The Puzzled Game Birds

They are not those who used to feed us
When we were young–they cannot be –
These shapes that now bereave and bleed us?
They are not those who used to feed us, –
For would they not fair terms concede us?
– If hearts can house such treachery
They are not those who used to feed us
When we were young–they cannot be!

Thomas Hardy

I was going to put this in the last post but I couldn’t remember who wrote it, or enough of the words to search for it. Fortunately, with it being Hardy, I’m able to quote it in full, which is a useful side-effect of having old-fashioned tastes in poetry.

Apart from that minor triumph of memory it’s been a flat sort of day.

We decided to set the bird feeder up now that things are getting more wintry, but found that the central post had filled with water and rotted away half-way up. That was rather vexing. Fortunately we have another bird feeder which we had donated a few months ago so we just need to set that up – a job for Wednesday I think.

The guinea fowl chick has started to put in more of an appearance now, instead of hiding all the time. It’s another of the patchy white type that we managed to breed when we had a a latter-day Dr Moreau looking after the poultry. Admittedly he wasn’t quite as savage as the Doctor, but his breeding did leave us with a lot of unattractive poultry.

Mother and chick

Apart from that, the sun has drawn out a few late butterflies and bees; we’ve planted some new Verbena Bonariensis given to us by a neighbour (they’re always welcome, as they’re a good plant for pollinators); played a ball game with made-up rules and picked beans for seed.

We’ve also used the Applemaster to produce apple rings (which are currently drying in the new dehydrator), so we should have apple rings for tomorrow morning. In theory we’re building up a stock for National Apple Day on Saturday, but so far none of the batches has lasted longer than a day.