Night-y Night

Last night's galliform bedtime went well. Mrs Fred and Mrs Jack were enticed into the run by the usual scatter of birdseed. Miss Fleur was easily caught with the helpof a bribe and hoicked in after them. For around 30 seconds there was absolute peace as three hens formed a contented circle around their three pecking beaks. Then Mrs Jak noticed that the interloper was there--and pecked. Mrs Jack goes for the middle of the back or for tail feathers. She's so much bigger than Fleur that she actually pulls her across the ground. Fleur hid under the Glug flattening herself down as much as possible. Mrs Fred ignored the whole situation.

I watched for a bit, but was also in the proces of sorting out supper so had to leave them for a bit. At least from the kitchen, I can both see and hear what's going on in the run.

It all went quiet. Looking out into the gathering gloom, I could see only two hens. Out I went. Mrs Jack started trumpeting her outrage. Mrs Fred marched back and forth along the fornt of the run, shaking her wattles in extreme annopyance. Miss Fleur?

Miss Fleur had gone to bed in the pod.

I left them again, trusting the dusk to drive the other two into sleep mode and bed. It did.

Mrs Jack's sudden annoyed behaviour was a puzzle. Apart from the occasional nip at a passing ankle, she's tended to ignore the newcomer. When I went out to let them into the garden this morning, I found out why.

Mrs Jack, rather than perching in the pod, sleeps in the nice "nest" intended for the laying of eggs. I did try to persude her to do otherwise, even tilting the pod slightly to ensure the perches were higher*, but it didn't work. When I let them oput this morning the ladies were up and, when I checked, Miss Fleaur was still snugly curled up in Mrs Fred's preferred place!

Fleur is for her own part settling in brilliantly. She's learning all the time. For instance she has discovered which bits of nettle to eat--the seed heads--and which bits to avoid--the rest. The sight of her scratching at her beak and proto wattles after she'd been stung was quite funny. This morning M washed up in the company of two hens on the kitchen wndow sill, so Fleur has already managed to copy that from Mrs Fred.

 

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* Hens roost on the highest available perch.

Meme

1. Comment on this post.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

So, la_marquise_de gave me the letter G. Problematic that one: "S" would've been so much easier (Servalan, Saruman, Shelob, Spock, Sherlock Holmes....). "G", well, has I find surprisingly few female names. Still, here goes:

• Gobbolino, the witch's cat. What can I say: cats? witches? sibling rivalry? a fall from a broomstick? (that bit was very scary) a search for home and family? Sometime after I had ceased to demand a nightly reading of The Witch of Willow Wood (Twinkle annual c.1970) (cat, witch...), I read Gobbolino, and then read it again and again. It's the same story as Pinocchio or The Little Wooden Horse, the central character a misfit searching for his own place, where he can be accepted, with the adventures good and bad that happen along the way. I can still feel the outrage I felt then that one small patch of white fur should render Gobbolino a complete failure as a witch's cat. So unfair.
• Gollum. I always wondered how LOTR would have worked as the tale of Gollum's tragic decline. His fear and pain. His tremendous journeying. The great love of his life and his great loss. All that with all those sibilants, preciousssssss.
• Grendel's mother. Yes, I know, this is probably cheating: who knows what her name actually starts with. I always felt a great deal of sympathy with her and the unfairness (to her, at least) of her loss. It's occurred to me that she's the difficult second album of the Beowulf story, stuck uncomfortably between the debut, Grendel--not quite a complete repetition of it, not quite enough of a departure--and the Dragon. Again, I rather want to picture the story from her POV (and I'm sure folk must have done this) rather than from the hero's.
• Garak. He's a tailor. Cool: how often do you get tailoring in a TV series, especially in sf? Even if it's only a cover. A character in a tricky situation and some peril. A grey area. Actually an entire grey region. As good a morally ambiguous character as you're likely to find in Star Trek. (And I always fancy the dodgy aliens.)
• Ged. Not quite my favourite wizard (see the "S" list, above), but the Earthsea trilogy (or, the first 2/3 of it) terrified me for years. I think what I like most about Ged was he actually grew convincingly. I enjoyed his delight in his abilities and aptitude for learning. I mourned his loss of this. I felt for his social awkwardness. I enjoyed that he worked through these difficulties, but they didn't simply wash away as if they had never been. The mage who deals with Prince Arren is the same person as the village boy who encounters prejudice when he first arrives on Roke. I've enjoyed the course the later books took, too.

(I also considered including Galadriel (but only the Galadriel in the mirror), Don Camillo's God (definitely fictional), those Orkney brothers whose names began with G (although that would've been a tad unkind to Agravaine) the entire Groan clan (and their cats and owls), and Garnie.)

Tweety

( (t)witterings )