Welcome, welcome, my lovelies! All's well, I'm not feeling exceptionally hairy or prone to nibble. After last week's diary about a nice long romp over through the fields and forests around Kuks, I thought I'd use my diary this week to share a couple little projects of mine that I recently completed.
Back on the 30th of April, there was a witch that needed a bit of burning. It's a weird bit of pagan purification ritual, commandeered by Christians and performed by atheists. In other words, a typical Czech holiday. My own little, Czech witch, Mrs the Werelynx expects that we'll participate in this tradition and so, nearly every year that I've lived over here, I've made a little witch figure and set fire to it. There'll be a bonfire set ablaze in nearly every village and town in the republic. People will congregate around them and the witchy figurine burning merrily in the middle. There will be food and drink, music, singing and dancing— and costumes. There are far more witches gathered around these fires than are burned in them. Somehow, burning a witch in effigy has become a celebration of witches.
Later, I put a pot on the fire to boil.
That weekend I made my third batch of walnut ink. I'd gathered a bucketful of slimy, mushy, black walnut husks— no, no! Don’t misunderstand me. These are the rotten black husks of English Walnuts. They're not the Black Walnut variety that apparently all walnut ink makers seem to think is required. No, it's not required.
This week, I did a test page of little drawings using my new ink.
In garden news, there are a couple little updates.
The garden is doing alright. The last couple of weekends saw a lot of changes.
Yes, sharp-eyed and regular readers of my little missives will have noticed that new raised bed in my photo.
So far, I’ve got a good clump of thyme and three little sage plants in the right end of it and popped in a few yellow onions that had been just beginning to sprout on the spot where I’d decided to build the box. Yes, Mrs the Werelynx took pity on my sad seedlings, mostly deceased, and bought some seedling herbs for me to transplant. Also have a couple varieties of hot pepper, but we took them home as there's still a risk of frost in these parts.
And today? Well, today I went down the annual Book World fair with #1 Son and my Czech aunt (who'll be celebrating her 80th birthday this Summer)
It was nice, but I didn't last long this time. Just got three books.
Thanks for stopping by.
This is an open thread.