{"id":1431,"date":"2023-01-17T21:05:18","date_gmt":"2023-01-18T03:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/?p=1431"},"modified":"2023-01-17T21:07:59","modified_gmt":"2023-01-18T03:07:59","slug":"waiting-not-my-favorite-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/17\/waiting-not-my-favorite-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiting: Not My Favorite Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a difficult couple of weeks for several reasons, but especially because…I haven’t heard anything back from\u00a0 Agent.\u00a0 I’m working, of course: the wildlife management report (in the process of which I discovered that my old printer no longer prints text…just pictures.\u00a0 And not very well…with thin orange striped across them.)\u00a0\u00a0 Then there’s the body, which I overfed for some months and it (gee, ya think?) gained back weight it had lost and pushed me out of the jeans I was in.\u00a0 Luckly (for me, not him) it pushed R- out of the next size up and he had to buy a new pair of jeans because I’d actually tossed some pairs.\u00a0 Still, it’s handy that he could snag the (mutter) pair I hadn’t given away yet, that *had* been two sizes too big, and I could snag a pair he’d just grown too big for, the next size up from the ones that I couldn’t get on.\u00a0 (Yes, I wear men’s jeans.\u00a0 They’re made of better quality denim and they have real pockets.\u00a0 I have a pair of lady jeans–too long in the leg, some weird denim attempt, little pockets that I can’t put more than a few coins in.\u00a0 I wear them only when I have to.)\u00a0\u00a0 So that means I need to lose back down to my riding tights.\u00a0 Which means the indulgences of last fall (finishing [HA!] the book) and then the holidays and starting to cook again…are forbidden (by me…not getting advice or wanting it from internet glop.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Also upped the exercise.\u00a0 As usual, switching away from “balanced” eating back to protein-heavy has restored energy and I’m able to walk briskly farther than I was slogging along before.<\/p>\n

My laptop also died on me suddenly, so I couldn’t do the Zoom interview for Brown University, but had to do it over the phone…and I’d gotten gussied up and had everything ready and a few days before the laptop was (appeared to be) working fine.\u00a0 Until that morning.<\/p>\n

So…I need a new printer before the deadline for the annual wildlife management report.\u00a0\u00a0 Tomorrow I hope I get that done.\u00a0 I need more wormer for the horses.\u00a0 I need to be outside walking briskly, digging holes, cleaning up the garden area.\u00a0 We dug a new hole and installed a tub for the base unit of the new wildlife water feature at Cloud Pavilion, and the solar panels\/pump are on order.\u00a0 Need a couple more smaller tubs for the little waterfall and a better “rescue” for the bottom tub than the ugly white PVC pipe section that we’re using now.\u00a0\u00a0 Something more natural looking.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve taken more pictures for the wildlife report–every year I think I’ve taken more than enough but there’s always something I “meant” to take pictures of, that I forgot to do, and take in January when I’m writing the report and realize…yeah…THAT.<\/p>\n

This year several of them are thickets.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We’re trying to grow scattered thickets for wildlife shelter (especially after an overenthusiastic mowing job by one of us gave the place a scalped look.)\u00a0 I’d been gently avoiding certain clumps of woody stuff and those were big enough to avoid the machinery.\u00a0\u00a0 In the process of documenting the enlarged thickets here and there,\u00a0 I got to see again the game trails and\u00a0 ground nests of mammals and some tree nests of birds…always a joy to see the place being used by the wildlife.\u00a0 So some thicket pictures:<\/p>\n

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Single tree left “bushy) for birds that nest low.<\/p>\n

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Multi-tree thicket, 2 species: cedar elm and bulemia<\/p>\n

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Dense end of another multi-species thicket with juniper in it<\/p>\n

The goal eventually is scattered dense shelter with both shelter plants and food plants in it: one of this year’s jobs is trying to harvest vine seeds and get them into these thickets for varied food production.\u00a0 Also want to add in thicketing plum, and\/or Mexican plum.\u00a0\u00a0 And got a good sighting of a Northern Caracara on Saturday while out with visitors to the new water installation.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Horngard II is alive and wants me to spend more time on it instead of the wildlife management report…but the wildlife report has a hard deadline and Horngard I is still in limbo with Agent.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a difficult couple of weeks for several reasons, but especially because…I haven’t heard anything back from\u00a0 Agent.\u00a0 I’m working, of course: the wildlife management report (in the process of which I discovered that my old printer no longer prints text…just pictures.\u00a0 And not very well…with thin orange striped across them.)\u00a0\u00a0 Then there’s the Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,16,54,10],"tags":[52,17,51,7],"class_list":["post-1431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-80-acres","category-life-beyond-writing","category-paksworld","category-the-writing-life","tag-80acres","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-nature","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1431"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1438,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431\/revisions\/1438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}