No matter how peculiar the beasts are, perhaps it is best not to follow…

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Photo #331: Fairy RingTime Drawn: September 2006

Be careful where you go in the woods, or the Fae might just steal you away…

Have you heard those old tales? Of elven kings and trickster fairies and rings of mushrooms you should never cross? Well, this girl obviously never did.

I love the old stories. Largely because time prunes away the poor stories and leaves the ones that tell the tale best. When I was younger I frequently delved into the children’s mythology section at my library, reading up on English tales and Greek tales and Chinese tales and whatever other tale was offered up.

There’s some great tales in those old books. Just ask Disney, they’ve been using them for decades.

I know, I know, it’s been said. But still, a large part of why these tales keep getting retold is that there are actually only seven basic plots a story can have.

I know, that seems like such a small number. But it’s true! I know, I know, there’s far more than seven novels out there, even far more than seven stories being written a second. But if you cut away all the non-essential parts, there are only seven cores for a story to bear.

Now, there is a LOT of place to add those non-essential parts that change the story immensely. A Rags to Riches type story can be a murder mystery (down on her luck detective gets a few lucky breaks and catches the killer despite the challenges in her way) or a romance (highly teased teenager finds true love in an unexpected place) or a science fiction tale (robot sent to be decommissioned ends up getting away and forms a robot society) or any other genre you can think of. Genres are the flavoring on top, and just as in cooking, they’re what makes the novel stand out from the pack.

So if you’re telling a story, it helps to have a core story in mind to keep yourself on track. But if you don’t add extra elements, your story will be bland and uninteresting, and if you add too many, it will just be a confusing mess. Like most things, it’s a balancing act to keep your eye on.

Just like you might need to keep an eye out for rings of mushrooms the next time you go walking in the woods, just in case stepping in them leads you to a particularly bad ending to your story…

  

A Stone to Sharpen Steel

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Photo #330: GrindstoneLocation Taken: Readfield, Wisconsin
Time Taken: June 2012

I’m fairly sure this is a grindstone. You know, a stone that you spin up and then place some metal onto to grind the edge sharp. It was right by the workshop on my Great-Uncle’s farm, right where you’d expect such a tool.

Well, that and it does look a lot like the grindstones I’ve seen in Skyrim and other games that have blacksmith tools on display.

It usually takes a lot of research to make a game, especially one that you actually want to have a living world. If you don’t, well, you can just take some generic archetypes, knights and castles for instance, and just plaster that on top of the gameplay and call it a day. But if you want to make a world for people to explore, well, it’s got to look right. And that includes things like grindstones.

It doesn’t help that they look rather nice, though. A large round stone, a way to spin it on an axle, all you have to do is show it spinning to really show that this is a classic tool of the trade.

Nowadays, mind you, they tend to sharpen blades with a bit more technology than this. But only a bit, and far less than you’d expect. Most places seem to still use spinning stones as the basis. They’ve just chosen stones that are very good at the job, and added attachments to keep everything in place better and all that fancy stuff. But still, at the end of the day, it’s metal on stone.

Which just feels right, somehow.

  

You know, I don’t really have any photos of the local streets. Ah well, this will do.

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Photo #329: Pink HouseLocation Taken: Savage, Maryland
Time Taken: April 2010

I got out my bike for the first time in months today. I last went biking back in October, and the combination of weather and travel has been discouraging me from picking it up again since then.

But the weather is warming, and most importantly the days are lengthening. Oh, and my sleep schedule has shifted to diurnal again. It’s tough to go biking when you just aren’t active during the daylight hours.

Especially if you’ve got a bike like mine that has an odd shape that doesn’t take to the standard bike lights well. I might need to get those fancy in-wheel lights or something if I ever want to do night biking.

I went for a short ride today. I am, not surprisingly, rather out of shape. If nothing else, I have gone four months without biking!

So I just went down the street to the main road, up the hill on the other side of that road (that’s the hill in the photo), turned right and continued up the hill some more, then another right and I got to the downhill part of the road. I finished the block and headed home.

I know it sounds really short, but I was worn out at the end. Largely because of that hill. I went up it at a rather fast pace, since there was some traffic that I didn’t want to delay. So it was quite intense for a warm-up workout, and got my heart racing nicely.

I shall have to go out more frequently now that the conditions are good for it.

  

Worn-down, Moss-covered, Overly-watered Trees

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Photo #328: Reservoir TreesLocation Taken: Burtonsville, Maryland
Time Taken: April 2011

I love heavy rain. And light rain, and rain in general, but heavy rain has a good strong presence to it that just draws me in.

Which is why I keep taking photos of rainy days and flooding waterways, even if they rarely come out well.

In this case, we’d had weeks of frequent rain, including a few major storms, and I just happened to be driving by the local reservoir. There’s a small parking area just off the road, usually used by fishers and boaters, so I pulled in.

The water was high enough that it was almost to the level of the parking area, and it was still raining, so I didn’t stay long. But the flooded trees were worth a few photos, so here is one of them.

I don’t think these trees are usually moss-covered. The local mosses usually require a high amount of water that, unless it’s been raining more often than not for weeks, you just don’t find in trees. But well, this moss was here and it looked happy. Well, as happy as moss can look.

And I suppose a flooding reservoir is better than a dry one. At least you don’t have to ration water then. You might have to be more careful about cleaning the water, but still…

  

He’s Strutting His Stuff, Hoping You’ll Notice.

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Photo #327: Quizzical PeacockLocation Taken: National Zoo, Washington DC
Time Taken: March 2010

In the National Zoo in Washington DC, there is a Bird Enclosure where the birds roam free. It’s all the more sedate birds, such as ducks and pheasants and the like.

And a few peacocks, who love showing off their fantastic tails to the tourists. This particular guy was hanging out by the area with benches, strutting around and displaying his grandeur. I even got a short video of him ruffling his tail.

Did you know that “Peacock” only applies to the male of the species? The female is called a Peahen. They have much less extravagant plumage, including lacking the famous tail. And there were a few peahens scattered around the enclosure. Perhaps this fine fellow was showing off for the ladies. Or in a vain hope that the tourists had something to feed him with, you never know.

Probably the latter, given how he strutted and ruffled and just generally showed off, and then stuck his tail towards us and looked at us quizzically.

That’s a great word, isn’t it? “Quizzically.” Describes this expression perfectly.