More Exercises

Doing the tiny brushstrokes for fur is hard and tedious. I may need a different brush. And more practice.

A young salamander aka eft. I followed the directions re leaving white high lights and am pleased with how shiny this critter looks. No fur but lots of tiny dots.

Himalayan Blue Poppies. Still not satisfied with the shade of blue, but I added the Himalayas to the background.

More fur--argh!

 

Lucky Me

                                                                     

       

02/08/2023	Greenwise	Your Plan to become Debt Free and How We Might Be Able to Help
02/08/2023	Greenwise	Your Plan to become Debt Free and How We Might Be Able to Help
02/06/2023	Ninja Air Fryer Winner	Your order has shipped! - Ninja Air Fryer
02/08/2023	REGISTRAR	Your Name Came Up For a iPhone 13 customer Gift
02/07/2023	COVID-19 Tests	Your Insurance Covers 8 at-home Covid Tests (Claim Now)
02/08/2023	Consumer Rewards	You've been chosen!
02/08/2023	Walmart Department	You have won an Simplehuman Sensor Trashcan
02/08/2023	Samsung Neo QLED 8K Smart TV Department	You have won an Samsung Neo QLED 8K Smart TV
02/05/2023	Ace Rewards	You have won an Makita Power Drill
02/08/2023	Nordstrom Winner	You have won an Le Creuset
02/08/2023	Nordstrom Winner	You have won an Le Creuset
03:45:50 PM	iPhone 14 Pro Department	You have won an iPhone 14 Pro
02/08/2023	Lowe's Customer Support	You have won an Dewalt Heater

 

Am I lucky or what? I checked in on my old, mostly

 inactive, email account to make sure I wasn’t missing

 an actual communication from a person. Well, turns

 ou I am incredibly blessed. To begin with, I’m told

 that my shoulder holster payment (shoulder

 holster?) is covered. And a Ninja Air Fryer has

 shipped. (I never ordered one.)

But wait, there's more!  I’ve 'won’ a Simplehuman

 Sensor trashcan, a Samsung Smart TV, a Makita

 power drill and a Le Creuset. Golly!

And, for the cherry on top, I’m offered a “a Forgotten

 Viking Fierce Teeth Ritual” that makes teeth 20 times

 stronger. Arrrr!

Look for me any day now, wearing my shoulder holster (I'll put

 the power drill in it) and sporting a Viking smile. I may have

 to rent a storage unit for all the other stuff.

L

Frog Went A-Courting

Song HERE

 

Meeting with Readers

A spectacular sky led to a warm, mainly overcast day.  Frogs are singing in the pond, and John just pulled a tick off Jenny.

It was a nice day to drive to Hot Springs to meet with a group discussing Crows. The group was notable for having as many men as women.  And there were great, serious questions that showed these folks really thought about what they read. We talked about the horrors of war, the role of women at the time, the current division in the country and if it was like that before the Civil War. 

They were interested in my research, and I explained that much of what I used was from primary sources--government records and newspapers from the time. I warned them that none of that was guaranteed to be accurate, and we all agreed that the same could be said for news sources today.

One question I'd never had before: We were talking about my use of dialect, and I was asked if I perhaps wrote a scene in standard English and went back and put it into dialect. The answer there is no. Writing the local dialect is like breathing. I just remember who's speaking and say things the way I think they would.

One woman commented on how much she'd learned--how I'd managed to pack the story full of interesting information--like the Red Strings and the bandage-rolling societies. Another woman confessed she had no idea how milking a cow worked and how did I know. Research, I told them. About 15 or 20 years of hands-on research. I just didn't know at the time that it would end up in a book.

Perhaps my favorite comment was the woman who said she read the books that the group discussed because they were assigned, and she sometimes had to struggle through them. But she really enjoyed reading Crows--not a struggle.

Next month they're reading The Plague by Camus.

 

At Random with Downward Dog

 

Americanah

This is simply a marvelous book. The New York Times Book Review called it one of the ten best of the year. For me, it was eye opening.

Ifemelu comes from Nigeria to America and is forced to navigate a world in which she is now a minority. Beautiful, educated, and confident, she is a perfect narrator as she speaks through her blog about the differences between American Blacks and Non-American Blacks and about the tightrope all Blacks are forced to walk in their everyday life. Speaking as an outsider observing American life, she sees deeply into our society with a cool dispassionate gaze. And not a little humor.

I learned so much reading this delightful novel--things about Nigeria, where part of the action is set; the intricacies and politics of dealing with Black hair; the ins and outs of immigration, to name a few.

Highly, highly recommended!

 

 

Josie Does an Experiment

While Meema was putting away the groceries, I did an experiment. I got out my fingerpaints and my scratch pad and paper and brushes and water all by myself. The experiment was this--I made a pattern on the scratch pad and then copied it onto the paper and painted it.

The scratch pad is all black but there are lots of colors under the black and you can scratch the black off with a pointy stick. That will be my pattern.
 

The finger paints are for making dots with your fingers, but my experiment was also to try using a brush and water on the finger paints. It worked!

 I used black marker to copy the pattern I had made on the scratch pad, then I colored in the colors that were on the scratch pad. Experimenting is fun and I did it all by myself!

Warming Trend

 

A New Life for Discards

John's been back in the shop, and he's come up with a fine use for odd bits of common 2x4's. He glues them together then turns them into bowls.

Have you ever looked at the grain on a 2x4?

I mean, really looked?

Kinda fascinating, I think.

I wonder what caused the little bobble on the right-hand side of the V above?

There is so much to see if you only look. 

 

The Old Corn Crib

 A re-post (it's been a busy day) from 2009

The corncrib was a relic of the days when the previous owner of the farm had grown field corn to feed his cattle, his mules, his chickens, and his family. The corn was harvested after drying on the stalk in the field, and the unshucked ears were stored in the small slat-sided building that was lined with rodent-proof woven wire to protect the precious golden bounty. Nowadays, the corncrib stood empty, but for a few ancient moldy cornshucks. (Art's Blood, p. 123)

This, of course, is the original of the corncrib where Elizabeth and Ben found the unhappy Kyra. It's functioning today as a toolshed and a carport for our little utility vehicle but in 1973, when we bought the upper part of the farm from Clifford and Louise, the corn crib brimmed with fat dry ears of white corn -- Hickory King, I think it was.

Corn was the staff of life on the small farm. Every so often Clifford would take a bag or two of the whole corn to a mill in Tennessee where it would be coarsely ground -- shucks, cobs, and all -- and mixed with cottonseed meal and molasses to make feed for the cows. Every day Louise would pull the shucks off a few ears and toss them to her chickens who would eagerly peck the cobs clean. Nell the mule was the daily recipient of more ears (but not too many, lest too much corn make her 'rank' (overly frisky and unmanageable.) The fattening pig, who lived mostly on buttermilk, foods scraps, and garden waste, would be fed ears of corn during the month or so prior to butchering to "harden up the flesh."

And this same corn, shucked and shelled would be taken, not to the big mill, but to a nearby little mill run by a belt attached to the rear wheel drum of a tractor. The owner of this improvised mill would take his pay in meal -- in a little measure specifically for the purpose. This fragrant meal, which was freshly ground in small batches twice a month, provided the best cornbread in the world. Eaten midday -- hot and steaming out of the wood stove, dripping with home-churned butter, it accompanied an array of vegetables, fresh or home-canned, depending on the season, and a very modest taste of some sort of meat. The leftover corn bread might go to the pigs or the hounds, or, dunked in chilled buttermilk left after the day's churning, provide a light supper.

"You keep the mule to plow the corn and you grow the corn to feed the mule," Clifford told us. Man, animals, and corn -- their existence was interwoven.

Still Checking for Classified Material

 

Reading While Waiting for Spring

Tender, brutal, heartbreaking, hopeful, Ward's intimate portrayal of an African-American family, living and dead, in present day Mississippi, is rightfully highly acclaimed. It should be a part of the national conscious and conscience. The governor of Florida would probably ban it from classrooms. 

To read this is to be moved, to understand, to some small extent, the dilemma of a person of color in a White dominated world, and to be amazed at the restraint shown by most of the Black community in the face of so much continued injustice.  

Man's inhumanity to man is also on full display in Rutherfurd's  Micherner-eque take on London, from the earliest inhabitants over 2,000 years ago, through the Romans, the Saxons, the Danes and the Normans and beyond.  It's over 800 pages of fascinating history, and it's also a novel, following several families through the centuries, chronicling their fortunes as they rise and fall. I found it engrossing reading.

Historical fiction was some of my favorite reading as early as junior high, kinda painless learning. I highly recommend both of these.

Oops--I inadvertently hit PUBLISH before setting the date for the second. And can't undo it. So this is Thursday's post a little early.

 

Rabbitrabbit?

This was my earlier attempt at capturing the amaryllis. Pretty crude--I think the bunnies were making disparaging remarks.