I’ve just turned the PHOENIX revisions in. Matrice said she’d trade me COYOTE notes for the PHOENIX revisions at the end of this week.
There is a scene in FARMER’S BOY, the Laura Ingalls Wilder novel about Almanzo, her husband’s, childhood, which I keep thinking of.
It’s sheep-shearing season in this scene, and Almanzo is too little to help shear. His job is to run the bundled wool up the ladder into the barn’s loft while his father and–uncle, or brother; I forget which–do the shearing. He’s working as hard as he can, running up and down as fast as he can, but they’re faster at shearing than he is at bundling and carrying the wool, and they keep teasing him about it. Eventually it’s lunchtime, and they go to lunch while Almanzo has to finish carrying the wool they’ve done upstairs.
While he’s at it, he hauls a sheep up there, too.
Then he, too, goes to lunch, and the afternoon is spent doing exactly the same thing: Almanzo running his legs off while he’s teased mercilessly about falling behind. At the end of the day, they’ve sheared all the sheep, and are crowing over having outpaced Almanzo, who turns to *them* in triumph and says, “No! I’ve got a fleece upstairs you haven’t shorn yet!”
Turning PHOENIX in before I’ve gotten the COYOTE revisions feels distinctly as if I’ve got an unshorn fleece upstairs, and have every right to dance triumphantly. :)
I’m going to go slather myself in sunblock and see if I can find the riding school now. In theory it’s about a 3 mile walk and fairly straightforward to find, but the Irish don’t believe in road signs, which may make it an adventure. OTOH, it’s an island. I can’t get *that* lost. :)
“it’s an island. I can’t get *that* lost. :)”
For some reason the first thing that popped into my head was the end of Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade
“Got lost in his own museum, eh?”
Perhaps it was because I had just read Jo’s Sean Connery comment in Thunderbird Falls last night.
There is a scene in FARMER’S BOY, the Laura Ingalls Wilder novel about Almanzo, her husband’s, childhood, which I keep thinking of.
I love that book.
I think that was my first introduction to food porn. ;)
(And 15 years later, prompted me to find and keep a recipe for bird’s nest pudding, which is loving described by the author).
Go Kit! And I hope you don’t get lost and see this. ;)
I do too! *laugh* And while I hadn’t thought of it as food porn, it *really* *is*. It must’ve been *many* of our first experiences with food porn. :)
Ooh. What’s bird’s nest pudding like?
Fortunately, I did not get lost, and got to see this! :)
And while I hadn’t thought of it as food porn, it *really* *is*. It must’ve been *many* of our first experiences with food porn. :)
It *was*. :) I re-read the books in the last 2 years, and as an adult, I can look at it and think maybe it also contributed to my bad eating habits. He ate an ungodly amount of food per meal! (And at 7 years of age, you don’t think about the amount of calories he’s burning working on the farm :).
Ooh. What’s bird’s nest pudding like?
OMG, it’s to die for. I’ll post the recipe later?
It’s a very thin flour batter mixed with stiffly whipped egg whites flavored with maple flavoring, poured into a baking dish around cored, peeled apples stuffed with all kinds of good stuff (like cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar) that is then baked. The batter puffs up and browns into a fluffy, cloud-like almost-meringue around the apples, which get all soft and squishy in the oven. It’s then served with sweetened nutmeg-spiked heavy cream.
Wilder’s description of pouring the speckled cream over the apple-and-batter “bird’s nest” and the cream curling together with the brown syrup of the baked apples and brown sugar at the bottom of the plate is an image that’s stuck with me for nearly 30 years now. Mmmmmm.
With the fleece story being in my head recently I was thinking I needed to re-read those. I don’t think I’ve read them since high school. But I remember HOW MUCH FOOD they ate! And yeah, as a kid you don’t think about 12 hours of hard physical labor and the calories you burn, you just think YUM!
OMG. That sounds *insanely* good. (My brother in law’s allergic to chocolate but loves apples, so I’m going to have to make it for
ushim. ) *Please* post the recipe! Wow. *Wow* that sounds good. *swoon*!That unshorn fleece scene is just fantastic.
Is there any chance of another Jo Walker book being out before I have to go back to school in September? It’s finals season, so I’ve finally started Thunderbird Falls, and once school starts again, I will have No Time until who-knows-when…
*beam*
At this point, it will need to be sometime over the weekend, but I will definitely do so!
No chance at all. :) The next Walker Papers will be out around May-ish 2007, so, y’know, hey, maybe school will be out again before you get it! :)
My, my book release schedule just doesn’t work with your school schedule at all. :) The only summer release I know about for sure is this week’s release, FIREBIRD DECEPTION. Everything else for the rest of like forever (at least all the Murphy books; I don’t know about the Dermody release schedule) are fall-winter-spring releases.
And, of course, if I buy them when they come out, I’ll be really tempted to read them instead of, you know, grading…
“OTOH, it’s an island. I can’t get *that* lost.”
Be careful what you say about such things in Ireland, or the faeries will come and snatch you away, just to prove to you how lost you can BE on an island. ;)
For the record, I’ve been loster than I ever was before or since in Ireland. The day that I accidentally walked 25 miles, part of it in a hail storm, was there and was due to thinking, “It’s an island and I have a map. How lost can I get?”