Of scribblings and guinea fowl...

I know, I know. It seems like I've dropped off the face of the planet again. Well, I guess in a way I have. I'm back in the writing cave. Working on something new. Well, newish. Actually I'm doing something I promised myself I wouldn't do - I'm working on a sequel to my previous manuscript which is getting "I like" comments from People Who Know. The original manuscript always had the potential to go further and was written as such. Thing is, since finishing off the current draft, and trying to get my head around the rewrite of something else, my characters started yelling at me. A few of them howled. One bit and another haunted. Sometimes characters will just not take no for an answer.

What? You think I've lost my last remaining marble? This is entirely possible... But here's the thing... I'm fast coming to realise that there's a danged fine line between madness and writing - particularly when the writing is a passion and the characters who live in your head are in charge. It's like being swept away by something bigger than yourself that has a will and motivation of its own. It's a helluva ride.

Of course, when I say to myself, "Nicky, step away from the computer, step back now, the thing is growling at you..." I find I return to some semblance of sanity (sanity being as relative as anything else...), at which point supper is cooked, the guinea fowl are fed, the house is tidied, I remember to eat, to water the garden, to top up the swimming pool and to do the shopping and any number of other things that simply get forgotten - like, er, blogging...

So, there you have it - I'm wrapped up in the mythologies and folktales of the Land Beyond the Forest, once again, and am doing all sorts of fascinating research and scribbling away furiously - not as furiously as I'd like but then I just can't seem to get fingers and brain to keep up with one another! Yes, I guess it does become a little obsessive-compulsive but I think I still have at least a couple of toes firmly on the ground and my sense of humour is in tact!

In other news - we were presented with "Christmas guineas" - 18 day-old guinea keets turned up on the verge with a single parent, a young hen. Of course, the Guinea Fowl Inn was immediately open for business and for the past three and a half weeks we've had the pleasure of watching these tiny things grow (while at the same time watching the garden get destroyed...). You cannot believe how tiny day-old keets are - egg size - wobbly on their little legs, a single family brain cell between the lot of them. Fascinatingly, three other adult guineas arrived from nowhere and have helped the hen raise her chicks. She is clearly not "one of them" as she's been pecked and harrassed by them but has stuck to her guns and has been a remarkably good mother - which is saying something when one considers the parenting skills of the fowl...
Now the keets are finding their wings and several made it into a very large hibiscus shrub yesterday. All very exciting. Of course, along the way, numbers have decreased, not helped by a mass drowning of four in the pool, but for the most part they're strong little birds and I'm hoping that more than the usual one to three will make it to adulthood. The other lot of guineas who turned up in November have raised five keets to a really good size - a size which leaves them blowing raspberries at the sparrowhawk since they are now too big for his evil clutches. All in all, it's been a pretty good Guinea Summer!

So now it's time for an "aw" moment - all together now...
"Aaaaawwwwww!"

"The Hen" - what can I say, she refuses to reveal her name...

Only a few hours old...

Just not very big...

Three days old...

Ya lookin' at me?

Sweet Seventeen - a tide of guinea fowl keets

The surrogate father

November's second hatch

Keet contemplations

Adults, big cousins and little cousins

Big cousins and little cuz...

Thyme and again...

And now, back to the writing cave for me!