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Two quick reviews for you: Reading Rants weighs in on FORGE and WINTERGIRLS reviewed in Colorado.

How did your writing go yesterday? Mine floooowed. Like creekwater after a thunderstorm. Sugar pouring from a blue china bowl. Like round hips swaying under a loose skirt to a hot salsa trumpet.

Seriously. It was that good. It was hard to come back to the real world and do things like eat. Run. Brush teeth.

As the sun started to set, the Muse returned. Much to the dismay of my chickens, she arrived in the shape…

….of a large, hungry-looking

HAWK!

She watched the very well-protected henhouse for a while

then took to the air

and flowed

back into the Forest.

It was breathtaking. Especially for the chickens, who, I am happy to report, escaped disaster. For the moment.

Ready… “O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,” Henry V, William Shakespeare

Set… make sure any rodents or poultry you care about is under roof. Then turn off the damn phone.

Today’s prompt: Make a list of ten animals that could be your Muse. Circle the one that evokes the strongest reaction in you; positive or negative.

Write a scene in which you or a character has an interaction with this animal. At some point in the scene, the animal does something to change your emotional reaction to it. Either you first find it cute, and then disgusting. Or at first frightening, and then enchanting.

After the emotional switch, you get to ask the animal three questions. What will you ask? And what are the answers?

Scribble… Scribble… Scribble!!!

This was going to be an update about my chickens.



I was going to tell you all about the Chicken Palace.

I was going to point out how the coop itself has two levels. The girls stay in the upper level (it comes complete with nesting boxes and roosts) at night because it is the most protected part of the compound. And how there is a trap door and gangplank that leads from the upper level to the fenced-in terrace level underneath it.

How the terrace leads to the courtyard, where the girls like to sun themselves.

And how the courtyard opens into the roofed playpen, complete with old dog kennel filled with shavings for dust baths, roost made from an old pipe, and feeding stations where we drop off beetles, grubs, worms, and greens in addition to their regular food.

I was going to tell you about all of these things, but then we found these paw prints in the Forest.


So BH baited a Havaheart trap. Lo and behold...

  We found a critter, a young raccoon who had hoped to put chicken on the menu.

Want to see what happens next? Let's go to the video....

A bunch of you have written asking for chicken update pictures. Earlier this week, BH and I took a couple of the girls out to help us weed the flower beds.

They are bug-eating machines.

A man and his chicks.

Along with the garden (we've been eating the first peas this week) and the chickens, we've been busy in the Forest preparing for ALA and this fall's book tour. I'll post my ALA schedule early next week. I'm not sure when I'll have the tour details... certainly by August. I'll be on the road a LOT, so I will probably be showing up wherever you live. If you bring your chickens to my booksigning, I will pet them.

On Monday night, we enjoyed a special book event, courtesy of the river's end bookstore. Author Michael Perry is on tour promoting his new book, COOP, as well as his other titles.

   (His books make EXCELLENT Father's Day gifts, btw - funny and heartfelt.) Michael is a small-town guy, like us, and is interested in encouraging people to buy local and live sustainably. Instead of the standard booksigning, for his event the bookstore took over a new restaurant in Oswego - La Parrilla.


    The restaurant was chosen because of its commitment to buying from local farmers. Guests had to buy tickets ahead of time - cost of book was included in the price of the ticket, as well as dinner.  The event sold out, we all enjoyed a very yummy dinner, and left with sore ribs from laughing so much because Michael Perry is a very funny guy.

Michael is posting on Shelf Awareness every day on his tour. His blog entry about Oswego gives his take on the evening.

   I'll be spending Father's Day with these two guys - my husband and my dad. I am in charge of deviled eggs and potato salad. They are in charge of the beer.

See you on Monday!

Our chickens are two weeks old and all seem very healthy. Incredibly healthy. In fact, I am wondering if our proximity to the nuclear power plant is influencing their stupendous growth rate.

BH has been slowly turning a pile of scrap lumber into the coop, but some recent chicken test flights accelerated the schedule. Below you'll see a video of random clips filmed when we moved the chickens. The dog was very interested in the entire process.

(Note to chicken experts: this is only one part of the cop. Right now it is in our garage. When we move it outside, it will have roosts and a roof and  a fenced-in yard that will be electrified (solar-powered!) to keep out hungry predators.)

If you are in the mood for a fix of fluff and feathers, enjoy.

I've been talking about adding chickens (and goats and pigs and turkeys and ducks and heaven knows what else) to our Forest for a while. BH got jazzed about the challenge of building a safe chicken coop out of scrap lumber and I have been lusting after eggs, and

WARNING!! VEGETARIANS SKIP THE NEXT GRAF!

chicken that I can eat without being afraid of what the critter was fed, or how terribly it was treated during its life.

I stopped talking and took bold action a few weeks ago and ordered 15 Buff Orpington chicks. The post office called this morning; the girls had arrived and were peeping loudly.

So we drove down to pick them up.

This is what they looked like when we opened the box.

Task #1: show them to the watering hole.

They learned the water lesson very well.

  Task #2: eating. They are good at this, too! This is when I counted and found we had been shipped 16 instead of 15 chicks. It is very likely that a few will die of natural causes in the next few weeks, I am told, so the spare will come in handy.

  All that drinking and eating, not to mention the arduous trip courtesy of the US Postal Service, made them tired. Task #3: naptime.

Chicks falling asleep on their feet might just be the cutest thing ever.

Stay tuned for more chicken adventures!

No, I have not dropped off the face of the planet. I've just been a bit busy.

BUT!

You can see me ALL DAY at the Teen Book Festival in Rochester, NY this Saturday.


OR you can read my Book Brahmin interview at Shelf Awareness, in which I answer questions about books.


OR (blushing about this one) you can read this very nice, short piece written about me from the director of the Kalamazoo Public Library.


And if you give me a couple of minutes, I'll show you what Mother's Day looked like in the Forest yesterday.


AND you can enjoy this picture of what Mother's Day looked like in the Forest yesterday.




Truth in advertising: this is a picture from my camp, where we spent the day. It's about 40 minutes away (and 1000 feet higher) than my house. We did get snow at home, too, for about an hour, but the rain washed it all away.

It is snowing outside right now.

No, I'm not kidding.

This is why I haven't transplanted my seedlings yet.

Science geeks: we are making home-brew poison ivy killer with 20-grain vinegar, clove oil, and baby oil. Any of youse tried this @home?

I have many more tips about what to do with ideas (obviously!), but I didn't think you wanted to watch a 15-hour video. Stay tuned here over the next couple of months or subscribe to my Youtube Channel.

Yes, we've had snow every day for weeks and weeks. Yes, there are still several feet of it on the ground. But the farmers down the road have shoveled out their sugar shack which means it's almost time to make maple syrup because the sap is rising. And the last frost date (third week of May up here) is only 11 weeks away!! That means.....

::looks out window at snow-covered tundra::
::raises notion of shoveling off the garden plots to allow the soil to thaw faster::
::Beloved Husband puts head in hands::

Right. That means winter is not going anywhere soon, but it is time to start planning the garden. Last year's garden did OKish, but because of booktours and the deaths of my mom and father-in-law, it was not as well-cared for as I'd hoped.

This year will be different! (Yes, that is the cry of gardeners everywhere this month.)

The focus this year will be on growing and harvesting foods that we can easily preserve to eat in the winter. Part of our "living gently on the earth" philosophy is to become as self-sustaining as possible. That means not depending on potatoes grown in Idaho and shipped across the country when we can easily grow them ourselves. I hope to harvest loads of potatoes, onions, dried beans (for soup and chili), parsnips, carrots and squash that will all keep well. I'm also growing the things that make summer so awesome: tomatoes, lettuce, basil, beans, peas, etc.

I have ordered from three different companies this year: High Mowing, Seed Savers, and Seeds of Change.

Another project this spring (well, when the snow melts, and God knows when that will be) is to propagate my mint, lemon balm, and geranium plants, as well as divide my hostas and daffodils. (Yes, I am lookin at you, Renee Warren, when I say that - I will need your hosta advice!!)

I can blather on at length about gardening, but it causes most of my family to roll their eyes and I don't want to bore you. How interested are you in hearing about my garden?



BOOK NEWS! BOOKS NEWS!

The coolest all-around book awards - The Indies Choice - have been nominated. Why are these so cool? They can only be voted on by independent booksellers. I am rather proud to draw your attention to the "Most Engaging Author" category as well as the "Young Adult Fiction" category.

::preens::

A pre-published YA author named Sarah got herself into a kerfuffle with the main branch of the Orlando Public Library recently. The teen section of the library, called Club Central, is roped off and restricted to patrons aged 13 - 18. Sarah blogged about being challenged and asked to leave the section and then she posted the library's response to her complaint. What do you think about this??

::sounds a fanfare::

Without further ado, I bring you the greatest gift a writer can ever receive:

I pulled most of the onions from the garden last night. Now they are "resting" (drying a bit) on a screen in the garage. Assuming I can figure out how to store them properly so they last through the winter, I am going to plant about ten time as many next year. They were totally maintainence free and I think they helped keep the pests down.

I have also started to pull my cranberry bean plants. They also have to dry in a dark, dry place for several weeks. (These are the kinds of beans you dry and then put into soup or chili in the winter.)

Alas, my tomatoes have been striken by the blight, though not as badly as some folks I know. I think this is because I planted heirloom seedings, not the kind you can buy in big box stores. I am busy roasting them and making salsa. I'm not sure if I have enough to make spaghetti sauce. I might pick up a couple crates of Romas to do that, if I can get all the other chores done. I have to destroy my blighted tomato plants and sterilize the earth they grew in to reduce the chances of having to deal with this next year.

My eggplants are trying. This is a little north to grow them easily, and the cool, rainy summer we had did not help their cause.

My basil is taking over the planet.

In other Forest news, BH almost has the floor done in my cottage. This has been a huge job. We started with 125-year-old floor boards, of various widths and lengths. He had to sand off 125 years of varnish and grime and figure out how to make them fit into the cottage, given that they had no uniformity at all. Now they are all in place. He should finish the final sanding today, then he'll put a couple of coats of clear finish on it. We're still waiting on the roofers to install the slate tiles on the roof.

Because I am so behind on work, we're going to leave a lot of the finishing touches until next year. Right the goal is to get me in there so I can write!!

If you have no harvest to deal with, check out this article about the popularity of YA literature by author Paula Chase-Hyman. Stop by her blog, too.

It is finally cooling off here a bit.

In fact, we have the first sign of winter!



That, in this morning's early light, is the first load of our firewood. It came from land we own in the foothills of the Adirondacks. You might say that we grow our own heat. Once all the wood has been delivered, we'll rent a splitter and spend a couple days splitting and stacking. This year we have two fireplaces to feed; the monster that heats our house, and the soapstone wood stove that will heat the cottage.

Before we split and stack, I need to finish canning peaches and take care of a LOT of garden chores. The goal today is to write for 10 hours and garden for 2.

Gardens are fascinating places.


Ready...

Today's advice: "Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be." Mark Twain


Set...

Today's prompt: Your character finds strange-looking seeds in an unusual place. (Your job, if you choose to accept it, begins with a riveting description of both the seeds and their location.)

Have her plant the seeds. Focus on the action of planting - make it hard, and a vivid description of the setting. Your choice if you want her to be alone of with another person. As soon as the job is complete and she is picking up her tools, the plant explodes from the ground and reaches full-size in seconds. What does it look like? What has she grown?

What happens next?

Extra bonus points: Do not use adverbs. Any of them. If you find yourself reaching for an adverb, pick a stronger verb instead.


Scribble...Scribble....Scribble!

We had a terrific time at last year's carnival so we couldn't wait to go back when it came to town this year. See Jo in that picture above? That was what she looked like the entire night - head thrown back and laughing with glee. I love to see her like that.
The Paratrooper was definitely her favorite - and Alan was a trooper and went on it with her many times. I tried once, hurled almost as soon as I got off, and had to stick to the kiddie rides after that. Must remember to take Dramamine next time. . .Even the bee ride was a little much for me. Why do all these rides have to go around in circles in such a rhythmic way? The kiddie rides do have the best art, though. Look at these beautiful birdies! I love the squiggles that make the feathers on the breast.The super tall and wavy slide was awesome - and since we got there early on a school day there were NO lines and we could go again and again (and again and again) without waiting.Here's Jo on The Hurricane showing Daddy how much fun it is to ride with your hands up in the air. She thought she was showing him something new - cute!Such a daredevil. She asked me if she could ride The Paratrooper all by herself. I made the number one parent mistake of saying, "Oh, I don't know, Jo." She chose to take that literally and scurried over to read the sign, then came back and informed me that she COULD ride it alone. How could I argue with such initiative? So Alan and I watched while our tiny little girl sat in a car all by herself with her feet stuck out perfectly straight in front of her and rode the big ride alone. Oddly, she didn't laugh when she rode alone - she sang. I have no idea what she was singing (and she couldn't remember) but she definitely sang during the entire ride.The carnival looks a lot less seedy at night when the lights come on.One more spin on the carousel and it was time to go.See you next year, carnival!

We got a call around 1 a.m. Sunday morning from our neighbor Carolyn, who lives farther up the mountain. There was a fire at the Unimin Quartz Mine down the hill from us, she said, and we were being ordered to evacuate. I hurriedly woke the girls, we threw together some clothes and some things to do should we be forced to be away from home for more than one night, and hit the road for a motel in Marion, about a half an hour from where we live.

There was nothing online about the fire before we left, but by the time we had gotten to our motel the Asheville Citizen-Times had already posted something:

Residents within four miles of the Unimin plant near Spruce Pine have been ordered to evacuate after a "major fire" broke out at the facility Saturday night.

The fire continued to burn early Sunday morning.

The plant, which mines quartz products, is located about two miles north of Spruce Pine on N.C. 226.

"It's been a major fire," Spruce Pine Mayor Ralph Hise said.

Fire departments from at least four counties, including Avery, Mitchell, Yancey and Burke, have responded to the blaze.

Residents on the Bakersville side of the blaze have been told to evacuate to Bowman Middle School, and emergency operations were still being set up on the south side near Spruce Pine.

Spruce Pine government officials were gathering at town hall at 1:15 a.m. Sunday to determine their response to the evacuation. Downtown Spruce Pine, including the town hall, fall within the four-mile evacuation radius.

Kudos to the Asheville C-T for hopping on this one so quickly.

When we went to the car, the air was thick with smoke and the smell of chemicals--which is, I'm assuming, the real reason for a four-mile-radius evacuation. The scary thing is, if we didn't know Carolyn, our neighbor up the hill, we might never have known. We couldn't even find anything about it on the radio, scanning up and down both the AM and FM dials.

We're safely ensconced in the motel now, and I really should get some sleep. More updates as I get them -

Here are a couple of early morning shots of one my favorites trees, just down the road from my house. I walk or run past it every day.







Happy Autumn.

1. Central New York Literary Event Alert! To celebrate Banned Books Week next week, the Onondaga County Library System is hosting a reception for and presentation by Carolyn Mackler, author of wonderful books like The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, and Vegan Virgin Valentine next Wednesday. BH and I will be there - why don't you join us?

2. Central New York Literary Event Alert #2! I will be speaking about Chains at the B&N Educators' Night on Tuesday, October 14, at 7pm.

3. I love Strange Maps.

4. Thank you to TeensReadToo for a lovely review of Chains. And to KLIATT, too, for the pretty star.

5. I believe that the concept of "gluttony" when applied to eating apples just picked at the farm around the corner is better described as "celebration."

So my mom spent a week in the hospital, but she didn't die. Yay, Mom! Now she's at the "spa" which is what we're calling the facility where she is staying for the next month because "rehab center" doesn't sound right. She's working with physical and occupational therapists every day to regain strength and mobility. The goal is to get her walking again. If ferocity and determination count for anything, she'll make it.

Whew!

I picked more than 50 tomatoes from my garden this morning, which means we'll be eating gazpacho all week. Has anyone tried to freeze gazpacho?

I received the ARC of the British version of CHAINS.

Here's the British cover.


This is the American version.

Opinions?

Not only have I worked on books every single day this year, but I posted to the blog every day in July, too. That's so much blogging, I think it qualifies as blahhhhging. I have no idea how people do this regularly.

I will not be posting as much in August. The new book is whining for more attention and the tomato harvest is beginning to roll in which means I'll be canning. (Yes - photos - I promise!) I welcome any and all salsa and zucchini recipes!

(One food preservation question - has anyone frozen zucchini?)

So blogging will be sporadic this month. Come September I'll revert back to my obsessive ways, I promise. CHAINS will be published on October 21st and there will be lots of tour madness to share.

But now, serenity.

The first sunflower out back just bloomed.



Happy August, all. Good Lammas, too.