bookMobile Monday

This trio of books by the author Stephanie Meyer has to be one of the best fiction series I have read recently. Taking place in Forks, WA, Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse are an epic love story, both captivating and blood-tingling. Part teen angst, part romance, and part thriller, they are written for the teenage/young adult audience, but the sheer length of each book and gripping story line makes them enjoyable even for mature adult readers. Twilight is being made into a major motion picture this fall. Look for details at http://stepheniemeyer.com/


The highly anticipated 4th and final installment of the Twilight saga Breaking Dawn will be available August 2nd. Preorder it now at Amazon, and get the lowest price plus 5% off for preordering. I can't wait to read it!


"In just two years, Stephenie Meyer has become a worldwide publishing phenomenon. Twilight was one of 2005's most talked about novels and translation rights have been sold in 33 countries. The sequel, New Moon, was released in September 2006, and spent over 30 weeks at the #1 position on The New York Times bestseller list. Eclipse, the latest book in the series released on August 7, 2007, catapulted to the #1 slot on bestseller lists nationwide after selling 150,000 copies its first day on-sale. There are over 5.5 million copies of the Twilight Saga in-print worldwide."

This Weeks Featured Blogs Are...

AVCr8teur's Own Little Universe

Musings è¿é

Frugal Shopping With Julie

The Sewing Mom

Tim Christie

WillTaft.com

Scrapbooking 4 others

Make sure you check them out!

Graveyard, Lower Surry Parish, Virginia

On this peaceful and quiet Sunday, I thought I would share one of my favorite photographs. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should warn you that I have a lot of favorites.) It seemed appropriate for the day of the week, but also because I wanted to say something briefly about Photoshop and related software. I am one of Photoshop's biggest fans. It's been the gateway to a career for me, a useful tool, and fun beyond measure. That said, I'd like to point out that there are other ways to get beautiful, artsy shots with digital cameras besides sitting at the computer for hours playing with them. This shot is straight out of the camera and totally unmanipulated (except to reduce it's file size to upload to the internet and add the copyright.) I don't like to take my pro equipment with me when I travel if I don't have to, so it was taken with an old 1 megapixel point and shoot. I won't detail how it was done because everyone's camera is different, but consult your owners manual, play with different settings and see what you get. Most have the option of aperture priority, an excellent creative tool. Keeping your camera set on automatic makes for consistent pictures, but the fun starts when you learn what all those menu items do and play with them instead of the computer. And my favorite part about digital instead of film? If it's all garbage when you're done shooting, erase your card and start all over.

Small Town Living

It’s feeling a little like Cicely around here. Alaska, that is. I’ve been watching old episodes of Northern Exposure on DVD while it snows outside, and it occurs to me the parallels between the fictional town in the show and where I now live. I remember telling people time and again that Cicely, Alaska was my kind of place. A small town at the end of nowhere full of quirky characters and a downtown so small you'd miss it if you blinked on your way through it. Everyone (except hubby) thought I was nuts.

Well, it isn't Cicely, but it might as well be. Our downtown is about the same size (actually, theirs is a little bigger), and we might be missing the moose, but we make up for it in quirky characters. Our population is pretty similar too, well less than 1000 people.

About a year ago, hubby and I took a little day trip to Roslyn, WA where Northern Exposure was filmed, about 5 hrs east of us. I was pleasantly surprised to see that not much had changed.

We walked down their main street,

visited Dr. Fleischmann’s office,

and had lunch at the Brick.

The only thing missing was the moose burgers and the caribou dogs. And all those people that thought I was nuts for wanting to live someplace like this? Who cares; my wish came true.

She Pulled a Rabbit Out of Her Hat... Presto!

This is what happens when you start crowing to the world about how beautiful and spring-like it is.

Yesterday it looked like this

Then Mother Nature read my blog and said "Here's a rabbit for you."

Same view, this morning

Yeah. The neighborhood really loves me right now.

Friday Funnies: "Would You Like To See Out The Window?"

A funny story for you today. Allow me to set the stage.

The cast: Nana (me), Papa (my husband), and The Mouth, or Mouth for short. That would be our granddaughter and she is called that because the child has a preternaturally huge appetite. From the time she gets out of bed until she hits the sack at night, she never stops eating (or talking for that matter.) Not an ounce of fat on her, I have no idea where she puts it all, but I digress.

The time and place: A Sunday morning, around 9 am, 35,000 feet above sea level in a 767 somewhere between Dallas and Seattle.

The day before: It had been a very long day. We were on the last leg of a journey home from the east coast and missed our connecting flight. The plane had gotten in late after a huge delay taking off, and about 10 people on board all missed the same connection. We were not happy campers. Everything in the airport was closed, nowhere to get anything to eat, and our luggage made the connection but we didn’t. (Yeah, explain that one to me.) They sent us all to a beautiful 4 star hotel whose only restaurant… was closed. 11 o’clock at night, no clothes or toiletries, one hungry 6 year old, and we have to be up and out of the hotel at the buttcrack of dawn.

Sunday: Catch the 5 am shuttle back to the airport where, of course, the only place open is a fast food junk hole that charges double what our food vouchers are worth. (Thanks, Delta.) We finally take off, settle in and fall asleep after feeding The Mouth the last of some airplane snacks Nana had in reserve. Nana's in the aisle seat, Papa's in the middle, and The Mouth is by the window. Just about the time we get comfortable and close our eyes, the sun starts glaring through the window, hot, bright, and impossible to sleep with. The Mouth has had enough of a nap to refresh her, so Papa sets up her DVD player, closes the window shade, and goes back to sleep. Mouth decides it’s time to torture Papa. She watches him drift off to dreamland, and…

SNAP! Up goes the window shade. “Rise and shine, Papa!”

Papa reaches over, closes the shade, and lies back in his seat. The Mouth waits a couple of minutes and…

SNAP! Up goes the window shade again. “Rise and shine Papa!”

Papa says, “Mouth, I know you think it’s funny, and I do that to you at home all the time, but Papa is really tired. We’re going to have a long drive home when the plane lands, and I want to take a nap right now.” He falls back asleep, again, and The Mouth bides her time.

SNAP! “Rise and shine Papa!”

Papa is upset now. “Mouth, if you rise and shine me one more time, I’m taking your DVD player away and changing seats with Nana.” Mouth knows she’s in deep. “No Papa, please, I promise I won’t do it anymore.”

About 10 minutes goes by, and Papa is sawing logs. The Mouth can’t stand it anymore.

Tap, tap, tap on Papa’s arm. Papa sighs heavily, “What now Mouth?”

“Papa”, she whispers, “Would you like to see out the window?”

Talking Trees Part Two: What Makes This House a Home

Once upon a time, a man so loved his wife and these woods that he built her a house here, the house of their dreams. It didn't matter to him that he was no longer as young as he used to be; they wanted to make their home here, in a place that looked as if time had forgotten it. He felled the old cedars on the home site, painstakingly peeled the bark with hand tools, and set the logs for the walls of their house in place with nothing more than an old pickup truck, some rudimentary scaffolding, and his own two hands. He crafted a massive chimney of native stone, rising from the ground up all three stories through the center of the house. Their home came slowly to life, built inside and out almost completely from the cedars grown on the spot where it now stood, in the midst of the peaceful forest, looking down upon the view of the water below.

Tragically, the man died before they could move into the house together, and at the age of 82, his wife decided she did not wish to live there without him. She sold the house to a young family and a year later, the remaining forested acreage to us. Every time we saw this magnificent 3 story house of cedar, we wished that we had been the ones to find it first, but the young family was content and happy to call it their dream home. 3 years passed, and miraculously, we got a phone call asking if we wanted to buy the house; the young family had had a change of heart. A month later, we were moving in and immediately felt like it had been our home forever, as if it were meant to be.

I was mesmerized by the history of the sacredness of the cedars and stories of talking trees. I knew just how special this house was; this was no prefab log cabin home. It had been built with sweat and love and years of grueling labor by one man. Cedar trees were (and still are) of major spiritual significance to the native tribes who first populated this peninsula. and built their homes of them. It all made sense; our feelings about these woods, our attachment to the house, the quality and presence that was difficult to articulate.

I am honored to be the steward of such a manifestation of love and tradition. The joy and contentment that we share here with family and friends is a gift beyond measure, a gift from one man, and one woman, built one log, and one stone at a time. And at the end of the day, I lay in bed in the darkness, surrounded by the grace of cedar, lulled to sleep by the whispering walls.

Wordless Wednesday

Puget Sound Dawn

Book Giveaway Update

In order to give as many people as possible a chance to win, I will be accepting comments as long as the book giveaway post is on the front page (until Wednesday night). Don't forget, I'd like to hear about your favorite reads, and the 11th person to comment on Tuesday's post gets the book!

Reading is Fun-damental

And a good way to pass the evening hours when you have no television. (Actually, we have two, but lack of any kind of reception or satellite renders them useful only as oversized DVD players and dust magnets.) This week’s haul from the bookmobile (watch for new recommendations next Monday!) is spread out over the dining room table, designated into stacks according to type of reading (titles specific to the Pacific Northwest, magazines, novels, nonfiction, cookbooks, crafts.) I don’t know that at any other time in my life, except maybe early childhood when the library was a vast resource of untapped potential, that there has ever been so much I wanted to read. Add to the wealth that I am lucky enough to have friends who also love a good book and let me know when they've come across something worth sharing. Little else in life gives so much pleasure to so many.

Book Giveaway!

Give a shout out in the comments and let me know your favorites. In the spirit of a traveling book, inspired by another blogger whom I have a new read coming from, I will be giving away my copy of an entertaining volume of oral histories of the Pacific Northwest titled “Whistlepunks and Geoducks” (also available from my Amazon store). Be the eleventh person to comment on this entry and it's yours. Read it, sign your name inside the front cover, and then pass it on, if you can bear to part with it!

(Comments are moderated, so they may not show up right away, but be assured that they are all time stamped so there will be no confusion over who posts the 11th comment.)

bookMobile Monday

The future of our nation's dietary habits are uppermost on my mind this week, and there is just no shortage of books out there addressing the subject. There is such a thing as information overload, however, so I tend to stick with and read all the way through only those that are well written and captivating. Here are a few of my favorites. I think we owe it to ourselves, our families, and humankind in general to read what these authors have to teach us, and take heed.

And this weeks advertisers are...

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It Takes a Planet to Raise a Child

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Photography by KML

New York Traveler.net

Thank you for choosing Robin's Woods!

Dear Mom,

It’s Easter Sunday, and I was thinking about how you used to dress me up for the occasion when I was little. I have such vivid memories of the frilly dresses, the slips with layers of crinoline, darling little hats and purses, and best of all, the chocolate bunny nested in robin’s eggs that arrived in the same basket for as many years as I can remember.

I want you to know I still have the dresses. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t look at them and think about you and me back then. My first shoes, all the soft little sweaters Grandma knitted, blankets that look so delicate they might have been woven of cobwebs and my favorite, the pink blanket clips you used in my pram; they are all safely tucked away in my old green trunk. I get them out once in a while to touch and inhale the fragrance of childhood that still lingers, and to reminisce. I show them to your great granddaughter and tell her how special and loved these things are, that someday she will be the caretaker of these most precious of mementoes.

I was looking through all the baby pictures that Dad gave me when you died, and found one of me, all dolled up for Easter Sunday. I thought you might not mind if I shared it with the world today, in remembrance of times past. Happy Easter Mommy.





Love,
Jennie

Round Robin Photo Challenge: First Signs of Spring

How could I resist participating in this? I've been crowing about spring all week!

My Life In Pictures

There's a lot to see in the neighborhood of the Slightly Less Than Hundred Acre Woods.

Some of it's resplendent,

Some of it's old fashioned,

Some of it's quaint,

Some of it has seen better days.

Some of it's... interesting,

Some of it's a conversation piece,

Some of it has a charm all it's own,

And some of it is… well, you tell me.

East of Eden

Don’t remember now where I read it, and a google search turns up nada, but it was surmised that the Garden of Eden might have been in the region of the Olympic National Forest. Maybe I just imagined it; it wouldn’t be hard to do. The forest here is breathtaking in the spring, moss hanging languidly on the trees, and rains that leave everything so saturated that the landscape is a tapestry in shades of green. Verdant new growth is all around, and the incessant dripping of water is ever present.

The Olympic National Forest is a temperate rain forest, with rains of anywhere from 10 to 15 feet (yes, feet, not inches) or more a year in the wettest regions of the Olympic Peninsula. The rain shadow to the northeast brings the average yearly rainfall down to a relatively dry 2 0r 3 feet annually, and the rest of the peninsula falls somewhere in-between.

This spring has brought some of the most spectacular weather I have seen since I moved here. Brilliant sunlit mornings interspersed with overcast, cloudy daytimes, followed by luminous evening light, all punctuated by gusty winds and periodic cloudbursts that appear, seemingly, out of nowhere. Mother Nature just keeps pulling one rabbit after another out of her proverbial hat, and every once in a while, you get to see something… bizarre.

It rained on my truck the other day. Just my truck. Couldn’t see a cloud overhead, but it was raining nonetheless. I walked outside and looked at it with a sense of disbelief. I was dry, the rest of the surrounding area was dry (dry being a relative term around here), but my truck was getting a free (and very thorough) wash job. This isolated shower lasted about 5 minutes or so before moving slightly south and then quickly dissipating altogether. I didn’t even take a picture. All I could think was “She could have had the decency to do the other two vehicles while she was at it.”

Never a dull moment in these woods, East of Eden.

Talking Trees, Part One

I was, and still am, a big fan of the 90’s television series “Northern Exposure”. It was on an episode of that show that I first heard of Talking Trees. I figured it was just a concept that the writers of the show had come up with, entertaining as usual, but giving absolutely no credence to the thought that there might actually be something to it. Fast forward a decade, give or take, and I live on the outskirts of the Olympic National Forest, a temperate rainforest populated with some of the most spectacular specimens of evergreens on the continent. If trees can talk, the discourse going on in the Olympic Forest has got to be deafening.

I was recently turned on to an out of print book called “The Tree People” by Naomi Stokes, an exquisitely written novel about the ancient cedar trees in the Olympic Forest and the logging industry. This powerful story underscored for me the spiritual significance of the cedar trees here. Near the end was a reference to the scientific study of talking trees, and my curiosity about the subject was renewed. A quick internet search turned up a few references, and I was astounded to find that the phenomenon was a reality after all.

From the moment my husband and I discovered this place, this house, our home built of cedar logs, we knew we had found someplace special, exceptional in ways that would be revealed to us as our lives here became intertwined with the forest in which we live.

Watch for Talking Trees, Part Two: What Makes This House a Home.

Wordless Wednesday

Montana Sky

Over the River and Through the Woods

Ok, so it's a stream, not a river. And I didn't take a picture of the stream, but this place (above) in the woods was just too pretty to pass up. It looks like an enchanted forest.

I took a creatively inspired detour from my usual routine today. Upon leaving the house to walk to the mailbox, I left my bear bell, keys and whistle behind. I had seen some of the funniest looking deer the other day, and I hoped to get a closer look at them by being as noiseless as possible, no jingling allowed. Yes, I know it's spring, and the bear are out, but my mailbox is to the west, and as far as I know, the bear live on the eastern side of our woods. A bit of a risk to be sure, but I hit pay dirt.

photo courtesy of Alaskan Alpine Treks

Turns out those funny looking deer were a couple of young elk (duh!) Their coloring should have been a dead giveaway, and I knew I had a big bull wandering around, but I saw them only fleetingly and they seemed a little small for elk. I found their tracks today though, and these definitely weren’t deer. The tracks were perfect miniatures, half the size of the bull I’ve been tracking.

I guess it should have occurred to me when I first saw them, but like I’ve said before...

Little buggers still scared the snot out of me, even though I was watching for them. I had just about given up on seeing them again when I was approaching the house, and boing, just like a couple kangaroos, through the trees towards our smaller woods west of us. If you look very closely, you can see one of them in the circled area of the picture, hiding in the trees.



Next thing you know, they'll be hanging out under the bedroom window at night. Let the grunting and foraging commence.

And This Week's Advertisers Are...

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A Nice Place In The Sun A family friendly compendium of humorous information.

Fishing Tips Just what you'd think. Love the article on knots.

VintageGents Menswear Daily Vintage clothing and retro lifestyle for men and the ladies they like.

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Thank you one and all!

bookMobile Monday

One of the neatest perks about living out in the boonies, for me, is the bookmobile. Without our faithful librarian, many of our local residents would never have the pleasure of or opportunity to enjoy the gift of reading. She drives all over our vast county all year long, bringing a depth of dedication and selection unseen in any other library system I have ever utilized. Our county is not a wealthy one, but you can tell that books are a priority by the constantly evolving inventory that makes it's way out to our lonely peninsula twice a month. With only a fraction of what is available at the main branch in her library on wheels, I am always able to find something fresh and intriguing. I will be dedicating Mondays on this site to sharing with you my favorites--new, old, and thought provoking alike.

This week's pick is: Secrets of Rusty Things: Transforming Found Objects Into Art
by Michael Demeng

"Secrets of Rusty Things takes readers behind the scenes to show them each step in the assemblage art process. It covers everything from gathering found-object materials to putting them together in a way that tells a meaningful story--all presented in the author's warm and humorous writing style. This book provides the perfect challenge for collage enthusiasts or anyone looking for a new way to express his or her creativity!"

This book as well as many others can be found as part of collection of favorites in my bookstore.

A Ferry Good Day

When I was a little girl, I had a fascination with Puget Sound. I had no idea what or where it was, let alone how to pronounce it, but I always wanted to go there. Now I'm all grown up, and the fascination is with the ferry boats. (I also have a thing for Patrick Dempsey on Grey’s Anatomy, and he has a thing for ferry boats too. My hero.) Riding them just never gets old. I have taken the ferry back and forth to the mainland more times than I can count, and I never get sick of it. The ferry system is so integral and necessary to our way of life that it is the largest in the US and the only system actually run by the Department of Transportation.

It’s not always the most convenient, but there’s something about driving on, shutting your engine off for a half hour or more, and just enjoying the ride that speaks to a simpler, slower way of life. I get a little thrill every time I read the sign that says “the Captain’s Permission is Required to Disembark the Vessel”. Stay in the vehicle (a great time to nap or read or knit) or get out and enjoy the fresh air, it doesn’t matter. I’m crossing Puget Sound and all is right with the world.

Saturday's Child

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child born on the Sabbath Day,
Is bonnie and happy and wise and gay.

Grow up on old nursery rhymes, and they kind of stick with you. In retrospect, it put a whole new spin on living up to other’s expectations. I always wished I’d been a Sunday’s child. Being even a Monday or Tuesday’s child would have been preferable to Saturday’s. I have worked hard for my living, (and probably have far to go too), but I am also loving and giving, and always wished that someone would find me bonnie and happy and wise and gay (in the 1950’s sense of the word, that is.) Why did I get stuck with Saturday?

In trying to find the origin of this nursery rhyme, I found instead the multitude of versions floating around out there. Turns out, since certain religions consider Saturday to be their Sabbath, I might have gotten my wish after all. I don’t feel so bad anymore.

Broccoli, Anyone?

Today’s post was going to be called “Talking Trees”. (Actually, the past three days were supposed to be called Talking Trees but other things keep getting in the way. Keep an eye out for Talking Trees, coming soon.)

I decided to go watch a baseball game between two local schools today. Halfway through the game, it started to rain (something it does a lot of here) and all 10 or so of us on the bleachers sat there waiting for the ump to call the game. Fat chance. The kids here grew up in this stuff and it doesn’t faze them. I was doing ok with it, having thought ahead and dressed in thermals, wool socks, wool hat and wool sweater under my (non-waterproof) coat. Can anyone guess where this is going yet? By the time the game was over, my wool hat was almost saturated and the wool sweater under my (non-waterproof) coat was getting sort of damp. I’m pretty pleased with my forethought at this point, because wool keeps you warm even when it’s wet, but has anyone ever told you how wool smells when it’s wet? It's not so bad when you’re outside, but when you get into your truck and crank up the heater and all that moist, warm air comes streaming out of the vents, it starts smelling like a big wet furry dog inside there real quick. Unpleasant, but certainly not the worst thing ever (unless you actually have the dog with you too.) Until you pass the paper mill.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, the aroma floating in the air around the geographic vicinity of a paper mill is, well, gross. Think old broccoli forgotten in the back of the fridge gross. Rotten egg and old cabbage gross. Now add that to wet dog.

I just had to share.

Kids Will be Kids

In another time and place, I worked as a professional photographer. It was a high end studio where my specialty was babies and children, and I loved every minute of it. It always amazed me how the most difficult of children could make the most captivating subjects. Capturing them in animated, silly moments was both a pleasure and a challenge.

But some of the most precious ones were those who seemed to forget I was there.

Since I up and left the suburbs for my life here, the subject matter has changed, but the challenge remains the same. I miss the studio setup, but more than anything, I miss all those engaging little personalities.

For some reason, the kids here don't react the same to the goofy lady with the camera.

Things That Turn My Crank

In no particular order…

Photography
Knitting, a lot of it.
Pothole repair (oops, you already knew that!)
Flea markets
Outhouses
Cooking and baking (people generally like to eat at my house.)
Books (and of course the bookmobile)
Ostriches (you knew that too)
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Chaps
Snow
Cloudy days
Small towns
Northern Exposure
Photoshop
My granddaughter
My dump truck
Forests
Curious sheep

Log Cabin Living

I never really saw myself as a log cabin sort of person, but then this house came into my life, and now I can’t imagine that I ever lived anywhere else. All kinds of stuff that would look wildly inappropriate in the typical suburban home just fits right in here. We're talking Flea Market Chic, shabby to the extreme. Grandma’s old green kitchen table in the dining room, surrounded by old snowshoes, ice skates, and mounted deer heads hanging on the walls. Old wooden clothes hangers and canning jars qualify as art here.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I’m not talking about your average log cabin as built or envisioned by Daniel Boone. I have a wood stove, but I’m not forced to cook on it. There is an outhouse in the yard:

but we done got ourselves plentiful indoor plumbing too.

(Actually there are two outhouses, but the only one using them is my husband, and not for what you think.)

All joking aside, I couldn’t be more content. I’ve spent a lifetime collecting odds and ends reminiscent of childhood, grandma’s house, and times past. How appropriate that my dream house be filled with the evidence of all those years of a quest for evidence of a simpler life and time. That, and who could resist waking up to this in the morning:

Did Someone Say Potholes?

(Alright, I realize this isn’t a picture of a pothole, but then it wouldn’t be as funny as this guy, would it?) I like to fix potholes. It’s a strange, albeit productive hobby, and always good for a workout. Here’s my 15 step program for how it’s done:

1. Get ready to go get gravel. Try to start engine on old dump truck, a ¾ ton beast we fondly call “The Green Hornet”. Kill battery in process.
2. Hook up battery charger to truck. Wait 5 hours for battery to charge.
3. Battery still dead. Go to friends house and borrow another battery charger.
4. Hook up second battery charger. Start engine and prepare to clear ice and frost from windshield and rest of interior.
5. Realize windshield wipers don’t work, and won’t do you any good anyways because it’s the inside of the windshield that is covered in icy frost.
6. Go inside for lunch and wait for truck to warm up.
7. Take towels on drive to rock quarry because it’s so cold inside the truck with the wing window missing that the frost keeps building up on the inside of the windshield despite the defroster running.
8. Go to the nearest rock quarry. The guy driving the big tractor loader thingy fills up your truck with a scoop of gravel.

9. Hubby says that sure seems like an awfully light scoop, so you flash the guy in the loader the hand signal for "un poquito mas", or a little bit more.

10. Guy in tractor laughs as you drive away with your tires squatting and the front end of your truck way higher than the back end.
11. Realize you might have slightly overloaded the truck. Just slightly. Stop at friends house to get more air in rear tires.
12. Drive home slowly, being careful not to hit any bumps on the way lest you lose rubber off your rear tires that are now buried in the wheel wells.
13. Get home and realize that, while you do technically have a dump truck, there’s no way the hydraulic lift can handle the weight of the poquito mas gravel.
14. Dropping the tailgate won't work either because the pressure of the poquito mas gravel in the bed has jammed it from opening. It's going to have to come out over the top of the truck bed.

15. Get shovel and prepare for muscle building exercise like you can’t believe.

Yes, the potholes got fixed, at least until the next rain or snow storm makes more, and yes, I have triceps of steel. You want to see them , or another ostrich?

Like I'm really going to show you a picture of my triceps.

Lions and Tigers and Bears...and Elk?

I accept that life around here is an adventure. You never go out, even to get the mail (a half mile walk, by the way) without a whistle and a cellphone. A walk down to the water is sure to yield at least a pile or two of bear scat along the way, and a cursory look around the back yard will almost always turn up a mountain lion track (or three or four), but elk?
I know there is a herd or two of those majestic ungulates in the general vicinity, but they’re quite a distance away, and up until now I had certainly never seen sign of any in my own woods. I'm out and around fixing potholes (a favorite hobby) the other day, and down the sides of my road are some of the biggest hoof prints I’ve ever seen. Has someone ridden their horse down here? Oops, not likely unless they’ve got their shoes on upside down. A cow!? Got a few of those around here too, but not running loose. And then it slowly dawns on me (I never said I was a quick thinker), could it be? In my forest?
A fellow Canuck, the Yarn Harlot, had just mentioned Hinterlands Who’s Who the other day, and a quick perusal of their site confirmed my best guess. I guess spring has sprung, because judging by the size and spacing of his tracks, I’ve got a big bull elk wandering up and down the road to my house. Given that there are a couple of awesomely big ravines on the eastern side of our land that are undisturbed, I think he just might be checking out the real estate around here. Just one thing, Mr. Elk. No grunting outside my bedroom window at night, please?

And so I begin...

“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop.”
-Lewis Carroll

How apropos that the way I wanted to start this very first entry should be put into words by the inimitable Lewis Carroll. “Through the Looking Glass” was a childhood favorite. My mum had a small but delightful selection of children’s books way up on the bookshelf, sequestered by virtue of their preciousness, but never totally inaccessible. She and I had an all consuming passion for the written word. We were such regulars at the library that everyone there knew us by name. I hardly remember ever not being able to read. By the end of second grade, I had worked my way through all 26 volumes of my Junior Britannicas in their entirety. I was insatiable. As I grew and my mum had to give up on ever being able to keep her books out of reach, I read through all of them, time and time again. Through the Looking Glass, Elsie Dinsmore, Chatterbox and others now occupy a place of honor in my home library, a remembrance of her.

You may be asking, is this going to be a blog about reading? Not necessarily. It may encompass many topics. Current passions, old memories, lessons learned, I’m sure they’ll all show up here and there. The internet is full of blogs of all descriptions and I have been inspired by many, but realized lately that to confine myself to any given subject would go against my nature. I do love books though, and will be sharing old and new favorites as time goes on.

For those of you wondering about the name of this blog, no, I am not a fan of Robin Hood (Kevin Costner’s version not withstanding) and no, I do not live in Christopher Robin’s Hundred Acre Woods (a common but erroneous assumption.) I do live in rather large woods, however. You may call it the Less Than Hundred Acre Woods if you like, or Jennifer Robin’s Slightly Less Than Hundred Acre Woods.

Every day here in my woods, I am thankful for the opportunity to daydream and treasure my wishes-come-true. I look forward to sharing it all with you. Welcome to Robin’s Woods.