scrubjayspeaks

Fendler’s has released new flavors in their popular syrup line, with deep autumn tastes for your beverages, baking, and potion-making. The offerings include Foggy Morning Transformer Hum (creamy, smooth, with a hint of electrical crackle to wake you up but not too much), Where Are All The Cookie Cutters? (a spicy blend with a touch of dust mote, for when you realize you can’t find any of the seasonal baking equipment you packed away last year), and Refundable Tickets (a heady, bittersweet flavor inspired by the moment when you find out your holiday travel plans are canceled and you get to stay home quietly instead). These seasonal flavors sell out early, and last year’s selections have been getting rare even in the robust confection black market, so don’t miss your chance for the true tastes of the season.

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LL#1472

Welcome to the November edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

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Out on the edge of town, where the full moon slowly shed itself sliver by sliver, the boy stood on the hilltop, hands clutched around a carefully tied rucksack and eyes squinted to see in the lampless night. “I packed more of the series you liked best,” he offered shyly, “and they’re all in plastic bags, in case you fly into rain or something, oh, and snacks.” With a few careful adjustments, the sack rested comfortably across the dark and shapeless form of the mothman, out of the way of its healed wings, and its red eyes seemed to glow just a bit brighter with the kindness of the gesture.

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LL#1470

I think we can make it official: I don’t know how to vacation properly. I have ten days off from work. The first eight have been spent absolutely brutalizing my poor body in the name of constructing the new coop and run for Churro.

It went...poorly...for large stretches of the process. My design encountered some technical difficulties. My available equipment, even with the tools I borrowed from my work toolbox, was not entirely suitable to the tasks at hand. And I never want to look at our Skilsaw again on general principle. I will not be running off to start my new life as a carpenter.

Even so, it’s done, it’s solid, it’s safe. And I have two days left to nurse all the nerve irritation in my hands and arms. Yay!

I heard and saw a red-shafted northern flicker for the first time! While we were outside, working on the duck run, I heard an unfamiliar call and spotted it moving here and there between the trees. Apparently, they like to eat ants. We have a robust supply of them here in the yard, the garden, the horse corrals--really anywhere I need to be working… So I am only too happy to have something going after them.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written

Day job: none hours with left beef :3

Cooking: KAF’s brown butter rice crispy treats (it’s a subtle change in flavor, but quite tasty and probably worth the extra steps at least occasionally), their shio pan recipe as well (I like the base dough but that was too much butter even for a recipe designed to have extra butter), brief interlude of discovering that my yeast has gone dead on me, which explains why my last few bakes have had such lackluster rises, the traditional Halloween pizza

Cleaning: cut and painted lumber, built the rest of the run frame, engaged in a desperate two-person barn raising, lined the floor with dirt over the wire, assembled the coop, attached fencing to the frame and drove supporting T posts *collapse*

Gardening: harvested the ripe decorative pumpkins to display for Halloween

Reading: The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente (didn’t realize this volume was read by Sooj, which was delightful, I would have sworn I read this one before, except for the part where I remembered nothing of it and have no record of having done so)

Watching: Sailor Moon Season 1 eps 11-13, the annual Hocus Pocus viewing

Listening: Radio Galaxy by Starcadian (more instrumental tracks than on the last album of his I listened to, need to spend more time with this one)

Other: got the car back from the shop after yet another baffling issue discovery, filled out and returned my ballot, visited our preferred pumpkin patch

It had seemed straightforward enough to the group at that point; the difficulty had been determining how and from exactly where the house was being haunted. Apart from navigating the traps it had set to thwart them, shattering the cursed mirror had been as simple as bringing an ordinary baseball bat and giving it a good, hard swing from what they considered a vaguely safe distance. What they had not considered, as far as the nature of mirrors goes, was that there were now ten thousand of them instead of one--in sparkling fragments on the floor, sticking to their soles, caught in the folds of their clothing, dusted over their very skin--and each one was just as cursed as the whole from which they came.

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LL#1468

With Halloween falling on a Saturday, we expect a larger than usual number of outsiders stumbling into town either in search of a strange experience or while still suffering under the aftereffects of one. We offer no new advice or guidance today: we trust that the town will only put you in situations for which you are the best equipped. Whether you spend this weekend running with the newly lycanthropic or treating a goth to their first properly haunted graveyard stroll, we hope you have fun, make new friends, and get a few of your own strange experiences.

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LL#1466

The attempted evil wizard, well past rage and into gray despair, squashed down yet another batch of enchanted clay and slimy, unsettling additives until nothing remained of the latest half-formed creature. Behind him, his first theoretically evil minion swept up the workshop and tuned out its maker’s ranting. Perfectionism trumped evil ambition, at least in this wizard, and so his world-conquering army of monstrous creations had stalled at one until he could get the next minion to match its elder sibling just right.

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LL#1465

Unfortunately, there have been a number of window strikes by the visiting mothmen at Beacon House, leading to several injuries. Research is being done into the mothman visual system, as the usual anti-strike bird decals do not appear to deter them in any way. For those wishing to contribute to the care of the recovering mothmen, donations are being accepted of comic books, glow-in-the-dark star stickers, and mixtapes to help keep the mothmen entertained while they heal.

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LL#1463

She had seen each time the boy snuck into the clinic, bearing the well-foxed books and toys of a child offering his most beloved things as sacrificial penance, and perched by the nesting area of their newest patient. “It’s a shame so many of them are flying into windows,” she commented, once they had reached the point of not pretending his visits were a secret, and the way he still guiltily migrated back to the same mothman told her as much as she needed to know. “Since you’re here, why don’t you help me serve their dinners,” she suggested, firmly believing that reparations were better than punishment.

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LL#1462

Uhuuhuu~~~ Churro took two (2) whole mealworms from my fingers when I offered them at dinner time. I've been trying to convince him that taking treats from me is a very good idea, and he finally believed me.