Dungeons and Dragons Inspired “Shadows in the Stone”

My love for fantasy started when I was a child. I had always loved magical things, fairies and worlds of wonder. While I may not have understood this when I was really young, by the time I was 13 years old, I knew I wanted to learn more and if I could, experience some of the magic.

My path to better understanding magical worlds began at that age because I started playing a role-playing game called Dungeons and Dragons. A leader in our neighbourhood had played and became our dungeon master. He was perfect for the role.

Stumbling my way through my first campaigns, I learned about different races (human, dwarf, elf, hauflin [halfling in this game] ) and their attributes and shortcomings. I learned about casting spells, magical items and magic in general. At first, I read the dungeon master’s copy of Dungeon Masters Guide, then I bought my own to keep as a reference and so I could read it at home. I studied this book and what went into this game as much if not more than the subjects at school. In fact, I recall one day when our dungeon master walked into the Lounge of the Boys and Girls club, found me and few other members studying his books, and said, “If you guys put this much effort into studying for school, you’d all get 100s.”

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Spring Midgarden Garlic Update

My last garlic update was on November 25, 2021. Read it here: Midgarden Garlic Update. I had planted 71 cloves on November 4th. Winter is a tricky season, and one never knows what will survive and what won’t. My garlic surprised me again this spring, and every clove developed.

Here is the upper bed of garlic. It contains most of the cloves. Although chickens pecked and dug around it all spring, the garlic did find.

Garlic in Mid-May 2022

That dried stalk in the bottom right is the fennel that grew there last year.

Garlic bed just after planting November 2021

Following my schedule for last year, I will pick garlic scapes in late June and the garlic the first week of August. I can’t consume 71 scapes, so I’m going to sell most of them. If you’re in the area and want fresh scapes in late June, get in touch. When I sell, I’ll harvest when the buyer arrives, so they’ll be fresh.

My garlic is organically grown. The only thing that goes on it and the soil are rain water from the cistern or rainwater barrels, compost made on the property from animal manure and soiled hay, unbleached mulch, shavings and fall leaves.

If the garlic grows as well as it did last year, I’ll have 458 cloves to plant this November. And I will be ready to sell half of the crop in August 2023 when I will crown myself the Queen of Garlic.

For those who don’t know the start of my garlic journey, all this began with one bulb bought in November 2019. The story starts with this post: In the Garden: Growing Garlic.

Happy Gardening.

The Dragon Stone

My daughter surprised me on Mother’s Day with two stones. The largest, a Dragon Stone, was about the size of my baby finger. With it was a write-up that told me what it was and its properties. Here’s what the note said:

Dragon Stone: “Level Up”: With a magickal title like “dragon stone”, the properties of this gem does its name justice. Like a vial of health in a video game, dragon stone (also known as Septarian) has a nurturing vibration that encourages healing and a sense of well being to those who carry it. While it doesn’t add lives as you play, this stone does recharge your sense of spiritual, physical, and mental vitality when you are feeling drained. It is also known to aid in communication within a group.

Digging further, I found this:

1. Legend has it these stones contain fossilized pieces of ancient dragon bones.

That could be a good or bad thing, depending on how one feels about carrying around bones of the dead. If the dragon died of natural causes, whether old age or in adventure or battle, I’d love to carry its bones. If it was slain for its bones, then that is negative energy I don’t want.

2. This stone is associated with the root and sacral chakras.

Since I want to explore this ancient healing practice, this is a plus.

3. This stone is said to soothe the nerves and aid in internal organ function.

We all need our nerves soothed at times, and we need our internal organs to function all the time.

This is the stone whispering to me at the moment, so I carry it with me and include it in rituals I do. The name alone – Dragon Stone – is great inspiration. While not all dragons are good, many are, just like humans. If you’re looking for such a stone, this one was purchased at Calling Corners, Truro, Nova Scotia.

A New Addition to the Herd

This spring has been extremely busy. There are days when I feel like a dozen energies are pulling me in the same number of directions. I rise in the morning wondering how many things I can get done before the day is exhausted.

Then there was Friday. I was up early, getting the tasks needing to be done completed because my Toggenburg doe, Willow, was due to kid, and my focus had to be on her.

Experience has taught me every birth is different. Some are easy, some are interesting, some are entertaining and some (like Sigma’s a few years ago) have me holding down back legs and being splattered with blood while a vet forces a uterus back into a screaming goat.

Knowing all this, I go into each birth with an open mind. I hope for easy, kid on the ground when I open the barn door in the morning, and the mother cleaning up the afterbirth coating the kid’s hair. Yet, we’re ready with plastic gloves that go to our armpit, clean rags to help clean off kids and the vet’s number on speed dial.

The journey started on November 23, 2021, when I bred Willow to Chippy, a Nigerian Dwarf buck. We’re getting out of Togs (Toggenburgs) and switching to Nigerian Dwarf. We have many reasons, but that’s not what this post is about.

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A Five-star Amazon Review

My philosophy from the beginning of this writing journey has been to write books I enjoy reading. If these books found readers who also enjoyed the stories, then it made publishing these books worth the time and energy. Those readers are the ones I am writing for. I can’t write for all readers, so I don’t even try.

So when I come upon a positive review of one of my books, it makes me smile. I found one today, posted yesterday and for me, it reaffirmed the reason I do what I do. And that’s write books that I enjoy, not books on the latest fad, political statement or books similar to those on the best-sellers’ list.

What kind of books do I enjoy? Ones with adventure, a little romance, a little humour, hope even when things look tragic, hard-working people with good values, loving family, loyal friends, a good sense of home and entertainment. I like to create worlds we can escape to, ones that make us forget about the current state of the world around us.

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Sunday Spring Garden Tour

Walking around the garden this morning, I snapped a few pictures of life emerging after a long winter. Although it was only one degree Celsius, the sun was shining, and the light breeze from the northwest wasn’t cool. It felt like spring.

This morning’s sunshine and warmth is the calm before the storm. By this time tomorrow, all signs of spring will be under 20 to 25 centimetres of blowing snow. Hopefully, it will be the last snow storm of the season.

Garlic: It’s up about two inches.

Oregano: All three plants appear to have weathered the winter well.

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My Goose Laid an Egg

That’s right. The goose I bought as a gosling in the spring of 2021 laid its first egg. And that’s no April Fools joke. It wasn’t golden, but it’s still special. While locking up last night, I saw the egg laying by the water trough. It was a handful.

I’ve never eaten or cooked with a goose egg before, so I can only go by what I’m finding online. Apparently, the taste is stronger than that of chicken and duck, which I eat often. They are great for baking, and even sought after “because their consistency makes a thick, moist batter that holds together well.”

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Introducing Gardening Magic YouTube Channel

For a long time, I’ve thought about creating a gardening channel on YouTube. After thinking about it for months on how I’d format it, I’ve finally taken the plunge.

I like short videos because I don’t have a huge chunk of free time. I want videos to be precise and on the topic in the title. When I’m looking for information, say on how to propagate blackberries, I don’t want unrelated stories. I find a lot of YouTubers talk about irrelevant things to add minutes to their videos.

I aim to keep my videos short. Ten minutes or less.

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Moon Journey: The Cold Moon Arrives Today

Today is the full moon. Where I live, it is at its fullest at 7:48 pm. Last night when I had finished feeding the animals, I stood in the path and stared up at the moon. Its light glowed upon the snow and provided illumination to easily navigate without a flashlight. The skies were clear, and the stars were bright, but the moon dominated the landscape.

Often, the coldest days of the month surround the full moon. This month is no different. Where I live, we’ve hit -19 degrees Celsius with wind chills in the low -30s.

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