Purposeful Ramblings Through My Mind

Pandemic Diary: Garden Edition

Sun, 03 May 2020 13:55:09 GMT

With most of my seeds now planted, my garden is at the hurry-up-and-wait part of the spring. So I'm going to paint a picture for you with words, starting clockwise at 7 o'clock, because the door from the house is at six.

First, when you leave the house, you're on the patio. It's sheltered to the south/left by the part of the house that contains the bedrooms. Walk about twenty feet, and you get to the first garden. The part you can see from the door is mostly mulch and weeds, because that's Shenzi's preferred place for a quick pee. But go around the corner a tiny big and you get some lovely patches of a ground cover we planted last year, whose name I can't recall, and it's coming back and spreading nicely. Around 8 o'clock, there are three patches of bulb garden. The first two are daffodils and crocuses. The crocuses are done now but the daffodils are full of life. There are the single-trumpet ones that bloomed first, the double yellow ones and double white ones that came after, and last to bloom were the yellow doubles with orange in the middle. I love them all. I've loved daffodils since my year in Gerardmer, France, which celebrates a daffodil festival most years.

The third bulb garden, nearly at 9 o'clock, is Lloyd's Garden. It's the grave of the rat we had for just a couple of months, whom we buried and placed a pretty pink-granite rock over. Then we planted tulips around the rock. The tulips are a commemorative variety sent out by the airline KLM, to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands by Canadian soldiers. The goal was to plant a bulb for every Canadian who fought in the Netherlands, 1.1 million of them across the country. I just have ten. They have developing buds on them, only two of which have colour so far. They'll be in full bloom in a week or so.

Next to that, at 9 o'clock, is a weedy patch that was mostly black-eyed Susans last year. It's not doing much yet. There's also a little grassy space over there that we've left, because it's in the shade of the next-door neighbour's cedar hedge and also provides a pathway to the outdoor water source around the south side of the house. At 10 o'clock is the pool shed, which also houses most of the garden implements we use regularly.

We're now along the back fence, which leads out to a green space that also functions as a hydro corridor. There's a gate, and then the little strip of garden that forms the bulk of my vegetable growing space begins. Yesterday, we cleared out the weedy corner by the gate, harvesting the edible weeds for a salad and putting down some fresh triple mix. Then we planted one of the zucchini plants that I started indoors less than two weeks ago. It's four inches high with two-inch proto-leaves on it, and the root system was pretty well-developed for two weeks, so even though we haven't hit our final frost date yet I decided to chance it. Behind the single zucchini plant, I seeded some Kentucky Wonder beans. They're supported by some bamboo poles that the previous owner had left in the pool shed. Next to them, moving right across the back fence, are some radishes that are very happy. They're an early spring crop and they're putting up secondary leaves. Once I harvest them, I'll probably use that space for Asian cabbage or carrots, unless the zucchini takes it over completely.

There's a wooden divide then for the next part of the garden. To the right of it (we're around 11:30 now) are a few little lettuce plants that I started early from seed, just beginning to put up secondary leaves, and a long row of snow peas that are about an inch tall. I'm hoping today's warmth and sunshine will have those shooting for the sky. The space in front of the peas is destined for carrots in the form of seed tape. I haven't planted that yet because it's the only thing I can't easily cover in the event of a threat of frost. I'll probably chance it next week. I have no lack of seed tape if the first fails.

At about 1 o'clock is the third segment of that back garden. I planted my three butterbush squash hills on Friday, two seeds in each, and there are Mason jars nearby to cover them with if there's a threat of frost. It will be warm enough to germinate them today and they got tons of rain yesterday, so I'll likely see sprouts on them pretty quickly. Behind those are more snow peas. Squash are heavy feeders so the zucchini and butterbush squash are supported by beans and peas, which are nitrogen fixers. These snow peas were planted only yesterday so I'm not seeing anything from them yet.

We're now rounding the corner of the pool, in the northwest corner of the garden. There are two square raised beds there, built from a Home Depot kit by the previous owner. They have walking onions, yellow onions, Videlia onions, and chives in them. The walking onions and chives are mostly for green onions in salads, so we've already been harvesting from that for several weeks. The others are for bulb onions. The yellow ones came from leftover onion sets last year that were sprouting in the garage. The Videlias came from one kitchen onion that sprouted, which I then took apart to plant. Also in those two beds are two types of mint. Right in the corner is the mojito mint left by the previous owner. She had it in a freestanding pot, but it's mint - it spread. I had a chocolate mint over there, also in a freestanding pot. It spread into the other raised bed. Last but not least is the thyme plant which I started from seed last year. I love thyme as a seasoning and use it frequently, so having some fresh in my garden is one of the nicest things about having a garden. It's another plant that reminds me of France.

Heading over to 3 o'clock is a little patch where I seeded some kale. This is the sunniest part of the garden, as it's against the north fence and therefore has 100% southern exposure. After that is a patch of zebra irises which I left there because I love irises and these are well-established and beautiful. At four o'clock, after the irises, is the second zucchini plant and a few more beans. After that there's some floral ground cover that we haven't moved because that part of the garden is shaded by the house and not great for vegetables.

I have two freestanding pots, the ones the previous owner had her mint in, that now hold fresh weed-free triple mix and Asian stir-fry/salad green seeds. They're living near the irises for now because that's where they'll get the best sun exposure, and they like warmth and a lot of sun.

Garden centres are going to open shortly, so I'm going to pick up some nasturtium seeds or plants, depending on what I can find, to plant near the two types of squash. If they do well, they'll be added to salads. Both leaves and flowers are edible and have a peppery flavour to them that I love.

The only other plant of note is the black currant bush I planted out front, near the lovely stand of yuccas. I don't worry too much about the front garden because I prefer growing food to flowers, and the front garden is mostly too shady for food. But the black currant bush is my baby. If it does well, I'll be planting at least one more there next year. So far it's putting out leaves on at least half its stems, so clearly it's reasonably content with its lot in life. I'm looking forward to trying my stepdad's Singing Johnny recipe, which is basically black currant-infused Irish whiskey. And jam, of course. Black currant jam is my favourite and it's really hard to get commercial black currants in Canada so I've only been able to get it when Piet's aunt offered me some of her black currants. I want some of my own.

So that's my quarantine garden. I have high hopes for the zucchini, and the butterbush squash did beautifully last year and provided I think about twelve one- or two-pound squashes (they look and taste like mini butternut squash, but the plants only take a couple of metres of space instead of, well, your entire garden.) I have high hopes that our modest investment in soil and seeds will yield a whole lot of fresh food all summer and into the fall, possibly even enough to preserve some of it by freezing or canning.

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Pandemic Diary, Palm Sunday (aka I've lost count)

Sun, 05 Apr 2020 20:30:38 GMT

Most churches shut down the way they were told to. Most are protecting their congregants and their communities. My ire is not directed at those churches or the people who attend them.

I am very angry at the evangelical dominionist asshats who opened their churches today and encouraged their congregations to come to Palm Sunday services in violation of stay-at-home orders. I'm angry at any congregant who went, especially the ones who are active on the internet and have no good reason not to know how serious this is, except that they're too stupid to listen to experts. I give a little more of a pass to elderly people whose news sources are more limited, but not a whole lot of a pass even there. My most significant ire is reserved for the governors and politicians who either haven't issued stay-at-home orders yet, or did it only recently, or exempted churches from those orders.

Church services are pretty much designed to spread viruses. People sit so close together they are touching all the time. They hug, shake hands, sometimes kiss on the cheek. They sing, which involves an expulsion of air from the lungs with a great deal of force, usually into the airspace of the person sitting in front of them. I can't think of a better place to pick up a virus spread by respiratory droplets than a church service.

What this means is that, a few days from now, a couple of people in each congregation that met today will start to fall ill. It will be obvious that they were spreading the virus at church today, but nobody will worry too much. The people who were near those few who fell ill will still be going shopping. Some will be essential workers who will go to their jobs.

Around Good Friday, a bunch more people will be starting to feel ill. Some will stay home from Good Friday services, but some will go back to church that day (if the pastor wasn't arrested for opening the church today, at least.) They'll spread the virus again. On Easter Saturday, more will be falling ill, but a lot of the people infected today will still be feeling fine on Easter Sunday. They'll go back to church. They'll spread the virus that they're about to get sick with.

Easter Monday comes, and now we're eight days out from the initial super-spreader event that happened this morning in these churches. More people are falling ill. More are getting scared. More are staying home. But it's too late, because by the following Sunday, people in each of those congregations are going to be very, very sick. And the week after that, three weeks from now, they'll be a few ragged, gasping breaths from death.

Not all of them, of course. One or two per pew, probably, given pews that hold an average of ten people. Three of those ten will feel fine. They might still be going about their daily business, unaware that they're asymptomatic carriers of Covid-19. A couple more will have only mild symptoms. Three more of that ten will be very sick but not go to hospital. And about two from every pew will be in hospital, and about one from every other pew will need a ventilator or will die before they can get one.

Their community hospitals will go into overdrive mode if they weren't already. They'll be begging for ventilators nobody has, begging for PPE nobody has, desperately trying to save the lives of all those people who went to church on Palm Sunday. At the same time, they'll be falling ill themselves, because they lacked PPE on Palm Sunday or shortly after it, because they've been working around people with overwhelming viral loads for weeks, because they've been working insane hours for a month already and they're exhausted. At the same time, essential workers in other fields, people who didn't have the privilege of self-isolating, will be falling ill. They'll be competing for beds and ventilators and staff with the churchgoers.

Those congregations will spike the curve in each of their communities. Their hospitals will be overwhelmed, their case loads will blast through the top of the chart and force their local newspapers to do some creative printing to report on the cases, their deaths will fill newspapers to the exclusion of all else.

I'm not angry at people taking chances with their own lives. I'm angry at people spiking the curve for everyone. I'm angry that they are so selfish that they can't see how a quarantine is a completely reasonable imposition on personal liberty and that violating it will cost a lot of lives other than their own.

A few years ago, I read a book about the last great smallpox epidemic, which happened in Montreal in 1885. The super-spreader event then was a funeral for a well-loved bishop in the city. A lot of people who were still healing from smallpox went to the funeral, and spread it. The worst death rate was from a few weeks later.

In this pandemic, Mardi Gras has already emerged as a similar super-spreader moment. The Florida beaches over March Break are up there, too, and the night life in New York around St. Patrick's Day. We can add another super-spreader event to these: Palm Sunday church services.

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The lesson of sourdough

Sat, 04 Apr 2020 23:01:23 GMT

The lesson of sourdough is patience.

Just wait. It will bubble. It will need some TLC in the form of discarding some of it. It may get stinky. Lovingly scoop out the liquid and crust. It was there because you waited a bit too long. Give it some flour and water and wait again. 

Just wait. You'll be able to bake bread with it in a few days. I know you want bread now, but that's not how this works. Just wait. Slow down and breathe. Yeast will not be rushed.

Sleepless at 4am? The sourdough is ready to be used for biscuits. They'll be light and fluffy and delicious if you make sure to cut the butter in thoroughly. When they're done, you'll be tired again and can go back to bed. Just wait, and trust the starter, and take your comfort where you find it.

Today is a bread day? Feed the starter, and then wait three hours for it to bubble and dome and smell like home. Mix your dough, but not too much. Set it aside for half an hour or so. Wait for it. All in its own time, it will be ready to stretch and fold. So will you. You are rising to your own challenges, stretching to accommodate new realities. Just breathe, and wait, and live, like your starter, like your dough. Stretch it every hour or so. Set it in the warmth. Let the sunlight bless the tea towel covering your dough. Let it halo your face. Breathe, and wait. 

Sourdough is embryonic comfort food. It needs simple ingredients, effort, and patience to turn it into bread, and biscuits, and cinnamon rolls, and food for the storm-tossed soul hanging on for dear life to whatever rope it can reach. 

Have patience. This too shall pass. The dough will rise, the starter will bubble, it will feed your body and soul and loved ones, if you just wait. 

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Responding to terrible things

Sun, 04 Jun 2017 14:36:24 GMT

I am no longer going to respond to horrible events in the world by posting news about them. I figure other people are already doing plenty of that.

I am not going to retweet or reblog initial stories, or even stories once more information is available. I will read them but I won't repost.

I won't send out my prayers, best wishes, condolences, or any other expression of my goodwill over the internet, unless I actually know some people who are affected - and then I'll reach out to them, specifically.

Instead, I will act privately.

If there is a donation to be made, I'll make it. If I feel the cause needs more attention, I might post a link to the gofundme or similar campaign. If there is specific help that I can give, I'll give it.

I'm tired of feeding the social media frenzy to nobody's benefit. It doesn't make me feel better, it doesn't make victims or their families feel better, and it is of no material use to anybody.

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Brag Number One of Grade One

Sat, 06 May 2017 21:39:57 GMT

The next few posts are explanations of all the stuff I've tried in my classroom this year that has worked, followed by or interspersed with things I need to do better next year.

Brag #1: Morning Meeting

If I had to pick one thing that made a huge difference to my kids' learning and sense of community in my classroom, it would be the consistent morning meeting. It has evolved over the course of the year, with a few things staying the same throughout.

Morning Meeting has a script, which I wrote out in my transcripts on Planboard and then slotted into every MM slot in my day plans automatically. I stopped using the script in October but it's useful to have for supply teachers, volunteers/student teachers, and for the principal to see day plans that look like I actually put time into them.

At the beginning of the year, we started by greeting each student by name and shaking hands. After the first head cold, that became shaking elbows. We sang a song to go with it. Then we read the Morning Message, which I write on the white board every day. The Morning Message follows a very clear format: Dear Students, Today is Monday, May 8th. It is a day 1. We have Drama in sixth period. What are our learning goals? I can write with a capital at the beginning of my sentence and a period at the end. I can use the making tens strategy to add. Our spelling words are: (the Morning Meeting helper writes these in.) Our journal entry is: I have a Youtube channel. I make videos about. . . Have a great day! Sincerely, Ms. S. (and any student teachers/volunteers in my room that day.)

Then we do the calendar, the number of days we've been at school so far, and Explain the Number. (150 is an even number. I know because I looked in the ones place and there's a zero there, and zeros are even. 150 has one group of one hundred, 5 groups of ten, and 0 ones.) We also do some counting on our fingers and by 2's, 5's, and 10's, up to the number of the day. Last, we pick a new Morning Meeting Helper for the next day, and if it's a Monday, we choose new people to do the other jobs, too. These things have changed very little over the course of the year.

At different points in the year, I've added:

1) Measuring: we went through three weeks when we measured the Morning Meeting Helper every day, and put a piece of tape on the wall next to the tape ruler to show how tall they were. In June, we'll do this again to see how much we've grown since February.

2) Hundreds Chart: Once we started getting good at place value, I took most of the numbers out of my pocket hundreds chart and put them in a bag. The kids picked one number every day and had to figure out where it went, then explain why they put it there. If they made a mistake, we worked through it until they found the mistake and fixed it. Then we cheered for them because making a mistake and fixing it makes your brain grow!

3) Singing the Days of the Week and the Months of the Year. I took this out just after Christmas, once I was sure all my kids knew it.

4) To be added: I need to teach reading a clock, so I think I will add a bit of that to Morning Meeting for the next few weeks.

5) Sharing: Shortly after Christmas, I realized that I'd left Sharing (aka Show and Tell) out of the Morning Meeting. So we added it in and assigned each child a day. They're getting good at remembering which day is theirs, though the Monday people feel cheated a lot.

I keep track of who has been Morning Meeting Helper recently, and we go through the entire class list before anyone gets picked again.

So that's my Morning Meeting. It takes the better part of a period, but it's worth it for the number of concepts it teaches and reinforces.

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Dandelion Jelly

Sun, 16 Apr 2017 20:31:16 GMT

I'm not really celebrating Easter this year, so instead I celebrated spring by making my first batch of dandelion jelly. My recipe:

As written (elderberry jelly):
3 cups tea made from dandelion flowers (yellow parts only) and half a sliced vanilla bean
1 package powdered pectin
1/4 cup lemon juice
4.5 cups sugar
Yield: 4-5 cups

Follow package directions on the pectin for jellies.

What I actually did:
4 cups dandelion tea
1 1/3 packages powdered pectin
1/3 cup lemon juice
6 cups sugar
tiny bit of butter
Yield: 7 cups

Follow package directions on the pectin for jellies. I cooked the other half of the vanilla bean with the juice and pectin, but took it out before adding the sugar.

This recipe is based on the simple fact that my awesome tea steeper, in which I make the dandelion tea, makes four cups at a time, and I didn't want to waste it. It takes about two cups of flowers to get a good tea.

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Moving.

Sun, 09 Apr 2017 14:41:17 GMT

This is now my primary journal. All my LJ stuff is moving here, after which the LJ account gets deleted.

It's sad, but not unexpected.

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New icon

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:12:03 GMT

Tee-hee.

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Anwar: Character background

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 02:04:15 GMT

This is a new character, in the Dark Sun setting for D&D4E. She's going to be fun to play.

As you've probably all noticed, I haven't been around much lately. That's because I have a job that doesn't require ranting from school anymore and DOES require that I be on task pretty consistently, so I haven't had reason to pop over. I'll strive to be around more!
( Cut for length; cross-posted to LJ )

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Rebecca: Field Notes

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:26:27 GMT

July 31st, 2010

Sent out with a rep from Min. of Heritage to look at an artifact. Supposedly Roman era, in Woodsleigh, in the Borderlands. Strange place for a Roman artifact; Romans didn't spend much time that far north, barely touched that valley. Woodsleigh is a throwback; was untouched by civ. until recently. Pensioners moving in en masse now.

Heritage person's odd. Emily Braithwaite by name. Doesn't suit her. Don't know why they sent her; doesn't know squat about Scottish/border history, or preservation, or what not to touch.

(Later that day)

HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?????

/unprofessionalism. Let's try that again. Must not swear in notes for academic journal. Historical significance and all that.

Found artifact. Looks like a greek urn made of steel. Completely anachronistic. Was stored in a chest circa 1880. Very poor condition, but not valuable except as a middle-class attempt at an antique even if it were preserved. No great loss. Next to urn was a page torn out of a book; contained excerpt from "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," w/ woodcut picture on back.

And sullen Moloch, fled,
          Hath left in shadows dread
                His burning idol all of blackest hue:
          In vain with cymbals' ring
          They call the grisly king,
                In dismal dance about the furnace blue.
          The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
          Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

Barely had time to look at it before mechanical sound and the guard running away distracted me. Ran up to see what was going on. Very confused gentleman in 18th C banyan coat. Didn't know where he was. At all. Didn't know what country the Borderlands were bordering, didn't know the year. Barely had time to start to get a handle on him when Monster Robot came out of the ground. Braithwaite had stayed with artifact; Robot was near artifact. Something about the way she touched it caused him to - awaken? Sounds more like Star Trek every minute.

Braithwaite and I ran for lorry. Confused man followed; we took him along. Robot followed too, latched onto boot; lorry couldn't move with his weight. Confused man pointed out the robot wasn't trying to hurt us.

Don't know exactly what happened next. Something shifted, and the lorry crashed into a tree. GPS stopped working. All got out. Confused man took over, talked to Robot. Confused man says his name is Hero; not convinced, don't think he remembers himself. Robot is the Gesh. Robot looked at GPS, said it was useless b/c no satellites around this world. Around this time, saw a peasant. Either very authenticity-oriented SCAdian or a peasant b/w 1400-1700. Can't place it more than that; pre-Jacobean, pre-mechanization, all homespun, but not a noble so no fashion to speak of. Hand-made axe. Ran away before we could talk to him. Enough to see him: no satellites and clothes like that = time travel.

This just stopped being a resource notebook for an academic paper. Bloody hell.

Heritage person went and stole clothes for us. Peasant clothes, fifteenth or sixteenth century; undyed, plain, maybe poor Puritans? Need more info to figure that out. Peasant came by, told us Gesh shouldn't be out of the Grove. Reverend wouldn't like it. Reverend? So, post-Reformation, then. Getting more Puritan all the time. Peasant recognized Gesh. Gesh analyzed something about him; says he's not like us, lacks same chemistry. Suppose that makes sense if we're four centuries in the past.

Going into town shortly to see what we can figure out. Seriously - can handle Catholics and Anglicans, even Methodists most of the time, but Puritans? Why did it have to be Puritans?

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New Character: Rebecca

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:01:04 GMT

Setting: Various points in history in the Borderlands between England and Scotland; starts in modern times
Game system: Dr. Who, the new one
Players: Alex, Patrick, Kendra, and Me
GM: Piet

Character Background

I was born in Cambridge proper, in 1984, to two academics. My father was at that time a lecturer at King's College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a fellowship while I was still a small child; my mother, who had been a graduate student of his, had given up her academic pursuits in order to raise a family. This endeavour began with my brother, born eleven months and eight days before me. I believe my amiable nature was completely overshadowed by his boisterous egocentrism, which situation did not change for many years.

My early years were dominated by a strange hybrid of religious and academic fervour. My maternal grandmother was, I now believe, quite mad. She insisted on taking my brother and me to her church, an evangelical denomination brought to the UK by American ex-pats and extreme even for Americans, who in my experience tend to prefer extremism as a mode of living. My mother rarely attended, partly because her faith had dried up and partly because it gave her a few hours on Sunday morning to do exactly as she pleased. Nana took us to Sunday School and church, reinforced the fire-and-brimstone message, and succeeded in scaring me thoroughly out of my wits. After her death when I was eight, I ceased attending any church at all, and must steel myself to enter any establishment designated an evangelical denomination; I've pushed myself in recent years to enter other churches when there were no services happening, and I can generally manage to be there without my company noticing my discomfort, but I leave as quickly as I might without giving offense. I'm sure it says something profound about my relationship with my parents that they are completely unaware of this. It likely says something profound about me, too.

My father is the epitome of the absent-minded professor archetype. I believe he barely noticed my mother's attempts to ensure our family's position in the social life of the university; indeed she could often be heard to complain that she could not be certain he knew there were guests for dinner when she never saw him during the day and he refused to carry a phone or answer his desk phone while he was working. I believe he never heard them ring, and was saving face with my mother. In any case, his lack of attention was a factor in their divorce when I was sixteen. Only two people of our acquaintance were at all surprised by this: my father because he was oblivious to all but his work, and my brother, oblivious to all but himself.

My father's work was in history, where he focused on the Etruscans, forerunners of the Roman civilization and endlessly fascinating to him. He speaks, reads, and writes ancient Latin and Greek fluently, to the point where he can switch dialects between them and tell you precisely which century those dialects belong to; given half a chance he will expound upon the difficulty of ascertaining when certain words and phrases became most common. He insisted that my brother and I learn Latin and Greek, though my brother threw off all attempts to make him proficient at either. He has begun to read mathematics, somewhat late to the game, but I believe my father is simply content that he is studying anything at all. I am reasonably proficient in Latin and Greek, which skill has certainly helped in my chosen field; rather than pursuing antiquities and setting up a contest with my father, I chose Newnham College, there to read Scottish and Welsh history. The transition from a Gaelic culture to an English-speaking one is quite fascinating to me, in particular its connection to religion and by extension, to politics - the two cannot be disassociated during the medieval era. My Scots Gaelic is not as proficient as I would like it to be, but my Welsh is passable.

After my Master's degree, I decided not to pursue a doctorate immediately. Truthfully, I was desperate to remove myself from my father's house, and as my mother's flat in London was an even worse choice, it became obvious that I needed a job. The British Museum hired me as a junior curator on the strength of the recommendation of two of my professors, both of whom have interests in Father's more recent work. In the world of museum employment, education comes second only to connection as the deciding factor. I enjoy the job; I work primarily with the Welsh collection, though I'm involved in the Scottish collection peripherally and, due to my facility with dead languages, occasionally find myself aidng with Roman or Greek antiquities as well. I expect I'll return to Cambridge for a doctorate in a few years' time, and I'm hoping my credit with the Museum will be such that they will sponsor me in that endeavour.

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Altriona: Were we mistaken?

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:40:12 GMT

Everyone who hears our tale of vengeance is baffled by it.

I would expect them to be bemused, for our vendetta is private, based in a supposition of crimes as yet unproved. But I would not expect them to remain baffled when we reveal the name of the beastman who travels with us.

The reason for their confusion? They say they have seen Mallion alive and well in Marienberg.

At first we believed this to be a simple hoax. We were certain of the identity of our own Mallion, despite his bestial appearance. But time went on, and it became clearer and clearer that people who should have known better had been taken in by the hoax.

We committed a horrible act of piracy and murder in the name of this vengeance. We treated with skaven to purchase warpstone with slaves - an act which will make us very rich - though the amount of warpstone we will send into the Empire to an unknown buyer could bring down the Emperor and permanently shift the balance of chaos in our homeland. We set a city to civil war. We leave mayhem in our wake wherever we sail.

And now, having committed ourselves to this course of action, having committed crimes to heinous to admit forgiveness, a letter comes from Marienberg - written in Mallion's hand and borne by Valadar's most trusted man.

The seal, of course, is not Malliion's. It is Father's. I wear Mallion's signet on a chain around my neck even now, knowing that I have no right to use it. But the wording, the writing, the sentiment - had I not left my brother in Sartosa to come to the meeting where I received the letter, I would have had no doubt but that my brother had written it.

Gallos, for it was he who was sent to talk to Lorandara and me, asked us to return with him to Marienberg. He had letters of passage allowing us to traverse the Tilean city-states where we are wanted as criminals. He would not compel us, but he asked. Everyone who knew of the request urged us to go. I refused. I informed Gallos that I would write a letter, the answer to which would prove if the person who had written to me was, in fact, my brother Mallion. The letter contained two lies. One was that I had tested the bestial Mallion using the same test I was about to give the pretender, and that he had passed. I had not yet tested him when I wrote that. The other related to the piece of poetry I used as my test. If he is my brother, he will recognize that lie and challenge me on it.

Lorandara did not come to the meeting with me. She waited behind for Mallion, and told him of my destination when he came out of the meeting which Lord Rackam had arranged to occupy his attention. I know not what transpired when Mallion and Lorandara returned to talk to Lord Rackam after she informed him of my departure, but whatever it was, he was tense and upset when he arrived at the meeting.

I told Mallion of the letter, and gave him a different test: a piece of poetry he had written many years ago, the theme of which was peculiarly appropriate to our situation. I hated my doubt and needed to lay it to rest. I needed my poet brother to be himself, to pick up the rhythm and rhyme and meter as of old, to duel with words as once he never would with a weapon.

He could not do it.

I think I hid my terror from him well. It struck me soul-deep. It helped that I went with the men in the rowboat while he and Lorandara took off flying for the ship. I had time to take hold of my emotions and conquer them, to convince myself that the loss of one poem was hardly proof of anything. I determined to set him another test, to give him another chance to show that he was my Mallion.

And yet my heart quaked. Was he ever my brother? Had he been my brother, but changed? How much could he be my brother if the poetry, that which so defined him, was lost to him?

He passed the second test, quoting verses that I helped him write, verses known to none but us two. We have decided to work with Mallion to keep his poetry alive in his soul.

So our Mallion is truly Mallion. What will we do if the pretender passes the test - if he knows that which only Mallion knows? How will we live with ourselves should our vengeance prove to be a hollow thing founded on a hellish misunderstanding? How so if Valadar is innocent of the patricide with which we have sullied his name?

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Altriona: If Mallion Ye Would Be

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 09:57:21 GMT

My dear brother,

If you are indeed my brother Mallion, I owe you a lifetime of apologies and amends, and Valadar too - indeed our entire race. I am not sure yet if I hope that is the case.

It would seem there are two of you. One is with us, changed in form certainly, but I am convinced that he was once my beloved brother. Among other reasons, he passed the test I am about to give to you. However, Lorandara (who did not abandon you - she believes that she came on this voyage in order to stay with you as your loyal and loving wife, and her guilt over this possibility is great) wonders if it is possible for the magic that changed our Mallion into his present form to have split him in two, leaving you to wander the wood insensible for a time.

With this being the case, and knowing that this Mallion needs us much more than you, we could not come with Gallos at this time. If you are my brother, you will seek to understand and forgive that. It is certainly not the least of the things you will have to forgive us, should your identity be confirmed.

The following is an excerpt from one of your own poems. To the best of my knowledge, the working copy - the only one ever committed to parchment - is amongst Lorandara's books on the ship. I was there when it was written, there through much of the work that followed in an attempt to make it come right, and there when it was abandoned, nearly finished, but unsatisfactory. I suggested at least one simile that you adopted. I enjoyed it and regretted that you did not, so I remembered it - at least the stanzas you seemed to like.

I will give the first stanza. You will give as much of the rest as you remember. You will recount some of the changes made to it, the details of its composition, the purpose you had had for it. And if you convince me, we will all three of us return to Marienberg to face the Family and make such amends as we can.

Letters in gold that twist and distort
Music in notes none can hear
Pictures in colours that none here can see
Visions beyond all we know *

It is your turn. If ye be not my beloved brother, know that our vendetta as stated will continue. I think I hope that ye be he, whatever punishment my crimes may warrant. Know too that I acted in what good faith I could muster in a situation where no firm course presented itself, and would retain at least that small measure of honour, slim though it be.

With your own signet ring, I seal this letter. Please give my kind regards to my mother; would that I could spare her this heartache at the heart of her family!

One who may yet be again

Your loving sister,

Altriona

* Excerpted from a poem entitled Magical Moments, by Graeme Montrose.

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This Week in Math: Area

Mon, 31 May 2010 13:24:32 GMT

This is actually "Last Week In Math," because I didn't get to it, but I have fifteen minutes right now and I know you're on the edges of your seats waiting for it. I wouldn't want to disappoint!

I realized at the beginning of last week that I didn't have enough marks for the report cards; I was short measurement and geometry marks, though I had taught all the other strands in third term. I decided measurement was the more crucial of the two, and also the one that I'd touched on at another time, so I figured I could get a mark for area quite easily.

Thursday was a simple review of area of a rectangle, which I was pretty sure they already knew. I was right; only two or three kids needed to discover the formula for area, and by the end of the lesson all of them had it. That was the grade five expectation met. So I looked ahead, because I like to give A's, and discovered that the grade six expectation was area of triangles and parallelograms, using the formula for area of a rectangle as the starting point.

My kids can do this, thought I.

So I started them on Friday with a sheet of grid paper and asked them to draw a 3cmx4cm rectangle. We figured out the area with no problem. Then I asked them to draw a diagonal line from one corner to an opposite corner, creating two triangles. With some demonstration of what I meant, they accomplished this.

I got them to tell me about the triangles. They were right-angled triangles. The other two angles were both acute. (We discussed why the other two angles in a right-angled triangle have to be acute at this point.) The length of one side of each triangle was 3 cm, and the length of another side was 4 cm. So far, so good, but nobody had yet come up with the word I was looking for, so I primed them: during the quilt unit, we talked about shapes like this. Compare these two triangles. Someone said they were the same, and then I managed to draw the word out of them: they're congruent, and they're rotated 180 degrees.

Then I asked them to look at the rectangle with its triangles and describe it using a fraction. I shaded one of the two triangles and asked for a fraction; without too much pulling, they said it was half.

Without belabouring the point, I asked: If the entire rectangle is 12cm^2, what is the area of each of the triangles? They got the answer - 6cm^2.

I asked them to draw a few more rectangles, bisect them the same way, and test this; when they counted squares and parts of squares, did they get that the triangles were in fact half the area of the rectangles? Next I asked them to draw a right-angled triangle and use what they knew about rectangles to come up with the area of the triangle. I was looking for the kids who could do it without completing the rectangle first; a few kids needed me to draw the congruent triangle for them so they could see what I meant by it. But within another ten minutes, kids were showing me their work and explaining it, so I knew they got it.

Then I started offering the challenge question. I took their grid paper and drew a triangle on it that wasn't a right-angled triangle, and asked them to use what they'd just learned to find the area of that triangle.

A couple of them started by finding the height, thereby creating two right-angled triangles, and then building rectangles on each of those. One or two drew a rectangle without creating the two right-angled triangles first; to those ones I asked how they knew that the triangle I'd drawn was exactly half of the rectangle they'd drawn, since the other triangles in their rectangle weren't congruent with the first one. Then they figured out that they could prove that the triangle was half of the rectangle if they drew in the height and made right-angled triangles.

At the end of the lesson, I gathered all the kids together who had completed the extension activity (I didn't force anyone to do it after they got the right-angled triangle, because that was already an A.) I explained the different terminology: when we're talking about rectangles, we use the terms length and width, but when talking about triangles, we use base and height instead; they mean the same thing in terms of their drawings but it's important to know the terminology so you know what other mathematicians are talking about. I also showed them a couple versions of the algebraic formula for area of a triangle: 1/2 bh, bh/2, and the formats they're more familiar with involving symbols for multiplication and division.

Next up: area of a parallelogram.

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Anyone interested?

Fri, 21 May 2010 17:31:08 GMT

Any illustrator types want to join me in a summer project?

I need some new French plays, which I'm prepared to write myself based on fables and fairy tales. I'd love to have them illustrated into a storybook that I could use to introduce the play, and some vocabulary cards with parts of the same illustrations for the major vocabulary. I'd pay to get them printed in colour and to get the storybooks bound. If I could drum up some interest in them, I'd then approach an educational publisher about publishing them as a series.

Anyone interested? I could use a francophone editor, too.

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This Week in Math: Ethnomathematics in My Classroom

Wed, 12 May 2010 18:34:43 GMT

A quick post, relatively, because I'm short on time and energy and there are kids screaming right outside my classroom window.

A couple of weeks ago, we started the book, "If the World Were a Village." Last Thursday, we got to the page about the most common languages in the global village. The page gave the breakdown of the number of people out of one hundred villagers who speak each of the eight most common languages in the world. The breakdown is as follows:

Chinese - 22, 18 of them Mandarin
English - 9
Hindi - 9
Spanish - 7
Bengali - 4
Arabic - 4
Portuguese - 3
Russian - 3

I was using this to teach the concept of the double bar graph. So I put these numbers up on chart paper and suggested to the class that we compare them to the native languages of our own class.

We came across a problem with Chinese. The only Chinese girl in the class has a Chinese father and a Vietnamese mother. She speaks both languages. So we put up an extra category for Vietnamese and went on. English wasn't too hard; 48% of my class speaks English as a their first (and in most cases, only) language.

Then we came across the biggest snag.

I have several Indian kids in my classroom. I also have several Pakistani kids. Between the nine kids who fall into one of these two categories, their are four languages with varying levels of mutual comprehension: Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, and another form of Punjabi that is apparently incomprehensible to the speakers of the first form but which everyone agrees still goes by the same name. The Hindi people were willing to admit that the Pakistanis spoke a dialect of Hindi that they called Urdu, but the Pakistanis wouldn't give ground on the matter at all; yes, they understand the Hindi kids, but their language is a different language. All nine of them agreed as to why: India and Pakistan had been at war off and on for so long that no one in Pakistan wanted anything to do with India, while the Indians were always quick to point out that Pakistan USED TO BE part of India.

We finally separated out the concepts of race, religion, nationality, and language, pointing out that the four overlap quite a bit but they are not the same thing. We decided to discount race entirely (I admit to pushing that decision a little bit.) We came to the conclusion that the reason the different dialects of English are all called English is that there's no political reason to call them anything else, whereas the tensions between Pakistan and India make people of both countries want to separate their language from each other.

Then we brought it back around to math, pointing out that the author of the book probably made a decision to count Urdu as a dialect of Hindi, and count them all together, whereas in our classroom, we'd separated them for political reasons. The big understanding that came out of the discussion was that numbers can be used in different ways. Sometimes, to make a graph or some other representation of numbers, we have to simplify them, and sometimes when we simplify them, we lose some of their meaning. If the reader puts too much store in the simplified numbers, misunderstandings can happen as a result.

Next up: a bar graph comparing our class' level of access to electronics to the number in the global village. Part of that discussion will involve the word "privilege."

In other news, there's a correlation between the number of computers my students have access to and their success in school. Last year, only 60% of my kids had a computer at home, and several of those lacked internet access. Their scores on the standardized testing two years before were abysmal. This year, all but one of my kids has access to internet at home (if they're telling the truth, and I'm pretty sure they are.) Their scores on the testing were much, much higher, and they generally perform better.

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This Week In Math

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:56:30 GMT

The problem:

You've been pretty lazy about laundry lately. You've been throwing socks into the drawer without matching them up first. You also haven't taken your laundry downstairs to wash it, so at the moment, there's only two unmatched pairs of socks in your drawer - one black, one red. Most of the time this isn't a problem because you've got lots of time to get dressed, but this morning, you're being picked up to go on a trip with a friend, and your alarm doesn't go off. Your friend knocks on the door expecting you to be ready, and you need to get dressed in a flash. You reach into the sock drawer and pull out two socks.

what is the probability that they match?

Now, I can't take credit for this problem. It's straight out of the Ministry of Education document entitled "Guide to Effective Instruction in Mathematics: Probability," for grade four to six. I do take some credit for how far we took it, however.

We started with paper bags, in which were two pairs of construction-paper socks. Kids did thirty trials and then predicted the actual probability based on their experiment. Then we figured out how many possible pairs there were, and how many of those pairs gave them a matching set. We got two matching pairs out of six possible pairs, or 2/6. Using what we knew of equivalent fractions, we reduced that to 1/3.

Then we extended it. What happens if we've got three pairs of socks? Is the probability of a matching pair better or worse or the same? I asked them to predict what they expected to find, and write down their prediction; then I asked them to prove it. Well, with three pairs, the probability is 3/15, which is 1/5. I reiterated, as I have many times, that it didn't matter too much if their prediction was wrong; what mattered was that, when they realized they were wrong, they went back to figure out why they'd made that prediction and checked to make sure they had it right now. I made sure we were using good scientific language for this process - hypothesis, experiment, proof.

Okay, so what about four pairs of socks? They figured out that the probability then was 4/28, and reduced that with help to 1/7. That was the end of day one.

On day two, I took the information we'd gathered the day before for two, three, and four pairs of socks, and organized it into a chart. Then I asked them to find the patterns, and use the patterns to predict the next term.

They came up with two patterns, only one of which I'd found myself. The first group noticed the pattern in the reduced fractions - 1/3, 1/5, 1/7 - and predicted that the next reduced fraction would be 1/9. Then they worked backwards to figure out the unreduced fraction of 5/45. The other group took the unreduced fractions - 2/6, 3/15, 4/28 - and figured out that the distance between 6 and 15 is nine, and the distance between 15 and 28 is 13 which is 9+4, and they postulated that the next term would be 13+4 more than 28, which is 45.

Anyone who got as far as seven or eight terms and gave a pattern rule that worked got a B. If they could use the phrase "theoretical probability" in their answer, that was bumped up to an A-, because the distinction between experimental and theoretical probability is a grade six topic according to the curriculum. Those who continued to develop the pattern for many more terms got an A.

Then I asked those who clearly understood that pattern to come to the carpet, and I introduced them to the concept of the nth term - when you don't know the term number, you can replace it with the variable n. If we could figure out how to get from the term number to the reduced fraction, consistently, then we could come up with any term even if they were out of order. So we looked at it, and realized that 1/3 is one less than two times two; 1/5 is one less than three times two; 1/7 is one less than four times two; and so on. So the denominator was two times the term number minus one. I showed them how to write this; 1/2n-1. To get an A+, all they had to do was show me that they could apply this to fill in two lines of the chart that were out of order, because the ability to solve an algebraic equation is a grade seven topic - two years above grade level.

In my class of twenty-five, I gave out exactly two B's. Everyone else got an A. My students on IEPs ALL got A's, and I didn't even have to adjust their expectations downwards; I just had to make sure they had access to support to clarify the patterns they saw.

The A's here are for both probability and patterning, so that's two A's on most report cards for my kids.

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Fat and Angry

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 01:17:13 GMT

For those interested in issues surrounding body image in our culture, I recommend you read this. Actually, cereta is pretty cool in many capacities.

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Altriona: Intrigue

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:52:16 GMT

Somewhere on the Bretonnian coast, probably nearing Bordeleaux as I pen the words, is a single elven sailor. He bears with him two messages, one written and the other oral, to the patricide in Marienberg.

The other sixty-nine elves aboard the Imholien vessel Trisk'a'levian are dead. Some, including Captain Amendil with whom I have ever been acquainted, fell to the magic bolts of Lorandara. Others, like the First Mate, made good target practice for me. Many - most - died at the hands of our crew.

I knew we could not risk taking them alive; that we may be able to afford to take slaves of them later, but not now. My heart weighed like a stone within me, but I did not question the necessity. It would seem, though, that my brother has not yet grasped that his gentle lady sister is gone, nevermore to return. He gave orders to crew of all three ships, unbeknownst to me, that no one was to be left alive.

I realized this as we boarded the vessel, having already relieved it of half the souls on board. Even as I was about to give the order, I became aware that the men were not looking to me to give one; they knew already what was expected of them and believed that I did, too. I insisted on one prisoner, who was removed to the Morehaig's Scythe upon my order after the rest of the battle was over.

I challenged Mallion over it. It seems he wanted to protect me and his wife from the worst we would have to do by not telling us of the orders until it was too late to change them. I insisted that in future, he inform me of all plans.

I do not believe he recognizes the difficult position in which he put me. It is I, ostensibly, who command the marines in battle. Had I balked, it would have been I who lost credibility and authority with our crew.

He agreed to discuss future plans with me in advance of the battle, and shared with me one of the goals. We are not going to kill Valadar; we will instead use the warpstone to transform him, and let him live. But first, we must practise with the stone on a prisoner.

Then he asked me to keep this information from Lorandara.

I do not pretend that Lorandara is as well able to handle the necessities of battle as I. She cried as she killed the captain, and I heard her whisper, "I'm sorry," before casting that first bolt. Her relative fragility is undeniable. Yet I cannot fathom how Mallion will go about keeping this plan from her. Nor can I understand why he would want to. Does he still not see us as equals? Must he still pull out the damn chivalry at every bloody turn?

Protecting her in this way is dangerous. It is condescending. And above all, it is impossible, as Lorandara has locked away the green stone.

Mallion made me promise I would not tell her, before he told me. I am getting very tired of keeping their secrets from each other. One day both will come out, and those two must needs deal fairly with each other on that day.

Even now, the old life of genteel and ladylike pursuits intrudes on the new, in the form of a respectful regard that must needs give way to true honour among us three. Perhaps I can still save Mallion if we can find that equality.

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This Week in Math, Week 2

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 03:15:38 GMT

The Big Idea:

Fractions aren't about quantity so much as proportion.

The Problem:

Prove that 3/8 is greater than 1/4 but less than 1/2. Use at least two different representations to prove this.

Most kids used a number line first, bringing in their work from last week on equivalent fractions. A couple used simple arrays instead. A few got nowhere because they used three different representations for the three fractions; with their permission, we used that as a key teaching in the lesson: that comparing fractions is always easier when the wholes are the same size and shape.

The fun came when I changed the focus of the problem somewhat today. The problem became: is 7/9 greater than or less than 7/8?

First I instructed them to come up with a prediction. I made note of the kids who told me that 7/8 was greater because ninths mean smaller pieces than eighths; those are the kids who grasp the proportionality of fractions. But I didn't challenge the more common prediction that 7/9 was the greater number because nine was greater than eight. I simply told them to write down their prediction and their reason for it, reminded them of the lesson learned during the previous problem (that the whole must always be the same size and it helps if it's the same shape) and let them go at it.

I got a lot of number lines again. I suggested to a few kids that they use what they knew about multiplication and division; for example, could they draw a rectangle that was divisible by both eight and nine using graph paper? I guided a few kids through the process of figuring out how many squares were coloured in the 7/9 array versus the 7/8 array, and reaffirmed that I was proud of them for recognizing that their prediction had been wrong, and writing their revised answer. We briefly reviewed how a mathematical proof is the exact same process as the scientific method: develop a hypothesis, develop a method for testing that hypothesis, work through the method, compare your answer with your hypothesis, and conclude that you were either right or wrong.

I encouraged kids who clearly got it to use the best math language they could and to explain their pattern rule: as the denominator gets bigger, the pieces get smaller.

All of the kids who originally believed that 7/9 was bigger ended up revising their hypothesis and understanding the pattern rule by the end of the lesson. I have a few kids I need to see for guided math on Tuesday because they were helping with the raffle or otherwise unavailable for part of the lesson, though.

Next Week in This Week in Math: The Math of School Raffles. We did the raffle today, and I kept all the tickets for each item in a numbered brown paper bag for the express purpose of probability experiments next week. There were a few poor sports commenting on how someone (i.e. me - no, I didn't let them get away with it) must have cheated, since they put twenty tickets in one box and somebody else won anyway. I'm looking forward to examining the probabilities involved in that one.

The following week, we'll be doing coin tosses, which will lead directly into Pascal's Triangle.

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Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:28:39 GMT

I've bought these for the girls for Easter - one each to eliminate the current fighting over Biz's Fisher-Price camera. They were on sale for $30 at a local Canadian Tire.

I also picked up two for school. One of the assignments this week is for a pair of kids to decide on the best way to cut a birthday cake so that the birthday child gets exactly twice as much as all the other attendees. Then they have to videotape one partner or the other explaining their method. They get to decide on the number of people at the birthday party, thus ensuring that each group will be representing different fractional amounts.

Downside: the camera has just enough memory for one video, so I may have to come up with an SD card to put into it temporarily until I can get the school to buy one. Also, I'll have to check on the battery situation.

Upside: they can record their presentations when they're ready, and I can show them when I'm ready, not to mention saving them for something like, say, a job interview about my math program in six weeks' time. I think that's worth using my own SD card.

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This Week in Math

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:52:55 GMT

I think maybe I'll make this a weekly feature, just for the heck of it. It reminds me that I'm doing a good job.

So, this week in math, we started by reviewing what little we'd learned about equivalent fractions before the March break. Since exploratory learning is starting to become de rigeur for my students (as it should be) I took them to the computer lab and let them play around with the fractions manipulatives on the national library of virtual manipulatives website. The differentiation was easy. Don't get this at all? Try the basic fractions manipulative. You've already figured out the pattern rule? Great, do the grade six one.

On Monday, I gave them an assignment to do. They would get four or five pieces of regular paper in different colours, their choice. On each one, they'd write a different common fraction. The example, which I made up with my six-year-old on Sunday, was one half. Then they'd come up with three or four equivalents for it, and represent those equivalents in pictures. They had to explain the fractions and how those fractions were connected to the original fraction. There is a rubric - let me know if you want it.

The kids who were having trouble even accessing one half came for some guided math with me. We did fraction strips, and played around a bit with blocks, until they got to the point where they understood that if you divided all the pieces the same way, you had an equivalent fraction.

Then, because an abstract understanding is important to work towards, we took the equivalent fractions they'd come up with and analyzed them. How do you get from 1/2 to 4/8? If they expressed it as adding, I told them they were right, but they'd see the pattern faster if they thought of it as multiplication. So what would they multiply by? Some figured out the pattern independently; others needed to be shown several times, and finally got it with the help of more manipulatives. Then I encouraged them to use the pattern rule they'd found to come up with what they thought was an equivalent fraction. They had to come up with the proof that they were right by drawing a representation they could connect back to the original fraction.

As of this writing, most of my kids have finished two or three sheets of equivalent fractions. The rubric gives an A to kids who can connect their equivalents to decimals or percents, so I've explained the idea of repeating fractions to the kids trying that for 1/3. I suspect most will finish on time - the assignment is due on Monday.

Next Week: comparing and ordering fractions is so much more interesting when the denominators are different.

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Math Course Assignment

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:53:09 GMT

The assignment was to try something completely new for five hours over the last few weeks, and write about where the math was to be found in this new thing, and how learning it gave you insight into your students' issues with trying new things in math.

Fortunately, ( I've started learning to play hand drum in that time period. )

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Altriona: In business

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:13:04 GMT

We did it. We pulled off an act of piracy.

I can hear echoing through my consciousness the voices of my forebears, those great elves who built Imholien House into the enterprise over which my father presided with such consummate skill. From deep within my soul rises up a spring of inherited horror at my effrontery, that I, a lady of breeding and refinement, should ever throw off the bindings of polite society in order to keep company with brigands and thieves, leading them on a mission to intercept and make off with black powder and warpstone.

But I am no longer a scion of Imholien House. Here in my journal, I will forevermore thumb my nose at the lot of them. I am the instrument of my own revenge and my brother's, and I will allow no shades of guilt to colour my spirit.

Lord Rackham sent us on a first mission. With the city of Tobaro in such disarray, certain trade lines are not as well-policed as usual. He knew of a shipment of black powder out of Tobaro, to be exchanged with he knew not whom, on an outcropping of scree and rock just west of the Zombie Marsh. (We were assured that the zombies had rotted so thoroughly that it was truly more of a skeleton marsh now; I cannot say whether such news was more reassuring to my brother and sister-in-law than it was to me.) He suggested we arrange to take both the powder and the gold that would be paid for it.

Though we three discussed the possibility of sailing the captured ship into the port of Tobaro and blowing it up, thereby bringing down that cavernous pit of putrescence upon itself and finishing our retribution against the usurpers of the ancient elven port, we determined that such would not be wise, given that it would put us on the wrong side of our business partner's favour. Therefore we determined to do as we had been advised to do, taking the ship full of powder first, then treating with those who came to buy it long enough to o'erwhelm them. Accordingly we hid the Morehaig's Scythe on the wrong side of the outcropping of rock, the narrow beach on the other side of which was to be the site of the transfer. Our other ship, the fill-in-name-here, was to stand just slightly further off, to come up behind the mark and attack it. With Mallion flying messenger, this plan was easily accomplished as the sailors of the coast-hugging cargo ship were offloading the powder. He killed the captain of that vessel, though he was shot by someone off in the shadows just as the fight ended.

He flew back to our ship, where I was waiting with the men for his order to go ashore. Lorandara tried to heal him, and - I can barely find words for what happened to her. She convulsed, crying out continually in an agony of body I can barely comprehend. The sound tore at my sanity, for I believed her to be dying.

As Mallion took her to their cabin, I led the men landward, wading through the shallow water until we reached the beach full of kegs. The screaming behind us ceased ere we gained the beach, and I looked behind to see Mallion flying towards us and Lorandara, seemingly hale, skywalking.

My attention was diverted by a flaming arrow landing mere feet shy of the furthest barrel of black powder. I motioned the men back into the lee shadow of the rock, whence it would be difficult to get a sighting on us with a bow, and called out to the bowmen to show themselves, that we might treat with them.

"Go away, or we will blow it up!" they answered.

"Then neither of us will have it! Treat with us instead!" I answered.

This went back and forth until Mallion planted himself between the barrels and our hidden adversaries. Upon discussion, they revealed that it was not gold that they had to trade, but green stone.

Mallion went back to discuss this with Lorandara, who told him what it was. It seems it is the stuff of chaos, magic in brute form, and above all, worth several fortunes more than were on that ship to be traded for it. He offered to trade one vial of the green stone for the half of the black powder already sitting on the beach. They agreed, and the exchange was made.

Thus we got half of what we had come for, with little killing and continued access to more of that valuable and dangerous material. Lorandara took charge of it, and we are keeping a small portion for ourselves, in the hope that it may prove efficacious at some crucial moment.

I am learning more of the workings of the ship, for Mallion takes little interest in that aspect of captaincy and one of us must. Our second mate is good at interpreting orders, and I pay him close heed so that I might better turn my phrases as the men are used to hearing them. My hands are hardening in ways that handling a foil would never have achieved. Methinks I shall take quite well to this new life.

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Direct Patronage

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:46:48 GMT

For those of you familiar with Jess Hartley, or interested in finding great authors and supporting their work, I suggest you take a look at this.

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