Agnes, Francesca and Bill

Somebody’s following those fine looking ladies

I wrote about Agnes, our resident wild turkey, a few posts back and that Agnes brought along her friend, Francesca.

Well, things were obviously pretty good at Chez Carrabis because the other day we woke up to see Bill out there with the girls.

Bill the Turkey
It’s Bill, not William. Just Bill

I didn’t know we had any mature Toms although I shouldn’t have been surprised; any Tom would be drawn to the vicinity of two such attractive ladies.

I went out to greet him. When I asked his name, I thought he said “Roger” (probably some errant chipmunk not getting enough seed).

“I bet your pardon?” I said.

“My name’s Bill.”

Being polite, I said, “Hello, William.”

He quickly corrected me, “It’s Bill, just Bill,” and he held out a wing. He had a good, firm wingshake. Obviously a bird of business, a serious bird, one to be dealt with squarely, probably good with a bread&bourbon stuffing.

Bill harrumphed at that and joined the ladies.


That’s Agnes in front at her seed pile. Francesca’s in back. Bill comes in about 12s in

Agnes and Francesca

Some fine lookin’ ladies, these.

I wrote about Agnes, our resident wild turkey, a few posts back. The past few days Agnes has brought along her friend, Francesca.

Agnes and Francesca
That’s Agnes in back. Francesca’s in front.

Agnes, on her own, is quite cordial and talkative with us. She waddles up to the porch windows, stares in, warbles to get our attention then walks back to her spot (where we put seed out for her and her alone. She does dine with Francesca. We suspect they have a history) and scratches the earth to let us know she’s out of seed.

Demanding little hen, yes?

Also quite protective. A while back a chipmunk went after her seed. When such occurs she performs what we call “The Chippie War Dance” and sometimes “The Fluff and Run”.

I prefer Chippie War Dance myself (and please excuse the blurry image. Wildlife photographer I am not).

We expect Francesca will be more directly communicative shortly. Especially as she realizes Agnes can ask for and get seed from us with little more than a warble, wink, cluck and scratch.

But as I wrote in Nothing Ever Dies of Old Age in The Wild, one will discover things in The Wild that one wishes one hadn’t.

Nothing dies of old age in The Wild

Case in point, about a week back I noticed that Bess wasn’t joining her mother and siblings when I put out peanuts, dog food and cookies. I saw her in back, under cover, in the dark.

I called to her and she didn’t move. I talked to her and walked towards her, a cookie in my open hand so she could see it, and tossed it in front of her. She barely came forward and wasn’t able to hold the cookie in her paws. She couldn’t get it to her mouth and I knew then that something had happened, that she was injured and probably wouldn’t last.

The past four nights Heckie, Sheldon, Veronica and Porgy have joined us in the backyard, but no Bess.

And yes, I mourn.

But nothing ever dies of old age in The Wild.

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Barb Drozdowich’s Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers

Recommended reading

I picked up The Author’s Guide to Working With Book Bloggers because I wanted to learn more about working with book bloggers.

Well, duh, huh?

Perhaps if I wrote “I picked up The Author’s Guide to Working With Book Bloggers because I wanted to learn more about slicing deli meats.” I’d be a more interesting person.

Confused, but more interesting.

Anyway, I believe this is a good book for extroverts. I’m not, and I tend to think of myself as boring and dull. The Author’s Guide to Working With Book Bloggers is full of excellent information and pretty much it comes down to standing on a mountaintop with searchlights pointing at yourself while shouting into a megaphone (provided you do it all politely).

Polite I can do.

And I love mountaintops for the view.

Not to be seen, though.

Much of what is suggested is common theory to anybody who’s done social/internet marketing and the application part is worth the read. Lots of good links and advice. Excellent for extroverts (in the social sense, not the psychological sense). I think she even says something about some of us having to get outside our comfort zones.

I’ll have to practice my shouting. I guess. maybe.

Jill Nelson’s “Rivet Your Readers with Deep Point of View” (DPOV)

Recommended reading

I got Rivet Your Readers with Deep Point of View at the suggestion of my writing coach, Rich Marcello (and he’s great. I’ve learned things I didn’t know I didn’t know. It don’t get much better than that!). He told me I already did most of what Jill Nelson explained in the book and that I might pick up a few incidentals, which I did.

I read the book last week (while traveling) as I write this and have already caught myself a few times with her “gotchas”.

The only real flaw I had with her book was the exercises. I felt they could have been better explained and/or better examples given. More than once the reader is invited to rewrite a sentence to incorporate lesson elements. Excellent! Except the given solutions (and she does give solutions to the exercises. Thanks for that!) often incorporate information that was no where in the original sentence and the solution becomes several sentences long. The added content not being part of the original problem sentence threw me.

I understood her suggested solutions but found myself saying “Where did she get that?” or “Where did that come from?” more than once. A little frustrating (for me) and it didn’t stop me from highlighting many items and learning.

I do suggest it for writers/authors wanting to improve their craft.

Writers’ Groups – Critiques

emPHAsis and sylLAbles

(picking up from where I left off in Writers’ Groups – Introduction…)

My core reason for all the socializing that’s part of any writers’ group is to learn, improve, increase.

Learning, improving and increasing comes from critiquing others’ work and having my own work critiqued, and critiquing is a learned skill (my opinion, that).

Critiques are not Reviews
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