Susan's Hill Country Journal

February 2. The cedar waxwings arrived last week, pert and perky in their yellow-green coats and red crests. They’re my favorite winter birds, and I love to watch them wheel and turn in their synchronized flight—it’s as if they have one mind. There’s a lovely picture here: http://birds.cornell.edu/BOW/CEDWAX where you can also listen to their song (a breeding song, I think—I’ve never heard it here, where they winter but don’t breed). They’re fruit-eaters, and they come to strip the blue berries from our cedar trees. The problem is, though that we haven’t had enough freezing weather to soften the berries, and they’re still tart and hard. The birds seem to be knocking them off the trees, rather than feeding on them. They’ve completely cleaned out the big crop of mistletoe berries, however, which were draped on the mesquite and hackberry trees like clusters of tiny white pearls.

February 3. Another new arrival: our eighth Robin Paige book! Aside from not liking the cover (which has a drawing of demonic pony that looks for all the world like the "My Little Pony" toy that my granddaughter Amy used to play with), we’re pleased with the book. Bill has already started doing research on the next one, which will probably be called Death in Hyde Park. He tells me that it will feature Jack London, a network of Anarchists, and a plot to blow up Edward VII’s coronation. Mmmm….. I wonder how Kate figures in all of this.

February 6. The big news this month is our Story Circle conference, which will be held this weekend in Austin. Daughter Robin is coming (from Colorado, with her husband Jeff), and almost 150 people have signed up for the conference. The attendance is a relief, to tell the truth. We know we have a wonderful program, but with all the events of last autumn, it was so hard to predict whether people would be willing to fly. So it is great delight to see that we have people coming from Maine and California, from Canada, Michigan, Florida—from all over the U.S.! Story Circle is five years old this month. Hard to believe!

February 11. The conference was a stunning success. I’ve been to lots of meetings around the country and met a great many interesting women, but somehow these Story Circle women are special. The whole weekend was a great delight, made even more delightful because Robin was there. We shared a hotel room and had lots of time to talk and enjoy one another.

The only bad thing about the conference was the terrible chest cold I seem to have brought home with me. Living out here in the country, I don’t build up the immunities that others do, and when I get into a large group of people, I’m bound to catch something. Robin and Jeff and Bill and I drove to Fredericksburg today, for a hearty German lunch and a couple of hours browsing through the shops—trouble was, I couldn’t enjoy it, for all this wretched sneezing and coughing. Robin and Jeff don’t get here very often. What a shame to spoil it by being sick!

February 17. I’ve been taking Cipro all week (Bill says that at least I won’t get anthrax!) but don’t feel a great deal better. This is the worst cold I’ve had for several years. I don’t think I’m contagious, though, so I dragged myself into the car yesterday and we drove to Houston, to Murder by the Book, for a signing of Death at Dartmoor. We were delighted to see a big crowd, old friends and new readers. And the bookstore staff—Martha, Dean, and David—are always wonderfully supportive.

February20. I’m trying to get back to work on the short stories (which are due in less than a month—oh dear!) but I don’t seem to have as much energy as usual and this cough just keeps hanging on. But I have some ideas for the new stories, which are not going to be mysteries, but rather vignettes of some of the Pecan Springs characters that people seem to like.

Spring has arrived, or at least the daffodils think so. I’ve been planting a couple of hundred bulbs every year, and this year’s bloom is especially beautiful, with sweeps of gold along the creek and under the trees.

The geese think it’s spring, too. We walked up to the lake this morning to feed them, and discovered that Extra (the goose who mysteriously joined the flock a couple of summers ago) was missing—off laying an egg, no doubt. This is their third nesting year, so the geese are experienced nest-builders and egg-layers. They are not, however, experienced mothers, for there are a great many egg-loving critters around to raid the nests: raccoons, skunks, coyotes, snakes. They eat the eggs as fast as they’re laid. Years ago, when we had a flock of geese here at the house, we kept the laying geese penned and protected, and enjoyed watching them hatch and raise the goslings. But when we decided to release the geese on the lake, we knew that they were going to have to fend for themselves—once wild, they wouldn’t enjoy being penned. It was a difficult decision, and this is the time of year when I always half-regret it. I’ll probably scout around for the nests and take the eggs myself, at least these early ones. Goose eggs are huge and tasty, the perfect size for a one-person omelet! With chives, chopped parsley, and a few mushrooms, a goose egg is a wonderful lunch.

February 25. We made our annual tour of our bluebird boxes today--ten of them, on the fence posts around the perimeter of Meadow Knoll. A few unpopular boxes were empty again this year, but six had last year’s nests in them. And one--the box at the corner by the gate, already had four little blue eggs in it. It looks like we should have started cleaning the boxes earlier. Even though the weather has been cold (and promises to get really cold, later this week) there are lots of bugs and small butterflies, and the bluebirds love to hunt their meals in the short grass in our yard.

February 28. Winter finally arrived, with the coldest weather of the year—18 degrees yesterday morning! The creek was covered with ice and the daffodils, which were glorious, look very sad and draggy. The cold weather was especially hard on the plants because the ground is so dry. We really need rain!