Threshing

What a great way to spend a Saturday morning . . . at a threshing demonstration!

It'a probably been a good half century since folks here grew wheat  for home use but a few dedicated souls like to keep the tradition alive -- and the old machines in working order.

It was a wonderful glimpse at the past-- and a nice way to meet more of the county.

Here's a slide show with captions that will explain what's going on . . . click on picture to biggify.


 And here's a brief video . . .

 

1927 ~ Sepia Saturday

My mother was an only child.  How many mothers still count the months in their nine year old's ages?

Indeed, how many mothers keep such detailed albums?

For more Sepia Saturday posts, visit HERE.

Here’s what I’ve been up to...

Well, I’ve been battling really sever burnout since the beging of summer. Of course I have been burned out before, but this has been really bad. Only recently have I even wanted to look at my workbench. Before that I couldn't even bear to walk past it. I finally decided it’s cause. I realized that in my whole life I don't think I have made as many pieces of jewelry as I have in the last two years. Even in school we had to complete a piece of jewelry or sculpture every three months. Before summer started I was making at least 20 pieces of jewelry a month. Don’t get me wrong I am NOT complaining. I am absolutely amazed. When I started this venture I began making pieces for myself, then made a second one and listed it on Etsy. I didn’t actually expect it to sell. To my shock and surprise they did. Then I decided to incorporate all that I had learned in the various occupations and degrees I collected over the years ... merchandising, sales, visual presentation, bookkeeping office managing, customer service, inventory control, and graphic design to name a few... and apply that mess of seemly unrelated knowledge to this business and it has served me very well. My main focus with my shop has always been that I would take all my profits from it and use to pay off my school loans from my art, and anthropology degrees. A sort of thumb of the nose at all the people who sniggered when I told them what I was studying in school. The question that followed was always, “what on earth are you going to do with those degrees you can’t get a job with them. Why waist the money just switch to a business degree and do art in your spare time”. I tried for a little while, it didn't work. And they were right I couldn’t get a job with those degrees, but I sure as hell can own my own business and make it successful completely on my own with the knowledge I’ve amassed. So with this realization and confirmation of my position I have been slowly getting back into the groove of things. Taking it easy, working on fun projects, helping other artist with their gallery events, cleaning out my studio and living spaces, completely retooling all my web presence as well as the look of my business cards and banners so that when I finally am ready I will be able to jump right back in the saddle again. My line fully listed on Etsy and hopefully several new lines that i've been working out in my head as well as getting back into sculpture.

Remember. . . ?

Remember

December?

The air 

 Benumbed, biting, bitter. 

The wind

Blasting, bleak, boreal.

Each breath  

Chill,  crisp, cutting.

The earth

Frigid,  frosty, frozen.

The water

Gelid, glacial .. . . hyperborean.

 

Each day

Icy, inclement, intense.

And the weather report --

Nipping, numbing, penetrating, piercing,

Shivery, sleety, snappy, snowy, stinging. . .

Wintry.

Remember

December.

The Critters Awww Scale

Critters -- or creatures -- are marvelous things, enriching our lives in so many ways just by being around and being themselves.  Cute fluffy kittens, gangling turkey poults, a bandit raccoon, a lumbering box turtle -- they can all be a source of delight.

But there's something about those moments of communication between different species that tends to make us go 'Awww...' and smile and maybe feel a little better about life in general. 

 

I know I feel that way when I see Eddie the cat snuggling with one of our dogs ... and this picture from an unknown source of a young deer that comes every morning to visit his friend the cat sure elicited a big Awww . . .

 But as far as I'm concerned, this video below -- another of those internet wanderers -- went right off the Awww scale.  Awesome!

My, How They've Grown!

The young turkey poults are growing, as my older neighbors used to say, 'like one thing!'

The first time I saw the two hens and their brood, I counted fourteen babies. Now there seem to be eleven -- not bad, considering all the predators out there. 

They've learned to be wary -- as  soon as I stepped out on the deck to get  a picture, they  began moving away, without even waiting for their mamas.

I have high hopes for their continued survival!

 

Law & Order

I think this guy might have something to say about the life he's lived and the things he's seen...

But, I also have a feeling that he's a man of few words.

Wicked Stepmother

Yes, my boys (and their older cousin Daniel) met Cinderella's Wicked Stepmother 

when we were at Disney in June.

FAQ - Where Does VOICE Come From?

An aspiring author recently asked me about the thing writers call Voice.  "What is it?" she asked.   "You mentioned 'finding your voice and being solidly in it.' How did you 'find' yours?  Is it consistent in your novels? "

Ahh.  That's what I get for tossing about terms, the meaning of which I have only a hazy idea. My initial reaction was to say that I had no more idea where my 'voice' comes from than I can account for those tiny circles like planets round the sun in the picture above.

That's not entirely true. I suspect the circles are reflections -- and I know what I mean by voice. But I went looking round the web for a more official definition.

About.com  had this to say:

• Voice is the author's style, the quality that makes his or her writing unique, and which conveys the author's attitude, personality, and character; or
• Voice is the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a first-person narrator; a persona. Because voice has so much to do with the reader's experience of a work of literature, it is one of the most important elements of a piece of writing.

Okay. Keeping those definitions in mind, where does voice come from?

The first sort of voice -- the style of the author -- I believe comes from the experiences of the author. In my case, that experience includes years of reading all sorts of things from Jane Austen and Thackery to Mark Twain and Wodehouse -- with a hefty dose of Douglas Adams, Lee Smith, Rumer Goden and, as they say, many, many more.

My style includes a slight tendency to be pedantic (yes, I was an English major and a teacher and I love big words,) as well as a touch of playfulness. There's also a Southern childhood, my particular generation (will I ever get beyond saying that things are 'neat' or 'cool'?) and my thirty-plus years absorbing the culture of rural Appalachia.  All of these things contribute to a multi-layered effect. (I suspect that this blog is a fair example of my natural voice. )

The second definition -- the voice of a first person character -- is what I was talking about when I spoke of 'finding my voice.' What I really meant was finding Elizabeth's voice.

My protagonist Elizabeth not only lives on a farm that is very much like where I live, she also shares my Southern past and the English major thing. She's ten years younger than I and she doesn't (or shouldn't) say 'neat' and 'cool.' In fact, she shares so much of my world view that for the first four books, I chose to write her in third person point of view -- not wanting to have her quite so identified with me.

But by the time I got to the fifth Elizabeth book, my protagonist had become a fully-realized character -- a bit like me still, but with a whole set of experiences that were uniquely her own.  So at last I began to write Elizabeth in first person. And her voice as a character is substantially different from my own -- at least, I think it is.

When I write my novels, the overall style is pretty much similar to my natural voice but I try to suppress or let free various elements as seems appropriate.  The pedantic voice had a field day with the character of The Professor in In a Dark Season. The Appalachian culture is, of course, the basis for many of my characters -- Miss Birdie, of course, and Cletus and Bib and quite a few others.

Very often I have an idea for a character and I think to myself -- this person is going to be a  lot like ____. Sometimes I fill in the blank with the name of a friend or acquaintance; sometimes it's a character in a book.  And as I write this character, I'm always thinking, What would ___ do in this situation? What would they say? How would they say it?

 I keep a file on my computer of interesting scraps of conversation or descriptions.  And I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting characters

 As for that last question --Is the voice consistent in my novels? -- I think so -- but one day I may surprise myself and write something very different.

This post will be added to the FAQ page over at my Day of Small Things blog.

What do these all have in common?

A Yellow Cricket.

Prickly Pear Cactus

Cows

.

Sunflowers.

Gimme your best guess!!

Lemon Semifreddo

Dessert for 25 - 30 people.  A quart and a half or thereabouts of whipping cream plus the juice and grated rind of a dozen or so lemons, sugar, toasted almonds, and twenty one egg yolks cooked to thicken.

The lemon, egg, sugar mixture gets folded into more whipped cream than is probably legal in some states, then poured into a container lined with plastic wrap and sprinkled with toasted almonds.

I made it Friday afternoon so it would be good and frozen to take to the party Saturday night.

The frozen delights traveled to the party -- an hour away -- in a cooler with ice. When I removed the aluminum foil, a good bit of the delicious stuff had stuck to it.

Never fear! Our hostess (the one who'd requested this particular dessert in the first place) knew what to do!

The lemon semifreddo was served topped with blackberries and on a hot summer evening, it was a Big Hit.

If you're interested, the original recipe (serving 8-10) is HERE. (I tripled it.)

 

Living Free

 One of our laying hens, after violent disagreements with the rooster, was being picked on by him and, alas, by the other hens to the point that we felt they would kill her. (Chickens can be as clique-ish and brutal as high school girls.)

So we turned her out to see how she'd do, figuring that she could live free for a while at least. Our dogs have ignored her and she's been happily on her own for  week now, exploring the garden and beyond. When John goes to feed the other chickens, she runs and waits just outside the coop door for her scratch feed.

 She's having a great time pecking around in the garden and the shrubbery. And I like to think that the chickens who were so mean to  her are a bit envious.

 

An Excuse