PEACHFRONT SPEAKS

Recent entries july 4, 2018 - 2018-07-04 the triangle continues of courtney, boobear, & nyota - 2018-07-03 Cookie so cute telling, "Hello" to sparrows - 2018-07-01 lovebirb in love - 2018-06-30 wren with fluffffff - 2018-06-24 Read my new book, The 10 Best Things You Can Do For Your Bird at Amazon or at many other fine distributors like Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and more. By public demand, and after a delay of an embarrassing number of years, I've finally put my notorious essay, Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman, free on the fabulous internets. A bibliography of my published books and stories. Here's a simple card-counting FAQ to get you up to speed on the basics. Here's the true story of the notorious DD' blackjack team, told for the first time on the fabulous internets. No other team went from a starting investor's bankroll of zero to winning millions of dollars. A Sadean take on Asimov's classic Three Laws of Robotics can be found in Roger Williams' NOW REVIEWED ON SLASHDOT!!! The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. Adult readers only please -- explicit sex and violence. For updates on the "Dead Tree Project" and other topics, you may visit the official fan site, Passages in the Void.. My Bird Lists -- My Louisiana State Life List, My Yard List and, tah dah, My World Life List. HEY! What happened to the Peachfront Conure Files? The world's only OFFICIAL Peachfront Conure site now features free peachfront conure coverage, including a magazine length Intro to Conures previously published in American Cage-Bird Magazine, now free on the web. I offer the best free Peachfront Conure information on the internet. If you have great Peachfront Conure info, stories, or photos to share, contact me so I can publicize your pet, your breeding success, your great photograph, etc. on my site. Thanks.

the twelve days of christmas -- the forbidden truth 2004-01-02 - 8:23 p.m. In ancient days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the Twelve Days of Christmas were celebrated from December 25 to Epiphany on January 6, which meant you didn't take your decorations down until January 6. Heck, those Wise Men had to travel an awfully long way across the desert with some smelly, bad-tempered, bumpy-looking camels, so it seemed like the least you could do was leave the light on. Then, a couple of decades back, various communities decided to collect Christmas trees for recycling, which is fine as far as it goes, but we were often asked to put our trees out on January 2 if we wanted them picked up. I'm thinking I first remember this happening in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Now I assume that someone besides me bitched about this, because lately they do arrange to pick up your tree after Epiphany -- this year in my neighborhood it will be January 12 through the 17th -- but it is too late. The tradition has already been forgotten, and lots of people really do believe that you should take your tree down on January 1 while you're still stumbling around in a state of hangover. My across-the-street neighbor's tree has been sitting out glumly on the sidewalk for three days. Watching the death of a tradition peeves me more than it probably should. Until a few years ago, I never thought much about the lyrics of the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas. Then I read an old short story where the detective had to figure out the meaning of the song in order to track down some clue. Over the course of the story, he learned that the gifts in the song are various species of game birds -- well, game birds by medieval standards anyway, those folks would eat anything that didn't eat them first. The key to solving the mystery came when he figured out that "five golden rings" were five ring-necked pheasants. Since then I have tried to track down the other game birds in the song but I haven't been very successful. Bad information drives out good, and the internet has been spammed with a spurious circa mid1990s theory about the 12 Days song which tries to claim it is a secret code transmitting Catholic doctrine. But from time to time I like to wonder. The first three are obvious: A partridge in a pear tree Two turtle doves Three french hens -- chickens of some sort, even if I'm not sure what variety Then it gets a little tougher: Four calling birds Well, hell. Lots of birds "call." But I'll go out on a limb and guess it's another kind of dove, one that calls a lot. Maybe some of those Eurasian Collared-Doves from old Europe that now run riot in my backyard. They can out-coo a Mourning Dove by the hour. We already know number five: Five golden rings -- ring-necked pheasants and they can look very well flashing browny gold in the sun. More easy ones with good meat on them: Six geese a-laying Seven swans a-swimming But then we get to the mystery poultry, I'm afraid. Eight maids a-milking. Hmm-kay. It might help to know that in days gone by, the class of birds known as goatsuckers (the nightjars) were seriously believed to sneak around and milk the goats. And some of those guys look like they have good meat on their bones. So I'm guessing that the lady received some nice fat juicy goatsuckers. But what the heck is this? Nine ladies dancing Ten lords a-leaping I am stumped. Cranes dance, and they also leap, and I'm told by those of French descent that they make good (if highly illegal) eating. But would you have them twice in the same song? Well, I guess if you can have Turtle Doves and Eurasian Collared-Doves in the same song, maybe. Are there two species of crane in Europe? The last two aren't real easy either. Eleven pipers piping. Again, lots of birds pipe. Without knowing more about medieval European birds, I haven't a clue. Could it be killdeer or another plover? And finally... Twelve drummers drumming. Grouse immediately springs to mind. They drum. But I thought grouse were American birds, until I opened my copy of Birds of Europe to find a tiny sketch of Black Grouse drumming in a bog. Tee hee. You know what's missing from this list? Not turkey. I just read a magazine article solemnly reminding us that turkeys are from the New World and thus couldn't expect to be included in a song of pre-Columbian European origin. Ducks are missing. You're handing out crunchy munchy game birds like nobody's business and you forget the ducks? Could the lords and ladies be some sort of duck species? I will solve this mystery. But maybe not this year. back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford