Yesterday my family headed over to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Although spring is in the air, on the Pine Lane trail we found a forest still bleak in winter colors, but interesting things all around, nonetheless.
Lots of lichen growing on decaying trees:
Hidey-holes in mossy tree trunks:
Woolly moss:
Which sometimes looked like a head of hair:
Or as if it was just resting for a moment on the rock before scurrying away:
A diverse neighborhood:
Fern eruptions:
We turned around here, not just because part of the trail had fallen into the creek below, but because two of our number had fallen in as well and were wet and cold (the male half, which were playing around on fallen trees and too close to treacherous, sandy banks):
A jumble of fallen debris:
Here is a trail marker, fallen in:
More moss:
A spot, slowly eating away the stone upon which it lives:
Here is the difference I see in what I've grown in my garden or wild harvested and what I get through mail-order. Mine are on the left, mail-order is on the right:
Calendula:
Goldenrod:
I prefer my own. I mean, just look at the goldenrod. With the mail-order you get stems - big ones from the looks of it - all shredded up with the flowers and leaves.
When I make goldenrod infused oil, I only use the flowering tops. All I have left of what I harvested from last fall is what you see in the picture, so I mail-ordered some to get me through to this fall when I can harvest some more. I'm a little nervous about using the mail-order now. I'm not sure how the oil will turn out.
I'm glad I've planned a big garden this year full of lots of different herbs. I'm really looking forward to using only my own homegrown or wild harvested plants.
I've recently read a couple of things by Robin McKinley. I'm now looking forward to reading more from Robin McKinley - and she does have many more titles out there.
Now, there are different kinds of people in the world. There are some people who like cities and crowds and loud music and night clubs and parties. And there are some people who like walks in the woods, the feel of the sun on their face, and who receive a gentle re-energizing just by soaking in the natural world around them. Chalice is for this second group of people. It's a gentle story full of bees and woods and a woman struggling with a weighty role she's been chosen for by the officials of the demesne - who nonetheless don't care for her, and a new Master of the demesne who is not quite human anymore and is feared by everyone who lives there - except her.
If you are the type who likes cities and crowds and parties and such, I would recommend Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr - which is a wonderful urban fantasy- , but probably not Chalice, which is a fantasy with nothing urban about it.
This collection drew me in from the start and I read the book in one sitting. Included in the tales are herbcraft and mages and princesses and romance between unexpected people, and a young girl having to move away from her friends and start life anew in a small community threatened by a new superhighway - all right before she starts her junior year in high school (even this story has fantasy woven into it).
Robin McKinley's books might be just the thing if you feel like relaxing with beautiful, gentle tales.
Back in January a friend in my writing group sent an email to everyone letting us know of Firebrand Literary's Query Holiday.
For one month during the holidays, this literary agency would accecpt the first chapter of a finished work without a query letter.
I took advantage and sent off a submission. One of the agents kept a tally on the number of submissions they were receiving and the number of full manuscripts they had requested so far. I kept up with the tally, which grew and grew.
By the end, they had received right around 3,750 submissions. From those they ended up requesting, give or take, right around 100 full manuscripts.
Mine was one of those (!).
Don't know how long it will take to hear back (weeks? months?) - all I know is that I sent the manusript off at the beginning of February.
My daughter and I ventured out in search of the plant that I think is wintergreenthat I saw growing out in the woodlands on one of our previous adventures.
It was cold, but not overly, and only a scant bit of snow covered the ground. Wintry colors met us as we made our way into the woods (clicking on any of the pictures will enlarge it, then click the back arrow to return):
Our dog likes to lead the way:
We came across interesting things like these fractal-like growths on an old, dead tree:
And these berries with a leaf which had fallen onto a snowy, frozen stream-bed:
This flat expanse tells of a frozen pond underneath:
A mossy peninsula jutted out into the frozen pond:
We came across a little, thatched fairy village:
Or maybe they were just cold tribbles:
My daughter has the patience to find and take the artistic shots, like this leaf caught on the rusty nails of an old hunting stand:
And this one of our dog framed by a circular vine. A very low hunting stand is behind him - don't know why they bothered to place it so low to the ground:
My daughter always finds bones. Here is a vertebra and what I think is a tibia (both deer):
The leaf detritus was very thick, but we did manage to find a few plants peeking through both the snow and the leaves:
I thought I had found some wintergreen nestled between the roots of a tree - but it wasn't wintergreen:
We did find a spotty tree:
And one that looked like it had eyes:
My daughter scolded me for not noticing this and almost stepping on it:
The squirrels have missed this little feast:
Oh, look! Is that a bit of green? Maybe spring is around the corner:
Good thing, it looks like the reserves are running low:
On our way out of the woods, we spotted this inviting trail which we've never taken before. We'll save that for another adventure on another day:
The best pictures from our wintergreen adventure today were taken by my daughter:
We both tried to snap a photo of this lovely cluster of three red rose hips, which were so colorful in the bleak winter landscape. All of our shots came out blurry, except for this one my daughter took:
Against the fallow farmer's field we found this crab apple tree full of shriveled fruits. The lower branches were empty, but these are too high for the deer to reach:
We didn't find any wintergreen, but we'll try again another day, another season, because we like to go on adventures.
Our little gray cat, the one we call Freki, and sometimes Quantum Kitty, has official become eerie.
This morning I let her out front. She stood on the front porch sniffing the air. I said, "Are you sure you want to stay outside? It's cold." She answered by running under a nearby hedge.
I closed the door and waited, knowing she would be ready to come inside in just a minute. Then I opened the door and called. She didn't come. I closed the door and turned around to find her sitting behind me in the entryway looking at me.
Later in the morning, my dauhter let Freki and another cat out in the back yard. She watched them both through the sliding glass door as they sauntered off to the side yard, out of vision, and then she waited, knowing that they would want to come back in quickly (as I said, it's cold today).
In a minute or two, the other cat came running back to be let in, and when my daughter opened the sliding glass door to let it in, Freki came running from behind her to go outside.Which is not unusual, except for the fact that Freki was already outside.
My family likes to watch the Academy Awards with ballots in hand. We mark who or what we think will win in each category and then see how well our predictions match the actual results. The winner - the family member who gets the most right - doesn't get anything, except a fleeting feeling of superiority.
Last year I didn't do very well, but this year... I won! I got to feel that sense of superiority - even though I was the only one who actually stayed up to watch the whole show. At least my dog was duly impressed when I informed him of my superiority before I went upstairs to sleep.
I would like to thank everyone who made this possible.
Last night I happened to turn on the TV and what should appear on the screen but my favorite fight/battle scene of any movie - the fight between Achilles and Hector in the movie Troy.
When the movie first came out I was so disappointed in the choice of Brad Pitt to play the legendary warrior Achilles, that I almost didn't go see the movie.
But, as you can see, Brad Pitt was a very nice choice indeed:
In fact, just about all of my favorite scenes in the movie have Brad Pitt in them. Not just because he happens to *ahem* look good, but because of the way the action plays out.
And I must say, too, that Eric Bana was a superb Hector, Hero of Troy:
In the scene where Achilles challenges Hector before the walls of Troy, the two actors didn't use stunt doubles. It was all them.
Now, I've never actually seen combat between two actual warriors before, but if I ever had, I think that it would go something like this:
Before I saw the movie, I got a hold of Robert Fagles' translation of The Illiadand read it. It reads almost like a regular book and not an epic poem written thousands of years ago. I would highly recommend this translation.
And I may be strung up by purists for saying this, but I think that the movie did a very good job of "modernizing" the tale. I think I like what the script writers did with the epic characters to bring some actual humanity to them instead of merely presenting them as iconic warriors, queens, kings, etc.
And lastly, but not leastly, I liked Brad Pitt's pronounciation of Patroclus, his cousin's name. It sounds almost like Patrick, with the emphasis on the 'a'. Somehow that was touching to me, that he pronounced it that way, and not in the grand way with the emphasis on the 'o'.
Anyway. That's my take on Troy and Robert Fagles' translation of The Illiad.
You've all heard about the guy walking along a beach full of washed-up starfish.
He's picking up starfish and tossing them back into the water as he walks when a stranger says to him, "You can't possibly throw all of these starfish back into the water, what you're doing won't matter at all in the long run."
To which the man replies, pointing to where a starfish just plopped back into the water, "It matters to that one."
Don't let people who don't get it try to tell you what you're doing doesn't matter.
Like the time when I was selling homemade candies at the farmer's market and accidentally drooled while pointing out my wares to a potential customer, saying, "And here is the fudge." (I really like my own fudge)
No, they didn't notice. They were busy looking at the fffuudge. And, no, I didn't drool on any of the candy.
Then there was the time I fell into the refrigerated egg case at the grocery store.
Yes. People noticed that one.
Please don't ask why these things have recently come to mind.
I recently participated in a worldwide giveaway event. The item which I gave away was a decorative bag containing two homemade herbal salves, one calendula and the other goldenrod.
When I made the batch up for the giveaway, I was left with enough to fill four more decorative bags with two herbal salves each.
What to do with with these extras.....? Sell them on Etsy!
So I've opened an Etsy shop for these four items. You can access my shop through the Etsy shop logo in the right hand margins of my blog, or you can follow this link.
I just finished listening to a wonderful little audio book, Skulduggery Pleasant.
Now, there are audio books and there are audio books. How the book is read is very important. I've listened to some which have put me to sleep simply because of the boring delivery. And I've listened to others which make my head hurt because grown-up readers seem to think that all children have whiny, screechy voices.
And then there are those which are perfectly read. Perfectly performed. This is one of those books. I doubt if I would have had as much fun with this book if I had read it myself instead of listening to it, but by all means, read away if you can't get a hold of the audio book version. You won't be disappointed. My kids would have loved this book when they were younger (they are both in college now). Actually, they might even like it now.
Stephanie's eccentric uncle dies and leaves her his house, his possessions, and one big fat problem involving a friend of his, who happens to be a skeleton. Oh, and the little, eensy feat of saving the world - with magic.
Stephanie's only twelve, but she's got enough spunk to face everything that rises against her with an open mind, and, when necessary, a closed fist and a well-placed kick. Can she and Skulduggery work together to retrieve the incredibly powerful Scepter of the Ancients from her uncle's hiding place? Or will the evil Nefarian Serpine get there first and use it to rule the world?
And a big thank you to the over 200 people who entered my drawing and the many more who came to visit my blog over the past few weeks. This was a terrific event and I had fun visiting as many of the over 800 participants' blogs as I could to see what they were giving away and to get to know new bloggers.
I often pop over to author Kristin Cashor's blog (she wrote Graceling, which came out last fall). She has a post up that addresses this question which came to her from an aspiring writer:
I love to write, I need to write... but at the same time, I am afraid of publishers and editors and agents. Not so much about rejection letters or working with them, but sending my work to them. I know it must sound weird, or maybe not. How did you cope with it when you sent Graceling away? Was it really hard to let your creation out of your hands?
Her answer is here. Paraphrasing wouldn't do it justice. If you are a writer, you will want to read it.
My computer crashed a few days ago. I'm trying not to think of all the things I might not have backed up recently. And I'm having to steal time on my son's or my daughter's computer if I need to do computer-type things.
But for some reason I'm not upset. I'm not anxious. A strange peace just lays there where panic should reside at the crashing of one's computer.
Don't know why, but I think it will all work out in the end. Somehow.
If I need to write, I have pen and paper. If I need to blog or email, I have the computers of my offspring. And If I'm bored, I guess I can always clean something.... nah. Why go to extremes?
The temperature will be above freezing today, in the upper 30's. It feels like a warm spring day outside. The low-hanging boughs are starting to shrug off their burdens of snow:
Maybe someday we'll even be able to sit on our benches again!:
But there are a few thorns in the coming forecast. The warm-up won't last long. Back to bitter cold temps later this week.
Woolly moss:
Or as if it was just resting for a moment on the rock before scurrying away:
Fern eruptions:
A jumble of fallen debris:
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