Teasel
It’s been a day of moderate effort and I’m hoping to pick up the pace a little in the coming days.
Success, in my case at least, isn’t built on skill, charm or inspiration, it’s built on work rate, and that’s what has been missing for the last few months. Yes, I’ve been busy moving house and writing for the Numismatic Society Facebook page, but I’ve also allowed myself to use it as an excuse for laziness. This was exposed with the last set of submissions. I was lucky to get away with that like I did. Finding and reanimating old poems, and writing some of them just minutes before the submission deadline is not a sustainable model.
But enough of that. It looks like I’ll have six out of nine accepted, possibly seven, so that’s good so far. I doubt my average will look that good by the end of the year.
Dunnock
I have searched through looking for extra places to submit work and found four more. Three have 100% records of rejecting me and I’ve never tried one of them. We will have to see how it goes. My average will undoubtedly plunge but I said 100 submissions was the target, so I must do eight or nine a month to get there.
Part of the problem is that several online journals are cutting back. Two that were monthly are now cut back to four and six times a year. I sympathise, as monthly must be hard work, but it does make it harder to find places for 100 submissions.
The squirrels, meanwhile, are finding it harder to access the bird food. They can still manage to get too it, but they can’t feed in a sustained manner as they tend to slip more they are now at full stretch. After they have fallen off a few times they tend to eat bread from the floor feeder then wander away. It’s about in balance, though I’m going to save up for some better feeders with anti-squirrel cages. We added a new species of bird to the record today, though nothing exciting – just a white dove from the small flock someone seems to keep round here. Still, it’s nice to break the monotony.
Robin on feeder
For tea we tried Quorn sausages as my sister came round to tea. They were quite good and when paired with onion gravy and mustard mash (plus sweetcorn and green beans) made a very acceptable substitute for meaty sausages. I may start using them on a regular basis as they are probably better for me than proper sausages. They are definitely no worse than the budget supermarket sausages available these days (which seem to get worse and worse). It looks like we will buy these regularly and only get meat sausages when we happen to be near a proper old-fashioned butcher.
A struggling squirrel
It sound like you are doing well on the submissions. I am not surprised journals are cutting back these days. Many things seem to be headed that direction.
Your squirrel is working harder, and hanging in there, too. 🙂
It is, but we are about in balance. It has to work harder, it falls off, it doesn’t eat so much and it doesn’t spend quite so much time scaring the birds. On the otehr hand, we don’t want to be totally unhospitable.
I did a quick search. There seems to be a a few feeders designed specifically for squirrels.
https://squirrelenthusiast.com/best-squirrel-feeder/
You know, it had never occurred to me that people would ctually want to feed squirrels. Fascinating limk.
🙂 The world is an endlessly fascinating place. 🙂
It is. 🙂
You mus be taking lessons from the squirrel
Too athletic for me! 🙂
Teasel is another import to Australia. More specifically in Tasmania where it was use in the wool industry to comb wool.
Teasel for wool, mynahs for locusts, cane toads for the beetles. All seeming like a good idea at the time. 🙂
Seems to me you’ve done pretty darned well. I do have a question, though: what is onion gravy and mustard mash?
Soften onions in the pan whilst cooking the sausages, deglaze the pan with water, bring it to the boil and sprinkle in gravy granules. It’s a bit of a cheat using granules but it works quite well. The mash was potato and sweet potato (because I had a spare half sweet potato) mashed (with no milk or butter) and then seasoned with two large spoonfuls of wholegrain mustard and a spoonful of English mustard.
I have never heard of mixing potato with mustard, but it sounds good.
It’s a quick way of doing something a bit different, and it doesn’t involve lots of dairy. 🙂
I have never heard of mixing potatoes with mustard, but it sounds good.