Marty

He's more than welcome to take the shirt off his back, but I claim first dibs on the rest of him!

Well, if you do kill any of them, here's a recipe just for you. https://www.marthastewart.com/925889/chicken-fricassee-fricassee-de-poulet-lancienne

Doing good, thanks for asking. Yourself?

Greetings, young man!

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Well it looks as though the rain is settling in for the day. Currently just after 1pm here, and the temperature is a lot lower today than recently. Currently around 7°C (45°F), but feeling only about 2°C (36°F) with no sun to warm the day. The high is expected to be around 11°C (51.8°F). Not really expecting a huge amount of rain; forecast is for around 14mm (half an inch) in total for today and tomorrow, which will be enough to (a) water the garden, and (b) put a temporary halt to me turning more ground in the vegetable plot. I'm hoping to get the onion sets planted either today or tomorrow - if only because the advice is that they should be planted by the end of April if they are to yield a good crop. The seed potatoes aren't so critical, so can wait another week or so. We can expect late frosts up to the first of June, and that could kill any potato shoots and put them back anyway. I'm currently moving some of the larger and/or heavier items of mine from the rented accommodation to the new place. Some of them can be carried round. Some will fit in the car. There's a brand new colour A3 printer that I bought myself for Xmas currently in the car waiting to go round. It's never even been taken out of the box yet, and it only just fit on the back seat (it's a hatchback, so I could have dropped the back seats if necessary). There may be one or two items that I will need help carrying round, but the house was rented fully furnished, so I don't have to be moving heavy items of furniture. It's getting time to give my landlord his month's notice of me ending the tenancy agreement. I may leave that another week or so, as I really need to get the last of my own stuff moved first, and then give the house a thorough cleaning.

Is that a consequence of the covid-19 lockdown?

right back at you!

Sad to hear that, Albert.

It never occurred to me that myna birds (or mynah birds) are actually members of the starling family. Back maybe fifty years or so mynah birds were often kept as pets in the UK (maybe they still are) , largely because of their ability to mimic, and talk, much as many parrots can. Now that I think about it, common starlings are quite good mimics as well (though maybe not as good as mynah birds). Thanks for that piece of information, Albert! Now, here's a mynah bird that insists it is actually a chicken:

https://www.thespruce.com/european-starling-identification-385980 Or this, from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_starling

My experience is that starlings often appear shiny black. It's only in certain light, or in close-up, that the speckling is really obvious.

Reminds me of a joke I like to tell people sometimes: "I love children, but I couldn't eat a full one."

Perhaps you could buy a garden rake, hoe, wheelbarrow, and a smallish petrol lawnmower, and ship them over to me here in Ireland... I can pay you back via PayPal.

Well the rain finally arrived at around 4:30pm and chased me back indoors. But I had to be indoors anyway, to attend a Zoom online board meeting of a national LGBT+ organisation that I am a board member of. There wasn't a great deal of rain, however, and it's now 7pm and the day is dry again. I'm not going back into the garden this evening, as there is more rain forecast over the next couple of days, and I want to treat some timbers in the new place before they get wet again. I think I may have mentioned having taken up some of the floorboards in the living room, as there was signs of water damage. The builder is supposed to try to prevent the water coming in, but that certainly won't happen before the lockdown ends (whenever that may be). I have some wood preservative, and I intend treating the damaged areas on the floor joists before they get wet again.

That reminds me of the satirical piece by Jonathan Swift in 1729 (more famous possibly for his novel Gulliver's Travels) who suggested eating the babies of the poorer classes as a way of preventing them becoming a burden on their parents or country. It's only about 3,400 words long, and can be read online at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm Swift was Anglo-Irish, and was also Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

That video was shot in Ireland. A flock of starlings in flight like that is known as a murmuration of starlings. As far as I am aware, starlings only murmurate outside the breeding season, and they nest as single family units (although there may be several nests in the same general location). There's actually a pair nesting in the eaves of the house I am currently renting. And a few months ago, when the plumber was fitting new taps to the wash-hand-basin in the upstairs bathroom of my new place, he found an old starlings nest when he removed the panelling under the basin. The hole through the wall for the drains for the basin and the bath was not sealed, which allowed the birds access to the space behind the panel. That has now been sealed up, so the poor starlings will have to find a new nesting site (there's loads of suitable places for them). Funnily enough, when the plumber first saw the nest he came rushing downstairs to inform me he'd found a rat's nest!

Not quite yet, Gary. But I think it's going to, either later today or some time tomorrow. The house martins are still flying above the rooftops, so that's a good sign for the very near future.

And "Hi" to Gary, as well! Hope you're keeping well, my friend.

Hello, young Albert. And on this day in 1771, Captain James Cook, aboard The Endeavour, landed at what is now known as Botany Bay in Australia (part of the reason for that expedition was a confidential mission to search the south Pacific for signs of the postulated continent Terra Australis Incognita (or "Unknown Southern Land"). A mere 18 years later, on this day in 1789, three weeks into a journey from Tahiti to the West Indies, the HMS Bounty was seized in a mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate. Captain William Bligh and 18 of his loyal supporters were set adrift in a small, open boat, and the Bounty set course for Tubuai south of Tahiti. Ain't history just fascinating?

To be honest, I should have realised when I made the post. I had actually read that post of @Brayon's in the Help forum back at the end of March, and replied to express surprise at the fact that Google would get upset if someone mentioned a member of the Paridae family of birds by their common British name (which I did in my reply). My reply got deleted (I'm not sure, but I suspect that was because the Mod thought I was just being facetious). I can understand the reasoning behind the moderation, but it does seem to me to be somewhat strange that Google would get upset over such a common word. Perhaps in future, I will have to do something like the following, if only to avoid a Moderator having to read what I have written and decide whether to approve it or not: I think there's a pair of birds of the genus Parus major (* see photo below) nesting in the gaps between the stones of one of the boundary walls of the garden....

I think this post in the Help forum may explain what I was talking about: Apparently Google doesn't tolerate the use of certain words on sites that run ads (as GA does); and that isn't just for the use of those words in authors' stories, but Google also filters the forums, so the language rules apply here as well.

Okay, thanks. It was coming up as "Hidden" on my screen originally. I think it was some software installed on GA that scans for words that might upset Google. Probably some Mod got alerted, and okayed the use of the word in the context I used it.

Help me out here, folks... Can you see a long post from me, about three posts back, that talks about my day in the garden?

She wouldn't like my bran cake then.

Hi, all! Spent most of the day in the garden. Got a good bit more of my vegetable plot dug. Could do with a garden rake to prepare seed beds for various vegetable seeds I plan to sow, and a hoe to help keep the weeds down later. Unfortunately, garden centres and hardware-type shops are not considered essential retail outlets under current covid-9 restrictions, so it may be a while before I can get said implements. I could also do with a lawn mower, as using the strimmer to cut the grass is (a) noisy, (b) takes much longer, and (c) tends to cut the grass too severely. The government is talking about relaxing some of the restrictions from May 5th, but they aren't sure which, if any at all. I'm hoping they'll at least allow the garden centres to reopen. The day wasn't too bad weather-wise, although we did have a small amount of drizzle in the early afternoon for around 20 minutes. Looks like the next few days are likely to be similar. I had a robin following me today as I was digging. He (or she) would get to within maybe 2 meters of me, grab a grub or other morsel that the spade had turned up, and quickly fly off with it to the corner of the garden where I think they have a nest. Gary will probably be pleased to hear that there's a pair of house sparrows nesting under the eaves of the old cottage, and I think there's a pair of great tits (I worry Google may get upset at me using the English name of this bird) nesting in the gaps between the stones of one of the boundary walls of the garden. The house martins are back from their winter sojourn in Africa. They're busily repairing old nests on various buildings around the village. They were still flying reasonably high this evening, suggesting the high pressure is maintaining itself for a while, at least. I'm sure the swallows are back as well, but they don't seem to frequent the village the same as the martins do. Where I used to live, about 3 miles away in the country, the swallows used to nest in the rafters of my old byre (barn) and the hayshed. I reckon if I went out, I'd find them busily repairing those nests. And the cuckoo has also got back from Africa. I heard at least one when I took my walk in the woods yesterday. So that's my story for today. I might think about having a cup of cocoa and heading to bed shortly.