Monthly Archives: March 2011

Derived from the neo-Latin jaculifir – dart-bearing (jaculum + fer. Jaculum is the Latin for dart.) jaculiferous is a zoological or botanical adjective meaning having dart-like spines.

Working in the garden as I do, I have been known to grab a weed without gloves and exclaim about prickles in my palm – “Jaculiferous!”

I daresay I’ve been described as jaculiferous by certain family members.

I’d declare them phylarogists, but it’s true. I am often prickly.

If you’ve had a drunken goat child camp in your garden, then you understand why I’ve hidden the tangerines and turned up the Wagner.

I admit to having too much sherry last night whilst reading mysteries and listening to the Kurundu birds sing like falling rain. It took a veritable keg of strong java to lull me from my slumber state, and I will warn you, fair readers: I could be considered crankier than usual.

Bubo littered bones all over the front step after a night of voracious hunting. (I’m assuming; perhaps she’s taken to grave-robbing, though for what ends, I’m unsure.) She disappeared this afternoon, most likely to nap in the breeze at The Green-Wood Cemetery, so I was left with sweeping up the pile.

I found this fellow between the rose bushes and the apiary.

He smells faintly of key limes and bleats “woah” every few minutes. I was unsure of his eyesight, but he kicked one of his sandals at me when I lit my pipe.

Should he become upright and angry, I am thankful he is not polycerate.

Oh, look it up.

You should know that the Kurundu Bird’s song mimics falling rain. Perfect for reading in an enormous wing back chair.

Tonight, it’s Margery Allingham’s The Case of the Late Pig.

Tomorrow, undoubtedly, it will be a compendium of poisonous plants.