The Great Huntress Strikes Again

Well, once again, Eler Beth got a deer on the first day of gun season. She called me a bit after 10 this morning to tell me she'd gotten a doe. She describes it here much better than I could. Thomas didn't even see anything today, but Lee, the other member of their hunting team, got a buck. Thomas usually has Eler Beth placed where if anything is going to come by, she's going to get the first shot at it. She hit it just under the shoulder blades, which is what she was taught to do, so it took out one lung and the heart.

(Sorry, if you're not into hunting. We do fill our, and friends and family's, freezers with deer meat, and I don't even buy beef anymore; haven't for years. It's leaner, healthier, and tastier than anything you buy at the grocery. I respect the feelings and opinions of anyone who is against hunting, and only ask that you respect mine as well. We are a hunting, meat-eating family, and that's all there is to it.)

The doe field-dressed at about 175 lbs., so that was a pretty good-sized deer. Right before Thomas and Eler Beth got home a guy we know called to see if Thomas had gotten anything. I knew as soon as I saw who was calling that he must've gotten something, otherwise he wouldn't be calling. He's only been hunting for a few years now, and he is really jealous of Thomas' hunting record. So when he calls during deer season, it's sort of a tallying-up for him.

I answered the phone and answered him that no, as far as I knew Thomas hadn't got anything today, but Eler Beth got a big doe this morning. He said something along the lines of, "Eler Beth must be grinning from ear to ear that she got something and her dad didn't." Well, that really irritated me a lot, because neither Thomas nor Eler Beth thinks like that. Thomas will go out of his way and sacrifice a shot if he thinks Eler Beth can get it, and Eler Beth just loves venison, so as long as the freezer is full, Thomas could get them all, and although she'd be a bit disappointed that she hadn't got one, she wouldn't begrudge her dad getting one.

So I said, "Oh it doesn't even matter. She always gets at least two, and Thomas always gets at least three or four, so it doesn't even matter who gets what or when." And he knows that's true. He's irritating in general, so I shouldn't even let it get to me.

Both my hunters are out cold right now. They came in and put away their gear, I fried up some loin, they ate, and then they went right to sleep. Thomas will be back out there tomorrow, but Eler Beth is taking tomorrow off. She has earned it. Oh yes, I asked her if she'd called or texted Heather (her new best friend), and she said, "Yeah, I texted her right after I called you. We texted for a while." I love that visual of her in her camouflage 15 feet up in a tree, texting!

They forgot to take a camera, but she got a few pics with her cell phone, and then on their way to check in the deer they bought one of those one time use cameras. So as soon as I get the pics developed, I'll post one or two.

Okay, so that's it for now. Better than yesterday's post, right?

One Minute

OMG I have one minute to make today's post!!!

Edited after publishing with one minute to spare: Phew! Just made it. And the sad thing is, this is probably the best post I've made all week!

Reference Sources

I thought I would spend a few blog posts writing about some of the reference books I own and use when I'm writing. One of them is The Oxford Companion to Food, published by Oxford University Press.

This is a heavy tome, compiled by Alan Davidson and published in 1999. I own an ex-library copy, in excellent shape, with dust jacket. I believe I bought it off eBay. There are newer editions, but mine is 1999.

In some of the books I read, and in some of the things I write, I come across or want to include food or dishes that fit the time period I'm reading or writing about, but that are fairly foreign to the modern cook. And that is where this book comes in handy.

For example, recently a heroine in India during the Napoleonic Wars was eating aubergine out of a tin. To make sure I knew what aubergine was I looked it up in my handy dandy book, and sure enough, there it was. Aubergine is simply an eggplant, and it originated in India. There are two whole columns devoted to the aubergine, discussing the origin of its two names, and how it came to be used widely in Europe, where it was at first considered deadly and was only used as an ornamental plant. Very interesting.

Sometimes I just pick up this book and begin reading. There are some unusual items in there that have been, if they are no longer, considered food. One example is Aardvark. I'll save that for another post.

A while back I did a post on the poke plant, and I found a wonderful entry in this book on that plant.

I'll discuss this book more in the future, and also some of my other reference sources.

My Sister Conspirator

I got a letter today (snail mail) from Barbara, my sister who is closest to me in age and in mind. Barbara is the writer/artist/musician, the one with the genius IQ, the one I used to be as scared of as I was champion of when I was very little, the one whose mind I greatly admire.

Her letter came at a very good time. I was needing some inspiration for my scribbling. I wish I could write here exactly what she sent me, but I'm worried she might not like that. Suffice it to say that, without knowing that I was needing a writing prompt, she sent me one. She had made a typo that, to quote her, "looked oddly significant and pregnant with hidden meaning, and in a moment of unguarded contemplation, took on a life of its own." So she took those three words containing the typo and repeatedly used them as the beginning of some verses of haiku. I think she sent me about eight examples. They were brilliant and very funny. She closed her letter with, "This could easily go on forever, and I dread the onset of the limerick. Maybe I can pass it on, like a fever. Share the wealth!"

So she wants me to put my hand to it to see what I can come up with, and it will make a very good writing exercise. Maybe it will shake some cobwebs loose. And if I get permission from her, I will share this interesting little writing prompt with you, too.

I have gotten interesting things from Barb in the mail before: poems, drawings, clippings from the local paper, full of hilarious typos, bad grammar, and worse syntax. When I first got married, I got a letter from her with a post script in Latin. She was brushing up on her Latin, she said, and she wanted me to see if I could translate it and then send her one to translate. This went on for some time. I'm not sure my brain could handle trying to do that now.

Before I got married it wasn't unusual for me to go into my room and find that she'd left me a poem or drawing somewhere, sometimes written or drawn right on my mirror. And I have home made greeting cards from her with original drawing and verse, quite often written with just me in mind.

When I first started writing I would run ideas by her or read her bits of prose to get her opinion, and she's had me edit work for her. We even collaborated on a project once. When she was oversees she'd send me lyrics and ask me to put music to them, or she'd have me go to her house to hunt up a specific notebook, to find a particular piece of writing in that notebook and send it to her so she could work on it further.

Well, anyway, I just thought it was neat that I got that letter today of all days. Here we are well into the second week of NaNoWriMo, and my characters have stopped cooperating with me. I tell them to do one thing, and they stick their tongues out at me and do the opposite. I give them some decent dialog, and they stick their feet in their mouths so that their words come out sounding stilted and jumbley. The plot holes that I had foreseen have gone from the size of cherry pits to coal pits. But all will be well. I'll get back in the groove. I'm a fourth of the way done, and once today's word count is finished will hopefully be a third done. (Of course the point of NaNoWriMo is to just write, write, write, even if it's bad. You're not supposed to edit yourself -- that's for December. But it's hard to write, write, write, when your brain is saying, "well, that's just stupid" or "that sounds terrible!")

When this happens it is often good to break away from the project for a bit and write something completely different. Sometimes it helps to do some timed writing prompts. And just when I was getting ready to do this -- as I was going through my bookmarks to find a couple of sites I like to use for this purpose -- as I was turning my mind away from my novel and getting ready to re-focus -- the mail came.

And when I saw her name on the envelope I smiled because I knew that whatever was in there, it was going to be good, it was going to make me laugh-out-loud, and it was going to be the push I needed.

Thank you Weird Egg!

Prodigal Daughter

Yay! My girl is home tonight!!

She had a wonderful time with her new best friend, Heather. They went four-wheeling, went to see Mega Mind, and I don't know what all. They have so much in common, and I'm glad they're friends!

I'm not feeling very well today, so I'm not even going to try to make much of a post. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to post tomorrow. I need to catch up with reading blogs anyway. I caught up a few yesterday.

So, that's it for now. Hope everyone is doing well.

The White Faced Owl

I thought this article about The Contortionist Owl was very interesting, so I'm just going to link to it today. It's just too late, and I'm too tired to do a proper entry right now.

Empty

I have nothing to write about. :(

No inspiration. :(

Had a great day, though. Andrew is in Ohio, and Eler Beth is spending a few days with her new best friend, Heather. They went four-wheeling this afternoon and apparently had a blast. I don't know any details because so far I have only had a short text from her -- short texts mean someone is having a great time. lol I expect she'll call or text to tell me goodnight. I'm so glad she's enjoying herself, though.

Guess that's it for today!