pameladean | (no subject)

Birds and squirrels are mating all over the yard and sometimes rather too close to the house; the niche made by the window air conditioners is a popular place for squirrel sex.

White violets are blooming in the yard, and dandelions, and a very few purple violets. Lily-of-the-valley has buds but has not quite committed to blooming outright. The hairy bellflower, let run rampant for the five years I've been trying to get this horrible novel done, has really gotten itself dug in and has cast a net of mixed tuberous and threadlike roots around everything I like better than I like it. However,

arkuat is a hero for taking out saplings and buckthorn. And for the first time in at least five years, I have cleared extraneous objects (including a lot of volunteer phlox) out of both raised beds, put a lot of dirt and compost and mulch into them, and planted lettuce, spinach, and pea seeds. The whole yard smells of chocolate from the cocoa-bean mulch.

Raphael and I went to Nerstrand last week. I was worried that the trees would be too much leafed out, but while the mist of green over the entire Minnesota River valley did not allay my concern, things are not so far along further south and out in the country. The paper birches had small leaves, and the basswood was coming out in red ones that looked so improbable I had to use the binoculars to be sure. But there was plenty of sunshine and space in the woods yet, and the ground was covered in false rue anemone, toothwort, spring beauty, Dutchman's breeches, and two glorious yellow ribbons of marsh marigold where small streams ran into Prairie Creek. In the campground where we parked, three or more redheaded woodpeckers were chasing one another around and around, making queerpy noises. I think of them as the Neapolitan ice-cream birds: red head, white breast, dark back and shoulders. The sexes are not distinguishable by untrained primates, so I don't know if they were engaged in territorial conquest or mating. They were gorgeous, however.

Not long afterwards Eric and I went back to Eloise Butler. Many of the trout lilies were done blooming, and the hepatica was almost all leaves. But we saw true rue anemone, though it took us a while to figure it out; and we saw the first darners of the season, fleeting about over the marsh.

I made banana bread with whole wheat flour and David liked it.

In writing news, I am still mired in Chapter 13 of the Amazing Expanding and Shrinking Novel. This chapter now embodies pieces of Original Chapters 16, 20, 21, 22, and 23, and keeping the degree of intimacy between the characters at the proper level for Chapter 16 is driving me slowly nuts. I also have to decide where to go next, and I am pretty sure that the entire scheme for alternation of viewpoint is going to be trashed utterly at any moment.

I have also been bitten hard by a short story. This almost never happens, and it has never happened before when I had not been invited to write one for somebody. It's about Arry's family. Apparently if they are not allowed to be in this book, they have no intention of waiting for the sequel to have their adventures, and are instead raising minor havoc in the city of the Lukanthropoi. I had no idea, but it's all right with me. Well, it's all right with me aside from the usual propensity of my short stories to try to become novels. I am trying to be firm with this one, but they never listen.

My kindly wishes to all of you. I am reading, if not saying much.

Pamela