• Home
  • Blog
  • Me. Me. Me.
  • Publications
  • That 1st Novel
  • More!
  • Contact
AMY SMITH LINTON

The Would-Be Farm: Rock the Steps

10/31/2021

4 Comments

 
What might  the principal exports of the Would-Be Farm be?

Apples? Rhubarb? Wild turkey? Hickory nuts? Cherry tomatoes? Okay, we have done pretty well with the garden but truth be told, our most reliable products are burdocks, porcupines, and rocks.

Haven't found much use for burdocks and porcupines, but rocks --

I only meant it to be a couple of strategically placed stepping stones.

Instead, as rock-moving projects in my world tend to do, the idea morphed and grew.


Picture
We built the cabin on the side of a hill, on piers (or stilts as they would be called, oddly enough, in a coastal setting).

​It makes a nicely shaded area under the living room where we can park the tractor and what-not.

Because this was a very wet summer, however, the down-below area was a clay-pit.

​The little boat trailer sunk to its axel. Walking around down there meant acquiring an inches-thick sole of clay stuck to the bottom of our shoes.

Solution: pour concrete.   

Picture
Picture
A levitating propane tank. Huh. Don't see that every day.
After some thought, we decided against doing our own concrete work. The guys managed to dig, gravel, and move the concrete by wheelbarrow from where the 'rete truck backed into Jeff's velvet field of green in a single day.

(PS, it took us only a week or so to fill those ruts and overseed the area with clover. The scars on the field are nearly invisible.
So we have a magically smooth concrete floor down below, perfect for parking stuff and enjoying the breeze.
​
Of course, if you build it, they will come. But anybody wanting to get there will have to make a pell-mell run downhill from the driveway to get to the down-below.

Or use my decorative but winding stepping path through the rock garden.

Neither option is ideal, especially when you just want to turn off the hose or grab the little wagon. 
Picture
Picture
So steps.  

I meant to just put a couple of flagstones into the ground, but then the stones started piping up and the hill was asking for more...
Picture
4 Comments

Fiction Prompt: Hanging

10/12/2021

2 Comments

 
Foodies have "amuse-bouche." Readers have flash fiction. Writers make up little stories about whatever comes to hand. 
Picture
She wasn't Betty Boop, not exactly, though that unsettling glint in her eye suggested she warn't no Campbell Soup kid. 

She'd maintained an over-the-shoulder flirtation with any old observant gaze for –– let me count this out –– more than 75 years. Didn't a glamorous little thing like her just get tired of her role? Didn't she want to shake out her hair, shrug those shoulders square, and frown from time to time?  

At least she was out of the closet. Nobody likes to spend a lifetime –– a literal lifetime, if you do the depressing math –– holding on in the dark.  And whether she was the vivacious creature she appeared, or if, like Jessica Rabbit, she was just painted that way, that face made it harder to shut a bifold door.

So she there she hung in the window. Peeping. A coquette such as she must peep, surely. With that coy, art-deco fan of cloth –– a peignoir draped over her shoulder, I think with matching wee mirabou mules on her off-screen baby feet. 

Maybe seven decades gave a gal perspective along with a few chips and pallor.  She might have burned as wooden matches, or splintered as a chair polished by generations of school-children's sit-upons. She could have backed a mirror or a dresser drawer. She might have moldered in an attic or ended in a bin.

Instead, she waited liminal, looking in. A few characterless companions for company. The time passes.  
​

2 Comments

Spawn of Frankenscot: A Really Big Year on the Horizon

10/1/2021

6 Comments

 
It's getting to be that time of year -- when we return to the ongoing adventures of Captain TwoBeers and Moresailesaid, on board their strange and mighty steed, Spawn. 
Picture
As many of you readers know, each March brings the Everglades Challenge, which is an unsupported, human-powered adventure race of some 300+ miles along the left coast of Florida. Vessels of astonishing diversity push off the beach at Fort DeSoto at dawn on the first Saturday in March and make their various ways south and across the Everglades to Key Largo, Florida.
Picture
My favorite skipper built his own boat, a 21-foot-long light-weight, shallow-drawing sloop for this event, with help and a design from the cool OH Rodgers, plus the assistance of a village of friends. Over the past few years, sailing Spawn, TwoBeers and Jahn Tihansky (Moresailesaid) set a course record, spent time upside down in the Gulf, rowed for days, and punted on the last leg.  

After half a dozen of these challenges, our Spawnsters aren't bored, but they are ready to expand their challenge.  

​So in March 2022, the guys will attempt the Ultimate Florida Challenge.
Picture
What is the Ultimate Challenge? Just a lot more sleep-deprived, salt-encrusted, navigationally puzzling ooey-gooey goodness!

Spawn will (knock wood) depart as usual from the beach, but instead of ending in Key Largo, their race will continue for another 900 miles, up the right side of the state, across the top of Florida, and then back to the beach where it started.

1200 miles in a small boat. 

Wheeee!
Picture
The big twist? Once they approach the Georgia border, they'll switch out of Spawn and into a canoe. (I know! Jeesh!). There's a long paddle through narrow and skinny water (possibly less skinny, but still narrow, depending on the preceding weeks' rainfall. There's even some Class III whitewater.), which prohibits both Spawn's mast and her generous width. 

The event's rules permit sailors to transform into paddlers mid-race, as it were, and, naturally, requests they change back when the course permits...which will happen AFTER the 40-mile portage.

Forty miles! Pushing their canoe! On a country highway!

​Wheeeee!
Picture
Training started this past summer. 
Tandem paddle
On Grass Lake, Photo courtesy Sarah Ellen Smith.
This will be a world of difference from the two-day sprint of past Challenges. 

The team's goal is to get it done.  In under three weeks.

Kayak spinnaker
A spinnaker for the kayak. According to himself, it is not nearly big enough. But we saw 3 knots without paddling. Photo courtesy of Sarah Ellen Smith
Myself, I'll keep fingers crossed and hope for a good weather window.
6 Comments

    About the Blog

    A lot of ground gets covered on this blog -- from sailboat racing to book suggestions to plain old piffle. 

    To narrow the focus, select one of the  Categories below.

    Follow

    Trying to keep track? Follow me on Facebook or Twitter or if you use an aggregator, click the RSS option below.

    RSS Feed

    Old school? Sign up for the newsletter and I'll shoot you a short e-mail when there's something new.

      Newsletter

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    Beauty Products
    Big Parks Trip
    Birds
    Boatbuilding
    Books
    Brains
    Contest & Prize
    Dogs
    Everglades Challenge
    Family Stories
    Farming
    Fashion
    Feminism
    Fiction
    Fish
    Flowers
    Flying Scot Sailboat
    Food
    Genealogy
    Handwork
    Health
    History
    Horses
    I
    International Lightning Class
    Mechanical Toys
    Migraine
    Movie References
    Music
    Piffle
    Pigs And Pork
    Poems
    Sailboat Racing
    Sculpture
    Social Media
    Song
    Subconscious Messages And Dream
    Travel
    Wildlife
    Writing

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Me. Me. Me.
  • Publications
  • That 1st Novel
  • More!
  • Contact