Walnut Wood Quotes

This here is a black walnut tree. Grow deep in the woods, so you gotta know where to look. Cure for most everything. Ever unsure, come seek this tree.

Let the bard from Smyrna catalogue Harma, the ledges and caves of Thaca, the milk-fed damsels of Achaia, pigeon-flocked Thisbe or the woods of Onchestus, I sing of Oak, Walnut, Chesnut, Maple and Elm Streets.

If she’d been quizzed as to His Grace’s eye color, she would’ve had to reply simply that they were dark. Which they were. Very dark, nearly black, but not quite. The Duke of Wakefield’s eyes were a deep, rich brown, like coffee newly brewed, like walnut wood oiled and polished, like seal fur shining in the light, and even though they were rather lovely to look at, they were as cold as iron in winter. One touch and her very soul might freeze.

Howard had a pine display case, fastened by fake leather straps and stained to look like walnut. Inside, on fake velvet, were cheap gold-plated earrings and pendants of semiprecious stones. He opened this case for haggard country wives when their husbands were off chopping trees or reaping the back acres. He showed them the same half-dozen pieces every year the last time he came around, when he thought, This is the season - preserving done, woodpile high, north wind up and getting cold, night showing up earlier every day, dark and ice pressing down from the north, down on the raw wood of their cabins, on the rough-cut rafters that sag and sometimes snap from the weight of the dark and the ice, burying families in their sleep, the dark and the ice and sometimes the red in the sky through trees: the heartbreak of a cold sun. He thought, Buy the pendant, sneak it into your hand from the folds of your dress and let the low light of the fire lap at it late at night as you wait for the roof to give out or your will to snap and the ice to be too thick to chop through with the ax as you stand in your husband's boots on the frozen lake at midnight, the dry hack of the blade on ice so tiny under the wheeling and frozen stars, the soundproof lid of heaven, that your husband would never stir from his sleep in the cabin across the ice, would never hear and come running, half-frozen, in only his union suit, to save you from chopping a hole in the ice and sliding into it as if it were a blue vein, sliding down into the black, silty bottom of the lake, where you would see nothing, would perhaps feel only the stir of some somnolent fish in the murk as the plunge of you in your wool dress and the big boots disturbed it from its sluggish winter dreams of ancient seas. Maybe you would not even feel that, as you struggled in clothes that felt like cooling tar, and as you slowed, calmed, even, and opened your eyes and looked for a pulse of silver, an imbrication of scales, and as you closed your eyes again and felt their lids turn to slippery, ichthyic skin, the blood behind them suddenly cold, and as you found yourself not caring, wanting, finally, to rest, finally wanting nothing more than the sudden, new, simple hum threading between your eyes. The ice is far too thick to chop through. You will never do it. You could never do it. So buy the gold, warm it with your skin, slip it onto your lap when you are sitting by the fire and all you will otherwise have to look at is your splintery husband gumming chew or the craquelure of your own chapped hands.

Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he started muttering to himself, "Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed--No, my mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes--hundreds of 'em--cubs; and--" "Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?" asked the Doctor. "Why, of course!" said Jip. "And those are only a few of the easy smells--the strong ones. Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in the head. Wait now, and I'll tell you some of the harder scents that are coming on this wind--a few of the dainty ones." Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open. For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream. "Bricks," he whispered, very low--"old yellow bricks, crumbling with age in a garden-wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove-cote--or perhaps a granary--with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a bureau-drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses' drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms bursting through the rotting leaves; and--and--and--" "Any parsnips?" asked Gub-Gub. "No," said Jip. "You always think of things to eat. No parsnips whatever.

Once my father told me: When a Jew prays, he is asking God a question that has no end. Darkness fell. Rain fell. I never asked: What question? And now it's too late. Because I lost you, Tateh. One day, in the spring of 1938, on a rainy day that gave way to a break in the clouds, I lost you. You'd gone out to collect specimens for a theory you were hatching about rainfall, instinct, and butterflies. And then you were gone. We found you lying under a tree, your face splashed with mud. We knew you were free then, unbound by disappointing results. And we buried you in the cemetery where your father was buried, and his father, under the shade of the chestnut tree. Three years later, I lost Mameh. The last time I saw her she was wearing her yellow apron. She was stuffing things in a suitcase, the house was a wreck. She told me to go into the woods. She'd packed me food, and told me to wear my coat, even though it was July. "Go," she said. I was too old to listen, but like a child I listened. She told me she'd follow the next day. We chose a spot we both knew in the woods. The giant walnut tree you used to like, Tateh, because you said it had human qualities. I didn't bother to say goodbye. I chose to believe what was easier. I waited. But. She never came. Since then I've lived with the guilt of understanding too late that she thought she would have been a burden to me. I lost Fitzy. He was studying in Vilna, Tateh—someone who knew someone told me he'd last been seen on a train. I lost Sari and Hanna to the dogs. I lost Herschel to the rain. I lost Josef to a crack in time. I lost the sound of laughter. I lost a pair of shoes, I'd taken them off to sleep, the shoes Herschel gave me, and when I woke they were gone, I walked barefoot for days and then I broke down and stole someone else's. I lost the only woman I ever wanted to love. I lost years. I lost books. I lost the house where I was born. And I lost Isaac. So who is to say that somewhere along the way, without my knowing it, I didn't also lose my mind?

She began to hear her own blood hissing in her ears. She looked at the edge of the woods, the field going over the hill, the stand of walnut trees around the bedrock at the top, and none of it scratched out any sound to match the seething in her veins. Her aliveness was monumental and the world was faint and distant and dark

TIMELINE OF LAURA INGALLS WILDER’S LIFE 1865-Laura’s sister Mary is born in Pepin, Wisconsin 1867-Laura Ingalls is born in Pepin, Wisconsin 1869-The Ingallses move to Indian Territory, Kansas 1870-Caroline Ingalls, “Carrie,” is born in Kansas 1871-The Ingallses return to the Big Woods of Wisconsin 1874-Lives in a dugout near Walnut Grove, Minnesota 1875-Charles Frederick Ingalls, “Freddy,” is born 1876-Laura’s brother, Freddy, dies at nine months old Laura moves with her family to Burr Oak, Iowa 1877-Grace Ingalls is born in Burr Oak 1879-Mary becomes blind after a fever 1880-The Ingallses begin homesteading in De Smet, Dakota Territory 1885-Almanzo Wilder and Laura Ingalls marry 1886-Rose Wilder born in De Smet 1894-The Wilders move to Mansfield, Missouri 1932-Little House in the Big Woods is published when Laura is sixty-five 1954-Laura awarded the first Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, for her eight-book Little House series 1957-Laura (age ninety) dies at her Rocky Ridge home in Mansfield

The key to this risotto is Japanese peppers of all things?!" "It's sharp, refreshing aroma highlights the mellow body of the cheese... while making the eel's umami flavor flash like an explosion!" "And that one key ingredient that quietly ties it all together... ... is garlic!" "Garlic?! In traditional Japanese cuisine?! That's almost unheard of!" "Those are special smoked garlic chips a junior of mine made. They were smoked using wood from a walnut tree, which is known to emphasize seafood flavors well. By lightly crushing those chips and sprinkling them on as a topping, I added a pleasantly crunchy texture to the dish. But the most critical feature of my dish... is that I broiled the eel using the Kansai region Kabayaki style. Unlike the Kanto region style, there's no steaming step. Leaving all that oil in gives the eel a more fragrant aroma with a heavier texture and stronger flavor... ... meaning it pairs much more naturally with a flavor as powerful as garlic. *Steaming the eel makes much of its natural oil seep out, leaving the flesh light and fluffy.* But what makes these chips so extraordinary... is that they're infused with Ibusaki's earnest passion and the pure sweat of his helpers, Aoki and Sato. There's no way they could not be delicious!" "Ew! Don't say they're infused with sweat! That's gross!" "This much alone is already an impressively polished gourmet course. What's in store for us in that teapot?" "That is eel-liver broth, my lady. I dressed the eel's liver and then sautéed it in olive oil with some smoked garlic chips. Then I poured the sake Sakaki and Marui made over the top and let the alcohol cook off before adding bonito stock to make a broth. It matches beautifully with the cheese that Yoshino and Nikumi made, creating a soft flavor with a splendid aftertaste.

DEATH’S DIARY: THE PARISIANS Summer came. For the book thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews. When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity’s certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower. I’ll never forget the first day in Auschwitz, the first time in Mauthausen. At that second place, as time wore on, I also picked them up from the bottom of the great cliff, when their escapes fell awfully awry. There were broken bodies and dead, sweet hearts. Still, it was better than the gas. Some of them I caught when they were only halfway down. Saved you, I’d think, holding their souls in midair as the rest of their being—their physical shells—plummeted to the earth. All of them were light, like the cases of empty walnuts. Smoky sky in those places. The smell like a stove, but still so cold. I shiver when I remember—as I try to de-realize it. I blow warm air into my hands, to heat them up. But it’s hard to keep them warm when the souls still shiver. God. I always say that name when I think of it. God. Twice, I speak it. I say His name in a futile attempt to understand. “But it’s not your job to understand.” That’s me who answers. God never says anything. You think you’re the only one he never answers? “Your job is to …” And I stop listening to me, because to put it bluntly, I tire me. When I start thinking like that, I become so exhausted, and I don’t have the luxury of indulging fatigue. I’m compelled to continue on, because although it’s not true for every person on earth, it’s true for the vast majority—that death waits for no man—and if he does, he doesn’t usually wait very long. On June 23, 1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil. The first person I took was close to the door, his mind racing, then reduced to pacing, then slowing down, slowing down …. Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear. I took them all away, and if ever there was a time I needed distraction, this was it. In complete desolation, I looked at the world above. I watched the sky as it turned from silver to gray to the color of rain. Even the clouds were trying to get away. Sometimes I imagined how everything looked above those clouds, knowing without question that the sun was blond, and the endless atmosphere was a giant blue eye. They were French, they were Jews, and they were you.

Pack what you need for the divination,” he said. Relieved that he believed me capable, I walked to his desk. A detailed map of Hereswith was spread over the wood, river rocks pinning down the four corners. It was a map I had memorized with its crooked, winding streets. Above the desk, shelves lined the walls, burdened with leather-bound spell books, stacks of paper, jars brimming with crushed flowers and salt crystals and swan quills, ornate ink pots, cast-iron spoons with jewels embedded in the handles, silver bowls nestled into each other, a potted fern whose wilting leaves dangled like unrequited love. I gathered what I needed: a bowl that shone like a full moon, pink salt, dried gardenias, a spoon with an emerald chip, a pitcher full of water, a swan quill, a silver inkwell that was crafted as an octopus, its tentacles holding a vial of walnut ink. I charmed them all beneath my breath with a shrinking cantrip—a spell my mother had taught me—until the objects could sit cradled in my palm, and I slipped them into my pocket, where the remedies waited. The objects clinked like musical notes when they met, weightless as air.

Greetings and welcome to The Keltic Woodshop. Established since November of 2003 in Kansas City, Missouri, The Keltic Woodshop specializes in custom cabinetry, furniture, and unique fine wood products in a personalized old fashioned handcrafted way. We are a small shop that strives towards individual attention and detail in every item produced. The Keltic Woodshop of Kansas City specializes in the following products: Custom Cabinets and Furniture: We use worldwide exotic woods. Our custom cabinets and furniture contains Russian Birch, Brazilian Cherry, African Mahogany, Asian Teak, Knotty Pine, Walnut, Red Oak, White Oak, and Bolivian Rosewood just to name a few. Custom orders are available. Handmade Walking Sticks: Our walking sticks include handcrafted, lightweight, strong, durable, handpainted, handcarved, Handapplied finishes and stains, Alaskan Diamond Willow, Hedgeapple, Red Oak, Memosa, Spalted Birch, and Spalted Ash. Custom Made Exotic Wood Display Cases: These are handmade from hardwoods of Knotty Pine, Asian Teak, African Mahogany, Sycamore, Aniegre, African Mahogany, and Black Cherry. We will do custom orders too. Pagan and Specialty Items: We have Red Oak and White Oak Ritual Wands with gems, Washington Driftwood Healing Wands with amethyst, crystaline, and citrine points, handpainted Red Oak and Hedgeapple Viking Runes for devination. We can make custom wood boxes for your tarot cards. Customer satisfaction is our highest priority. If you are looking for unusual or exotic lumbers, then we are the shop you've been searching for. The Keltic Woodshop stands behind and gurantees each item with an owner lifetime warranty on craftsmanship of the product with a replacement, repair, or moneyback in full, no questions asked, policy. We want you happy and completely satisfied with any product you may purchase. We are not a production shop so you will find joinery of woods containing handcut dovetails, as well as mortise and tenon construction. Finishes and stains are never sprayed on, but are applied personally by hand for that quality individual touch. the-tedswoodworking.com

NOTE: The character of Aoleon is deaf. This conversation takes place in the book via sign language... “Feeling a certain kind of way Aoleon?” She snapped-to and quickly became defensive. “What in the name of the Goddess are you on about?” Shades of anger and annoyance. The old Aoleon coming out. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t poke at you like that. It’s okay you know. There’s nothing wrong about the way you feel.” As if suddenly caught up in a lie, Aoleon cleared her throat and ran her fingers absentmindedly over her ear and started to fidget with one of the brass accents in her snowy hair. A very common nervous reaction. “No…I mean…well I was…uh...” “Aoleon, I know about you and Arjana.” he admitted outrightly as he pointed at the drawing. She coughed, stuttered, smiled, but could bring herself to fully say nothing. Words escaped her as she looked about the room for answers. “My sight is Dįvįnë, lest we forget. I knew you were growing close.” “Yes. Well…she’s…something else.” “Indeed?” he responded. Images flashed briefly in Aoleon’s head of her father’s old friend. Verging on her fiftieth decade of life. She was a fierce woman by all accounts. One who’d just as soon cut you with words as she would a blade. Yet, she was darling and caring towards those she held close to her. Lovely to a fault; in a wild sort of way. Dark skin, the colour of walnut stained wood. Thick, kinky hair fashioned into black locs that faded into reddish-brown tips that were dyed with Assamian henna; the sides of her head shaved bare in an undercut fashion. Tattoos and gauged ears. Very comfortable with her sexuality. Dwalli by blood, but a native of the Link by birth although she wasn’t a Magi. Magick was her mother’s gift. “I heard her say something very much the same about you once Aoleon.” “Really?” Aoleon perked up right away. “Did she?” “Yes. After she first met you in fact. Nearly exactly.” Aoleon’s smile widened and she beamed happiness. She sat up assertively and gave a curt nod. “Well, of course she did.” “She’s held such a torch for you for so long that I was starting to wonder if anything would actually come of it.” “Yeah. Both you and Prince Asshole.” Aoleon exclaimed with a certainty that was absolute as she once again tightened up with defensiveness. Samahdemn walked his statement back. “Peace daughter. I didn't know your brother had been giving you a row about her. Then again, he is your brother. So anything is possible.” Aoleon sighed and nodded. “Not so much problems as he’s been giving me the silent treatment over it. Na’Kwanza. It’s always Na’ Kwanza.” Samahdemn nodded knowingly and waived a dismissive hand. “He’s just jealous. He always has been.” “So I’ve noticed.” “Why would you hide it? Why not tell me?” “I don’t know.” she said; shrugging her shoulders. “I didn’t know how you’d take it I suppose.” “Seriously? You were afraid of rejection? From me? Love, have I ever held your individuality against you? Have I ever not supported you or your siblings?” She shook her head; a bit embarrassed that she hadn't trusted him. "No, I suppose not." -Reflections on the Dįvonësë War: The Dįvįnë Will Bear Witness to Fate

She stood on packed earth; the grass grew knee-high beside the bare patch, and each blade of it, each angled stem and puff of seed, was perfectly still. She began to hear her own blood hissing in her ears. She looked at the edge of the woods, the field going over the hill, the stand of walnut trees around the bedrock at the top, and none of it scratched out any sound to match the seething in her veins. Her aliveness was monumental and the world was faint and distant and dark. She had been like that for most of her adolescence, vivid to herself with the world muted and blurred around her. Now the world was thunderous. She pulled up a blade of grass and chewed on the end of it. The world was loud and close, and her heart and lungs and brain were a tinny afterthought.

The Cambridge flowers had a moral meaning...but they had a poetical meaning that was even more apparent. So did the sounds one heard on summer evenings, the bells of the cows ambling home at twilight, the lullaby of the crickets in early autumn, the hymns of the frogs, in spring, in some neighbouring swamp, not to speak of the creaking of the winter wood-sleds, dragging their loads of walnut over the complaining snow. Every sound and odour had its value.

It is satisfying, of course, to build up a supply of winter warmth, free except for the labor. But there is also something heady about becoming a part of the forest process. It sounds straightforward enough to say that when I cut firewood I cull and thin my woods, but that puts me in the business of deciding which trees should be encouraged and which should be taken. I like my great tall black walnut, so I have cut the trees around it to give it the space and light it needs to grow generously. Dogwoods don’t care. They frost the woods with white blossoms in the spring, and grow extravagantly in close company. If I clear a patch, within a year or two pine seedlings move in, grow up exuberantly, compete and thin themselves to tolerable spacing. If I don’t cut a diseased tree, its neighbors may sicken and die. If I cut away one half of a forked white oak, the remaining trunk will grow straight and sturdy. Sap gone, a standing dead tree like the one I cut today will make good firewood, and so invites cutting. But if I leave it, it will make a home for woodpeckers, and later for flying squirrels and screech owls. Where I leave a brush pile of top branches, rabbits make a home. If I leave a fallen tree, others will benefit: ants, spiders, beetles and wood roaches will use it for shelter and food, and lovely delicate fungi will grow out of it before it mixes with leaf mold to become a part of a new layer of soil. One person with a chain saw makes a difference in the woods, and by making a difference becomes part of the woodland cycle, a part of the abstraction that is the forest community.

Anna Kate I was lost. Truthfully, it wasn’t the worst place to lose one’s way. I stood in the middle of a rutted golden-orange dirt-and-gravel lane riddled with fissures that resembled cracks on an overbaked gingerbread cake. A breeze swooping through the valley cut the humidity and brought with it a burst of pure, clean air swirling with pine scent. Soaring oaks, pines, and black walnut trees cast long shadows. Butterflies skimmed colorful wildflowers standing brightly among the tall weeds and grasses that hugged the lane. I often found peace in the woods, thanks to Zee. For as long as I could remember, whenever she would visit, she’d find a way to sneak me out to the woods to teach me the magic of nature. She lovingly shared how plants, shrubs, trees, and flowers offered alternatives to traditional medicine—all things my mother had also forbidden. “Callows have always been healers and nurturers, Anna Kate, but you must remember that there are many ways to doctor people, physically and emotionally.

whose brain was no bigger than a medium-sized walnut,

I slumped into Wash’s chair and closed my eyes, rubbed the walnut roundels, conjuring a genie to appear with answers.

Write your routine, Ronan. Now. While I watch. I want to see it." 7:45 A.M.: The most important meal of the day. 8:00 A.M.: Feed animals. 9:30 A.M.: Repair barns or house. 12:00 P.M.: Lunch @ that weird gas station. 1:30 P.M.: Ronan Lynch's marvelous dream emporium. "What does this one mean, Ronan?" It meant practice makes perfect. It meant ten thousand hours to mastery, if at first you don't succeed, there is no try only do. Ronan had spent hours over the last year dreaming ever more complex and precise objects into being, culminating in an intricate security system that rendered the Barns largely impossible to find unless you knew exactly where you were going. After Cambridge, though, it felt like all the fun had run out of the game. "I don't ask what you do at work, Declan." 6:00 P.M.: Drive around. 7:15 P.M.: Nuke some dinner, yo. 7:30 P.M.: Movie time. 11:00 P.M.: Text Parrish. Adam's most recent text had said simply: $4200. It was the amount Ronan had to send to cover the dorm room repairs. *11:30 P.M.: Go to bed. *Saturday/Sunday: Church/DC *Monday: Laundry & Grocery *Tuesday: Text or call Gansey These last items were in Declan's handwriting, his addendums subtly suggesting all the components of a fulfilling grown-up life Ronan had missed when crafting it. They only served to depress Ronan more. Look how you can predict the next forty-eight hours, seventy-two hours, ninety-six hours, look how you can predict the rest of your life. The entire word routine depressed Ronan. The sameness. Fuck everything. Gansey texted: Declan told me to tell you to get out of bed. Ronan texted back: why He watched the morning light move over the varied black-gray shapes in his bedroom. Shelves of model cars; an open Uilleann pipes case; an old scuffed desk with a stuffed whale on it; a metal tree with wondrously intricate branches; heaps of laundry curled around beet-read wood shavings. Gansey texted back: don't make me get on a plane I'm currently chained to one of the largest black walnut trees in Oregon

Write your routine, Ronan. Now. While I watch. I want to see it." 7:45 A.M.: The most important meal of the day. 8:00 A.M.: Feed animals. 9:30 A.M.: Repair barns or house. 12:00 P.M.: Lunch @ that weird gas station. 1:30 P.M.: Ronan Lynch's marvelous dream emporium. "What does this one mean, Ronan?" It meant practice makes perfect. It meant ten thousand hours to mastery, if at first you don't succeed, there is no try only do. Ronan had spent hours over the last year dreaming ever more complex and precise objects into being, culminating in an intricate security system that rendered the Barns largely impossible to find unless you knew exactly where you were going. After Cambridge, though, it felt like all the fun had run out of the game. "I don't ask what you do at work, Declan." 6:00 P.M.: Drive around. 7:15 P.M.: Nuke some dinner, yo. 7:30 P.M.: Movie time. 11:00 P.M.: Text Parrish. Adam's most recent text had said simply: $4200. It was the amount Ronan had to send to cover the dorm room repairs. *11:30 P.M.: Go to bed. *Saturday/Sunday: Church/DC *Monday: Laundry & Grocery *Tuesday: Text or call Gansey These last items were in Declan's handwriting, his addendums subtly suggesting all the components of a fulfilling grown-up life Ronan had missed when crafting it. They only served to depress Ronan more. Look how you can predict the next forty-eight hours, seventy-two hours, ninety-six hours, look how you can predict the rest of your life. The entire word routine depressed Ronan. The sameness. Fuck everything. Gansey texted: Declan told me to tell you to get out of bed. Ronan texted back: why He watched the morning light move over the varied black-gray shapes in his bedroom. Shelves of model cars; an open Uilleann pipes case; an old scuffed desk with a stuffed whale on it; a metal tree with wondrously intricate branches; heaps of laundry curled around beet-red wood shavings. Gansey texted back: don't make me get on a plane I'm currently chained to one of the largest black walnut trees in Oregon

Black walnut-Juglans nigra trees are not really cultivated on the same scale of English walnuts. They mostly grow wild across central and eastern parts of the Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir Medicinal Plants Introduction Centre is a company that's dedicated to preserving the legacy and availability of the Black Walnut. jkmpic@gmail.com

As the Count refilled their glasses, he was struck by a memory of his own that seemed in keeping with the conversation. “I spent a good part of my youth in the province of Nizhny Novgorod,” he said, “which happens to be the world capital of the apple. In Nizhny Novgorod, there are not simply apple trees scattered about the countryside; there are forests of apple trees—forests as wild and ancient as Russia itself—in which apples grow in every color of the rainbow and in sizes ranging from a walnut to a cannonball.” “I take it you ate your fair share of apples.” “Oh, we’d find them tucked in our omelets at breakfast, floating in our soups at lunch, and stuffed in our pheasants at dinner. Come Christmas, we had eaten every single variety the woods had to offer.” The Count was about to lift his glass to toast the comprehensiveness of their apple eating, when he waved a self-correcting finger. “Actually, there was one apple that we did not eat. . . .” The actress raised one of her bedeviling eyebrows. “Which?” “According to local lore, hidden deep within the forest was a tree with apples as black as coal—and if you could find this tree and eat of its fruit, you could start your life anew.” The Count took a generous drink of the Montrachet, pleased to have summoned this little folktale from the past. “So would you?” the actress asked. “Would I what?” “If you found that apple hidden in the forest, would you take a bite?” The Count put his glass on the table and shook his head. “There’s certainly some allure to the idea of a fresh start; but how could I relinquish my memories of home, of my sister, of my school years.” The Count gestured to the table. “How could I relinquish my memory of this?” And Anna Urbanova, having put her napkin on her plate and pushed back her chair, came round the table, took the Count by the collar, and kissed him on the mouth.

Look." He held out the piece of roughly carved walnut. "What will this be?" "I see a wing," Cerinthe said. "No - maybe a fin?" Old Skolla squinted. "At first a skylark seemed waiting in the wood. SO my knife carved, seeking that shape. But soon a different shape called to me, a dolphin - and after all that work on the skylark." He clicked his tongue. "To seek the new shape, Old Skolla had to let the old one go." Cerinthe frowned. "What if the new shape isn't as good as the old one?" "Aye, it would have been a good skylark, that's certain," he said. "But if the skylark stays, the dolphin's lost - or never found. So which would you rather? A good skylark forced upon the wood or a dolphin that sings out from the soul of the grain?

41. Among the Rewards of My Sloth . . . . . . is that the tree in our backyard that we had cut down because it was mostly dead and waiting to pierce the asphalt-shingled roof and, more urgently maybe, the neighbor’s (and always, yes, mourn a tree by my hand felled, for it is a home, dead or not) is still, about three and a half months later, sprawled in many parts of the backyard. Probably about one hundred little and not so little logs chucked in a pile out near the black walnut tree, very much alive. And a brush pile about the size of a Cadillac Escalade leaning up against the building you’d be very generous to call a garage, twisting slowly apart on its cracked foundation. Sometimes the brush pile and logs would make me feel like a piece of shit, perhaps especially when Stephanie looked wistfully out into that yard, remembering, I imagine, when she could visualize a garden there. Not to mention my mother, who, when I first got this house in Bloomington, Indiana, in a kind of terror I have to think is informed by some unspoken knowledge (black husband, brown kids in the early seventies kind of knowledge), pleaded with my brother and uncle to convince me to mow my grass lest the neighbors burn my house down. (Of which, let it be known, there was no danger in my case. Despite the Confederate flags in the windows three doors down. You should see his yard. By the way, if you haven’t seen the movie A Man Named Pearl, you should.) Anyway, I’d think, very much pervious to all of the above despite my affect to the contrary, we’ll get a splitting maul and wood chipper and turn a lot of that wood into good mulch, which turns into good soil, trying to make myself feel better about myself. But today, going out back to grab some wood for the stove, past my mess, there was a racket blasting from that thicket like the most rambunctious playground you’ve ever heard, and getting closer, looking inside, I saw maybe one hundred birds hopping around in this enormous temporary nest, sharing a song I never would’ve heard and been struck dumb with glee by had I had my shit more together.