In which I drop vague hints, recount a trip to Aurohn Lake this past weekend, and discuss the appeasement of local gods.

The past few weeks have been extremely busy. I’ve had to set aside almost all other writing and editing projects (yes, The Spring Chap being one of them — all apologies to those of you who are waiting patiently) in order to finish up a number of things for a . . . well, I’m not sure what to call it, really. All I know at this point, all I can say is that one of my books has gotten some attention from an unexpected area. Conversations with very nice people are ongoing. At times it’s quite exciting. At other times I cannot help but think of il gatto e la volpe.

This is the sort of thing that keeps me up at night, pacing and talking to myself. Rest assured that when things solidify a bit, one way or another, I’ll have more to say about it here.

With all of that going on, it was nice to take some time out this past weekend for a visit to Aurohn Lake. I brought along the copy of Burrough’s A Princess of Mars that I’d gotten for Ken. I’ll be reading it at the same time he will be, although he’s read it before — the first time was back when he was a boy, sometime around the 1920’s. I’m hopeful that we’ll have some interesting conversations afterwards. And then it’ll be his turn to pick a book for us to read.

I’ve already got one of his (unpublished) novels waiting on my nightstand. Pinnacle is a fictionalized account of his work on the groundbreaking car commercial for Chevrolet that first put an automobile on top of a remote mountaintop in the middle of the desert. It’s a pretty commonplace image now in advertising, but Ken did it first back in 1964, and without computers. I’m interested to read the book . . . but I’m looking forward to exploring Mars with him as well.

While we were out there, Keeley, Jeff (her father), and I took a nice long walk around the lake, through the forest, across the meadow, and back again. It started with a liberation of the last few milkweed pods. Across the lake, we spied a trespassing ATV that took off at the first sight of us, which gave us all something to grumble about. But the trespasser was quickly forgotten as we saw a few deer early on — a brief flash of the tail, the bounding into the thicker trees — and a surprisingly non-nocturnal possum that trundled as fast as it could away from us through the underbrush.

Last time we came through the forest a few weeks back, it was bitter cold and the little ponds were frozen solid. This time, however, the warm weather had broken things down considerably and was performing the alchemy of spring that invariably turns everything into mud.

In the distance, perhaps outside the boundaries of the Aurohn conservancy, we could hear gunfire. Far off through the trees, we could just barely make out the edge of a lake on the neighboring property. About the time the gunshots started ringing out — it’s nowhere near hunting season, by the way — we watched a herd of eight or nine deer plunge into the frigid water and then scramble up onto the ice to make their escape — their hoofbeats breaking through here and there as they drummed across the surface.

One of the deer floundered for a while in the icy water and it was breathtaking, excruciating to be unable to do anything but watch. To our relief, they finally made it up and across the ice after their herd.

The gunshots continued. I don’t have a fond place in my heart for hunters, particularly not out of season poachers. Fortunately, my phone has excellent coverage out there in the middle of nowhere and I was able to put a call back to Ken’s and let them know.

This could also serve as my last communication, I thought to myself, before the tragedy struck.

There’s a hill just past Five Bar Gate where the forest ends and the back forty takes over. Just under the crown of the hill is a large hole leading down into a burrow. On top of the hill, the tall grass is matted down where the deer sleep. It’s the perfect spot: sheltered by trees on two sides, high enough to see predators coming, accessible enough to allow escape into deep cover.

Last time we were out, Keeley and I left apples there and I was happy to see that they were all gone. All through the forest and on the crown of the hill, we scattered the new batch of apples and carrots that we’d brought along this time. I’ve been reading A Field Guide to Demons — which isn’t really about demons so much, at least not in the pea soup sense — and I suppose some might say we were leaving offerings for the local gods. In truth, I just wanted to give the deer and the unseen burrow dweller (groundhog perhaps?) a nice treat after the long winter.

I like that little hill. I’d like to have a small, one room cabin up there with windows on all sides. All I need is a wood burning stove for warmth and tea, and a table and chair. I’d go there to write every day, if I could — and if it wouldn’t disturb the deer or the underhill god (groundhog, woodchuck . . . whoever it might be). That would be a good life. I’m surprised Ken never did something similar but, of course, he did. It’s why they moved there in the first place.

In the meadow beyond, the heavy snowfall and high winds of winter had flattened out most of the tall grass, so Jeff and I went down to the far edge of the lake to see what the ATV might have been up to. We also wanted to check and see if anyone had set out traps for the rumored-but-as-yet-unseen beavers (and, of course, spring them as a part of our subversive community service). No traps, fortunately. But no beavers either.

From there, it’s an easy walk back. When we got there, Ken’s wife Alice was on the phone checking on the provenance of the ATV and the gunfire. The collection of discarded beer cans we found along the way didn’t make them any more pleased about the trespassers.

But they were quite interested in the various books I’ve got on my iPhone. In addition to the excellent Classics application from the iTunes App store, I also had the Kindle application installed with my recent purchase of the Burrough’s book.

Scoffing at first, it didn’t take Ken long to get the hang of using the app to read. But he said what everybody else seems to say about the Kindle: “Well, it’ll never replace the pleasure of reading from a real book you’re holding in your hands.” I can’t say I disagree with them. Alice used to be a librarian and, watching her play with the iPhone, I had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t have minded having one of her own.

But I was most interested to hear, a week or so ago, that the Kindle store had opened up to direct submissions from authors. Having spent some time playing with the formatting and preparation of a document for that platform, I’m fairly confident that it’ll be one of many avenues by which I put my work out there in the next few months. Unless, of course, the cat and the fox come through.

The evening ended up with a stop off with Keeley’s parents for a nice big barbeque dinner on the way home, washed down with tose overgrown “tall” über pints of beer that everyone seems to be serving these days. All of which only made it that much easier to go home, snuggle up with my wife, and fall asleep well before 10 o’clock.

I woke at 3AM, wide awake and had some difficulty convincing my mind that we didn’t need to go downstairs and have one-sided debates about titles and audience age demographics. Eventually, I won out and fell back asleep in time to be completely late getting up for work the next morning.

A cot would be nice in that cabin too, now that I think of it.

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I have about fifty different tabs open in Firefox, seriously straining the patience and functionality of that application. Here’s my attempt to close a few of them…

It was the twittered birth of Roadhacker and Dirty Snowflake’s baby Maeve that led to the discovery that I am, according to the Mayan astrological system, a White Magnetic Dog. So that’s all right, then.

If I ever get a little cabin somewhere, I’ll almost certainly need a shelf for this. At least, unless I win one of these someday. If so, then I’ll pick up the idol from the HPLHS’s excellent adaptation of Call of Cthulhu instead.


And while we’re on the subject of Things I Want Someday, a few of these plushie skulls from Lana Crooks would look good on that shelf too. And they might also be great decor for a baby’s room as well. Or maybe we can just hire this fellow. Excellent stuff, but I do have to admit that these pillows might be taking it a little bit too far — at least, in a baby’s room.

And in case you missed it the first time, two of my online friends had a baby and twittered the whole thing. When I told my wife about it, she said “No electronic device of any kind will be anywhere near a birthing room, right?”

As with my vague non-news report above, I thought it best to adopt a neutral position in response. For now.