NewBook has lost 10K words as I’ve read my way carefully through it, distracted far too often by phone-spam, weather, and of course politics. Most of the 10K were inline with recommendations from early readers, and leave room for tightening the plot.\u00a0\u00a0 However, one of the other annoying aftermaths of the concussion is that when I look at the gaps, I do not quickly think what should go there in what order, even if (in two other files, Timeline and Ideas) there’s stuff that can, or will, go in.\u00a0 My ability to mentally squint and see\/imagine how it will read if R goes before or after K…is much weaker.<\/p>\n
We are having a whop-dolloping winter storm, for this part of Texas in February.\u00a0 Two days ago we had sunshine, wildflowers popping out, several bushes popping their buds and showing flowers (including two of my faves, elbowbush and rusty blackhaw viburnum. )\u00a0\u00a0 I was running out to the barn in shirtsleeves.\u00a0 Both these bushes can stand hard freezes up until the buds pop.\u00a0 The inner bud scales give some protection from overnight frosts.\u00a0 But this…hours and hours of below freezing w\/o a day’s warmth for recovery, and the last night of this mess is supposed to take us down to 10 degrees Fahrenheit.\u00a0 WAY below our usual “frost-low” of maybe 28 for an hour or so before dawn.\u00a0 Bluebonnets, the state flower, can handle hard freezes in the rosette stage, but once the rosettes lift up (bulge on top) they’re also susceptible to low temperatures.\u00a0\u00a0 Last night it went below freezing in a cold fog, then we got thunderstorms as the temps dropped, with rain (first) then freezing rain, then sleet.\u00a0 An ice storm effect with every limb and twig covered in ice for hours.\u00a0 Icicles…and this is the warmest day of the bunch.\u00a0 We won’t see above freezing and subshine again until Tuesday, right after the lowest low.\u00a0 Max stress on the spring growth.\u00a0\u00a0 Also on the line electricity, which has glitched repeatedly this afternoon.\u00a0 Our heat is propane, but won’t come on without the electricity because modern systems work that way.\u00a0 My stove is electric.<\/p>\n
The horses are not making it easy, either.\u00a0 I’m about to layer myself into not-quite-warm-layers to give them early night hay, and then go out again around midnight to be sure they have some unfrozen water.\u00a0 Tigger, whose mane is longer, had icicles in his mane and tail earlier.\u00a0 He’d stood out in the sleet, staring into the distance, got back in the barn and the sleet melted, making him wetter and colder.\u00a0 He was shivering a lot at one point.\u00a0 But let me catch him and blanket him?\u00a0 No.\u00a0\u00a0 (Addendum–R did my 8-8-30 pm check for me.\u00a0 I’ll go between 11:30 and midnight.)<\/p>\n
To add to the fun, we were due a propane delivery today, but the propane company called in the morning and said they couldn’t get to us because of the road conditions (since this is an unusual storm, this area’s never prepared for icy or snowy roads.)\u00a0\u00a0 The wintry stuff wasn’t supposed to be here until Friday.<\/p>\n
But one spot of warm joy this evening was an indulgent supper of sausage balls.\u00a0 https:\/\/www.southyourmouth.com\/2013\/12\/original-sausage-balls.html<\/a><\/p>\n We ate 22 of the\u00a0 24 we made, dipping them in either or both ranch dressing &\u00a0 a cranberry\/pepper relish\u00a0 from New Canaan Farms, Dripping Springs, TX, near Austin.\u00a0 Both were excellent with the sausage balls.\u00a0 Hot out of the oven…great.\u00a0 Unlike the South Your Mouth recipe, we used the “hot” version of Owen’s Country Sausage, which I like better than Jimmy Dean’s.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NewBook has lost 10K words as I’ve read my way carefully through it, distracted far too often by phone-spam, weather, and of course politics. Most of the 10K were inline with recommendations from early readers, and leave room for tightening the plot.\u00a0\u00a0 However, one of the other annoying aftermaths of the concussion is that when Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,16,10],"tags":[49,17,7],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses","category-life-beyond-writing","category-the-writing-life","tag-horses","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":738,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}