when, in truth, I should have been getting to work. Naturally, fascinating as the birds were, Gradka continues to be the most photogenic subject:


Gradka at the gate


Some portion of tomorrow is to be given over to the Flower and Garden Show which may yield some proper LJ post fodder. I remain cautiously optimistic that I'll eventually capture the so-called Wilson's warbler on film though, sadly, I've not seen her in some days.

Book
Crime by Irvine Welsh (page 174)

The question of what I thought of my book came up during dinner and I found that I couldn't really say. It's well written, I think, and engaging and I am interested in the way the secondary character of Trudi pops in as a three-dimensional figure from time to time but I don't actually know what I think about the book; I think that's something I won't know until I've finished reading it. Which is, it strikes me, just sort of odd. Maybe it's the liquor but somehow my lack of certainty seems significant. We'll see if that's still the case tomorrow morning.

(I can see where this "Day XX" business is going to get trickier as the year progresses.)

Birds
dark-eyed juncos
black-capped chickadees
American robins
northern flicker (female)
crows
starlings
pigeons
gulls
Canada geese
Barrow's goldeneyes
cormorant
hummingbirds
probably song sparrows

Book
Crime (page 174)
A Bear Called Paddington (page 43)

The backyard was, once more, largely lacking in birds. This particularly disappoints since it seems some Great Backyard Bird Count is underway. I'd like my backyard to offer some fine sightings but if it continues the way it's been, I'd be lucky to have a sparrow to offer. I'm hoping to spend some quality time out there this weekend. Longfellow Creek was (potentially) more rewarding this morning but what with it being rainy and sort of just low light and me not bringing my binoculars there was a lot of "I think that's a couple of song sparrows" rather than positive identifications. But someone (a robin, I do believe) had plenty to sing about and the flicker was behaving like a proper woodpecker on a tree so it was all fine.

Crime is being less overtly creepy and more relentlessly "oh, I don't think that's such a good idea" than I'd anticipated which is nice. Life is simply...well, I spent a good part of the day at work gripping my hair and pulling it hard which is rarely a good sign. I tell myself it is all going to be fine. Fine, do you hear? Fine.

Birds
starlings
crows
pigeons
Steller's jay
hummingbird
gulls
Barrow's goldeneyes
Canada geese

Book
Crime (page 92)

It was a bad day for birds in the backyard; the few I saw I didn't see well enough to be able to say for certain what they were (and most likely they were sparrows). I'm pretty certain I heard robins and chickadees but since my rule is that I have to positively identify them by sight, I'm not listing even those. Alas. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. The Steller's jay was nice, though.

Birds:
dark-eyed juncos
starlings
yellow-rumped warbler
crows
Barrow's goldeneyes
Canada geese
gulls
pigeons

Book
Crime by Irvine Welsh (page 34)

Maybe it's just that the West Seattle Blog has been obsessing on break-ins lately or maybe it's that the local block watch has my email address but it seems to me that burglaries are on the rise which makes me twitchy. I've had break-ins (though not, thankfully and knocking wood, for a long time) and they're not fun. It's not just the stuff, it's the creepiness factor. Which possibly means that I've picked the wrong book (not that the creepiness factor if its subject matter isn't far less subtle and far more icky) but, by gum, I've started it so I'm continuing with it.

Birds:
northern flickers
black-capped chickadees
American goldfinches
dark-eyed juncos (Oregon)
Anna's hummingbird
starling
crows
pigeons
American robins
bushtits
house sparrows

Book
Nothing!

My father's birthday party went, I think, better than I expected. More siblings showed up than planned, leading to some panic on the cake front but somehow we still ended up with a piece left over. My mother mostly slept but she didn't fall on the stairs and bash her brains (what remain of them) out so I'm calling that good. A fine time, even if Eli is now half asleep on the couch next to me.

Now, possibly, it's time to see about some food that isn't basically sugar. Hell, I might do something about that book report, too.

Birds:
American goldfinches
dark-eyed juncos
bushtits
Little Miss Wilson's warbler
yellow-rumped warbler
crows
house sparrows
Anna's hummingbird

Book:
Summer Half (page 252, aka finished)

So, not a lot to show on either birds or book. A great gob of today was given over to Turbo Tax but happily at the end of a few hours my return was filed and I'm getting, I say frankly, gobs of cash back! It makes a nice change from the last few years in which I have owed gobs of cash. It was a pretty heady half hour until I started thinking about all the things around the house (insulation in the walls, chimney/fireplace repair, major appliances, flooring, furnace fund...) on which I could and should spend the money. Then I remembered that I have the refund largely because of all the lovely deductions home ownership brings so, really, the house should get the cash. It could be worrying, how much I feel that this house is a living entity. Last night it was featured in an alarming dream involving rats leaping from the bird bath. Possibly I should spend some of my ill-gotten gains on a psychoanalyst.

Birds:
northern flicker
starlings
robins
American goldfinches
black-capped chickadees
dark-eyed juncos
crows
Anna's hummingbird (three, or possibly one Anna's and two other sorts of hummingbird though one doubts)
bushtits
Barrow's goldeneyes
Canada geese
cormorants
pigeons
gulls
some small, very active birds that could have been kinglets or could have been vireos or could have been something else entirely

Book
Summer Half (page 216)
A Bear Called Paddington (page 24)

Birds:
three northern flickers (two in the apricot tree; one in some stranger's yard seen en route to the bus)
dark-eyed juncos (Oregon)
Little Miss Wilson's warbler
robins
house sparrows
chickadees
Anna's hummingbirds (two--again, one in the backyard and one in someone else's yard)
crows
gulls
Canada geese
cormorants (two)
starlings
American goldfinch
Barrow's goldeneyes (two couples and one lone male)

Book
Summer Half (page 170)

Does the Imaginary Reader have any suggestions for a birthday gift for an 81-year-old man?

“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.” --Holden Caulfield

Making up for yesterday's poor showing (it pays to take a work-at-home day!)...

Birds:
dark-eyed juncos (Oregon) - tons of them
American goldfinches
Anna's hummingbird
Northern flickers (two or three)
starlings (sigh)
house sparrows
house finch
yellow-rumped warbler
Little Miss Wilson's warbler*
black-capped chickadees
crows
sharp-shinned hawk (very predatory and happily unsuccessful though it certainly knows how to clear a backyard)

*Ha! Some tweeters saw Wilson's warblers in January back in 2002!

Books:
Summer Half (page 140)
and, since I was working at home I feel I can count work reading here:
The Healthy Back Book (all 206 glorious pages)
Your Green Abode (72 ms. pages)

The latter has me thinking about getting insulation blown into the walls and replacing the refrigerator.

It was a lousy day for birds, along with pretty much everything else:

Birds:
black-capped chickadees
Anna's hummingbirds
crows
gulls

Book
Summer Half (page 95)

Birds:
Two northern flickers, a male and a female, making eyes at each other even if it is only January
American goldfinches, lots of them
sparrows (ditto)
dark-eyed juncos (Oregon)
the mysterious possible Miss Wilson's warbler
Anna's hummingbird (two, one out back and one down the street)
crows
pigeons
starlings
Barrow's goldeneye (solitary male)
Canada geese
cormorant
gulls

Book
Summer Half (page 71)

Funny story. I set Crime by Irvine Welsh out last night and I carried it to and from work today. I did not, however, take it out of my bag and I realized, on the walk home, that what I needed (not wanted, but needed) was some proper pre-war Thirkell. I read the introduction\ and found it idiotic, but fortunately I was in a Lush bath at the time and less delicate than I may have been earlier.

For the record, World, I know that I'm fortunate to have a job in these troublous times. But that doesn't mean that it's buckets of fun, even so.

I've just finished Mr. Nichols' A Village in a Valley and, frankly, I may wish to have more serious words with him than those about lemon balm and starlings. This volume is a bit on the serious and depressing side in spots and that Simply Will Not Do. For example:

Utter loneliness must be the ultimate hell, I think. It must be like living in a desert where there is not a single green thing to give you shadow and shelter. To know . . . not merely to fear, but to know. . . that never, when the postman comes in the morning, will there be a letter from anyone who needs you, needs you vitally, as flowers thirst for water. To know . . . every time you look in the glass, that it is quite ridiculous to suppose that you can ever command love that has in it any element of the physical—all that's gone, long ago, and you have too much common sense to believe that you can bring back the days of dew and dreams by dropping some patent mixture into your eyes, or the days of April by dyeing your hair. You have too much common sense. That is one of the horrible things about it. It gives you an inferiority complex, makes you suspect that there is something tainted in even the purest friendship, makes you awkward, shrinking, hostile even to those who might be your friends. —from page 186

'Will you come in for coffee?' It was stock phrase at Allways. I had usually interpreted it to mean that people would be bored having one to dinner. It didn't mean that. It meant that there had been no such thing as 'dinner'—there had only been a little tinned soup, and some cold meat, while the 'maid', who always looked so smart when she opened the door on special occasions, had gone home, to 'do' for her mother.
. . .
And in the houses, it was the same. When the stair carpet had frayed at the edges of the steps, you did not buy a new carpet. You slid the whole carpet down a few inches, so that the frayed part no longer showed. And when the bedroom carpet had faded you did not buy a new one, you 'turned' it, so that it stared up at you with a surprised but unfaded expression, with all its roses upside down. And you did not give the cat the fish that had been left over. That was made into a fish pie for yourself, while the cat had a pennyworth of special 'cat's fish', which is a strange bony monster, not recorded in the average book of natural history.
. . .
All these little things became clear to me, and I realized in the matter of Miss Hazlitt's shop, that Allways could not do more than it had done. The women of Allways were putting up a magnificent fight against genteel poverty, against falling dividends and rising prices. —from pages 228-29

And once again, over this little patch of earth which I have so dearly loved, there will be a sighing and stirring, and the scents will drift back over the centuries, for my delight. The white roses will flutter, like ghosts, from the heart of Time, and light upon their aery branches. Once against the lilies will ring their bells and the lavender will spear the night-air with sweetness. Once again I shall walk down the path . . . 'you are mine, still mine, always mine. . .' And Antinous will be there, on the little lawn, smiling in the moonlight.
For the beauty of the garden has not died. It could not die. No garden can ever utterly die. Even if it only flowers, a dim memory, in the memory of a ghost. —from page 286

Now I ask you, Imaginary Reader, do I read Beverly Nichols' books to be reminded of loneliness and self-doubt, of poverty and economic collapse? Do I need to wander as a ghost through the ruins of my past homes? For that I could have purchased (ignoring my own financial limitations) the newest Orhan Pamuk at my local plucky independent (aka Miss Hazlitt's shop). Forget it; I'm starting in on the Paddington books. Nothing better happen to Mr. Gruber.

Birds:
northern flicker
black-capped chickadees
American goldfinches
house sparrows
Townsend's warbler (in the backyard!)
yellow-rumped warbler
Anna's hummingbird
crows
pigeons
robin

Book
A Village in a Valley (page 225 287)

elijah_brown reports that about 20 bushtits came through the backyard to visit the suet but I missed them, as well as the juncos. On the upside, I also can't say for certain that I saw any starlings.

I am considerately resisting the temptation to add "Plantings" to my daily report. The mild winter has led me to buy (and plant) first primroses and pansies and, today, hellebore. Three, in pots. We also had a look at (but did not buy because we're not really certifiably insane) some oakleaf hydrangeas as well as some truly amazingly colorful dogwoods. The latter we will, alas, never buy; we don't have room, for one thing, but the bark on them is simply, well, amazing.