Somewhere to play.

Meanwhile - back at the ranch ...

A few things can get me more excited than rummaging through a heap of old, second-hand books.

(looks at the list of things which gets my 'goatee' up - the list is long, scrap 'few things')

As a book person, collector, hoarder, and general all-round child of wonder - there are a few places where I like to spend my time.

Any place where there are books draw me. Flea-markets, libraries, book-shops, and pawnshops.

Then the worst, I want to own ...

Yesterday, my wife said she would indulge me, and pay for those books I had in mind.

Payday !!

The books were old books, as books go, starting in the late 1800's to the 1990's.

All sorts, lots of well known classics, and a few others, which was either unknown or not important in my 'book'. (sorry, bad pun)

It took the best part of a half an hour to sort them, and I ended with about fifty.

After another clean-up, twenty five walked out the door with me.

Cost - well - do we worry about that horrid item, suffice to say, I was grinning, and the cost would buy one new, common, everyday, book.

Do I need them, well - like an addict needs ...

I need them !


http://www.writing.com/main/images/item_id/1873997-A-hole-with-more-than-one

As I walked out, I noticed the tell-tale hole in the ground, the inch/two-inch hole where the tiny tortoises come out to greet the world.

Still in the hole was the baby, ready to climb out.

I went to get a spade and called the Prince to show him. He found another two holes, and I found another baby in the grass.

We opened the nests and found a lot of rotten and robbed eggs. No more young ones were found, still, from the amount of holes , we know there are more young who have already come out. Maybe we will still find them.

A robbed egg is when the ants get into an egg and eat out the inside.

What makes this unusual is that this is already June, and almost mid-winter here. Normally we find young during January.

To get us up to speed on the ostriches - the mother is getting to settle in well with the young ones. Now to get Dad into the fold !

* How may people on seeing bumble bees, bees, butterflies and birds have not sighed to themselves: "How lucky they are! They are free to go wherever they please. The whole earth is open to them." That is a great fallacy. All the fragile winged creatures which flit above the flowering meadows are no more nomads than the fox, the hare, the stag, the bear or ourselves. They all carve out of the wide world a small or large portion, their dwelling place, to which they are closely tied. *

Secrets of the animal world - F J Pootman. (1959)

* And don't you step on my blue suede shoes *