Momentary Magic: Leap Day!

In fact, Leap Day is a very fleeting kind of magic.  It only last 24 hours, once every 4 years.

I recently heard someone talking on a local radio station about doing away with leap day.  Not only that, but he seemed to think it would be a very good idea to divide the calendar evenly so that the first day of each month always fell on the same day, and we would never need new calendars.  He must have realized that in order to have such symmetry you could only have 364 days in each year, because he concluded with the idea that we could even everything out by having a leap week every few years.  So that would be 13 months of 28 days with a “leap week” every seven years?  You would still need that special calendar every 7th year, the one with the extra week in it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that would mean the days we mark as seasonal observances, such as solstices and equinoxes would still occur, only on different days, each year as we would continue to lose a day out of every year.  Perhaps we could ask the earth to orbit the sun faster instead of taking 365.24 (approximately, and I’m rounding down) days in which to make this journey.

No.  I love leap year.  I love that we’ve created this special day that only “exists” every 4 years.  To me it is a magical doorway.  One that leads to Imagi Nation.  I would never want to see us do away with it just to make a tidier row of boxes on a calendar.

An Alternate Reality

That’s the name given to my new podcast.
.

It’s a format where I can give a voice to my observations and ramble a little bit about...oh, you know. Just life

An alternate reality sort of describes the way I’ve chosen to live.  I really don’t fit into the parameters dictated by society, especially for someone my age.

Born under mutable Gemini, I find myself constantly drifting from one expression of reality to another.  It follows me in my daily routine, (what routine??) and allows me to navigate through a sort of platform 9 3/4 on my way to whatever expression of myself I need to be to get the job done, whether I need to be a book-binder, a farmer, an energy worker, a writer, chief cook and bottle washer, accountant and book keeper, and/or just general dog’s body and go-for.

After a few years of living like that, I had sort of moved into a very narrow expression of myself, perhaps in order to move into the confines of each job I was asking myself to do.

“Wait a minute!”  I had to ask myself, “When did that happen??”  Time to let my mind expand again. Time to remember a more fluid way of doing this.  Time to release tightly woven bonds that have crept in...the learned patterns that twine around me like ivy twining round a tree.  Eventually the ivy becomes a parasite that kills its host.

Yeah, so fair warning...If you listen to An Alternate Reality, you may be in for that kind of a ramble.  Also stories, essays, and just plain (or not so plain) observations about life in my little world, and the world beyond.

Spring Chick Progress Report

At three weeks this is the difference between a Cornish Cross chick and a Buff Orpington chick.  The Cornish X are bred for fast growth.  They are a broad breasted meat bird.  The Buff Orpington are heritage birds.  They are good egg layers, good moms (they go broody), and are not bad meat birds, (though I have no personal experience with a Buff Orpington on my table).

I took this photo to illustrate the difference in size since both these birds are three weeks old.

Which is why I had to separate them 10 days after their arrival.

54 chicks started out in this 100 gallon stock tank.

 















I lost 4 of them over the first three days, which left 50 birds.  Or so I thought.  (It turns out when I went to separate them out, that I had an extra bird-hooray!)

By the time they were 2 weeks old, the Cornish X were so much bigger than the Buff Orpington chicks that they seemed packed in like sardines

I had just been waiting until they feathered out a bit to move the Cornish X out to the lean-to on the south side of my house where I keep the brooders.  And after two weeks their wings had feathered out enough for me to feel comfortable about moving them out of the house.

That left a lot more space in the tank for the remaining 15 Buff Orpington chicks plus one unidentified bird (it looks like a Cornish X, but is small like the Buff Orps.  And since they hadn’t feathered out much at all, they are still indoors.

And here they are now at three weeks old.

The red heat lamps make it hard to see them in photographs, but you can see they have a lot more room to move about.

And this is the Cornish X in their brooder at two weeks old.

And here they are a three weeks old for comparison.

You can really see the growth in just one week, the box looks much fuller than in the first photo.  And since there are 35 birds in this 4’ x 4’ brooder, I imagine that they will be ready to move again in a week.

In good weather, the ideal scenario would be to move them outside at 4 weeks, but during this time of the year, with the colder temps, that will depend on them getting more fully feathered out.  They are nearly there, so I may get them outside in a week.

At 5 weeks, I expect to be able to move the Buff Orpington chicks into the brooder, but again-that depends on how far along their feathers are.  Still, I do have three heat lamps and it stays quite toasty in the brooder when I use all three.

After 5 weeks, I will be more than ready to have my dining room back.  Those little guys generate so much dust.  But I must admit, they also generate pure joy in the house.

Momentary Magic: Spring Chicks

Spring chicks just arrived this morning in the mail.  I have them under a red bulb heat lamp.

There was a time when my flock self multiplied.  Chicks were hatched on this place naturally and grew up being cared for by a mother hen.

Then one day nature in the form of coyote stole in and changed all that in one sad summer afternoon. The saddest part of all?  Coyote wasn’t even hungry.

What a waste.  All those lifeless bodies.  All the joy drained out of the hen yard.

Now the joy has returned in the form of Spring Chicks.

They don’t have mothers to raise them or to keep them warm or to teach them how to scratch the soil.  Even so, they figure it out.

It is miraculous that 54 tiny chicks can be packed carefully into a cardboard box, and shipped across the country.  The miracle is seeing the soft look on the faces around me when I pick them up at the post office.  The woman at the counter handing them over with blessings and well wishes.  The people in line murmuring that it was worth the wait just to see a box of chicks arrive in tact, their robust chirping filling the post office lobby.  A sign they are healthy and alive.

I drive them home with the heater cranked up into the 80s in my car, and I coo reassuring words to them all the way.  And when I unpack them-another miracle.  They are warm as toast.  The box is warm.  Tucked under their little straw mat, there are two heating packs, still warm after 40 hours of travel.

I find myself warming with gratitude.  It has not always gone this well.  The last batch of chicks arrived chilled through.  I lost about 17% of those chicks.  It took them a long time to even begin to thrive after being so compromised.

But these chicks stayed warm.  They not only survived, but they are vigorous.  Eating and drinking right away.  They haven’t passed out on their little faces with their little wings spread out, like I have seen others do in the past as they try to recover from the stress of being shipped in the mail.

The loud complaining peeping from being packed together in a box for a day and a half, has been replaced with the soft conversational chirps as they chat among themselves.

Right now I can hold 3 in the palm of my hand and all 54 chicks fit comfortably in their 100 gallon stock tank.  They will soon outgrow it, but for now it is the coziest place in the house.  Just the right size for newly hatched chicks.

Welcome home, dear ones.

Thank you for being a part of my life, and allowing me to be a part of yours.

Thank you for the miraculous joy you bring with you.

Momentary Magic: A Story Excerpt from Hearth & Heart 2017 Winter

        I couldn't tell at first that it was snowing. It just looked like a ripple in the fabric of reality, and the tiny flakes were more like mist than snow.
        The fire in the hearth flared up and burned brighter, and within seconds the ripple had become a full swirling snow storm, driven by the North Wind.
        I bundled up in layers of wool and dug out my pruning shears, intending to cut some greenery for the approaching Midwinter holiday. Then stepping out of my door into the swirling snow, I headed to the forest along the back end of my property, where years ago I had planted a Holly tree.
        I threaded my way carefully through the field, not wanting to even leave a footprint to disturb this work of nature as the snow began to transform the landscape. And as I drew closer to the wooded area, a curious thing happened. The swirling snow seemed to go into slow motion, and the North Wind seemed to calm. The world became very still. The usual local sounds had ceased, and even my footsteps seemed almost completely silent.


Full story available in the 2017 Winter edition of Hearth & Heart at Pegana Press

Momentary Magic i.e. Hearth & Heart 2017 Winter Edition

Ah, there you are!

Hello Reader.  Let me introduce you to Hearth & Heart volume 2   2017 Winter Edition.

A little book filled with short stories written in the spirit of Winter Tales.

It begins with a little flight of fancy called Yule which forms the prelude to the book.  It sets the mood for what's to come, and it begins, thus...

The season of Yule approaches! A light in the darkness. I hear it in the sound of sleigh bells and the tinkle of wind chimes tossed by the north wind. The muted sound of snow falling, a sound so faint there is nothing else like it...

What follows is a story called City of Embers.  A cousin, you might say to The Voice of Fire, which appeared in Winter Tales in 2014.  City of Embers was written that same year, and recounts a story of a city which appears in a fireplace.  Pure fantasy.

After that comes Road Work, a brand new story I wrote this year.  It was written to appear in Hearth & Heart Vol 3 2018 Autumn edition, but I have decided to suspend that publication for the time being, and wanted it to appear in what is perhaps my last edition of Hearth & Heart.

It tells the story of what happens when a bridge is opened up between heaven and earth.

The final short story is called Holly Magic and is a true story that reads like fiction.  To me those are the very best stories.  It brings in all the elements of Winter imagery.

There is one final story - a micro story called La Befana in honor of Epiphany, which appears on the back cover of the book.

I hope these stories find their way into your heart to warm you in the cold of the long dark nights of winter.   They are at Pegana Press.

May they bring you good cheer.

Momentary Magic i.e. Hearth & Heart part three

Thank you for joining me for this final installment of a three part post which introduces Hearth & Heart, a quarterly short story zine.  Part one, introduced the 2015 Summer edition and in part two, I write about the 2015 Autumn edition.  Which brings Hearth & Heart into the present...

Having finally released Hearth & Heart 2015 Autumn Edition retroactively, I felt free to move into the present and begin work on a brand new zine.  On September 22, 2017  Hearth & Heart 2017 Autumn Edition was released, which is a blend of very old stories and very new stories.  This issue stretched my writing muscles a bit, but I also had to dust off my artistic skills as an illustrator, which had grown very rusty.

Conversation With A Prince was written in 2017 for this edition of Hearth & Heart.  It's one of those stories that is 99% true.  The frontispiece (pictured here) is my one and only pastel which I did in 1992.  It seemed appropriate to use here.

On the Way Upstairs was a fragment of story from 2015.  I had stopped writing it just as the character takes the first step on the staircase.  I was intrigued with how the story began, so was really happy to pick up the threads and finish it.  This is 100% fiction, and in fact found myself facing the challenge of writing about something I had no practical experience with.  It was a fun one to write.  Sort of a time travel yarn with a nautical flavor.  The illustration for that was part pencil sketch and part collage.

The Dream Catcher was a story written in 1990.  I was very young and it shows in the writing style.  Still, I liked the message it conveyed.  There are elements of my childhood in it as well as some elements of a grandmother of mine.  I've been in love with the idea of flying ships since I was 4 years old.  This story has all of that.  The illustration was a pencil sketch of a flying ship against the moon and is mounted it on a background photo of stars taken by the Hubble Telescope.

Getting the Boot - A Story in Elfland  was another fragment of story begun in 2010.  I picked up the threads for this story because I didn't have enough material to release this edition of Hearth & Heart.  Once I began writing it again, it was difficult to wrap it up.  This story seemed to want to go on and on, and really had to stick to a specific number of pages in order to make it into this issue.  It ends with a touch of humor.  I had started an illustration for this story, but as I said before, my skills were rusty and I ran out of time, choosing instead to use a watercolor painting done in 2013.  Oddly enough, it works very well with this story.

The final essay appears on the back cover and is called A New Story.  It's a descriptive little piece that describes the life of a story.

I really had fun writing the stories for this issue and putting it together with the illustrations.  It pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I was surprised at how enjoyable it really was.

To find out more about Hearth & Heart Volume 2  2017 Autumn edition, go to Pegana Press.

Join me next Monday when I'll be introducing Hearth & Heart Volume 2 2017 Winter Edition, scheduled for release later this month.

Momentary Magic i.e. Hearth & Heart part two

On Monday I introduced you to my collected short story zine, Hearth & Heart, Volume 1 2015 Summer Edition.  Today I'd like to turn the spotlight onto the 2015 Autumn Edition.

As I mentioned on Monday, I was having trouble getting the Autumn Edition printed out.  It looked like that edition was simply not meant to be.  With other projects requiring my time and attention, I forgot about it for the next two years.  In fact I even stopped writing during that time.

One day, this past August, I decided I needed to find a way to convince myself seriously that writing was a priority for me.  I had gotten into the very bad habit, of relegating story writing to last place on the list of things that needed done.  Which of course meant that it never got done.  My days were filled with growing food, book binding, seeing BodyTalk clients, cooking, cleaning and doing a thousand things required of me daily.  Plus I was taking two classes.  I wanted to include writing in there, but I couldn't seem to make it happen.

Patreon seemed to be the answer.  If I set up a creator page at Patreon, then I would make a plan, and be able to hold myself accountable.  By creating rewards for the Patrons supporting me, I ended up writing daily out of necessity.  

For my first goal, I decided I would finish Hearth & Heart Vol. 1 2015 Autumn Edition, once and for all.  I used my Patreon creator page to keep myself focused by posting daily progress reports.  And even though I didn't have any Patrons, I posted updates as if I had dozens of Patrons cheering me on.

I still had a lot of trouble with it.  But this time I refused to give up.  The book had been finished for two years, it didn't make sense not to print it, even though it seemed like everything was conspiring to keep me from releasing it.  For example, I made three very confusing and discouraging trips to the print shop, before I finally got what I needed.  I wasted time, gas, and money working with them, but finally, it happened.  I walked into the copy shop with my finished  zine and walked out with 30 copies.

On September 1st 2017, I released (retroactively) Hearth & Heart Volume 1 2015  Autumn Edition.  I know it confused some people for me to do it that way (mostly my husband), but that book was born in 2015.  Besides, I already had a 2017 edition started, and I didn't want to combine them, because three weeks later I released Hearth & Heart Volume 2 2017  Autumn Edition.

The 2015 Autumn Edition of Hearth & Heart was such fun to put together, in spite of the fact that it felt like I was being blocked from printing it.  It's got some quirks to be sure.  For instance the table of contents page had to be glued to another version of the same page.  Here's what happened.  The copy machine I was using made an acceptable image of the photo I was using for my table of contents, but did not make a successful copy of the illustration on the back of that page.  You couldn't even see the pencil sketch illustration, and so I had to have them set the machine to make a darker image.  This time the sketch came out very clearly, but the photograph lost the definition I wanted it to have.  I used a technique that I use when sewing an illustration into a book and then, to make a single page of the two sheets glued them together.  It added time and expense to the project, but it seemed to be the only way to get acceptable results.  Over time, the sheets might separate if the glue becomes brittle, but it will be easy for anyone with a glue stick to fix.

The fun part of this edition of Hearth & Heart for me was the lunch box pocket I made to go with A Fairy Tale from 1969.  Since this story was inspired by an experience I had when I was 7 years old, I wanted to include an image of the lunch box I used when I was that age.  I no longer had the lunch box, but I was able to find a great image of it online.  I used the color image to create a pocket to not only hold a tiny book containing a micro story, but also to hold some other surprises.

But it's the stories that are the reason for Hearth & Heart.  Besides A Fairy Tale from 1969, I also included an essay titled A Hallowe'en Recollection.  Both of these offerings originally appeared in my blog Tea With Whimsy.  They were written a week apart in October of 2012.  They both seemed to be appropriate material for the kind of stories I wanted to offer in an Autumn edition.  And both were inspired from my childhood experiences.

Smile! was a story written about an experience I had in the late 90s.  You never know what may be lurking in doorways.  That story is about 70% true life and 30% flight of fancy.  I leave it to you to know fact from fiction.  Better yet, I leave it to you to just enjoy the story without needing to sort fact from fiction.  We get enough of that in the real world, right?

There Be Giants.  That story was based on an actual experience.  It's a Hallowe'en story with witches and giants.  Again that is a story that is about 50% real life and 50% flight of fancy.  (You may be surprised to learn that the giants are the real life part of the story, not the witches.  I know I was surprised!)

Sky is a short offering that I encased in an illustration, which is pictured at the start of this post.  Yes, it's another door.  I had visualized it being a window, but after all the trouble I had been having reproducing images, and constructing the zine, I decided to go for a simple door effect.  Both Sky and The Witch's Children (a micro story which appears as a tiny book included with this zine) were gleaned from a micro story journal I wrote in 1991.

This edition of Hearth & Heart was my most complicated zine to assemble, but it sure was a lot of fun to design.  If you'd like to check it out go over and take a look at Pegana Press.

On Monday I'd like to talk a little bit about Hearth & Heart Volume 2  2017  Autumn Edition.  I hope you'll join me.

Momentary Magic i.e. Hearth & Heart

Getting to know Hearth & Heart

Hi, It's great to see you again.  I'm here with a friend and I'd really like to introduce you.

Reader, this is Hearth & Heart.  

Hearth & Heart, may I present Reader.  

I knew you two would hit it off.  I hope this will be the beginning of a long and lasting friendship.

About Hearth & Heart

Hearth & Heart is an illustrated quarterly collection of original short stories compiled into a half page zine format.  The stories are often seasonal, and are a blend of fiction and real life.

After writing Winter Tales in November of 2014, I wanted to publish more stories.  Winter Tales was a limited edition letterpress chapbook from Pegana Press, and it wasn't practical to continue to offer the works of an unknown story teller like myself in that same format.

I wanted to self publish and make the stories accessible to a wider audience so I decided upon presenting them as zines.

I published the first Hearth & Heart as Volume 1 2015 Summer Edition.  The stories are a blend of reminiscences, day dreams, and flights of fancy born from ordinary experiences.

For example:  this edition of Hearth & Heart begins with a story titled May Baskets and Spring Flowers.  Originally titled  A Story of May Baskets, it appeared as a blog post in Tea With Whimsy April 30, 2013 and was revised 2 years later to be included in Hearth & Heart.  I still can't decide which version I like better.  The original almost seems more intimate to me.  

Stories To Be Carried, Reading To The Faeries, and The Spider were all written within a two week period during the summer of 2014.  Stories To Be Carried came to me during a walk on a country road.  I made a special illustration for it which appears on the back cover.  Not great, but it was the first time I had drawn anything in about a decade, and I was delighted that it even resembled what I had in mind.  Reading To The Faeries came from actual observations made while in my back garden and appears as a micro story in a tiny book which you will find in a pocket on the last page of the zine.  The Spider is a story of perception and I think it would surprise most people.  It was told by observing the interaction between a fly and a spider.

A Conversation With The Moon came to me after spending the pre dawn hours communing with the full moon in November of 2014  I made a special illustration for this story by putting in a door that opens onto the story.  Under the illustration are a few lines (placed there as a caption) from a blog I used to write called Heal Earth Now.  Posted on  January 16, 2014, it goes like this...With my feet on the Earth, I stand in the silver light of your radiance, wrapped in wool against the cold night.  We watch one another.  And we tell each other stories...  It seemed appropriate under the circumstances.

I was so excited to finish my first zine that I immediately got the next edition ready.  Hearth & Heart Volume 1 2015 Autumn Edition was written, compiled, designed and had all the art work chosen, but the problem I kept running into was that I couldn't get any of the images to print clearly no matter where I went.  It looked like that edition was simply not meant to be...

Please join me here this Thursday as I continue to tell the story of the 2015 Autumn edition of Hearth & Heart.  

Momentary Magic - A Hallowe'en Recollection

A Hallowe’en Recollection

As a kid, Hallowe'en was one of my all time favorite holidays. I loved every thing about it. The mystery, the dressing in costume, the being out of doors after dark, and yes -- the CANDY! Candy was SOOO much better when I was a kid, than it is now.
It was also a way to kick off what seemed to my young mind to be the "Holiday Season". The beginning of the much anticipated triumvirate…Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Somehow, I got out of the habit of observing Hallowe'en. It became a night where my husband Mike and I would watch an old classic monster movie and wait for trick or treaters who never came. And then a few years back I happened to be meditating by the fire on Hallowe'en.
       The sun had set, and though it was fairly early in the evening Mike was asleep in his armchair in the library. I had gone into the living room and was sitting by the fire, staring into the flames, allowing myself to soar over the countryside looking down on Hallowe'en celebrations across the land. It was a nice little flight of fancy. After a while, I got up and wandered toward the Kitchen to make dinner.
I felt someone rush up behind me, and I jumped out of the way thinking Mike was playing a joke, trying to scare me. But when I jumped aside, I felt the energy rush on past me. I looked around at a room void of any person but myself.
“Very funny,” I said to the room at large. But then just to make sure, I tiptoed down the hallway to the library to peek at my husband who was sound asleep, as I expected. He wouldn't have been able to get back into his chair so quickly and not without a tremendous amount of racket.
Was I a little spooked? Only a little because my thinking mind jumped in to analyze what had taken place, and declared "that was spooky".  But my initial FEELING was that the energy seemed mischievous, and more like a prank. There was a spirit of fun to it. Like someone rushing up and shouting "Boo!" --then running away and laughing. Only when I thought about being approached by something unknown that felt so tangible, did I experience a spooky feeling. But more in a fun way. You know?
It reminded me of what Hallowe'en was like for me when I was a kid. The thrill of mystery and the unknown. Being outside at night. Feeling a gust of wind and seeing the leaves blowing through the air and tumbling and skipping across the grass. Sometimes there would be a bright moon, sometimes not. And always the first light snow of the year.
The neighborhood looked so different by the light of street lamps which changed perception of color. The air was full of the scent of Autumn leaves and the freshness of night air. The sound of wind rustling through trees added to the mystery.
And the sidewalks were filled with kids scurrying up to houses, knocking on doors, with the harmonic sing song of "trick or treat" floating through the air from multiple sources.
There was a sense of freedom and a sense of adventure. A night given over to make believe and imagination. A night of heightened perception, and expectations.
Having been visited by a "playful spirit" on Hallowe'en night was a gift. It reminded me what is was that made that night special to me as a kid. A mysterious sense of spooky fun!



This essay originally appeared in my blog Tea With Whimsy on October 24, 2012. This current version was published in Hearth & Heart Vol 1 2015 Autumn Edition  Copyright Rita Tortorello  2015  I wanted to share it here in honor of Hallowe'en.

For more information on Hearth & Heart visit Pegana Press.

Momentary Magic

I'm considering changing the title of my zine from Hearth & Heart to Momentary Magic.

This is an example of the type of story that appears in Hearth & Heart.  I would appreciate some honest feed back to the following questions.

1.  What are your favorite genres?  (for example:  weird, fantasy, mystery, horror, suspense, etc.)
2.  Who are your favorite authors?
3.  In which genre would you place Stories To Be Carried?
4.  Would you read more stories like Stories To Be Carried?

Please feel free to respond in the comments below.

Stories To Be Carried

528 words

I saw a woman on a dusty road one day. The sun shone hot, and there was the smell of berries and pine trees in the air and the drone of insects, and no other sound was there but for my own breathing as I labored to climb the steep hill we were both on. She was walking down the hill, and she had strapped to her back an enormous basket. And as I approached her, I could see the basket was hanging with the open end downward.
She greeted me, and I her, and then I asked her about the basket.
"It was for the stories I gathered," was her answer.
"But it's upside down. You've lost your stories, " I said with deep concern.
"Well, they weren't really mine, you know," she said leaning in and placing a hand upon my arm as if to reassure me that it was quite alright.
And then her eyes left my face and looked off into a distance which I could not perceive, and she spoke.
"There was a time gone by, when I would collect all the stories I would come across. And whether they spoke of beauty and joy, or they spoke of tragedy and pain, it was all one and the same to me, for each story would wring my heart until it felt like it would burst within my breast.
"And because I gave them my attention, and allowed them to touch my heart, they would cling to me, until I had to find a basket large enough to hold them all.
"And still I went my way in the world, gathering more stories, until my basket became heavy with them."
She paused and looked at me. She made a deep satisfied sigh, and her face resembled that of a child, though she seemed ancient.
I looked back at her eagerly, and I waited for her to continue.
"One day, they just became too heavy to carry. So I simply turned the basket over, and allowed them to escape."
"But didn't they want to stay with you?" I questioned.
"They were old stories. They had grown sleepy. I don't know if they even noticed being loosed."
I pondered this a moment and she continued.
"Now when I meet a story, I can look it in the face, acknowledge it, get to know it even, before I continue on my journey. It's nice to be able to say to a story, "I see you" and then be able to part ways rather than picking it up and carrying it with me."
After a moment of silence, she sighed happily and spoke again.
"I've enjoyed our talk, but I must be on my way," she said gesturing to her path which led down the hill.
I turned to watch her go, and could see other women in the distance making their way up the hill, and all were carrying baskets of varying shapes and sizes.
I knew what I must do. I reached behind me and removed my own basket. Then turning it over, I watched the stories tumble out like colored marbles.

Copyright Rita Tortorello 2014 May 30
This story appeared in Hearth & Heart Volume 1 2015 Summer Edition

Thank you for reading and for your feedback.