Saturday, September 27, 2008

Another Autumn Day...


Another bright September morning. I'm supposed to be writing, but the sunshine in the garden keeps luring me outside. The asters are blooming as always at this time of year, and the bees and I are both enjoying them in our different ways.

Less writing progress this week due to various interruptions, but with luck I'll get another chapter done this weekend. In the meantime, I thought I would start occasionally including random bits from the first two books in this blog. The first sample is from the beginning of "Flight of the Hawk".
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It began on a bright spring evening two days before Beltane. The birds were singing passionately in the new-leafed trees; the cattle were lowing in the green fields outside the court; and I and my girl Rhiannedd were seated on a rough wooden bench close by Cyndrwyn’s mead-hall, passing some moments pleasantly enough until it was time to go inside for dinner. I had my arm around her slender waist, and was just about to kiss her, when we were interrupted by the sound of approaching horses. Into the muddy courtyard there rode three men, and two of them, to my astonishment, were familiar to me. The slight, dark man in the lead, Taliesin Ben Beirdd himself, I would know, I think, at the world’s end—always supposing that he himself wished it!—and his apprentice Neirin mab Dwywei’s dark red hair and lean build were hard to disguise by any light. The third man, a fair-haired youth who rode behind them and led their packhorses, was a stranger to me...
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Back to work now -- or maybe back to the garden!

-GRG

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Nol i'r Cymraeg - Back to Welsh!

Mae'r hydref yma, a mae'r dosbarthiadau Cymraeg yn ail-dechrau yn fuan. Mae'r Colorado Welsh Society (CWS) yn eu cynnig nhw bob blwydden. Eleni bydd tri lefel gyda ni - dechreuwyr, canolradd, ac uwchraddol. Bydd y dosbarthiadau yn dechrau am yr 30ed Medi.

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Autumn is here, and Welsh classes are starting again soon. The Colorado Welsh Society (CWS) holds them every year. This year we will have three levels - beginners, intermediate, and advanced. The classes will start on September 30.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Equinox

We celebrated the equinox with a tomato harvest. A number of the small-tomato type plants -- Isis, Red Pear, Purple Russian, Green Zebra, and two of the Red Zebra / Speckled Romans -- were done for the season, so we picked the usable fruit and cleaned up the beds. The Red Zebra and Striped Roman next to the corn are still carrying a lot of green fruit, so we left them to get on with it. We also picked all the big Hillbillys and Brandywines that were ripe. We had one of those along with corn and squash from the garden for the vegetable part of our celebration feast. And yesterday I canned ten pints of tomatoes! This has been a very gradual autumn in Denver -- still no frost, although it's been close a couple of times -- and we're now having the sort of warm, dry weather that we usually get after all the tomato plants are dead. Don't know how long it will last.

On the writing front, things are still going well: I finished chapter 15 today -- half the projected total -- and started the next. Figures on the sidebar as always.

Happy equinox!

-GRG

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Previews

For those of you who haven't read Storyteller and Flight of the Hawk yet, I thought I would point out that there are limited previews for both books on Google Books as well as the "search inside" previews on amazon. The links are here and here. I don't know what percentage of the text it will let you read, but it should be a good equivalent to flipping through the physical book.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Tomato harvest...


Remember those little tomato seedlings in the cold frame last spring? Most of them did rather well -- especially the Hillbillys. I've canned 9 pints already and will be doing more this weekend, when we celebrate the Equinox with some garden harvesting activity.

And I've got 3 pages written so far of Chapter 15.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

More harvest...


I've been eating some of my multi-colored corn as sweet corn this year. As long as the colors are pale, as in the picture, it's still good that way. The old ear beside it (from last year) shows the sort of colors the mature corn develops.

On the writing front, I've finally finished infamous chapter 14 and know where I'm going with the next few -- progress at last! Yay! Updated statistics are on the sidebar.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Harvest month is here


Only three apples this year. I think it's a pollination problem, so I've planted another variety nearby. Maybe next year I'll have enough for a pie!

On the writing front, things have finally got unstuck, and I hope to be finishing chapter 14 soon.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Free and Inexpensive

Just a reminder that my two poetry collections, Guernen Sang It and Guernen Sang Again, are free to download (and share) on my Lulu page. Also, pdf versions of Storyteller and Flight of the Hawk are available there inexpensively for those needing a budget solution. Finally, I will provide pdf copies of Storyteller free to anyone interested in writing an on-line review.