Have you ever been quail hunting?   Quail are hard to hit.  I’m not very good at hunting quail.  When I have a good dog and he points them out to me, I still have a hard time hitting them little boogers.  You know that they are there and sometimes you can even see them running and then all of a sudden there they go.  I barely get one shot off and then they are out of range.  Most of the time they just fly a few yards from you and lite in a big bunch of grass or maybe some tall weeds.   You think that you are sneaking up on them but lo and behold they scare the tar out of you because they come up quicker than you were ready for them.   They come up quicker because the dog didn’t get the scent and failed to point them.I love to quail hunt just because it gets me ready for pheasant hunting.  I think quail are quicker than pheasants so my confidence level is quite a bit higher when I go hunting for pheasants.  I’m not saying I’m a better shot when shooting pheasants,  I just got more confidence.   Most of the time it takes me a couple of boxes of shells to get my limit on quail, whereas with pheasants it usually just takes a box.  The moral of the story is when you go quail hunting, don’t.  Go pheasant hunting instead because you use less ammo.  Have a great day!

Oops. Spoke too soon. Water in the quail run froze overnight. Minus 2C at 2am and snow by breakfast. Brrr. When I went down to feed the quail, they were shacked up in a heap in the thick straw with the mouse, a row of unblinking black eyes, feathers fluffed and refusing to budge. The book says they like 16C. Well, it isn’t. Try Mallorca. In London, the thermometer in the run reads firmly 0C by day, except for the hour I spent lagging and boarding the roof, when it shot up five degrees. (Ergh …) The quail shed their mufflers and pottered at my boots for the duration, basking in my exertions, happily dodging dropped hammers and occasional ironmongery. Even the mouse popped up, scampering along the wire (inside the plastic) whistling in a casual sort of way. If he’d had a cane, he’d have been twirling it. Tomorrow I double-glaze. “It won’t do any good,” says Himself. “It’s winter. They’re birds.” “You’re not thinking of bringing them indoors, are you?” says Senior Teen, looking pained.  Certainly not. They’d  get eaten – if not by the cats, then the neighbours. Christmas. Brr, humbug.

Source.

One of my favorite memories of a family trip to Arizona was seeing Gambel’s quail and white-winged doves. These birds are suburban wildlife, and coming from a place where the native quail species (the Northern bobwhite) is all but gone, the Gambel’s were my first experience with quail.

The birds lived and nested at the hotel where we were staying. I remember that one quail hen laid her eggs in flowerbed that was four feet off the ground.  One of the hotel staff motioned us over, and when we looked into the flower bed there was a quail hen and a bunch (maybe a dozen) tiny chicks. They were like turkey poults but much smaller.

***

I thought white-winged doves were some kind of mutant mourning doves until I consulted my field guide.

And I thought Stevie Nicks made that animal up!

Source.

In the top video, there are mourning doves mixed in with the white-winged doves. They aren’t that hard to tell apart when they are standing near each other.

Ok, one more Austin post, because there was more to Austin than just food trailers. My segway into that other Austin is P. Terry‘s Burger Stand. It is a drive thru. That’s it; no inside seating, no outside seating, just a drive thru. I am going to cut to the chase here. P. Terry’s is better than In N’ Out. I never thought I would speak those words, but it’s true. Skip LA and head to Austin instead. P. Terry’s uses locally grown organic tomatoes on their burgers and are all about quality ingredients. The burger is juicy, well seasoned and has a distinct freshly ground black pepper flavor to it. (I put freshly ground pepper on everything, so I was all about that!). The fries are hand cut, skin on, perfect French fries, not too skinny, not too thick. There is a sign at the pick up window telling you that it is not too late to order a homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. So, of course, I handed over $1.00 and got one.

You know, Austin had a bunch of “best I’ve ever tasted” moments. My friend, Carol, said she had the best BBQ ever at Lamberts. That’s all the recommendation I needed to head over there. We actually went there twice in our four day visit, that’s how good it was. (That NEVER happens on food eating trips, which is actually what all trips are to me!) Country style pork ribs brined in citrus, rubbed in fennel and coriander with a maple glaze, served with an apple & roasted fennel salad. Sounds fancy, but it was just darn good. Tender, perfectly balanced flavors. I never want to ever eat any other ribs, really. They also set out three amazing sauces, as if the food needing any help, but, boy, were they tasty too. If anything could be better than the ribs, it was the cold smoked quail with Mexican rice stuffing, cheese enchilada, ranchero sauce and fried quail eggs. Talk about Tex Mex perfection, this was it. And the best baked mac and cheese I’ve ever had; even better than Kumas, when Kumas mac n’ cheese used to be good. This mac n’ cheese was rich and creamy and saucy, all good things to be for a mac n’ cheese (among other things). We went back for Sunday brunch. $26 deal of the century…all you can eat, with the house smoked brisket, ribs, prime rib at the carving station, along with “the best I have ever had” house smoked gravlox salmon with fried capers and chive crème fraiche. I am a picky salmon eater & this was heaven, lightly smoked to medium, served with fried capers and chive crème fraiche. There was also a sweet table with fried pumpkin pies and….well, I don’t remember past the fried pumpkin pies. They looked like empanadas and were spiced quite boldly and uniquely. I swear I got a taste of Indian spices, maybe garam masala or some other warm spice, not quite familiar in a pumpkin pie, but not at all out of place. Lamberts also cooked eggs to order in small portions, thank goodness, like smoked brisket hash or hanger steak benedict with tobasco hollandaise. Roll me out of there! Oh, but not before I ate mini churros with dipping/drinking chocolate.

Ok, how can you top that? With the best Mexican food I’ve ever had.  If anyone knows any good Mexican restaurants in Chicago, please tell me. There is not a one that I am really addicted to. If I lived in Austin I would be eating at Polvos once a week. My husband, Laurent, would be there twice a week. First of all, they had a salsa bar. Laurent practically drank the stuff it was so good. He would definitely be banned if we lived there. The pico de gallo rocked. It was a perfect blend of diced tomatoes and the juice of the tomatoes, not pureed, just juicy. A little heat, some cilantro, onion. How this can be so hard to make perfect, I don’t know. Like I said, if you know a place that kicks out some great salsa, let me in on your secret. If the pico de gallo was great then the salsa ahumada was earth shattering! I’m serious. This salsa was smoky and had layers and layers of nuances and complexity. Not for the timid, but not crazy spicy either, just very flavorful. My notes say that it had pasilla and ancho chilies and chocolate brown/green. Don’t ask me what chocolate brown/green means. Maybe I thought I would remember after a few Negro Modelos! Well, I didn’t. I had entomatadas stuffed with pastor style pork for dinner. I have never seen that on a menu before. They are sort of like enchiladas, but folded instead of rolled, originally from Oaxaca. Laurent had a combo platter with a chicken taco and a steak enchilada with a chipotle sauce, guacamole, refried black beans and rice. The chipotle sauce, ohhh man. They are the king of sauces at Polvos. “Tender slightly salty grilled steak, oh this chipotle sauce is great, get a little refried black beans on the fork, dip it in some amuhada salsa, mmmm” I know that wasn’t very coherent, but that is what he mumbled. Those are the only words I got out of him the whole dinner, besides” una mas cerveza por favor!” Oh wait, that was me. He doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish! Polvos… I love you.

I wish I could say we are “bar people”, but we really aren’t. So when we spotted House Wine, while driving through P.Terry’s, we knew we had to go back later that night. I wish our friends Stacey and Jack were with us, because it was definitely a place to hang out with friends. It was a little house that was so comfortable. It felt like you were at your own house, but cooler…and cleaner. The house was tiny with groupings of comfy but stylish armchairs and couches and built in benches to sit on. The kitchen area is where you ordered. It was counter service, like at a café. I thought this was genius. No cocktail waitress to interrupt you when you’re in the middle of a good story. When you’re ready, you just go to the kitchen and order another glass. The owner told us that you can also bring in your P.Terry’s to enjoy with your wine. Hmm….I’m just about ready to pack up the minivan and move South…..at least for the winter!

If you are heading to Austin in the near future, drop me a line and I’ll email you my Excel Eating Spreadsheet for Austin.

Cat watching quail - and not catching mice

Two weeks before Christmas and there’s a rose in bloom in the front garden (?). There are geraniums and periwinkle in flower by the front door and the mat on the back step has sprouted a tender lawn of tiny green tips that wouldn’t disgrace Wimbledon. The winter jasmine is a riot along the fence and the robin is back, in full throat. Inside the quail run, the mice have unpacked their deckchairs and spread their towels. The thermometer behind the clear new perspex walls rarely rises above 10C, but a small jungle has sprung up round the water stand and seedlings thrust up under my wellies like a cress carpet. Everywhere, scattered grains are sprouting. Is it spring? What happened to winter?

The mice have taken to basking in the roof, between the tarpaulin that’s supposed to keep the draughts out and the nice warm black bitumen felt that keeps the rain off. I hear them scuttling away at ear height as I open the door. One actually ran down the wire to join me in the run this morning, having evidently decided I was less of a threat than the fat feline gambolling at my heels. Catch mice, dammit!

The quail themselves, hunkered happily in mountains of rather dirty straw (no time, no time, only eleven days to go and I haven’t marzipanned the cake or written a single Christmas card, oh, my fur and whiskers…) are completely unfazed by the invasion, though they take a dim view of me lifting the hutch each morning to stamp shut the fresh holes. At least the mice burrowing beneath their tail feathers are tip-toe quiet. Oeuf and Emmet, by contrast, are clunking around like clog dancers. It’s that time of year again: dung balls. Blobs of the stuff set like concrete around their toes, requiring soaking, surgery and a stiff drink to rectify.

Roll on Boxing day.

Karl emails me every single day with the same message. I literally have 16 of the same email.

From: Karl Su karlsu2007@yahoo.com.hk

To: Leena Shirlee

Date: December 8th, 2009

Subject: BEQUEST

I am Karl Su, Principal Assurance manager for the Huxia Bank in China. I am contacting you in regards to an issue of great importance and an investment placed under our banks management 7 years ago.  I would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this mail. I contact you independently and no one is informed of this communication.In 2000, the subject matter; came to our bank to engage in business discussions with our private banking division.

He informed us that he had a financial portfolio of 8.35 million United States dollars, which he wished to have us invest on his behalf. Based on my advice, we spun the money around various opportunities and made attractive margins for our first months of operation, the accrued profit and interest stood at this point at over 10 million United States Dollars. In mid 2002, he instructed that the principal sum (8.35M) be liquidated because he needed to make an urgent investment requiring cash payments in Hong Kong and China. We got in touch with a specialist bank in China, the Guangdong Development Bank (GDB) who agreed to receive this money for a fee and make cash available. However Guangdong Development Bank got in touch with us last year that this money has not been claimed. On further enquiries we found out that the subject matter was involved in an accident in Mainland China, which means he died intestate. He has no next of kin.

What I propose is that since I have exclusive access to his file, you will be made the beneficiary of these funds. My bank will contact you informing you that money has been willed to you. On verification, which will be the details I make available to my bank, my bank will instruct GDB to make payments to you. You do not have to have known him. I know this might be a bit heavy for you but please trust me on this. For all your troubles I propose that we split the money in half. In the banking circle this happens every time. The other option is that the money will revert back to the state. Nobody is getting hurt; this is a lifetime opportunity for us. I hold the KEY to these funds, and as a Chinese National we see so much cash and funds being re-assigned daily. I would want us to keep communication for now strictly by email. Please, again, note I am a family man; I have a wife and children. I send you this mail not without a measure of fear as to the consequences, but I know within me that nothing ventured is

I await your response.
Karl Su

From: Leena Shirlee

To: Karl Su karlsu2007@yahoo.com.hk

Date: December 8, 2009

Subject: RE:  BEQUEST!

Dear Karl,

if you want her so badly your teeth hurt, go shoot quail.

Two questions on today’s agenda. The first is from a hunter who scored big with some pheasant and is looking to impress a date. (Actually – and this is cute – the question came from one of his friends on his behalf.) The second is from a home cook who has produced many successful meals in the past and is considering tackling roast beef in a salt crust for the holidays.

Read about the butter-roasted pheasant with pinot reduction and potato purée that our Montana friend will prepare, and the pros and cons of salt crust roasting. Bonus recipe: five spice quail with a bitter greens salad on the Special Occasions page.

A conscientious California quail walking down the street.  I’m looking forward to the spring when they’ll be walking around with their teeny babies toddling behind them!

A family of quail greeted us when we stopped to visit friends in Alexandra yesterday – Mum, Dad and five little ones.

Our hosts said several families of quail were regular visitors but they had yet to see what friends of theirs had – Mum, Dad and 55 children.

Surely that wasn’t just their own, they must have been nieces and nephews and cousins and friends.

That made me wonder:

Do the Mums & Dads take turns at child minding and what do the other parents do when other quail are minding their babies?

We know that there are roughly 8,000 French people in our country. Their ways are odd but we tolerate them. We are a tolerant people, even to towards those rude, petulant and ungrateful cheese eating surrender monkeys.

Although there can of course be no problem acknowledging the right of the French to practice their own lifestyle in private, I think we would all agree that the growing “Frenchification” of our society is worrying.

This Frenchification does not manifest itself in anything as petty as food, language or history. No, but it is visible clearly everywhere as a threat to our way of life. I am of course talking about the inability of the French to queue.

We’ve have all been to the local Asda Wal-Mart to buy some West Country Butter Croissants or Yorkshire Dales Brioche when we are rudely ambushed by a Frenchman.

In fact, those of you who have been to France will know that they do not allow you to queue there, you are expected to huddle and push, like some sort of Frenchman. If they will not us allow to queue in France then we will force them to queue here.

Therefore I am asking for the signature of 100,000 bloggers to help spark a referendum that will send a message against this demographic time bomb. We must force the French to queue, or they will force us not too.

You can stand there and take no action but by 2030 it is possible that no one will queue at all. Don’t let Gordon Brown steal the gift of queueing from your children.

We do not wish to impose on the French residents in this country, they are welcome to practice their Frenchness here at will. But this is our country and we will not stand – in an orderly line – for this!

It’s a beautiful thing and all you have to do is force feed a duck to fatten up its liver for it!  Sometimes I wish I could feel bad about that but then Anthony Bourdain does a little expo and shows that it’s not so bad and plus it just so scrumptious that the sinner in me is a happy to be ingesting such a smooth delight.  I had only one bad experience with foie gras and that was in a very lovely little ristorante around the corner from my apartment in Milano.  Apparently, in Milan and perhaps most of Italy, foie gras is prepared very differently — it’s not the deliciously hot grilled fatty lobe I’ve come to love.  I believe it was a paté and I’m sad to report I really just couldn’t finish it: the richness alone and in that quantity was overpowering and it was cold which threw me off too.  With the kind of foie gras I love I feel like a nice lambic or maybe even a sour would be a fitting pairing with this creamy, fatty, buttery gift from the gods.

However,  I had a gorgeous rendition of the heated type in Toano, VA at Dudley’s Farmhouse Grille.  If you’re ever near this place, go!  They specialize in wild game and have a small seating area which provides for a more intimate atmosphere, which is furthered by the owner who is also the chef.  I wish my liver could wind up in such a happy state after I’m gone.  Anyways, the foie gras was my primo and my secondo was a mixed plate of venison, wild boar and quail.  Then I slipped into a loverly food coma.

The mouse - calmly bypassing all my brick fortifications, under the plastic lagging

Pesky mouse. The quail run is like a construction site. Think Tailor of Gloucester with shovels. Every morning I stomp down the garden like the slippered legs from Tom & Jerry, chuck a few frying pans about and stamp shut the holes - and within hours the little beast is back, tucked up under the hutch again and the millet treats have vanished, stalk and all.

Actually, the quail don’t seem that bothered. Hungry, but not bovvered. They’re laying three eggs a week – despite the cold and the dark and the lack of dandelions. Perhaps they enjoy the action.  Outside, the rain pours down.

Under the eaves, dry inside the plastic, the growing family trots along the joists and dangles from the organic seaweed mix weighing down the roof against the gales. They leave jeering little calling cards Houdini-like in tins and tubs. I looked up to find one watching me the other morning. A very young, very stupid one, admittedly, with big feet and tiny open bottom – pooping all over the wire when he realised he couldn’t remember the way out. Did I kill him? Don’t be silly.

Junior Teen feels a proprietorial interest. She reckons the mouse is the great-great-great (forty greats) grandson of the big eared, bug-eyed baby mouse she caught in our living room two years ago and released where the quail run now stands. “I feel responsible,” she says. She’s calling him Fred.

Drop dead, Fred.

So here are some photos from Luna’s first hunt test season.

First hunt test.. no ribbons.. lots to learn

Yay! we qualified!

Thurmont brought double ribbons! one more to go!

Midland test brought the title home..

We started her hunt tests around 9 months as that’s just what age she happened to be when the season rolled in. Training was done at the breeder’s (http://dynatavizslas.com/) house, she coached me through things but I was the handler in all hunt tests. It took 6 hunts tests but we managed to get her AKC Junior Hunter title in her first season.

I want to share a little about the last test.. I couldn’t have ended on a better note in my opinion. I went into this last test wanting to just let her do her thing. I went in with a goal of not talking to her, and just letting her go.  It was a decent day, sunny, not overly cold, and I liked the judges.  Luna found a bird early along the treeline that flanked the field we released them into. She held a real nice point, I produced the bird and capped off and we carried on. We started into the “woods” and she started finding birds left and right. We got into a pattern of, point, flush, cap, move on. There was a point early on where a bird had flushed over a barb wire fence and the judges kept fussing at me to get her away from there, so I finally broke down and verbally called her away. One of the reasons they were on my case so much was because a dog had just come out of the field with a bloodied tail (though they didn’t know from what). Anyway, I think I capped off about 5 times, and she found more birds than that. And the whole time (outside of the fence issue) I didn’t talk to her, just kept up with her and let her do her thing. There came a point where the judges told me to try and keep her away from the other dog to give that dog a chance.. It didn’t help that the dog was seriously gun shy and didn’t want to leave its owners side. Luna was a bird finding machine, I was so proud of her, and even slightly proud of myself for being able to keep my mouth shut and just watch what she can do.  We qualified with very high scores that day, all 9’s and 10’s.. a very good day.

Anyway, that’s the hunt test info in a nutshell.. Now time to make both our beds and get some sleep.

We headed to one of our state public hunting grounds yesterday and flushed a few birds. Three Quails, Two Pheasants, and a Woodcock. However woodcocks were out of season, quail are off limits due to lack of numbers, but we did take down two pheasants. Pictures are below.

Boo Is On Point for our first Pheasant of the day

First Bird, flushed from thick cover on the edge of a pond.

Close up of the first bird in hand.

Left to right: Boo, Pheasant, & Me

犬の Influenza pandemic (H1N1) 2009 ウイルス感染が確認されました。
dog/canine
ProMED-mail 20091128.4079
Published Date 28-NOV-2009
2009年11月25日、
The veterinary clinic of College of Veterinary Medicine at the China Agricultural University
中国北京農業大学獣医学カレッジ獣医クリニックは病気の犬から採取した52検体のうち2検体はA/H1N1陽性であったと報告した(11月27日、農業省発表)。
　http://twitter.com/swineflujpn/status/6162888858
[投稿者注] ペットとして最も多いイヌについては、A/H3N8 に注意が必要といわれていましたが、パンデミックウイルスの感染報告はありませんでした。
　ProMED-mail 20091024.3676
　Published Date 24-OCT-2009

pig, turkey, ferret, cat/feline, dog/canine
ブタ、七面鳥
influenza pandemic A/H1N1 virus – pig and turkey
　http://swineflujpn.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/influenza-pandemic-h1n1-virus-pig-turkey/
フェレット
　http://twitter.com/swineflujpn/status/5722114869
フェレット、ネコ Iowa州
a case of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 – an Iowa indoor cat
　http://swineflujpn.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/pandemic-h1n1-2009-an-iowa-cat/
ネコ Utah州
　http://twitter.com/swineflujpn/status/5938235511
ネコ Oregon州
　http://twitter.com/swineflujpn/status/5938264956

感染実験
日本ウズラ Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica)、アヒル duck
CDC Emerg Infect Dis. 2009 Dec;DOI: 10.3201/eid1512.091060
Susceptibility of Poultry to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Virus
　http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/15/12/2061.htm
　概要邦訳
　http://twitter.com/swineflujpn/status/5884725245
　http://twitter.com/swineflujpn/status/5884767129

So I had hoped to put another post up soon(today) with photos from Luna’s hunting awards, but I simply have too much to do today. It is Thanksgiving afterall.. time to spend time with family, and be thankful.. so stay tuned, I shall be back.

(can’t help but put a teaser photo in though)

At our first hunt test.. a lot was learned.. no ribbons that day though.

Quail and snail

My Dad went to San Francisco for three months when I was six and brought me back an embroidered white happy suit from Chinatown which my children still love. All the time he was away he sent postcards – of steep streets and little open trams, and a giant Redwood tree with a car driving through it; a stack of cardboard snapshots, written in tiny neat capitals that filled every inch up to the unfamiliar US stamps. I still have them all.

Many years later, when he was fighting for his life in hospital in Liverpool after a car accident and I was marooned by his bed far from home praying for a miracle that didn’t come, I wrote postcards to my own children. Old shots of the Beatles. Kinky boot beasts and Blue Meanies.  They too were written in tiny, self-controlled script, winding round the edges of the card and right up to the stamps, because clearly that was how such things should be written, Oh Best Beloved. And until recently they lived on, blu-tacked to Senior Teen’s wardrobe door.

But now it is Senior Teen who is away and the wacky, arty postcards I bought to cheer her loneliness in a strange country lie unwritten and unposted in a drawer. The world has moved on. Texts and emails fly to and fro. She chats to her sister on Facebook and talks to her distant boyfriend by Skype.

My postcards, even if ever written, would probably not arrive before she leaves again. Once upon a time that did not deter – my sailor grandfather, criss-crossing the oceans in windjammers in his teens, went without letters for a year in 1915, but his Pa wrote on into the void, hoping the boy was still alive. In 40 years, where will all our electronic messages be? Still lovingly cherished on some elderly handset? I think not.

Yet postcards haven’t gone away, though bizarrely the internet seems to have turned the genre on its head. Here am I, at home, writing short, dense bulletins about the quail, and their mouse (which I have now seen) – still round the edges and right up to the stamp.  And there are you, reading them – some of you thousands of miles away.

A year after joining ClustrMaps I finally managed to attach the widget to my blog and overnight the empty map sprouted a rash of little red dots circling the globe: thirteen in the US, six in the UK, one in Belgium, one in Spain, one in the UAE and one in New Zealand. So far.

The quail were so delighted they laid an egg (772). I know how they feel.

Warning:  This post may be unsuitable for some who would like to see no bird run the risk of being harmed by a little red bird dog. We do all bird work in as best taste as we can to still get the job done.

One of my most favorite things to do with Luna is work her on birds. We haven’t had much time lately, and the work we have done has largely not involved birds lately.   But from the time I got her (about 11 weeks) until she was just over a year she had a bird session a couple times a month.  She LOVED them.. Luna has a HUGE prey drive, which started quite young.  Here are a couple photos of her having some bird sessions at 9 weeks.. just to get her excited about them.

One proud puppy.. Quail.. no problem..

Pigeon?? No problem... I'll catch it

Quail chase

Many of those early sessions just involved getting her really excited about birds.. gradually we required more of her.. Such as finding the birds on her own, and holding a point until they were released… usually no problem, early on she would hold a really solid point, for minutes on end, if she had good scent.. Then came the firing of a blank pistol while she was in chase mode.. no problem.  Then came learning to work with another dog, in that she must ignore after a while and find birds not play with her “brace mate” (the other dog that ran with her).. this took a little getting over, she was still a puppy afterall.  But after a couple times, she learned what she was to do, and then there was no stopping her.

Here is a more recent pic of Luna on point while working with some pigeons.. she is about 9 months here. this is one of my favorite pictures to date…

On point.. pigeon is planted in the grass at least 10 feet away..

Normally I am the one handling her, so I can’t really manage her and a camera.. so I actually have very few images of her working on birds. Maybe one day that will change.

Tomorrow I shall share a little about how she got her AKC Junior Hunter title. For now I am going to go throw the cheesecake in the fridge and get some much needed sleep.

G’night and I hope you enjoyed. Check out my new Photo blog too if you want.

http://akgphoto.wordpress.com/

I received a delightful surprise in the mail a few days ago. My friend and colleague Shawn Gould sent me a sweet little self-published book of some of his recent paintings. I’m writing about this for two reasons. One, because I thought that you would enjoy seeing his work, which is quite different than mine, and two, to look at what he has done from a marketing standpoint.

Sparrow Song 12x16 acrylic on masonite

Shawn grew up in Iowa, but now lives about twenty minutes from me in Eureka, California. He started out as an illustrator, creating award-winning work for clients like National Geographic, the Smithsonian and the Audubon Society. For the last ten years, however, he has been creating beautiful paintings like the ones you see here. He’s a Signature Member of the Society of Animal Artists and his work has been accepted into a variety of national juried shows like Birds in Art, Art and the Animal Kingdom and Arts for the Parks.

Good Dog 18x15" acylic on masonite

Now, for the book, “Wild Sanctuaries”. I asked Shawn via email to tell me more about it. He said that “I have a lot of new work that hasn’t been seen by very many people, and the book seemed like a nice format to get it out to a targeted audience for a reasonable price. We sent out 100 books for less than the price of a one page magazine ad.”

The publisher is a company called Blurb.com, who I had never heard of. I wondered what they were like to work with. “Blurb was great. Kristen (Shawn’s wife) did the layout of the book, and deserves all the credit for how it looks. If like me, you don’t know InDesign very well, blurb does offer software you can download from their site. I don’t think you have as much freedom with the layout, but it’s easier to use and does still look good.

Gambel's Quail 12x18" acrylic on masonite

“Wild Sanctuaries” is available through Blurb on a print-on-demand basis, so Shawn hasn’t had to tie up any money in inventory. If you would like your own copy, for yourself or for a gift, it’s $30 plus shipping and handling and can be ordered here

Challenger's Bugle 26x38" acrylic on masonite

Given the down (down, down) economy, creating and producing “Wild Sanctuaries” took some courage and a leap of faith. But Shawn now has a powerful marketing tool that should prove increasingly valuable as conditions improve. Food for thought.

You can see more of Shawn’s work at www.shawngould.com

SHOW NEWS!

I recently received one of two Janie Walsh Memorial Awards from the Redwood Association for a painting that was in their 51st Annual Fall show. It even included $100 check! Here’s an image from the show. The painting of bighorn sheep, “Heavy Lies the Head” is mine. The show ended yesterday afternoon.

The birds, the birds ... starlings gather to head south

The starlings have flown, thousands of them together. It was all very Hitchcock. One minute the great old London limes behind the gardens were black with twittering, fluttering bodies, as if all the leaves had grown back, and the next – silence – and they’d lifted off en masse into a dense thumb smear across the sky. Playtime at the school in the next street was suddenly audible again.

The quail and I just watched them go. Quail are migratory birds, too, though it’s hard to imagine this bunch soaring across Asia. Flight for Harass, Glenda, Emmet et al seems to involve an explosion of feathers and head over heels impact into the nearest hard object, whether roof (now padded) or garden fence, on the rare occasions  when one of them has got out. Only Nugget ever showed signs of wanderlust, skulking by the door as I stepped in and out. Or maybe they’ve been biding their time, plotting their breakout like prisoners in Colditz, and one day I’ll be found laid out cold in the guano, gagged with feathers, beside a trail of muddy quail prints heading south.

Poor little quail. Doomed to incarceration, and winter.

Still, they now have their own potential heat source, a mini compost heap made of stacked red plastic Celebrations tubs with the bottoms knocked out – left over from the tide of Hallowe’en trick-or-treaters. It stands in the corner like the iron pipe stoves you used to see on narrowboats, with space for the birds to huddle round when the weather gets really cold (and a stout wire base to stop the mice tunnelling in). At last, we can compost the kitchen scraps again.

As I carry my creation out to the garden, Senior Teen appears, in a trail of lights and left-on electrical appliances, to wash her hands under a running tap and overfill the kettle. She casts a pitying glance at the hacked plastic debris, hugs me and wanders off back to her parallel universe muttering something about “Borrowers“.

Actually, I see myself more as a Baldrick. This is a cunning plan. Just add worms and retire.

*With apologies to William Shakespeare