Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 128

One favorite summer lunch

There are many good ways to eat a tomato out of the garden, but this is one of my favorites, that was lunch today:

Cottage cheese

One fresh tomato, chopped so that two pieces are a nice mouthful with cottage cheese.

Salt, medium or coarse-ground black pepper.

I'd have added some chopped green pepper, maybe some chopped celery, and a little parsley if I'd had any of these, but the tomato and cottage cheese together are great.  I like the creaminess of the cottage cheese against the fresh bite of the

Saturday: busy

Saturday was busy.

Michael needed to be at CiCi's Pizza, where he works part-time, by 7:30 am so he could march with the CiCi's float in the parade...so Richard left at 7 to take him down, while I started the laundry.

John was coming over to weld on the horse stalls where Destroyer of Barriers (otherwise known as Bananaface, Boyo, the Yellow Peril, and Illusion) had broken the welded cattle panels away from the pipe framing.  This meant we needed to get the horses fed, watered, and compl

Coolth Returns: AC working

The fan motor has been replaced, and cool air is beginning to displace the hot stuff.

The body is happier already.   Having a cooler "relief place" to come into makes being out in the heat more tolerable.

Having a cool place to sleep will also be a relief.  Last night I actually did sleep but it required some mental effort to convince the body that it might as well sleep.

Writer's Block: Local Favorite

Native plants and wildlife (whatever's there in that season in that weather.  Ranges from really pretty to "Can we go back inside now?"   Can nearly always find an interesting plant, bird, or bug.

Preview: The Book of Swords

I think I mentioned, some time back, the video "Reclaiming the Blade," about the history of the western sword, and how it was used--an excellent film and worth looking up for those who want to know more (or just enjoy) swords, demonstrations, and discussion.

Hank Reinhardt, co-founder of Museum Replicas, was on that video, and though he died in late 2007, the book he was working on is now coming out from Baen Books, titled The Book of Swords. Toni Weisskopf, his widow, took his various draft

Easy Question #34.2

When does the air conditioning go on the blink?

     a.  When you first turn it on in the spring to check and see if it's OK
     b.  When the temperature outside reaches 90F for the first time.
     c.  When you're 3 days in to an estimated 10+ days of 100F temperatures
     d.  When you've seen your last day of 100F for the summer

Easy Question #34.3

    Did I pose the above question in a spirit of idle inquiry or is our AC on the blink?

Snippet alert

Progress report and two (very short) snippets, one from each book, are now up at the Paksworld blog.   I'm about to fold several outlier chapters into the main book file (always a scary moment!)

The total length...well, nearly the total length because there are one or two more outlier bits...is right about 146,000 words...and it's not finished.  Naturally.  A lot happens in many places between where I am now and the end, though I can almost nearly see the end (of this one...which isn't the last o

Church Music: an opinion and potential hot potato

I once taught a course on the history of music in our denomination (Episcopal) during which I learned more than I could possibly teach (as usual...)   The roots of Anglicanism are in the western form of orthodoxy, whose roots are in Judaism...and those roots (somewhat to my surprise) include musical roots....including the controversies that have erupted in one or another branch of Christianity about the proper role of music in worship.

Most of us in that entire branch of the religious tree rememb

80 Acres: New posts, new pictures

I've forgotten to note when new posts are up on the 80 Acres blog--sorry.  But there are pond-related pictures with some handsome dragonflies, water lilies, an adult ant-lion, etc. and a post about seeing (and not getting a picture of) a young gray fox. 

This link gets you to all of them.

I'm posting just about all images over there now, because it's much quicker to upload there and the upload doesn't (so far) hang up. 

The ant-lion, by the way, is the same species that I photographed on a window

Writing: When Research Blows the Story

On another venue, another writer mentioned how annoying it is when you do the research and the research then blocks the story you were writing.

Very, very true.   However, there are writerly workarounds that do not always require starting over from scratch.  (There are times when nothing but  ripping the manuscript to shreds will work, but if you can save the effort you've already put in, why not?)

To start with:  nobody but the writer knows how the story goes.  Changes to the story, before even a