Amy Smith Linton
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Me. Me. Me.
  • Publications
  • That 1st Novel
  • More!
  • Contact

Everglades Challenge: Spawn Looks More and More like the Painted Love Child of a Praying Mantis and a Delorean DCM-12

12/18/2018

12 Comments

 
Not sure what else I need to add after that title, but here goes.  

Background: The Everglades Challenge is an annual unsupported adventure water race that sends a fleet of paddlers, sailors, and rowers down the west coast of Florida from St. Petersburg, across the Everglades, and ends 300 miles later in Key Largo.

It begins on the first Saturday of March.

​It's organized by a group called the Water Tribe, and the start at Fort DeSoto Beach is one of the goofiest, most glorious marine spectacles imaginable.
Spawn of Frankenscot
Racks folded for trailering.

My favorite skipper has participated for a few years –– his WaterTribe handle is "Two Beers."

He sails with Jahn Tihansky ("Moresailhesaid") on a boat designed by OH Rodgers ("Ninjee"). The team has surprised more than a few skeptical onlookers and broken a couple of records.

​I've been chronicling the ongoing 
adventures, naturally. 
​
Each year, the guys innovate, redesign, refine. Mr. Linton spends many a spare hour dreaming about the project, and then many a busy day implementing the improvements.  

This year, it's a new arrangement for the water ballasting and hiking racks.

Carbon fiber attachments and integral glass-over-wood tanks hinge up and out.  This change, we all hope, should improve flotation as well as speeding up the processes of getting the boat from trailer to water.  

Plus it might be a bit cushy for the tushy.
Spawn of Frankenstein
Racks deployed as for sailing.
Picture
Each year, I try to tamp down my impatience and worry knowing that Two Beers finds the long, fiddly process both mentally and physically engaging.
He told me that there is no other sailing competition that gives him the chance to use his strategic wit, maritime experience, and boat-MacGyvering in this way.

I get it, but still I worry. 300 miles. Storms. Gators and crocs. Sticky mud and razor-sharp oyster beds. Sleep deprivation. Idiot powerboaters. Et cetera.

​Water testing in a couple of weeks, knock wood.
Picture
12 Comments

Art or Nature?

12/11/2018

2 Comments

 
Life is not the only thing out there imitating art.

​Evidently Nature's in on it too. 

According to Edgar Degas, "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."  And for that I might as well go ahead and apologize.  
Goblin Valley State Park
The naughty bit...of a goblin. Goblin State Park, Utah.
Venus di Mideci buttocks
She doesn't get the same press as David, but the Medici Venus at the Uffizi has got back, baby.
I was thinking about the Alexander Pope quote, which was –– I thought –– Art is but Nature to advantage dressed.  Or, in this case, not dressed. I meant to rift extensively on part about being undressed. Low humor, sure, and possibly dragging in the topic of saggy pants.

But when I checked the quotation (From his Essay on Criticism, which is in strictest truth a poem), Pope actually wrote:
"True wit is Nature to Advantage drest,/What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest,/Something, whose Truth convince'd at Sight we find,/That gives us back the Image of our Mind."

Oh Alexander Pope, you navel-gazing noodler. 
2 Comments

The Would-Be Farm: Success!

11/26/2018

4 Comments

 
I'm kind of proud of the asparagus.
Picture
The roots went into the ground in 2015. Of course I wrote about it. 

​Lo and behold, up they came. And up. And up.

So lush that the well-drilling guy stopped and marveled.

So enormous that my gardening neighbors ask –– with palpable envy –– how do we make them thrive?

So thick that I no longer have a view of the cool half-plough that Mr. Linton found for me. 

Uncontested success is rare on the farm. So when it arrives, we like to recognize and celebrate it.

All hail kale? 
Nu-uh: Rush lush Asparagus! 
​
4 Comments

Thanksgiving: Orphan Dishes

11/20/2018

2 Comments

 
Yes, of course there is so very much to celebrate on a daily basis.

Waking up, for instance. Highly underrated.

Also the ability to walk about. Coffee (Or Mountain Dew, for those so inclined). The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth like the  –– Wha?

Shakespeare, really?  

​Truth be told, I am grateful for this rich cornucopia of memory sending me so often  off topic.  Then I can loop it back again...
​Not that any of us should wait for a special day to recognize the good fortune and lucky stars that has got us this far so far.  

But tis actually the season for this sort of thing. Plus feasting.  

Ah, feasting.  We have missed a few years of Thanksgiving in the States. So the groaning board seems novel this year, despite its familiar elements. 
And those less familiar ones. What I think of as the orphan dishes, left from another time, fossils of past iterations of the family.

You know to what I refer...the things made only for one Thursday in November (or maybe for a midwinter feast). 

Perhaps enjoyed only by one of the people around the table, but it's the item that ensures that THIS is the feast of family tradition.

Oh, the outcry when an orphan dish is forgot!
 

Picture
Recipe box. Before there was a Google.
Picture

Orphan foods I have known:

Creamed corn. Corn souffle. Corn pudding. 

Aspic and Jell-o based salads, especially the ones with shredded carrots or mayo.

Green-bean casserole with canned fried onions on top. 

Dilly carrots.

Candied yams with mini-marshmallows.


Parker rolls.

​Creamed pearl onions.

Giblet-mushroom gravy.


Ambrosia salad (aka white people soul food).

Baked quince custard –– or was it persimmon?


​Let alone the vast category of foods Mr. Linton refers to, bracingly, as "wet breads."

What we might call in normal parlance, stuffing*.

Traditional sage stuffing, chestnut or pecan stuffing, cornbread-sausage stuffing. Be it ever so savory, we know it as "wet bread."
Picture
In England, I discovered that treacle cake was in point of fact, a too-sweet syrup-drenched wet bread mess. Such a disappointment after all those jolly British boarding-school novels!

​Wet breads.  Gah.

*In strict honesty, I know some people make stuffing more often than once a year. I dated a boy who made StoveTop at least once a week. For himself. Still, there are stuffings and StoveTops, and the latter does not make or break Thanksgiving.
​
Picture
My childhood Thanksgivings –– set out on a white tablecloth, with my mom's Friendly Village dishes and the polished silver cutlery (I can still almost taste that odd polish-and-silver flavor. Yuck-yum) –– started for me with a series of sneak attacks on the pickle and olive plate.

She'd dash out from the kitchen and replenish the crystal dish with a sort of mock-annoyance. I might be adding the mock part. 

Anyhow, Mumsie also served mincemeat pie. Hey, don't judge. It's like a spicy apple and raisin pie. She skipped the suet and beef component. As do I.

Anyhow, the single element that proved it was Thanksgiving in Mumsie's house? Oyster stuffing. Technically a wet bread, the recipe includes saltines, "dots of butter," oysters, milk, salt and pepper, all baked in a casserole.

Mumsie's cousin Shirley (Hi Shirley!) continues to make this family dish for Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania.

I haven't had the heart to make it  –– or mincemeat for that matter –– absent my mom.


Well, that and my casein intolerance thingie. Making oyster stuffing my orphaned orphan dish. 
One day, I imagine, the idea of a roasted turkey itself might seem quaint and Betty-Jo Crocker-ish.  

If not, you know, for the oddity of roasting the flesh of a formerly living creature, than because the means of cooking seems so rustic and old-fashioned.  

A couple of years ago, we switched over to deep-frying the birds. Nope, not greasy. And three minutes per pound!

Nowadays, we all show up at the family feast bearing our various contribution (pies from my kitchen) plus a whole uncooked turkey to take home.  

The element of danger –– open flame! boiling oil! –– plays well with the boys, and there's zero squabbling over the leftovers.

Picture
Plus, we get our money's worth out of that bubbling vat of peanut oil.
Perhaps as time marches along, I'll see the evolution of the meal go farther yet afield.  Tofurky maybe, or into the funky Cajun science of the turducken.  Both of which appall my Yankee sensibility even as the latter –– wet bread filling notwithstanding ––does pique my curiosity.  

​Well, I promise to be thankful if I have the chance to see that.
 

​
2 Comments

Meanwhile, on the Spawning Grounds...

11/13/2018

10 Comments

 
The seasons change subtly here in the land of weird news. 

Months pass: last summer, this summer, next summer. 

Okay, eventually, the weather will surprise us by turning chilly. We might wear socks. Okay, sorry. I'll stop now.

But as this summer melts into November, my favorite skipper's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of Spawn.  

Spawn is the Rodgers 22 that Captain TwoBeers build for the Everglades Challenge a couple of years ago. The adventures –– and there are so many –– can be perused in past blogshere.

via GIPHY

Each year, Mr. Linton dreams up some Gucci modifications to the adventure boat: water ballast tanks, a foiling board, cassette rudders, a big old bowsprit.

​And he's back at it again.
Picture
Hiking racks with water ballast tanks.
Since the metal handicap-rail style hiking racks began to wrack, and it takes the better half of a small village to get the things pressed and warped into place, Mr. Linton has been cooking up a better idea.

Last year's water tanks (made of polycarbonate sheets)  point-loaded on the straps holing them in place, and after getting water-boarded by the mighty Gulf of Mexico the first night of the challenge, turned out to be less sturdy and consequently less water-tight than one might hope. 

Combine the these two elements, add in a salvaged carbon fiber A-Cat mast from the most excellent Robert Cummings of Cummings Marine, and design courtesy of OH "Ninjee" Rodgers, and the Spawn is taking new shape. ​

Folding carbon-fiber hiking racks.
Picture
Picture
Testing should begin within a few weeks.  
10 Comments

Fiction Prompt –– Fishing

11/7/2018

2 Comments

 
Trachinotis carolinas. Characterized by small silvery scales, forked tail, related to Jack-fish but highly valued for eating. ​
Picture
A Fishing Story –– Version 1
Caught me a biggun.  Though he had me whupped, but I turned the tables on his bipedal ass. Bootless meet toothless. How do you like them airless apples? Huh?  Swim like a fish much?

All he had to do was let go, but it's greed what catches em, every time.  Sparkle sparkle! Just let go and get back to your spot, but no. Gotta cling. Dunno why it's called landing when you reel one in. Land's the one thing they ain't much of in that situation, if you know what I mean. I figure he'll eat pretty good, give him a few days.


A Fishing Story –– Version 2
A short list of ways I've avoided writing today:  rearranged the fiction bookshelf, cleaned my stainless water bottle with bleach, followed by cleaning the bottle-brush. With bleach. Made a few calls. Perused Writer's Digest. Bootlessly researched a specific twitter from a specific Twit. Cleaned the keyboard with rubbing alcohol and q-tips. Listened to samples of Billie Martin's songs on iTunes.  Decided listing my excuses was nearly as good as writing anything. Words are words when you are trying for a daily word-count.

A Fishing Story – Version 3 
Swimming, swimming, swimming, biting at a shrimp.
Shrimp has sharp –– ow!
And damn! What the hell?
Swimming swimming, vaulting into air.
Tractor beam or something yanking.
Don't beam me up.
Swimming, running from the grasp.
Caught.



2 Comments

The Would-Be Farm: Late Spring This Year

5/21/2018

4 Comments

 
A long winter, a late spring.
Picture
​We arrived at the Would-Be Farm a week or so early this year.

​Early by the season, if not the actual calendar.

Not even the hint of buds on the trees, lakes still frozen, plenty of snow still on the ground, and a solid weekend of ice-storm.
Picture
The shape of the land shows like the ribs of a hungry animal this early in the spring.
​
Waiting for the arrival of spring, Mr. Linton and I blazed a couple of new trails. It's easier to make a way without having to part that modesty-drape of leaves and grass.  

Naming the trails is surprisingly difficult, for what we end up calling them.
At the risk of self-conscious whimsy, there's The Road that goes all the way to the beaver pond, past Porcupine Falls and Long Meadow.

New Trail leads out the northern end of New Pasture past Hickory Corners to Blueberry Hill.

Loop Trail links New Trail to the Road. Thag creates fire! 

Gah. I feel as if I missed some important lesson about place names.

All those jokes about housing developments named for the thing it displaces (Osprey Reach, Dolphin Cove, yadda yadda). Ironic.
Anyway, a few days and a few yellow blazes later, we now we have Dead Possum Trail (named for the skeleton we found, natch) and what I first thought would be Trillium Trail.

Then we noticed this:
So, Broken Wagon Trail it is.

Okay, yes, it's not technically a wagon. Neither is it precisely broken. But Abandoned Hay Rake Trail doesn't have the same ring, does it? Plus Mr. Linton named it, and what he says, goes. Sometimes. This time. 

Back to the narrative.

​Late spring this year: even the old oaks seemed to be having a hard time waking up.
Picture
4 Comments

Everglades Challenge: A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

2/15/2018

5 Comments

 
Based on the numbers, I think I know what my readers want: more pictures of Spawn and my favorite skipper.

​Who am I to diss a brie?

​Here you go...
Picture
5 Comments

Putting Artists Out of Business

2/2/2018

3 Comments

 
"Years ago," wheezed the oldster, arthritic knuckles whitening on the handle of the deluxe walker. "Years ago, artists had to use rubylith to separate each color for a color print."

Honking into a worn handkerchief, the dusty wheezer raised watery eyes and continued. "Hours I spent over a drafting table, X-Acto blade in hand, separating colors. The eye-hand coordination alone --!"

After a long pause, the lecture continued. "It took years to learn the tricks of the trade. Nowadays, all it takes is a ninety-nine cent app. Putting artists out of business. I don't know how they make a living any more."

Yeah, artists mostly don't make a living.

In honor of all of us antiquities who remember cutting ruby to separate colors, here's a timelapse video of the Rubylith process...

But those 99-cent apps are really fun:
Picture
In this highly digitized age, it's nigh on impossible to grasp the amount of work that went into, for instance, the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. This link describes the Technicolor process.

Such an effort to give the viewing public ruby slippers!
3 Comments

The New Year's Couch Issue

1/1/2018

0 Comments

 
The year comes to its tipping point: this week there are resolutions to make and thank-you letters to write and a fresh new expanse of days to anticipate with hope.

Even though Mark Twain said that resolutions were "humbug," and that "Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.*"

Even though thank-you letters are quaint.

​And even though the coming random number of  days are just as full of potential as the previous ones were. 

Happy New Year. 

Picture
*The Works of Mark Twain; Early Tales & Sketches, Vol. 1 1851-1864, (Univ. of California Press, 1979)
But at the top of mind, there's the question of the couch. At least for me, anyhow, New Year's is a couch issue.  

It's like the pull of an annual migration, or whatever impulse that makes bears and porcupines wake up in the spring. Midwinter and its myriad festivals of light and sugar-cookies pass and I look around with a sense of urgency like a vulgar itch. It's time to rearrange the furniture.
My mom also did this, which is probably why I do. She was not a terribly physical creature, but she could pop a folded washcloth under the corner of a full china cabinet and hip-check that bad boy across the room in a jiffy.  

Like her, I find myself standing in the midst of disorder, asking the furniture itself where it wants to be for the next twelve months. "Whaddya think, rug?"

Mr. Linton was caught up into the maelstrom of cleaning and hip-checking this year. Held indoors by the damp chill of a Florida cold-front, he did not offer to answer in the voice of the rug about where to go. He did sidle off to the porch with the cell-phone a time or two, but he cheerfully lent a hand at my continual requests: "Will you shake this rug over the porch rail? Will you help me move this washing-machine? Will you carry this back to the car?"

Ideally, my primal impulse to redecorate results in a refreshed space. It's a blitzklieg of cleaning. And while changing things up will result in the odd stubbed toe, it also makes home seem strangely roomy and interesting. 
Picture
At the literal end of the day this year, the living room is still in a bit of disarray. Turns out the little red chair and foot-stool were ready to retire. Ten years of service in a home-made slipcover? Okay, then, go on, thrift-store find, thanks for your service!  

Plus, the inexpensive IKEA rug I picked up to cover more square footage of the plywood floor is –– to the inch  –– the exact same inexpensive IKEA rug I have had for four years. Whoops. (A foolish consistency would be the hobgoblin of little minds, just ask Ralph Waldo Emerson, but this? This consistency shows unflappable design taste, baby.)

But the drive is wearing off. I think the impulse that kept me hustling around the house today is almost the opposite of a resolution: I make no promises for the coming year. The work is done, aside from returning that rug and a bit more cleaning. In the coming weeks, I'll be utterly guilt-free as I think less and less about the process. And by May, I too will have forgotten humbug promises and the shiny sense of a whole new year full of potential and improvement. 
 
0 Comments
<<Previous

    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 use the RSS option below.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    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
    Subconscious Messages And Dream
    Travel
    Wildlife
    Writing

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.