#I made this alternative version to post on Instagram but figured I’d share it here too | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

scone-lover · 3 years

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Happy Birthday to Holding Out For a Hero!!! ❤️

art by @subparselkie

I published the first chapter of my longest and most popular fic just about a year ago! And I bet you always wanted to see some shitty outlines. Right? Just giving the people what they want. My brain is chaos and now you all have to be subject to it. Strap in, boys. 😂 Everything’s below the cut!

Read Holding Out for a Hero on AO3

This fic was born because I saw a tumblr post about a hero and villain who are roommates and I just had to Snowbazzify it. I had so many random ideas in my brain, and I’d been engaging with fan content for the CO fandom for a few months now.

So I started off by opening a blank document and writing the Prologue, featuring Shep. I had a few basic facts in mind: Shepard’s a reporter, Simon’s a hero, Baz is a villain, Mage is an evil mayor. And that’s. Literally it. I made it up as I went along. I actually still do that with fics, even though I do try to outline in more detail now—I have to write a scene or two that’s been bouncing around in my head to get a feel for the story, then I can give it a direction.

The document is 337 pages on google docs, LOL.

Here’s the first ever set of notes I had. I wrote this on March 29, 2020, directly after typing out the Prologue!

Like I said, absolute chaos. The third Simon bullet point originally said something like “also I’m a superhero and only Penny knows,” then the following day I changed it to “but he’s so handsome? what do???”

I didn’t publish the prologue until writing 5-6 additional chapters, but I think the only major change was going from Baz being “The Vampire” to just “Vampire.”

Chapter 1 was originally called “not a bloody avenger” before I decided to do the rhyming thing. I actually decided that because I wrote “counter spray and earl grey” down for chapter 2, unintentionally rhyming it, and then @ashspren-writes was like, “you should make them all rhyme”... so I did. 😂 For 25 more chapters.

I have a section labeled “quickie backgrounds” in which I finally sat down halfway through writing Chapter 2 (the blade/vamp fight) and said to myself, okay, maybe they should have backstories or something. Or like, reasons for being the hero and villain. Right, yeah, those would be good to make this into a coherent story. In the first version of that, Simon was a sports coach on the side, not a baker, and Baz was an English teacher. LOL.

Once I had all that, I literally just wrote for four days. There’s a weird kind of magic to your first-ever fic for a fandom. All your ideas and thoughts and wishes for these characters comes to a head as you suddenly have an outlet for the first time. It’s why I think people’s first works are often their best or most creative or most profound. The first couple chapters took some time and a couple 1am epiphanies, but once I got into a rhythm it was quick going. I wrote a lot of it in a linear manner, but after writing the first Simon/Baz scene (watching the news together in the flat), I doubled back and added Simon going to Penny’s house after meeting the Mage so that I could work her in as a character earlier.

Fast forward to April 5, I had 5-ish chapters written? I thought this fic would have like... 10 total. And be less than 20k. Haha. Ha. I asked @ashspren-writes to beta read for me - I’d been bouncing ideas off her since the beginning - and then I started brainstorming titles.

The list actually started with that second one. It took a whole 24 hours to decide on the final title. 😂 I thought it might be too cheesy. But hey, it worked out -- now I can’t open AO3 without the damn song getting stuck in my head.

I worked a LOT with my friend @ashspren-writes on this fic - we were friends long before fandom, and she was the only person I knew at the time who had read CO and was involved in the fandom. I didn’t even have a tumblr at this point, I interacted mostly through Instagram and AO3!

On April 6, right before I posted, I realized that if I was going to actually put this on AO3 I should probably know where the story was going. So I made sure Chapters 1-6 were complete, then I wrote one bullet point per chapter up until 12 or so -- you can read those below.

Then I texted ashspren THIS mess:

Some silly notes:

Then I have a section that says “Why do they even have roommates?” because it was a few chapters in and I hadn’t justified richboy Baz and superhero Simon... living together. Cool cool cool

I also did this cool little writing experiment I want to share. Remember that line in Fangirl that’s like—“Once Cath wrote what she thought was a swordfight, and Wren turned it into a love scene.” (Or maybe it was the other way around? LOL.) Anyway, there’s swordfights in this, AND love scenes, so I wanted to do a play on that for two alternate ways Simon might figure it out.

I have a huge Deleted Section in which I wrote an alternate version of Simon and Baz finding out about their secret identities. I have one version where Baz figures it out first—it’s a very tropey yet angsty scene where Simon comes home totally wrecked from a fight, and Baz realizes as he’s helping with the wounds that he caused them. I actually like it a lot, but it ended up not quite fitting with the vibe of the fic (and I rather like them finding out through kissing better). :) I also had an idea where Simon figures it out because Vampire smells like cedar and bergamot, but it really just wasn’t interesting enough. 😂

Now onto... Outlines.

I say that hesitantly because I think these are literally a disgrace to outlines everywhere. These are the baby ones I wrote on April 6 right before posting. Some are more detailed than others, clearly...

Gotta live up to my username somehow.

We do love to see it.

I love this next one: 😂 CHAOS, SCONEY.

THEN, I wrote this as a very long text to ashspren, when I realized no sconey, this is not going to be under 20k words. LOL.

And then I did A Dumb Thing and I put it on AO3, having absolutely NO CLUE WHERE THE STORY WAS GOING. 😂

This is my favorite heading on the document.

Another one of my favorite notes in there.

This next part wasn’t even divided into chapters yet, it’s just a word vomit. I’m so sorry you have to read this mess.

Hahaha, once upon a time there was angst in this story. 😂

And then I realized my true calling: bakery fluff.

Then and only then, I actually decided to divide into those things called Chapters. This is the point where I made the admission to mr scone (boyfriend, not husband lol, we just call him that) that I write gay fanfiction, whoops, and can he please help me because he’s a HUGE DC comics fan and knows everything. And of course, he was super chill about it, and he did. He really did. He’s the genius behind Egghead!!! And also the entire Mage-Humdrum-Supercomputer/Politics plot. I’m serious. I did none of that.

I can’t even say I’m trying anymore. “Flort”??? I AM LITERALLY NOT TRYING.

Why yes sconey, so very specific. 😂

This is what qualifies as a “good” outline for me, that heading was just for my betas. Isn’t it fabulous to see that some of this actually made it in and I’m capable of planning in advance? 😂

Get ready for the shock of your life, though -- I actually have a SUUUUPER detailed outline for the two finale chapters. Because, well, it’s the finale. Wrapping up loose ends does actually require planning, WHO KNEW. Also I’d been writing and posting for a couple months at this point and it had been several more weeks in quarantine so maybe I’d regained some sense of reality? It’s like two pages but still shittily written, so I’ll just share a couple tidibits.

That bullet point is extraordinarily cracky BUT actually, Baz shooting up from the cloud like an awesome fucking hot dramatic person was one of the very first scenes I envisioned for this fic :D

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my writing brain! It’s a terrifying place. I love all of you that say Holding Out For a Hero is a well-crafted masterpiece, but respectfully, no ❤️

(Though I swear I AM super, super happy with how it turned out - it’s still my favorite thing I’ve ever written. Read it here!!!)

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azaffranist · 4 years

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Frozen 2 deleted/early content

On the road to F2 there were tons of leaks and I saved as many of them as I could in the fear that Disney would delete them (because they loved to shut down whole websites because of that back in the day). As a result I have a lot of pictures saved on my phone and looking back on them... some don’t sound quite right because it’s definitely not what I saw in the movie. So here’s everythinggg I have. I did my best to organize stuff a bit but there are so many things it was... hard. Feel free to add more stuff in reblogs, replies and such!

Something to note is that we won’t take into account the “officially” released deleted content, which would include everything that’s in the Blu-ray, because basically everyone already saw that (Home, I Seek the Truth, Get This Right, Unmeltable Me, the Secret Room scene, Hard Nokks, etc). Generally, we won’t be analyzing deleted scenes from the official trailers, either, because of this very reason. Something “official” that we will consider, though, are the deleted clips animators have been releasing on Instagram and other sites, because those aren’t that popular.

Before starting here’s the link to all the deleted F2 lines I could find as well as some other additions. The post itself has even more links to other posts containing deleted content so have fun clicking on links.

Last thing to mention, none of the merch photos here are taken by me. I got most of them from the leaks channel of the Arendelle Kingdom server during 2019. If any image in this post belongs to someone here and you want to be credited please let me know and I’ll edit the post.

This post is long. Like really, really, lagging-my-browser-as-I’m-writing-it long. So grab some popcorn and get comfortable or just take a look at what interests you.

So without further ado, let’s get started!

Deleted Artbook Content

One of the most exciting leaks we got were definitely these sample artbook excerpts. None of these pages made it into the final artbook, though.

This piece definitely belongs in Iduna and Agnarr’s backstory, in which the Northuldra leader wasn’t an ordinary man but a shapeshifter.

The biggest picture in this page points to yet another version of Iduna and Agnarr’s backstory. It’s possible to deduce Bruni hadn’t been fully developed yet or created at all since the fire isn’t pink.

The one on the bottom right seems to be an earlier version of the “forest freed” scene in the final movie, or maybe it happened in another moment altogether.

The most interesting of the three, though, is this one. Nothing in the movie points to the existence of a place like this. It’s interesting to note that this peculiar house looks very similar to Iceland’s “elf houses”, tied to the myth of the Huldufólk, “hidden people”, who were said to be small and live in a parallel world, being able to make themselves visible at will.

These are definitely the inhabitants of the Enchanted Lands, who look completely different than in the final movie with their long cloaks, hoods and staves. They look like mages. Were these the very first concepts of the Northuldra, or another group of characters altogether that ended up being scrapped? Only Ahtohallan knows...

Even though the tree and the vegetation illustration is in the book, there’s one missing and that one is the bottom left. One of the most popular theories in the fandom regarding that illustration is that it was an Arendellian military camp tied to the expedition to the Enchanted Lands. I think what we got in the movie is a watered down version of a much more violent and sinister endeavor to invade the Northuldra. The above mentioned deleted scene of the battle of Arendellians agains Northuldrans is proof of that.

This one shows the Arendellian gang and most likely Mattias looking at the walls of a cave with drawings on it depicting the Nokk among other things that I can’t quite make out. I’ve heard people say that an earlier version of F2 involved the gang encountering Mattias in a volcanic cave and that’s where this scene would go, but I don’t know if those are rumors or there’s an actual source. If someone happens to have knowledge on this topic in particular please let me know and I’ll update the post.

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Incomplete Frozen Fan Fest books and their alternate scenes

As I’ve mentioned in another post, Frozen Fan Fest happened on October 4th, 2019, and it was the official release of the movie’s first merchandise. We were all super excited to look at the storybooks and read the ending!

Except there was no ending and the books ended abruptly right before Olaf’s death, completely skipping over Show Yourself.

You hear that? “Elsa bravely dives into the Dark Sea”. We know the Dark Sea scene was shortened and that’s more proof.

This section of a Frozen 2 storybook explains how it went a bit better. After Elsa was defeated twice by the ferocious waves she climbed up some giant rocks and dove back in. Only Ahtohallan knows how that would be effective in this situation and not a waste of strength, but hey, I’m sure it looked super cool and I’d be down to see it.

”Elsa trudged through terrible winds and thick snow”... um... she didn’t? This might’ve been created when Show Yourself wasn’t a thing yet and her path through Ahtohallan was just that, trudging through terrible winds and snow, and not an inspiring song about self-love and finding yourself. I wonder how that scene would’ve looked.

Maybe we can find something relating to that “unused” section of Ahtohallan in a book called “Anna, Elsa and the Secret River”. Basically Iduna tells them that there’s a secret river out there and after the lullaby Elsa and Anna go nuts and try to look for the river outside. Seems like it was all a shared acid trip because next morning they seriously consider it was a dream.

Maybe here they didn’t realize they were in front of a river, because “Glaciers are rivers of ice” and this is what that Ahtohallan Elsa ventured into originally would’ve looked like? The white river doesn’t know...

This is by far one of my favorite ones. I wouldn’t exactly describe post-Show Yourself as a moment of calm and peace. Maybe peace but definitely not calm. Then it says that the signal meant that “she managed to cross the sea”. That’s a really weird way to describe “horrifying ice statue of colonialist grandpa killing an innocent native man”. I don’t know if they’re hiding the actual plot here of if they hadn’t yet worked out all the details of SY and the moment Elsa found the truth.

Anna has her cloak on as she finds the truth. Readers have no idea what this enlightening truth is because the ice statue is indistinguishable.

As it shows here, the original Iduna being Northuldra reveal was going to happen in a different way. I’m glad we got that final version... Because wow, Elsa and Anna are completely unable to connect the dots here. Anna was smart enough to figure out what to do after receiving Elsa’s message, c’mon! This should’ve been piece of cake...

Iduna called Elsa “Little Snow”. This points to an alternate All is Found scene and we’ll talk about that more in depth later.

Same scene. Translation is:

“While tucking the little princesses in, Queen Iduna sang them a lullaby about a far-away river called Ahtohallan, which holds all the answers about the past.

“Does Ahtohallan know why I have powers?” asked Elsa her mother.

“If it exists, it definitely knows that and much more,” answered the Queen.

So in this earlier version, Elsa has always asked herself if Ahtohallan had the answer to her powers... Doesn’t this make Show Yourself work even better? Here she always looked for that answer and she’d learn that she is the answer. I wonder why they took it out because it makes a lot of sense and would give buildup to Show Yourself.

Here what really matters are the squares with text. Olaf never ran through moss or became covered in it. Olaf never looks down a brook to be met by Nokk’s gaze from below. Maybe it’s an alternate When I’m Older?

And relating to that particular piece of merch:

Seems like in an earlier version, the Nokk was associated with waterfalls.

Everyone shut up there’s SWORD ANNA here. Found in a coloring book. I don’t speak Italian but Google Translate says:

“Anna is a brave one: she does not hesitate to draw her sword to defend her sister Elsa and her friends from any new threat.”

GOOD FOR HER! This is definitely from the version we were shown in the teaser, when Anna wielding an actual sword and slicing someone with it was still a thing. Man, how I wanted that to happen...

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Alternate fully animated scenes found in animators’ posts

After the release of Frozen 2, animators started to post scenes they had worked on and showing the process behind them. Some of them were deleted, are different in the final movie, or have a completely different score accompanying them.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adam Green (@agreenster) on Apr 6, 2020 at 5:31pm PDT

A completely different dialogue during the boat scene. Pretty heartbreaking and it’s even more buildup for TNRT, when Anna was left by literally everyone she loved in the planet.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trent Correy (@trentanimation) on Apr 14, 2020 at 8:50am PDT

Apparently, for whatever reason, Gale was going to appear in the castle first.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trent Correy (@trentanimation) on Mar 29, 2020 at 10:51am PDT

Olaf’s revival was going to be way different, and this implies that his death might’ve been different, too. Maybe his snow just dissipated and didn’t go anywhere? Maybe instead of being neatly placed by a waterfall, it fell all over the Enchanted Lands? I have no idea.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mariusz Furmanczyk (@mariofurmanczyk) on Mar 21, 2020 at 7:11pm PDT

I absolutely LOVE this one, okay, and I have no idea why they’d leave it out. Turn your sound on and listen to the much more tragic alternate score. But more importantly, pay attention when she turns to solid ice: just like in F1 with Anna, her last breath is visible. Beautiful parallels, poetic cinema, and I’m hurt and confused and I want it in the movie. Excuse me while I call the police.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mariusz Furmanczyk (@mariofurmanczyk) on Feb 26, 2020 at 5:47pm PST

Here the only change is the different score as she unfreezes. I love it so much. It’s so tragic, heavy and powerful. You can basically hear the fragility of Elsa’s fate as the ice breaks and she falls. Help. Here, here, and here, you can see other glimpses of this beautiful alternate score. Once again I’m calling the police and telling them Disney hurt my feelings by leaving this out.

I’ve hit the 5 videos limit already, but here is a link to an animation by jdublish. The change isn’t the scene itself but the completely different siren call Elsa hears. Much more ominous and creepy and I also love it, even though I have to admit the final siren call sounds catchier and more iconic. Also, kids under five won’t start crying of fear when they hear it.

Then there were also plenty of changes in the Elsa vs Nokk scene and we got to see one. Thanks to @justlookatthosesausages for pointing this out and letting me use her gif! The original video was set to private for some reason so I can’t post a Youtube link, but this is @justlookatthosesausages‘ gif:

Elsa struggled way more in the original version. Go to her post to see a comparison with the final version.

And now the awaited All is Found alternate scene! Thanks a lot to @lovewillthaw-j who helped me collect all the scenes.

First two scenes from the trailers: the Official one, Elsa looks up and Iduna gazes at the northern lights.

The Japanese one, in which Iduna kisses Elsa’s hands. @catloafs pointed that out after F2′s release so thanks!

And the last two were found by @antoineharrakblog, so thanks for that! Here and here.

BUT there’s no need to click a bazillion links because @lovewillthaw-j‘s post reconstructs in a single video what the original scene would’ve been like. Go watch it!

UPDATE: Additions by @antoineharrakblog. Thanks a lot!

Here we can see that originally, as the elements fled and Kristoff held Olaf, he yelled, “Wow, you’re heavy!”. Don’t know why this would be removed. Maybe they wanted to keep the scene serious? Maybe they needed to shorten the movie so that it didn’t exceed 100 minutes and cut little jokes like that?

And here, showing Elsa seeing how Iduna saved her father, there’s some deleted dialogue: “Get the prince out of here!” “King Runeard, what did you decide?” in addition to a much more tense score in general.

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UPDATE: Screencaps of deleted/alternate scenes

Thanks a lot to @antoineharrakblog for bringing all of these pictures to my attention! Multiples screencaps have appeared in different magazines or books that clearly didn’t make it to the movie.

Anna never makes that movement in the final movie. There’s more proof of an alternate/extended “Elsa and Anna talk” scene.

This is another one. There exists a lower quality version of this picture which I can’t find right now, but it shows that Anna and Elsa are sharing kransekake in this particular scene (the particular food that we can see at the beginning of OFA).

These are all part of the All is Found scene we’ve been talking about. In the final movie we can see that All is Found serves as a sort of “bridge” between the past and the present, as it transitions from Iduna singing the song to Elsa to Elsa in the castle, reminiscing. But originally, Iduna finished singing All is Found in the past. There’s proof of this here.

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UPDATE: Novelization deleted content

This information was provided by @theupsidedownpyramid so thanks a lot! There are some really interesting deleted scenes in the novelization.

In this one, Elsa felt the urge to release her magic after hearing the voice at the end of All is Found.

In the novelization Mattias and Yelena’s (or Yelana? Disney will never decide) relationship was a lot deeper than what was shown in the movie.

For more information and a more thorough analysis, read @theupsidedownpyramid‘s reblog!

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Miscellaneous

So there’s only one image in this section but believe me, it’s so worth it.

An animator casually mentioned that there was going to be a head kiss scene. Process it. Can’t? I can’t either.

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Wow I’m TIRED. I must’ve missed something but that’s all my brain can handle as of now. Thank quarantine for giving me the opportunity to work on this post all day.

Disney committed war crimes when they deleted some of these scenes. I have only one question: Why in the world would they do that? And more information might see the light of day in the future. I’ll never get tired of trying to piece together the convoluted puzzle that is the original Frozen 2.

I will update this post if I remember something else or if someone else has more content to share. Let’s reconstruct F2 together to visualize that movie Disney deemed too cool for us!

UPDATE: Into the Unknown: the Making of Frozen 2 Documentary finally has a concrete release date, June 26th. Let’s hope we can see more stuff then!

#frozen 2 #frozen #elsa #anna #frozen analysis #frozen 2 analysis #kristoff #sven #olaf #frozen 2 deleted content #disney

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notable-law-music-tech-news · 4 years

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The Chocolate Chip Cookies I Can't Eat Anymore, but Will Never Stop Making

I bake to feel like myself, especially when the outside world feels upside down.

In 2009, I was laid off from my first food media job out of culinary school. It had always been my dream to be a food editor, and I was crushed. Just after the cloud of self-pity lifted and the objects from my desk had been absorbed into my apartment with the disguise of belonging, I retreated to the kitchen with a new goal: to make the ideal chocolate chip cookie.

I had just created a food blog—following orders from the parting words of my mentor and former editor-in-chief—and it seemed like something a food blogger would do. Plus, a recipe by Jacques Torres had just appeared in The New York Times, and I thought that tinkering with his somewhat complicated iteration could help me find my own.

I was newly 25 and married to a first-year law student. My job had fallen victim to the recession and changing landscape of print media. I was as down and out as I’d ever been to that point, and somehow questing after the perfect chocolate chip cookie perked my spirits. It gave me purpose—a reason to orient my kitchen and efforts to produce something valuable, something worthy of putting out into the world.

After a few weeks and many batches of cookies, I finally arrived at what I felt was the perfect cookie: a crisp-yet-chewy classic bursting with layers of chocolate flavor, finished off with a sprinkle of sea salt. I loved the recipe so much that I began making it all the time, giving the cookies away to my friends whenever I had the excuse.

Soon the cookies began to take on a life and story of their own. I would trot them out every now and then to honor the often-overlooked small victories of life, such as a kind word from a usually grumpy boss or signing a new lease on an apartment. Over time, they developed a unique power.

Eventually, the cookies came along with me to every important meeting. I took them to a discussion about my first cookbook and credit them for earning my second. I made them to accompany the application for the offer on our house in 2015—the height of the housing boom here in Seattle—relying on their power of persuasion.

I wrote my first children’s book, the confidence to self-publish stemming from the very kind of determination held within building my food blog from scratch. It felt natural, then, to offer my chocolate chip cookies as a reward on Kickstarter. The crowd-funding campaign took place during a week in mid-February 2017, and I’d planned a series of Instagram and Facebook posts to promote the hopeful project.

One was a picture from my very first professional website that featured a version of myself that felt unrecognizable: young, blonde, childless, and without the glasses I’d come to proudly wear once I’d moved to Brooklyn in 2009. In that photo, however, the one common quality that baker and I continued to share was our signature dessert: the chocolate chip cookies.

I had no idea that, at the very moment of writing that post, I had a brain tumor lurking in my frontal lobe, or that the routine MRI I was scheduled to have later that very day would reveal it. An odd coincidence happened in that post, though; looking back later on it made me feel like my body was trying to tell me something. I used the word “legacy” in the caption in reference to my cookie recipe, describing it as the baked good I’d probably be remembered for best. Immediately after posting I realized it sounded a bit morbid because, well, I was completely healthy—or so I thought.

That slight moment of textbook dramatic irony has haunted me for years.

Somehow, I made it past the year the doctors gave me to live. “Now what?” I wondered in an empty kitchen.

Once I was diagnosed with brain cancer, I chose to give up chocolate, gluten, and sugar, which were the fundamental elements of my magical cookies. It was heartbreaking at first, but the prospect of surviving—especially for my two young sons—offered a healthy perspective.

Somehow, I made it past the year the doctors gave me to live. “Now what?” I wondered in an empty kitchen.

I was faced with a totally different life in food that revolved around an “alternative” baking vocabulary—and a stack of medical bills. I felt like a cookbook author without a subject; the food choices that were necessary to my survival stood in opposition to the generalist, jack-of-all-trades food editor I’d become. Once again, my dream career fell away overnight. And once again, I turned to these cookies as a currency of hope.

During the early weeks when I was acclimating to life on the other side of my prognosis, I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. I had gone to sleep after a terrifying review of our finances with my husband, battling a kind of panic that felt as though I’d been diagnosed with cancer all over again. I rose from bed and slipped out to my desk in the darkness, throwing my robe over my shoulders and shuffling into my slippers.

It had hit me, my next big idea: I would take the foods that held deep meaning to me and figure out a way to make them as often as I could. See, soup had taken on a kind of magic in my life the same way my cookies had—it’s what people brought me when I was sick. Neighbors, friends, and even strangers would bring me batches of their favorite soul-nourishing recipes, like bowlfuls of lentils swimming with vegetables, in the months that followed my recovery from brain surgery. I fully believe that it was this display of community that shepherded me back to myself and possibly to the miracle of health I am living today.

I decided to thank the people who brought me soup by bringing them soup. And, of course, my cookies. Just because I couldn’t eat them, didn’t mean I couldn’t make them—or share their magic.

And so, Soup Club was born.

My healthful, vegan soups paired perfectly with my cookies, a balance of comfort and decadence—hallmarks of my diet I’d come to appreciate since my diagnosis.

I currently live a life where I make over a hundred of these cookies a week and leave them with love (and soup!) on friends’ porches.

The myth of these cookies grows each time I share them. They continue to reveal belonging, connection, and hope—just as they have ever since I created them in my Brooklyn kitchen. And even though I may never taste one again, I am certain they will nourish me always.

Grain-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

View Recipe

Ingredients

For the cookies:

3 1/4 cups (445 g) homemade grain-free flour blend (see recipe below), or preferred gluten-free all-purpose flour 1/4 cup (35 g) cornstarch 1 1/4 teaspoons (5 g) baking powder 1 teaspoon (7 g) Kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling 1 teaspoon (6 g) baking soda 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature 1 cup (212 grams) granulated sugar 1 cup packed (200 grams) light brown sugar 2 large eggs, at room temperature 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 1 pound best-quality bittersweet chocolate (50-75% cacao content), chopped (about 3 1/2 cups)

1 cup (212 grams) granulated sugar 1 cup packed (200 grams) light brown sugar 2 large eggs, at room temperature 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 1 pound best-quality bittersweet chocolate (50-75% cacao content), chopped (about 3 1/2 cups)

For the homemade grain-free flour blend:

1 cup tapioca flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup arrowroot flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup coconut flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup almond flour, spooned and leveled

1 cup tapioca flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup arrowroot flour, spooned and leveled

1 cup coconut flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup almond flour, spooned and leveled

Which recipes bring you comfort? Tell us in the comments.

from Food52 https://ift.tt/3giq9Ws

#newsofnote recipe

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parkerspicedlatte · 5 years

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Disconnected-Chapter Seven (Luke Hemmings)

Summary: In an alternate universe where everyone has a soulmate, Luke and his soulmate share the rarest of them all. Some people have matching tattoos, others feel each others pain/emotions, but mental connections are the least common. The connection that Luke and Lynn share is that they can hear whatever song the other is singing. When they are close together they will be able to hear each others voices but for the meantime, they can only hear the recorded versions.

Pairings: Luke Hemmings x Lynn Corby (OC)

Warnings: A few cuses

Content: Just you wait...

Featured Songs: None

“Hey, what’s on your schedule for today?” Kylie asked while barging into Lynn’s room through the connecting bathroom door.

“I’ve got laundry, a few errands, and a yoga class in the afternoon, why?”

“Okay let me be a little more specific, what are you doing tonight?” Kylie rephrased.

“Um nothing so far, were you thinking of doing something?” Lynn asked while combing out her strawberry blond hair, dripping fat drops of water from the shower.

“Well my sister is coming in tonight,” Lynn nodded remembering Kylie’s younger sister Avery, the wilder of the two with eyes that made the moon dull. “Well she’s been begging me to take her to the bar downtown-”

“Wait, hold on a minute. You’re not seriously thinking about taking your fourteen year old, underage sister to a bar are you?” Lynn frowned placing both of her hands on both of her hips. Water trickled down her t-shirt.

“Well-”

“And not just any bar, you want to take her to the bar that I am trying to build a reputation in, a reputation that says sweet, mellow, down to earth singer songwriter. Not law breaking alcoholic who brings children to bars.” She said gesturing wildly. Invisible air quotes were dragged through the air with her bare fingers. “I’m not supporting this, no.”

“She’s sixteen but she’ll be seventeen in a few months. Besides she has an ID that says otherwise. Avery can pass for older and you know it, plus it would only be once this visit.” defended Kylie.

“This visit?” Lynn’s head tilted to the side, not believing the words coming out of her roommate’s mouth.

“You know what,” Kylie said. “Just forget I even mentioned it.” she finished, her voice giving hints of anger and frustration.

“Believe me, I will. I can’t believe you even suggested that.”

“I just thought you would want to have some real fun instead of sitting here at home with a stick up your ass.” Kylie mumbled as she exited the room.

Lynn stood there, jaw dropped, shocked at Kylie’s words. They hadn’t had a real fight since they moved in together over a year ago. While that might not have even counted as a fight, Lynn was feeling like their friendship was damaged a little. She knew that she liked to be tidy and tame while Kylie liked to be messy and have her fun. That’s why they worked so well together, they balanced each other out. Together they made an amazing team, but Kylie and Avery were partners in crime, nothing could stop them, which was probably why Kylie had gotten so defensive.

Lynn thought about apologizing but then stopped herself. Why should I have to apologize for something I didn’t do wrong? Kylie is the one who wanted to take her baby sister drinking. I only told her that it was not a responsible thing to do. Kylie is the one who said that I had a stick where the sun doesn’t shine. If anyone should be apologizing, it should be her.

Lynn heard the front door close followed by a car engine roaring up a few moments later. Either way, Lynn was not getting up to go apologize at that moment, especially not for something that she hadn’t done wrong.

***

“Feel like getting a drink?” Luke asked Ashton, waking the older man that had been sprawled out asleep on the couch.

“A drink, right now?” Ashton sleepily questioned, wiping the residue from his eyes while peering up at the Luke. The man he considered his little brother, despite the height difference.

“Well no, not at the moment. But I want to go downtown and explore a little bit, see a few shops or whatever. I figured I would bribe you to come with me if I promised you a drink at that bar we passed on the way here.” suggested Luke.

“You make me sound like an alcoholic.” Ashton told him.

“So are you in or not?”

Ashton thought about it before giving in. “Alright, I guess I’ll go with ya.”

“Cool. I’m heading out in about half an hour.”

“Goodness Luke, what’s the rush? We’ve got all week.”

“I don’t know.” Luke shrugged. “We haven’t really done anything since we got here which is nice but I’m also feeling a little cabin fevered. I’d like to get out for an afternoon.”

“Well I won’t argue with that.” Ashton yawned and sat up on the couch to reach for his phone on the coffee table to check the time. “What’re Mikey and Calum doing?”

“They left about an hour ago to get a few groceries. They should be back any minute. They’re going to come with us.”

“You sent Michael and Calum out to get groceries? They’re not coming back any time soon.” Ashton stated flopping back onto the couch. “Calum will get lost and Michael won’t have a clue where anything is.”

“They’re adults, they’ll be fine.”

“So are you Luke.” stated Ashton.

“Are you saying that I wouldn’t be able to pick up a few basic groceries?” Luke questions

“No, all I am saying is that there are more efficient ways to shop than the ones you are familiar with.”

“Is that so?”

“You know what I mean.” Ashton looked up at Luke. Luke wasn’t buying anything he was saying. “You have your own ways to do things, and then there are the more normal ways, the ways that take less time.”

“Ashton just stop, you’re digging yourself a hole.”

“Yep.” Ashton shut up immediately.

Luke turned to walk out of the room to put his phone on the charger for a quick top up before they left. He glanced out of the window, watching as a few birds picked through the grass in search for their next meal. Luke thought about how some birds mated for life, about how one would die of malnutrition if something were to happen to the other. Birds had soulmates that they chose for themselves. They didn’t have to play the cruel game that fate had arranged for the human population. The game that had driven some people to believe that it wasn’t worth it, to spend their entire lives looking for someone just because fate said they connected. People over centuries had given up hope. Some had spent their entire lives looking for someone, only to find them and one of the connectors died within days. The thought of it broke Luke’s heart. He’s heart yearned for someone he’d never met before.

***

Luke, Calum, Ashton, and Michael found themselves wandering the streets of downtown Sadowa. They had parked the rental in a parking lot behind a post office and decided to walk around, enjoying the simplicity and serenity of the town. They’d checked out a few stores that adorned the walkway advertising arts, flowers, wooden carvings and other small trinkets that seemed to cater to cottagers rather than the locals. Calum and Michael bought ice cream in the ice cream and fudge shop while Ashton and Luke had gotten a cardboard box of French fries to share across the road at a restaurant decorated to look like a food truck. They all sat on the longest bench in front of the restaurant and ate in peace. Ashton was taking pictures and posting a few on his Instagram story while Michael tried to get Calum’s ice cream onto Calum’s nose by telling him that the ice cream smelled sweeter than what they had back in LA. He was successful in doing so. Calum had ice cream on not just his nose but his lips and chin as well thanks to the help of Michael’s hand. Snap: another picture for their social media.

Luke people watched, absentmindedly putting the fries in his mouth. He observed as an older couple walked hand in hand with a pair of small children at their sides telling them about their friend from school. Half a dozen boys with shaggy hair and snapbacks who looked to be about twelve or thirteen raced down the mostly empty street on skateboards with one girl in a blue and pink helmet in tow. Two girls with identical wild, dark curly hair giggled as they walked into another store across the street. Everyone around him was happy. The remainder of the sun felt nice on his face. A dog was tied up across the street while its owner went into a store. Luke wondered if his soulmate liked dogs. What would he do if they were afraid of Petunia, or allergic?

Luke was pulled out of his train of thoughts when a little girl approached them with what appeared to be an older sibling or babysitter.

“Hi there.” Calum was the first to speak up.

“Um hi, I’m Amy.” the little girl told them. “Are you guys in a band? My sister went to a concert in Toronto a while ago and you guys look a lot like her pictures.”

“Well Amy, we just so happened to be in a band.” Ashton told her. “We’re called 5 Seconds of Summer. My name is Ashton, this is Calum, Michael and Luke.” They all waved to her smiling; rarely did they have little kids approaching them. “What’s your friend’s name?” Ashton asked referring to older girl who had followed Amy, but hadn’t torn her eyes away from her phone.

“That’s Elizabeth, she’s my cousin. Lizzy’s visiting for the week.” Elizabeth looked up momentarily at the sound of her name but went back to her phone once she saw that she wasn’t needed. “She has a secret special friend that she is texting, but I’m not supposed to know that.” Amy whispered to them making them all laugh.

“Did you want a picture with us to show to your sister then, to make her jealous?” Calum asked. Amy thought about it for a moment before nodding her head eagerly making them laugh once more. She pulled an iPod touch out of her pocket and signalled for them all to squish in close so she could take a picture of them.

“Okay one, two, three pizza rolls.”

“Pizza rolls!” the four of them chanted smiling for the camera. Amy giggled and jumped up and down a few times.

“Okay now your turn.” Luke told her. “That’ll really make her jealous.”

“Okay!” she agreed. “Elizabeth can you come take a picture for me?” Amy asked her cousin pleadingly.

“I’m in the middle of something, later.” the cousin responded.

“That’s okay, we’ll do like one big group selfie.” Michael suggested. The boys all bent down to her height and crowded together, letting Amy in the middle. They took a few pictures and then a few goofy ones. Lastly they took a short video saying hi to Amy’s sister and thanking her for coming to their concert.

After a few minutes, Elizabeth had called Amy back so that they could get home for dinner. They said their goodbyes and went their separate ways.

“So how about that drink?” Ashton nudged Luke gesturing to the small bar across the street. By then the sun had disappeared behind the buildings. Their food was long gone and they’d continued walking with no particular destination in mind.

“You sure you don’t want to get a sandwich first, or maybe a book for some hammock reading.” Luke teased.

“No it’s guys time, get me a beer.”

***

“So wait a minute, Lynn knows who her soulmate is but she’s not doing anything about it?” Avery questioned her sister as they sipped away on some vodka mix that literally tasted pink.

“She says that just because she has an advantage that it doesn’t mean she should use it.” answers Kylie.

“Bullshit!” stated Avery, “I’d kill to know who my soulmate is. It’s literally all I want in life.”

“I know, I know.”

“So if she knows who they are, but they don’t know who she is, how’d she even figure that out? Did she catch them singing or something?” Avery wondered aloud, half to herself, half to her sister.

“Yeah, something like that. I’m not allowed to give specifics but I can tell you that he’s not from around here.”

“So it’s a ‘he’ then, and he’s not local.” Avery took a long sip of her drink emptying the glass. “Lynn hasn’t really got much to go on now has she? She’s basically got herself any guy who wonders through here. Lynn knows nothing about him but she’s decided to let him go, Ky, that just doesn’t sound like her.”

“Believe me; Lynn knows more about this guy than most people should know about their soulmates before they meet.”

Avery frowned at her sisters words, not quite understanding what she meant. Maybe this guy was in trouble with the law or something. But regardless, wouldn’t she still love him and want to be with him? It’s just not natural to not.

“So she’s heard some not so nice things about him then.” Avery stated questionably.

“No no, not like that.” Kylie said knowing how her little sister thought, “If anything Lynn’s kinda intimidated.”

“But it doesn’t matter.” Avery half slammed her empty glass on the counter out of frustration. Every head turned within a two table radius of them but Avery didn’t care. She was never one to give a damn about others opinions.

“Hey, try to keep it down.” Kylie told Avery, “We’re technically not supposed to be in here so don’t draw any extra attention to us.”

“Kylie! A soulmate is a soulmate and you can’t change it. Lynn is being incredibly stupid to not go after him.” Avery continued her rant, “She’s being selfish. Not only is she hurting herself but she’s also hurting her soulmate. Lynn is being stupid.”

“Avery enough,” Kylie shapely stepped in and put on her big sister face to stop her little sister before she said something worse. Avery had a tendency to speak her mind without giving consideration of other people. “That’s my best friend you’re criticizing, show some respect. You also don’t know the full story. There’s a lot more to it but it’s none of your business so watch it.”

“Kylie are you even listening to yourself? Lynn is-”

“Lynn is taking her time and trying to do what is best for her and Lu- I mean her soulmate. You are in no position to judge her for this. When you are older and both you and your soulmate are ready to meet, then perhaps you will begin to understand how stressful this is for them.”

Avery, as fiery as she was, backed down once she saw how fiercely Kylie was defending Lynn’s decision.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. You’re right.” she sighed subconsciously rubbing her left shoulder, a nervous habbit. “I don’t understand the situation. I guess I got a little jealous of Lynn. Seriously Ky, all I want in life is to find my soulmate and live out our lives happily and healthy.”Kylie had heard Avery say that a million times but this time she was as sincere as she could get.

“I know you do.” Kylie’s voice softened when she saw her sister’s change of attitude. She reached over and placed her hands atop of Avery’s, a communication of emphasis that both of them understood. “You’ll find them, I promise. If we have to ask every single person if they have your matching tattoo then so be it.”

Avery chuckled at the thought. “You know, now I’m really jealous of Lynn because it would be far easier to find her soulamte if they walked by. All she would have to do is match up the voice.” A bartender came over and brought each girl a new drink. “With me, it’s more difficult because I can’t say ‘Hey, take off your shirt and let me see if we have matching tattoos.’”

“Now that would be interesting.”

“My soumate could be right under my nose and I wouldn’t even know it.” Avery pouted.

Before Kylie could respond, her jaw dropped. In walked four young men that were one hundred percent tourists. Clad in leather jackets, half unbuttoned button ups and black boots, there was no way in hell they were locals, along with the fact that Kylie had never seen these people in the small fifteen hundred person town before. But it wasn’t the jackets, boots or even funky styles of hair that caught her attention. It was the piercing blue eyes that belonged to the tallest blond. The blue eyes she recognized to belong to her best friend’s soulmate. In walked Five Seconds of Summer and where the hell was Lynn!

Avery turned to look at what had caught her sister’s attention only for her own jaw to nearly hit the counter. Her head whipped back.

“Is that-”

“Yes, be cool, there’s something I need to tell you.” Kylie commanded, using her eyes to silently beg her sister to listen for once in her life.

“We’ve been talking in this bar for the last hour and you want to tell me something now.” Avery sounded near shrill as she questioned her sister. “Five freaking Seconds of Summer just walked in and I want a picture, tell me after.”

Avery pushed back her bar stool to get up but Kylie was faster. She caught Avery’s wrist before she could leave, squeezing enough to tell Avery that it was serious.

“Sit back down.” growled Kylie under her breath, “There’s something I need to tell you about them that involves Lynn and a little bit of us.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Avery arched her eyebrow, clearly indicating that she didn’t believe Kylie.

Kylie leaned over the table to speak to her sister without the listening ears of others. She already didn’t want to tell Avery but it would be the only way to keep her quiet, maybe. If other people found out, it could ruin their moment.

“Promise me you won’t say anything when I tell you.”

“Nope.” Avery shook her head, “You’re up to something. How are you not freaking out? Your first celebrity crush just walked into the bar!”

“Avery I need you to trust me.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Just. Trust. Me. Two zambucca.”

“Two?” Avery repeated questionably.

“Two.” Kylie confirmed.

“Two has never been on the table before meaning that this is serious?” All Kylie could do was nod her head, lost in thought. Serious was an understatement. This was life altering.

Kylie sighed letting go of Avery’s wrist to rub her temples. She glanced over at the vacationing musicians. The three blonds were talking about something that must have been funny because all of them wore three award winning smiles. The one she knew as Calum was looking in Avery and Kylie’s direction seemingly lost in his own mind. After a few seconds he must have realised that he was starring and flashed the girls a nervous half smile before turning back to his group.

“Okay here’s the deal. Lynn’s soulmate just walked in.”

“Lynn’s soulma- wait what? Why are you just telling me no- ohhhh you mean....” Avery nodded her head at the band with eyes as wide as saucers.

“Yup.” Kylie confirmed.

“So that’s why Lynn was so scared to-”

“Mmhmm.”

“Well we have to tell her!” Avery whisper shouted.

“No no no, no you can’t.”

“Well why the hell not?” demanded Avery, her hand flew to her left shoulder once more. A nervous habit she’d had since she was still in elementary school.

“It’s Lynn we’re talking about, you know, the only one of us who thinks things through logically. We can’t just call her up and say ‘hey roomie, we just ran into your soulmate, remember him? That guy you’ve been avoiding for about a year. Why don’t you come down and meet him?’ Lynn would freak out. She’s not like us, we do things impulsively, she’s a thinker. Lynn has to think about every step and everything in between. She won’t just jump into things like you and I do.” Kylie finished, reaching for her drink she stole another glance across the bar and then back to Avery.

Avery was silent as she thought about what her older sister had told her, a million ideas running through her head.

“Do you think we should do something? They could be leaving tomorrow, then it’ll be years before Lynn and whoever it is connect.” said Avery, “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me which one is her soulmate would you?”

“Not a chance. I’ve already told you more than I’d like to have.” A few silent moments passed before Avery broke it, not being able to stand the slight tension she felt.

“So what do we do?”

“I have an idea.”

Series Masterlist

Regular Ol’ Masterlist

A/N: would you guys believe me if I told you that there is only one chapter left? Well believe it. Honestly I can’t thank you guys enough. You have been here from start to finish. You’re love and support never goes unnoticed. I know you guys are probably not loving Avery at this point but bear with me, she’ll make a come back in a bit. Then you guys will like her, promise. Thanks for reading,

-xx Reetz

Taglist: @madformichael @h0tsos @fiesty5sos @misskarynie @negative-love@captivatingcal @beautifulplacesforhappines@felonystevefoundthe1975 @mellany1997 @caswinchester2000 @babylonduke@castielanddeanthedog @katsen13 @abby-landolf @urpretendcrush @aulxna @to-the-road @pippin248 @blinkinglightsandmusic @lovcyou3000 @winniesutherland

Taglist is by no means limited, if you want to be notified when new chapters come out just ask and you will be added to the list! :)

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benjamingarden · 4 years

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This Month On The Farm: July 2020

July's weather was full-on summer complete with heat, humidity, and lots o' sunshine. And surprisingly, a lack of mosquitoes. Hooray for that! We did receive some rain and when we did, oh boy was it a lot.

Tents - Not Just For Camping

As you can see in the photo above, we decided to make use of a couple of our extra craft show tents and set them up on the upper and lower decks. On the upper deck it's wide open, used just for rain cover and shade (Ollie is afraid of the netting walls so we left them off). On the lower deck we used the netting walls and put our outdoor table and chairs inside so we can enjoy eating or sitting outside without bugs attacking. Ollie, as noted, is afraid of the walls but if he's sitting in his tower with me by his side, he deals with it ok.

gutters and rain barrel installed!

Barrels Of Rain

Woo hoo! Jay was able to get the gutters installed on the outbuildings and the rain barrels are up and working. This has been on our "someday" list for years. Years! We've been able to successfully use the barrels to water the garden through most of the month, only needing to resort to our well water a couple of times.

Harvesting

As I've mentioned (probably too many times), our garden is mostly shaded. We receive morning sun over about 70% of it and afternoon sun for a few hours over it all, and it's fully shaded the remainder of the day. And so, our harvesting starts late. Then, of course, we had the infamous whistle pig debacle that set us back a bit but we are now enjoying the fruits of our labor.

Green beans are coming in by the bushel. I know that many people don't enjoy frozen green beans but we do, so I grow enough to enjoy fresh weekly as well as enough to put up in the freezer for winter and springtime eating. I planted 3 types this year: Blue Lake, Red Noodle, and Calima Bush Beans. The Red Noodle are still small and green but this is the first year we've planted them so, fingers crossed, they are delicious.

We finally have tomatoes!!! Well, we finally have ripe tomatoes! We have a ton, I mean TON, of green tomatoes amidst the 25 plants so we will definitely have plenty for fresh eating as well as for oven-drying to freeze for sauce during the winter.

We are also harvesting onions, cabbage, kale, swiss chard, mixed greens, arugula, microgreens, peppers (jalapeno, ancho, and bell), summer squash, zucchini, the last of the peas, beets, blueberries, blackberries, herbs and radish.

our sweet potato hill

Sadly, our pear and asian pear trees did not do well this year. I've ordered new "partners" for them (and the paw paw tree) so our hope is we will be swimming in their fruits in a couple of years! And our whistle pig took out all of our summer broccoli and cauliflower so we won't be harvesting either of those until fall.

At the start of the season I would grab a big bowl from the cupboard and Ollie and I would head to the garden to harvest whatever was ready. One day, as my bowl was so full the veggies were spilling out of it, Jay looked at me and said "you need a bucket or a basket or something". I said "I know. Someone I follow on Instagram just posted a picture of her harvest basket that her husband made. It was nice - metal mesh and wood sides and handle. You're too busy though, so maybe next year." I didn't give it another thought.

Later in the week Jay comes out of his shop holding the PERFECT harvest basket. He had made it in between other projects he was working on. Such a sweet gift!

So now, Ollie and I take our harvest basket with us to the garden on our daily check-in.

looking up one of our mammoth sunflowers

the 2 mammoth sunflowers that survived the whistle pig feast are on the left

Homestead Projects

We have a list of projects that we are hoping to accomplish before fall. We've managed to check off some of the easier projects, but not so much the larger projects. Here's what we're chipping away at:

paint the dining room (done)

stain the back deck (done)

paint the living room

fix columns and lay new flooring on one of the two front porches (second porch will be done next year)

paint 2 sides of the house (same color, just refreshing it - the other 2 sides will be done next year)

install fence around the garden (temporarily done - permanent fencing will be done next spring)

build and install a new outdoor pole light in the front yard

build a small nesting box area/water station for garden (so when the chickens are tasked with the garden fall clean-up, they have a place to lay eggs)

chop and stack wood for the woodstove in the shop (done although we may chop a bit more)

install gutters on the outbuildings and hook-up rain barrels (done)

create a raised bed hoop house for one of our garden beds so we can grow greens through late fall/early winter (done for now - we purchased/found the items needed to make this in fall)

Animals

We are not going to add any more animals to the homestead for now and that includes chickens. The current flock will get smaller, gradually, as the inevitable happens. We had one pass away this week, she was one of the older girls, and we fully anticipate a few more passing this year from old age. It certainly doesn't get any easier to deal with death, but at least we have developed a bit of a plan now, of keeping them safe and comfortable during the process. We also know more about signs, because with chickens, they usually mask illness. This helps us so we can watch closer and try to make sure they are protected.

Death is one of the parts of having animals that is so difficult. Unfortunately, as birds become sick and/or begin the dying process, some of the others can become very cannibalistic. It's not a pretty sight. So once we see that one of the girls isn't feeling well, we are able to remove them, but not totally, from the flock. They are social creatures, so full removal seems to make them stressed and upset. Instead, we make sure they are separated by a fence allowing them to still feel a part of the flock without getting incessantly pecked at and stepped on. And no, we don't let them suffer. If there's any sign of that, and we've done all we can do to make them well, we step in.

Our overall plan is to get out of the egg-selling business and keep a very small flock (6-8 girls). With a flock of 24 girls, it will take some time for the flock to naturally reduce (we're down from the 32 we had last year), so we won't be bringing in any chicks until we have less then 8 girls.

zucchini chocolate chip muffins

What Do You Do With All Of That Zucchini?

Isn't this the question you ask yourself every single year? I always think I have a plan to keep up with it but I struggle by August. I give it a heck of an effort though. Here's what we've been doing with our zucchini:

slicing it lengthwise and grilling it (alternatively, you could broil or bake it). We both love it. Jay sprinkles a bit of parmesan on his and I like mine plain. It's sooooo juicy and delicious.

cutting it into chunks and sautéing it with onions and corn. I add a bit of butter to Jay's and mine is plain. We just love the combination.

stuffing it. As noted in this weekending post (at the bottom), I always enjoy coming up with new stuffing ideas. The key is to bake, boil, or grill the scooped out zucchini halves before you fill and bake them so they are nice and soft once finished.

making our very favorite chocolate zucchini cake. Even my husband who isn't the world's biggest chocolate fan LOVES both versions. The original version is here. The healthier/reduced oil and sugar version is here.

making Kate's recipe for healthier zucchini bread.

making zucchini and chocolate chip muffins. They are ah-mazing! I just realized I've never shared the recipe here. I'll try to get that on the blog!

making zucchini noodles with homemade pesto. Soooo good!

adding zucchini to grilled kebabs. (everything gets marinated in italian dressing first)

adding zucchini to soups such as minestrone.

making zucchini cobbler. (tastes just like apple cobbler)

making veggie stew. I use zucchini and whatever fresh veg is in the garden to make stew as the temps begin to drop in the fall.

I'm not a big fan of eating it raw (there's a weirdness to it) or as zucchini "fries", so those didn't make the list. We've made zucchini pickles in the past but we aren't huge pickle eaters so I haven't been making them.

I'd love to hear your family's favorite ways to eat zucchini!

Oliver, my garden/kitchen/preserving/everything helper

Preserving, Or, What We'll Be Eating This Winter

Since our garden is now in full swing, the preserving process has finally begun!

Green beans - as noted above, they are being put up in the freezer weekly.

Peppers - so far we've only collected enough jalapeno's to preserve, so those have been made into pickled jalapeno rings.

Relish - our cucumbers are struggling this year. I've never had an issue with cukes, so I'm not sure what's happening. So we purchased some cucumbers from the farmer's market and, along with our bell peppers and onions we'll can enough relish for my husband to enjoy with his occasional hot dog lunch.

Zucchini - I did freeze some grated zucchini (portioned into 2 cup servings) that I can add to muffins, quick breads, etc.

Onions - we are drying quite a few and then I'll chop and freeze the remainder.

How do you figure out how much veggies to preserve? This is a question I receive a lot. For us, this is how I plan it. We typically rotate the same dishes all winter long so I can usually predict how often during the week we'll eat veggies such as green beans, broccoli, winter squash, tomato sauce, etc. I then times that by how many weeks we'll need preserved food and that's how I calculate it. So, as an example, I plan on serving green beans twice a week for 28 weeks which means I will need to freeze 56 bags of green beans (bagged in single-serving sizes).

It gets a bit more difficult with carrots, corn, onions, canned chopped tomatoes, and peppers because I use them on their own as well as in many different dishes. Over time, through trial and error, I've made it so I can get pretty close. For the frozen veggies, I flash-freeze them and then store them in large, gallon-size bags, so I can just take out what I need when I'm cooking.

That's July around the homestead!

This Month On The Farm: July 2020 was originally posted by My Favorite Chicken Blogs(benjamingardening)

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zuzuhe · 7 years

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1. Jack’s Sister’s name is “Mary Overland”.

The fandom came up with the fake name “Emma” from either the marvel character named “Emma Frost”, or Emma was just a common name back then. (There have been other nicknames, like Jill as in “Jack and Jill” too.)

Originally when asked, William Joyce said her nickname was “Flee”, but later contradicted himself in saying “Flee” was Tooth’s sister’s name. Either way, “Flee” was merely a nickname. It was later revealed her name in the movie would have been “Mary Overland”. This seems to be the most plausible name because William has a knack for naming characters after his family. His son is named "Jackson”, and his daughter’s name is “Mary Katherine”. I think its safe to say Mary Overland is indeed her true name.

2. Tooth’s Human Form

Tooth was drawn as a human child in the books, but in the “Creating an Epic” (behind the scenes content in the ROTG christmas edition) we see a movie version and an older version of human Tooth animated in 2D at the end of the credits. There have been many conceptual forms of Toothiana, but this is the first human design pushed enough to make it featured near the end of special content. I’d like to consider this human design canon.

3. Tooth’s sister: “Vanish”

Vanish has had a lot of controversy behind her character. William Joyce had stated Tooth has a younger sister named “Vanish”, yet not such character has ever been alluded to in the book series or movie at all. “Flee” was a nickname mistakenly given to Jack’s sister, but William later noted “Flee” was supposed to be associated with Tooth’s sister “Vanish”, which would seem more plausible since ‘Flee’ and ‘Vanish’ have the same meaning.

However, her name “Vanish”, and her existence as a whole is questionable. There have been several other images/contexts in concept arts where this image of ‘Vanish’ is merely a book design of Tooth’s mini fairies; this has also claimed to be merely a concept design of Tooth herself, and there’s also been an odd framed picture of this image with a name plate that reads something along the lines of “Tippy” (?) the Tooth Fairy.

Vanish is by far the strangest case in this fact list. Its unknown whether she truly is canon or not even within the books. Its unknown whether this situation will ever be cleared up.

(also I added a picture I drew of Vanish myself with colors just because I think she’s cute regardless of her controversy)

4. Jamie Bennett’s Parents

Jamie’s mother has a straight up model in the concept art book. However, unbeknownst to many, a concept art image of his father and mother(without glasses) can be found in the ROTG Jamie’s Room Previs Reel here. (scroll down for it) I found this intriguing, for the movie typically keeps the parent’s faces out of view. Also, its worth noting that in that picture, we see another character’s head out of frame to the right next to Jamie, whom I assume is Sophie, but her hair isn’t a light blonde. Also, its interesting to note that Jamie’s mother is considered a single working mom in the official movie. So at some point the ROTG writers must have taken Jamie’s father out of the picture, and I’ve always wondered why.

5. Pitch’s Uniform

In the books, Kozmotis Pitchiner is known as a general. I’ve seen many fan designs of what his armor could possibly look like, but there’s been two concept images of William Joyce’s for Pitch, one of early possession where he still wears his uniform, and one of late possession. These two designs are akin to heavy machinery, and the left one (his golden age uniform supposedly still upon him) looks similar to a pirate with that eyepatch. I wish we see a true untainted golden age Kozmotis drawn by William someday.

6. Jack’s Staff: “Twiner”

It was mentioned a few years ago by William that Jack’s staff was actually alive, and went by the name “Twinetender”, however in his most recent post on instagram, he has now toned down the name to simply: “Twiner”. He is said to be a branch broken from an ancient willow that resides upon an indigenous native american burial ground. Twiner is supposedly a spirit that possesses great strength fueled from the deceased warriors he shared the land with when he was still part of the great willow. In the movie, its clear Jack’s staff is just a piece of wood that amplified his power, like a wizard’s wand, useless without its wielder.

7. Beardless North

(or rather hairless North) is just something I threw in there, since many people, (such as myself) have difficulty figuring out the shape of North’s head when I draw him. Knowing his exact ear and chin shape will help, and it could help people whom wish to draw North younger too, as he were so in the books.

8. Mother Nature’s name

This is actually quite common knowledge, but “Seraphina Pitchiner” is a widely used name for Pitch’s daughter in the books. The ROTG wiki page had proclaimed the name came from William Joyce in one of his interviews, but I, and many others like the wiki admins, have done thorough research and have found no such evidence. “Seraphina” was such an adopted name and very space-like, when her true name came out in the books as simple english ‘Emily-Jane’ many fans became upset and confused. I am unsure if William has been confronted about the ‘Seraphina’ controversy, but in all honesty with his name mishaps that have happened with Jack and Tooth’s sisters so often, I would actually not be surprised if there was indeed a time William claimed her name to be ‘Seraphina’ and later changed his mind. I will edit this post if William comments about this situation. I hope we get clarity sometime for this.

9. Unappreciated Settings

In the “Creating an Epic” and in many concept artist portfolio pages, there’s heavy background concept art that involves Sandman’s original ship/island/cloud, and Bunnymund’s original unnatural tunnel system. There’s even been clearer designs of Pitch’s layer, and Jack’s home town. There was a concept artist hired who even did work for the Nightmare Galleon and golden age space ships for the movie’s early concepts. There’s so many more out there, I hope people appreciate this extensive and intensive world building as much as I do.

10. Unreleased

Its been nearly four and a half years since ROTG was released, and in many behind the scenes videos, I spotted tons of blurry unreleased concept arts that look intriguing and fantastic. Surely there’s other story boards and scenes that have been unreleased out there. Take a look here, this is a bad gif, but its a scene where Pitch appears to be talking in the light:

This is from the “Creating an Epic” , but notice how this wasn’t in the movie, and yet its fully rendered and even as lighting. William Joyce had mentioned a long while ago that Dreamworks actually had shorts in the making of ROTG. One was about Pitch, and the other was about an egg that escaped the Easter Massacre. These shorts were discontinued despite William claiming they were 50 to 70% done, and Dreamworks has refused any further attention to be placed upon their ROTG works. (one of these shorts he claims to be about Man in the Moon, but that was done by HIS studio, not Dreamworks. So its questionable if the Pitch short was really done by Dreamworks or not, but there’s no doubt the egg was by Dreamworks since it was directed by the art director and not William) but now I can say there’s no doubt there IS alternative unreleased material for ROTG out there: shorts, deleted scenes, or otherwise. Its been kept from the fandom for years, which is sad to me. Especially since Dreamworks has made it clear they don’t ever want to come back to this. So all this data and art is just lying around rotting in their studio at this point, when there’s plenty of fans out there who would pay money to just get their hands on one unfinished short released digitally. Hell, I would.

This post is brought to you by the same person who did the GOC / ROTG distinction a long time ago. I meant to make this post forever now, and I’m actually procrastinating from school just to do this haha.... but even though the fandom is kinda dead, ROTG still has a place in my heart, and I feel like many people have just left because there’s no new materials. But the Jack Frost book will soon come out within the next year, and I hope this post sparks some interest and spreads information, since I’ve known many that are confused by William Joyce’s claims lately. But thank you all for reading! <3

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benjamingarden · 4 years

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This Month On The Farm: July 2020

Tents - Not Just For Camping

gutters and rain barrel installed!

Barrels Of Rain

Harvesting

our sweet potato hill

Later in the week Jay comes out of his shop holding the PERFECT harvest basket. He had made it in between other projects he was working on. Such a sweet gift!

So now, Ollie and I take our harvest basket with us to the garden on our daily check-in.

looking up one of our mammoth sunflowers