Susan Dexter's Blog, page 4

Dyeing With Orange Peels

Collect Peels. I used Aldie’s “Mandies”. Mandarin oranges are full of Vitamin C and easy to peel. You can also use any orange or lemon peel. Save them in a gallon zip bag. You can keep them in the freezer till you have enough to play with. Three bags of “Mandie” peels made a nice dye.

Put the peels in a saucepan, add water and simmer a couple of hours. I used an old enamelware pan which is NOT food-safe, and that’s why I use it for dyeing. In general, you should never dye anything in pans you cook food in. (Also, it is white, so I can judge the color of the dye more easily. This little pan is great for sampling dyes.) This dye is non-toxic, though, so you can use any pan. You can even use a big pot and lots of water. It will make your house smell great! Don’t let it boil dry.

Now, put the wool you want to dye (I used a “Bundle of Fluff”: Romney sheep’s wool roving from Three Sheep Gallery and Workshop) in a quart of water with a cup of white vinegar in it.  Let it soak for an hour or so, then gently drain it. (You can put baking soda down the drain and follow with the vinegar water. Keep your drain clean!)

Carefully strain the peels out of your dye. Remember, don’t pour the dyebath down the drain! I took the peels right out of the dye, squeezed them to get every last drop—this will not stain your skin, but Black Walnut will—and put the saucepan back on the stove. Put your soaked, drained wool into the saucepan, and bring it to a simmer.

Don’t stir. Stirring wet, hot wool is a wonderful way to make felt. Felting is lots of fun, but do it on purpose, not while you are dyeing. After a couple of hours of simmering, turn off the heat and let the pot cool. Let all the dye attach to the wool. (The vinegar in the soak helps the dye do that.

When the dyebath was cool, I took the roving out, rinsed it in cool water and let it dry. I combed some on my wool combs, and spun it into yarn on my drop spindle. You can see all of them in one photo—original roving, dyed roving, combed wool spun into a single yarn on the spindle. I love the color—I would call it “saffron”.

I made two balls of the yarn, and spun them together to make a double-ply yarn. Cool yarn from what would otherwise be thrown away!
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If you don’t spin, you can still dye—find an old, light-colored wool sweater or some wool yarn and have fun!

Britain's Greatest Murder Mystery Solved?

​That’s the headline. (And this is pre-Oprah interview, so still a slow news day.) So, what’s the greatest Murder Mystery? Jack the Ripper? Princess Di? The Earl of Leicester’s wife?
But noooooo…it’s the Princes in the Tower, and Richard III did it. Of course he did. Because the not-yet-sainted Thomas More resided in the same town as the children of one of the confessed murderers. Case solved, after 538 years.
Not that we have a body. Those bones found in the Tower? For all we know, they belong to two girls who died in Roman times. Forensics in the 1700s were primitive. And I struggle to believe that someone dug under a stone stairway in a royal palace/fortress, buried not one but two bodies—and no one noticed! It’s not  impossible that the burials predate the stairs, and the Tower of London itself.
You should know that I’m a Ricardian—used to be a regular contributor to the Ricardian Register , the newsletter of the American Branch of the Richard III Society. I provided art for them, back in the days before desktop publishing made printing photos possible. I am more than familiar with the world of Ricardian fiction—I even added to it when I wrote The Wizard’s Shadow .
So, I know that novelists have been solving the murder of the Princes in the Tower for well over a hundred  years. The chosen suspects include: the Duke of Buckingham, Richard’s cousin; Cecily Neville, Richard’s mother and grandmother of the Princes; Anne Neville, Richard’s Queen; Dr. John Argentine, who made them vampires; disease; unfortunate accident.
Or, not dead at all: sent into protective custody; entered religious life; fled into exile at the court of Margaret of Burgundy, Richard’s sister and their aunt.
So, let’s not pretend the mystery is solved. Such early days, for that. And as I list out the suspects, there’s one I don’t recall anyone using: the Princess Elizabeth, future wife of Henry VII and future mother of Henry VIII. Firstborn of Edward IV, heir presumptive for years, as sister after sister was born. Until her brothers are born, she is a precious possession of the crown. Eldest child of the King of England. A valuable chip in a high-stakes game. Without her brothers, she’s Queen, whether she marries Richard (as was rumored); marries Henry Tudor (as happened); or in her own right (if Richard and Henry had both died at Bosworth).
Richard took the throne—at Parliament’s request—after his brother’s children were declared illegitimate. If the Princes were alive when Richard died on Bosworth Field, then how could Henry Tudor bolster his shaky claim to the throne by marrying the Princess Elizabeth? If she’s legitimate, then they’re legitimate. So Henry’s a suspect.
England’s Greatest Murder Mystery Solved? It’s been solved dozens of times, I think. And that’s as close as we’re going to get, until someone invents a really good Time Machine.

Flock to the Fair

I am honored to announce that my Flock to the Fair design, "Agri-Cultural", has been chosen by a sponsor. Thanks, Farmer's National Bank! Thanks, Canfield Fair Marketing, for coming up with such a fun project. I can't wait to get started! Now is when those photos I have taken at the Canfield Fair year after year come in handy. The rooster will be covered with all things "Farm". The base will be covered with Ohio produce, giant pumpkins to raspberries to corn and soybeans. Fruits, vegetables and grains on the base.

The Dragon Challenge

Dragon Challenge:
This little Lusterware saucer—less than 4” in diameter—is a souvenir of Niagara Falls. It is also Moriage (slip decorated) Japanese Dragonware. I think I paid ten cents for it, because it was purple, and because all I could think when I looked at it was: what a cool title for a short story—“The Dragon of Niagara Falls”.
All entries remain under copyright to their authors.

The Challengers:
                                                      Blue Eyes —Cathy Seckman
   The moriage dragon lives in a purple lusterware sea, and he has blue eyes—very unusual for a white dragon. From the time he was old enough to notice the blue eyes, he’d blamed his mother for them.
   “YOUR eyes aren’t blue,” he’d complained often and loudly. “You just HAD to fall in love with that blue-eyed freak, and now I’m a freak, too. Didn’t you even THINK?”
   Mama had puffed an irritated burst of smoke at him on this particular occasion. “What I think right now, Son, is that I’ve heard this complaint one too many times. You’re 75 now, almost an adult, and maybe it’s time you started acting like one.”
   “What the blessed blue flame does that mean?” Now Son was irritated.
   “It means that I think it’s time you went to have a talk with your father, the blue-eyed freak.”
   “Talk?!?!” Son nearly fell of his ledge. “What? You want me to talk to my father? Wait a minute!” he roared. The roar was actually quite good, for a 75-year-old.
   “Are you saying you actually know where he is? You do, don’t you? Don’t you???” Now the roar filled their cavern. It shook pebbles from the walls, and dislodged an old bone from a shelf at the back. Mama was impressed. 
   “Yes,” she nodded. “Of course I know where he is.” She preened a little, smoothing a few ruffled scales on her glittering tail. “But never mind that. Tomorrow morning you’ll fly south across the Lusterware Sea, and when you see the Pointed Rock, follow it east. In two days you’ll come to Dragon’s Mount – you’ll know it when you see it. Your father lives on the highest level of the west face.”
                                                                                #
   wo days’ flying was a long way for such a young dragon. Son was flapping heavily by the time he sighted Dragon’s Mount, dropping low to the ground and struggling to keep level. He was slammed into an unexpected somersault when a guard dive-bombed him from above and crashed into his shoulder.

   After a few embarrassingly long seconds of floundering, he righted himself, flapping frantically. Ahead of him a young female hovered. Son wished he could hover like that.
   “Identify yourself!” To show she meant business, the guard shot a jet of flame that missed his nose by inches.
   “S-S-Son of Wind Catcher,” he managed.
   The guard snorted. “Wind Catcher’s our leader, you idiot. And he doesn’t have any sons. Follow me.”
   She wheeled on one wing and shot off. Not knowing what else to do, he followed.
   Wind Catcher, unlike the guard, was happy to see him. “I greet you, Son,” he boomed.      “Last time I saw your mother, she told me I’d be seeing you soon. She said you’d have a question for me.”
   Son was too busy goggling to catch that last bit. He was in an ornate cavern, the biggest he’d ever seen, at the top of Dragon’s Mount. At least two dozen dragons filled the hall. Every single one of them, as far as he could tell, had blue eyes.
   Huh.
   “Well?” Wind Catcher boomed.
   “Well – ah – well what? Um. Papa?”
   “You have a question for me, don’t you? What is it?”
   Son all but melted into the floor of the cavern. He felt like a 50-year-old. He sounded like one, too. He groveled, darting frightened glances around the sea of blue eyes. How could he – What could he --?
   The young guard stood four-square beside his father, judging him, finding him wanting. Her pitying stare made him want to be better. It made him want to amaze her. So he straightened up.
   He knew how impressive his wingspan was. It was the best thing he’d inherited from his mother, and he had just enough wits left to use it. In a sudden movement he flared his wings up and out as far as he could stretch them. Two immature dragons had to scramble out of the way. He felt his left wingtip brush a low spot in the cavern roof. Iridescent greens and yellows and golds flashed in a beam of sunlight from the mouth of the hall. A collective “Ahhhh!” issued from the crowd. Son held his head high.
   “I came to my father,” he said, “wanting to know why my eyes are blue. It’s unheard of among my pride.” He turned slowly, meeting a hundred pairs of eyes with boldness. “Now that I’m here – I know. And I’m proud.”
   The sound started as a rustle, wing against wing, then quickly grew to a thunder of susurration. He felt the approval of his father’s pride.
   His father stepped forward, his own wings flaring. “Welcome,” he said, “Fierce Eyes.”
                                                               The End
 
 
                              The Dragon of Niagara Falls —Susan Dexter
   Heliotrope laired in a grotto beneath Niagara Falls, bathed in lavender twilight, where water fell past like endless rain. In a damp hollow in the bedrock, she kept a pearl like the moon, wrought by the tumbling waters of the falls, rounding a lump of quartz smooth as cream and white as snow new-fallen.
   When she slept, lulled by water-thunder, the smoke escaping from her nostrils blended with the mist of the falls. She was not old, but she was older than the dragon of Angel Falls. She was not young, but she was younger than the dragon of Victoria Falls, for that was her mother.
   Heliotrope slept, unaware that, not far away as a dragon flies, plans were being made to divert the Niagara River, stop the flow of water over the American Falls, and explore the talus heap beneath the falls.
The End? Oh, Noooo…

Belated Valentine

At the end of The Ring of Allaire, Tristan invites Elisena to share his cottage. But then things get in the way…who she is, who he is…and all that. After The Mountains of Channadran, the moment comes at last:
 
    Crogen’s greatest hall, supplied with trestles, was more than adequate to contain reunited friends, the castle’s garrison, and every other soul calling Crogen home, whether in the short run or the long. It was convenient, to tell their tale once for all. It was pleasant, to dine on hot food, sip wine, listen to bards and fiddles, to watch Kitri dance. To accept congratulations and catch up with old friends. The hall was a bustle of light and color, motion and music and chatter. It was all…
    Too much. Too busy, too loud, too many questions, too many things warring for attention.
   Halfway through the next ballad, Tristan slipped quietly out the door that lead to the kitchens. He collected a loaf of bread, a few sticks of firewood, a sack of apples—and a flagon of cider. He climbed the spiral stair up the tower he and Elisena had chosen for home.
                                                                              #
    The fire was lit already. Elisena had the kettle hanging over it, just beginning to sing a soft, silver sound.
    “I wondered what happened to the magewood,” Tristan said, setting the kindling down out of the way. “I clean lost track of whose pack it was in.”
     “Cup of tea?” Elisena asked.
     “My plan was to come up here, light the fire, then fetch you away from the feast. Only you must have got tired of it as fast as I did.” He set the loaf of bread down, and the cider, then sat himself down on their bed.
    “It was quiet, in Channadran,” Elisena said, putting the mug of tea into his hands. “Now everything seems…too much. It’s delightful, but—”
     “I know.” He sipped, and sighed. “How did you know? All that feasting, and I was just longing for a cup of tea.”
     She settled beside him with her own mug.           
    “I was thinking…after we send Polassar and Allaire home to Lassair, or throw them out, or convince them that they need to put Polassar’s castle to rights—I’d like to go to the cottage for a few days. Would you like that?”
     Elisena’s eyes shone, silver as the teakettle. “Yes, please! You asked me to share it with you, but I’ve never stepped foot there.”
     “Well, things…got in the way. Ending winter. Saving the world…”
                                                                         #
    The cottage door opened as they set foot on the threshold, and Elisena caught her breath. Every shelf, the mantel, the table, the edges of the hearth, all were covered with thousands of tiny white sea-pebbles, and each pebble was softly glowing. She looked sidelong at Tristan, who was watching her with what was surely anxiety. From outside the cottage, there had been no sign of the magic, only a single wax candle set in the window to welcome them in an ordinary way.
   The stones began to twinkle, pulsing on and off in a rapid rhythm. A rhythm like a fast-beating heart. Elisena smiled. The blinking steadied as she caught Tristan’s hand… 

Writing Exercises

We threw these “story-starters” out at one of our Writers Group Panera meetings, back when we had those: “You look out a window and a face is looking back at you”; “I had a dream last night about”; “You come home to find the front door is unlocked”; “You come upon a dragon”. So here’s mine:

I came upon a dragon. Just walked down the hallway, and there he was at the bottom. He had eyes like a cat’s, and his belly scales were jewels. He was flying over a castle, but he didn’t seem to be threatening it, because none of the castle folk were crying out, and none of the other people in the hallway seemed too concerned. They just went on looking at the quilts or heading down the hallway toward the rest rooms.
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Maybe the dragon was plotting to fly out of his quilt and soar around the corner to snatch the big sheep out of the Ireland art quilt. That sheep looked nice and plump, and he was just lying there, near the edge of the quilt, and the Border Collie was far, far away, keeping the rest of the flock together.

Telling Stories

April 13, 2018—A Community Lecture Series Event: Tolkien and the Function of Fantasy—Holly Ordway, PhD.

The acknowledgment that Fantasy has a function was empowering. There’s a subtle vibe that writing about wizards and witches might not be a positive contribution to the world. This lecture said that there is. And it emphasized the importance of Storytelling, a defense against the notion that “telling stories” always and only equals lying and the bias that a writer “just makes things up” makes a story less true.

And I learned a new word: EUCATASTROPHE.

It has its own Wikipedia Page. It’s the technical term for something every reader has surely experienced: the unexpected happy ending when doom seemed certain. Tolkien coined the word Eucatastrophe, and it appears in his On Fairy-Stories.

Tolkien coined the name, and he makes use of eucatastrophe in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but he didn’t invent it. It’s found in Fairy Tales and Fairy Stories—the illustration on the Wikipedia page shows the Prince in Sleeping Beauty emerging from the lethal ring of thorns and about to wake the Princess after 100 years. Says it “needs citation”, but it’s dead-on. Tolkien calls the Incarnation of Christ the eucatastrophe of human history—and the Resurrection the eucatastrophe of the Incarnation.

At the end of The Return of the King, all certainly seems lost. Despite an alliance of Men, Elves and Dwarves, despite enchanted swords and rings of power, it seems impossible that Sauron can be defeated. Anyone who touches the One Ring is corrupted by it. Frodo can’t bear to destroy the Ring. Gollum doesn’t want to destroy the Ring. And yet…

One of the functions of Fantasy is Consolation. Consolation after sorrow. Reversal of tragedy. And a eucatastrophe is always a consolation. We have a need for that consolation, and we turn to storytellers in quest of it.

That’s never to say writers have to obsess about including eucatastrophes in their work. Eucatastrophe is more of an academic term for the use of literary critics—like theme, trope, allegory. Writers shouldn’t worry about including any of those things in their stories. Chances are, if the story needs it, it’s probably in there!

Writers should tell their stories—that’s the writer’s job, after all!

Pandemic Viewing

​Feeling trapped by winter weather, snow added to the restrictions of the pandemic, looking for something to watch—oh yes, Dunkirk!
What was I thinking? Sure, I knew the story—but everyone in this movie is trapped, sooner or later: 400,000 men trapped on the beach, waiting for transports that can at best handle 30,000 of them.  French troops who are not going to be taken aboard British Navy ships, because they are trapped in their own country. Trapped below decks on the ship you were lucky enough to get aboard— when the Stukas bomb it. Trapped in the water under a flaming pool of oil after the ship goes down. Trapped in holds, under piers, on an open beach, inside a beached ship waiting desperately for the tide to float it free. RAF pilots trapped in the cockpits of downed—and sinking—Spitfires.
And then…the cavalry arrived, the fleet of tiny private boats, yachts and coasters and coal haulers and tugs and basically anything that would float, coming across the English Channel to ferry the British Army back home.
Cavalry to the rescue—familiar. Always heartening. But this—it’s as if the Rohirrim arrived at the siege of Minas Tirith on Shetland ponies. (And this is not to diss ponies—I just watched a video of a team of Shetland stallions being used for logging—hauling huge trees out of the woods!) Tiny, brave, strong ponies. It’s Ewoks tacking on Stormtroopers.
So, whatever possessed me…Dunkirk was a good choice. It’s good to remember that people have—and continue to—rise to occasions, even the most unlikely.

My Perspective on Books for Children

​Top 10 Books Child Psychologists recommend for Children:
Big surprise here, not a one I have read, read as a child, or would EVER read. It’s just an ad. I will not disparage it. But it got me thinking about what I DID read, growing up.

We had Little Golden Books. My mom read them to us. Still remember them, even to the illustrations on the pages. Not just the covers. Four Puppies—and they’re collies!

At Grandma and Grandpa’s house, there were the books my mother grew up with—Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, Little Prudie, Black Beauty. An oversized picture book of Lad, A Dog. (Collies again!)

HOW and WHY Wonder Books: Excellent, vivid non-fiction books. I think we had Rocks and Minerals. Probably others. Maybe Dinosaurs. We had a Home Encyclopedia too—I think that came one volume at a time from the grocery store.

The Montgomery Ward Catalogue had Horse Books! Snowman, Walter Farley, Marguerite Henry, A Treasury of Horses, Misty of Chincoteague. Mom ordered them for me for Christmas presents. I still have every one.

The public Library had a WHOLE SHELVING UNIT dedicated to Horse Books, in the Junior Department. King of the Wind, The Black Stallion series, dozens of books illustrated by Paul Brown. I judged books very sternly by the quality of their illustrations, and whether they did the horses well. When I discovered that books in the Adult Section were most likely NOT illustrated, I was devastated. The Junior Department was best—and you know, THAT’S where they put the Folklore. The real, messy stuff. Also most—but not ALL—of The Lord of the Rings.

And we had comics! Zorro, Classics Illustrated, Gold Key.

Schools had libraries too. Time to go there varied, and we were supposed to be picking out books for BOOK REPORTS. “No, you can’t read Johnny Tremayne. That’s a boy’s book. No, you already did a book report on a Horse Book. Why don’t you read something else?” (So I read a Dog Book--The Greene Poodles! The poodles were not green.) (Junior High, they made us read biographies. Wish someone had told me that Lytton Strachey’s Queen Victoria was more satirical than factual.)

School Libraries were a nice source of junior biographies—I read Clara Barton and Amelia Earhart and Carl Ben Eielson, Will Rodgers and Thomas Alva Edison—c’mon, the boys were not going to check them out unless they were forced to, they were quick reads about interesting people—and since it was not for a Book Report, no worries about “boy’s books” being read by a girl. I learned a ton. And I still remember those books.

I read books my mom had at home--Anna and the King of Siam. Then, Mom rejoined the Doubleday Book Club. I read Gone With the Wind, and fell under The Spell of Mary Stewart. Alfred Hitchcock Stories that Scared Even Me. 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Crystal Cave.

Had there been a HOW and WHY Book on Writers, this is what would have been in it!

Practice What You Preach

I have just celebrated Small Business Saturday at the US Post Office--Christmas stamps!; The Apple Castle...apples, sugar free jams, hand-made peanut butter, an Apple Dumpling, Nutcracker Tea and Honees Honey Drops! Jameson's Candy...dark chocolate in ever so many forms!

Masked and social distanced every step of the way!

At some point today I may start making some yarn. Just because I am used to spinning for hours and hours on Small Business Saturday and the Sunday following, at Lanterman's Mill in Youngstown. You can still hike there--and it's a lovely day--but the Mill is closed until spring. The artisans demonstrating at the Mill the weekend after Thanksgiving marked the final times the Mill would be open for the season, and it was a holiday tradition for families all over the Mahoning Valley for the past 25 years.

Here's to next year!