Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 148

Pen Pal navigation page

Here's a little mini-version of what the navigation page of the Pen Pal website looks like, and, if you can click on it, you can get to the website.



Of course, the *book* isn't out there yet, but at least it has a comfy place to sit when it does come out.

Website up!

So I'm ready to share my Pen Pal website. It's still under construction--I haven't added the pages for messages in bottles or language preservation, for instance--but I imagine it always will be.

Here are the text and images from the "About Pen Pal" page (and if you click on the link to the left, you can go to the actual site). It's my advertisement :-)







... I might post one more entry with links to the website, just because I want an excuse to show off all the images.

Papers, Please

The ninja girl told me about this indie video game she's been playing: you're a citizen of the nation of Arstotska, and you've just been assigned a job at a border customs and immigration checkpoint.



You get paid on commission, so you must process a certain number of people through the checkpoint each day in order to feed your family and heat your government-issued apartment, but the things you must check get gradually more complicated. The first day it's simple: only Arstotskans can be admit...

signature

This moon they call the hunter's moon is a thumb print in the sky tonight.

The creator of the heavens never learned to read and write--he was too busy scattering stars hither and yon. "Very nice, very nice," his mother said. "Now sign your work." But he didn't know how to write his name, so he just put his thumb into the Milky Way and pressed an impression into the dark sky.

There's also a penumbral eclipse tonight, I hear. (It sounds like a long, slow exhale.)

image courtesy of EarthSky

Also, in case you were wondering

This is the approved and correct way to rake leaves:

Thursday, with grackles, messages in bottles, and books

Grackles chat to one another like rusty metal door hinges. A few were playing out back the other day, and I took their picture from the window. They're in a story of mine, but looking more humanlike than birdlike.





And looking more humanlike than birdlike reminds me of a line from one of the two things I'm actively reading right now, Coyote Still Going, a really chatty, fun collection of Native American stories and reminiscences by Ty Nolan, a Native American storyteller. He says, about animal...

Acorn update: leaching

Here's what the jar of water-and-acorn looks like after 24 hours:



See the brown color? That's due to tannin.

So I pour off that water and put in new water and swirl it around. Here's what it looks like when I first pour in new water:



Tomorrow morning, that water will have gone from milky white to as brown as the water in the first photo. But, eventually, after enough days have gone by, there should be very little difference between the water when it's new and the water after 24 hours. That'll be...

ALL the pods!

I found out from nihilistic_kid 's blog that Escape Artists, the people who run the Podcastle/Pseudopod/Escape Pod podcasts, are in need of funds to continue beyond 2013. I'm not a big podcast listener, but even so, I've heard some *wonderful* things from the Escape Artists--stuff by pattytempleton , skogkatt , theferrett , csecooney , and more. (Two of those people-- skogkatt and csecooney , also read--and excellently, I might add--for the show.)

... And I've had a story on Podcastle--and I have ano...

Acorn flour

I'm going to make acorn flour. One of my friends linked me to a post with some very practical guidance on doing it--and this guy, he made pasta and a honey cake and everything!

So rachelmanija , it's not quite the same as the way Beverly Ortiz and Julia Parker describe in It Will Live Forever, but if it all works out, I'll still feel some kind of connection with those folkways. (And the guy whose post I'm following mentions the sweet California acorns...)

Here are some pictures of the process s...

Julia and Emily

I've been meaning to share this piece of B-town history with you for almost a year. The article from which I'm drawing the facts is Cliff McCarthy and Paul Weigold, "Mysteries of Local History: The murder of Julia Town Warren," The Sentinel, January 3, 2013, page 8.

Julia and Emily were sisters sat next to each other in birth order in the Town family, a family destined for the poor house. By 1855, everyone in town knew it, including the girls themselves. They and two younger sisters had been...