Shouts from Down Under #2

NaNoWriMo stress induced writer's block? Rest easy WDC folks

Nanowrimo is all consuming, exciting, enticing, intriguing, and can be exhausting.
Writers' become exhausted, with moist, warm, cloying brows showing droplets-- evidence that battles of concentration, focus, and delivery have taken place.

And now writer's block is taking place. Which means nothing will take place unless you take a break. Might as well face it. Stop the nothing you are doing when you can't think, can't move. Rest.

Recently, someone advised me to take complete rest for a week. Rest from any and all technology. No phones. No computers. Not even a parcel scanner like your friendly courier uses in this emerging e-commerce freight boom.

Someone has to do it. I'll do it. 2 months since the last blog entry. I'm only still on WDC in an upgraded sense because some kind PERSON who I am not able to name saw fit to boost, to give me a leg up. Many thanks. Sometimes in life people help other people without realising, from the simple, seemingly small act, a much larger, bigger picture need was filled.

I'll write something for you Nano people to read, and maybe take your mind to somewhere totally different for a couple of minutes.
Today our grown son and I hung out a basket of washing, some his, and some mine. My wife asked if we could help out, as she normally has this nailed, but is very busy doing Tupperware demos at a Home and Garden Fair. I know she's run off her feet and won't have any energy when she gets back home. (She didn't).

So we were outside doing the good deed, and probably should more often, when my son chose a pair of his jeans, black ones, as opposed to my blue ones, and showed me how he'd "given them air conditioning" the previous day getting out of the car. He'd ripped the crutch. So now he was holding the same jeans, and I'm not sure why they had to be washed. Perhaps my wife had visions of doing a repair job on them. Whatever. He proceeded to further rip them completely to a state of indecency, and then flung them on his first dog, Gruffalo. (The same dog as featured in this "pig hunting" expedition)

https://youtu.be/_bVa-t9qxJM

Gruff, as is his usual casual self, didn't bat an eyelid. He just lay there, in the shade of the clothesline. Then while we joked and mucked around while hanging the rest of the garments incorrectly on the line relative to the way my wife insists, he then decided to get up and walk around a bit. With the jeans still draped over him.

Thus began a strange conversation.

"About time you put some pants on, dog. Why can't we do that?"

"Do what?"

"Walk around naked."

"What! What?"

"Yeah. All pets. All animals do it. They are clothing optional. No. Not even optional. They just don't do clothing."

"Na. They don't wear a stitch."

"Yeah. Why do we have to wear clothes? Why can't we just not have to worry about them? Like, all this washing. Hanging stuff on the line. Waiting for a sunny day. Or paying more electricity for the clothes dryer. Or waiting and checking out how sunny it is so the dryer can be used off the solar panels."

"Yeh. Pets have the life, eh."

Gruff ended up disrobing the torn jeans. But not before the neighbour stuck his head over the fence and grinned at the dog with black jeans trailing off his Golden Labrador rump. So we had a yarn for a while. Then he had to go back to his clothes line and finish his chore. His wife is away too. Wives should be paid more. A lot more. And shouldn't have to wear...no. Let's not keep on with that train of thought.

Anyway, our younger son went back inside to play computer games for a while. I went to the back yard to use the mattock on some more weeds. They've been overtaking our lawn. The chooks usually hang around me when I do this task because there are worms to be had. It must be a fertile back yard. The worms are plentiful, large and long. It's sort of gross grabbing one end of them and pulling because the piece just comes off. The other end seems to be still a complete worm. Search me how they do this but no problem for the hens. The worm gets whip lashed a few times and then gobbled up with their beak, from one end. Slurped up like a length of spaghetti until it disappears into the chook's delighted beak, beady eyes already searching perilously close to my swinging, biting mattock.

Ah, but this time was different. As I approached the side of the big blue shed, I spied the new pup, the husky our younger son has just brought home (8 weeks old) was being very naughty (innocently so I try to hope) chasing the hens around. Suddenly one of them was sick of this assault. It spread it's wings and opened it's beak rushing at the pup. The pup gave such a sustained lot of yelping that our son rushed from his room, scantily clad only in slept-in trackies (trackpants) to see what was ailing his expensive and adorable new doggie.

The pup won't be harassing those hens any time soon. He's ok, just learned a lesson of the ego. I think the other hens were egging on the defending chook. Just saying.

Poor puppy gets swatted by Romeow too and just wanted to play https://youtu.be/ANc3_i3e5QA . Life is unfair when you are the only puppie amonst a bunch of bully chickens. Those girls waste the worms, and damage doggies. No wonder the cats stay away.

Well, I hope you are able to go back to your Nano-ing now with a clear head, even if you are a bit confused by this blog entry.

Here's another bit of food for thought. If you are scratching around (like chooks) looking for some inspiration, or just a fresh, oddball idea for your next chapter in the great 50k wordsmithery, then check out adverts in your local craig's list or in the Australian region, Gumtree.

You can always print and bind your own book. (Folded arms and determined expression, pursed lips and knitted brows) Yep. No one else gonna do it then you have to do the whole thing yourself. Write it. Edit it. Proof it. Cover it. Publish it. Print it. Bind it. Market it. Shelve it. Sell it. Want something done properly you gotta do it yourself, right? And this here has got to be a bargain. WW3 is looming you know, and after the nuclear apocalypse, you'll all be after this sort of equipment, I know it...

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/rokeby/miscellaneous-goods/book-binding-machinery...

Sparky