Coming soon to my yard (Dark Arts and Crafts BBQ and Drumming Parties)

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Hi everyone--welcome to another exciting edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. The theme for this hop is "The Sun Harvest -- What end of summer harvest do you want to bring in before fall?"

*falls on floor laughing*

Hey kids, do you know what time it is?

"Howdy Doody Time?"

"Tool Time?"

"Dinner time?"

"Time for ice cream?"

"Oh, no--he is going to talk about his yard again, isn't he?"

"Again and again and again..."

Yes, that is right. I am going to talk about my yard again.

But first, a slight sidetrack.

Let me tell you about my July. And my original summer harvest goal...

So my wife was out of town for an entire month. She went to Costa Rica for language immersion--she teaches ESL. And I would be left in peace and quiet.

I figured that I would work on my summer goal of having a novel (an entire novel--50,000 words) done by September 1st.

I failed to realize that I was not actually going to get peace and quiet while she was gone. What I got was a bunch of garden remodeling contractors interrupting my schedule--both sleep and work. In the end, I got just a few good writing days out of the month.

Hence, I am not going to have either "Axe Murderer of Titan" or "Heartbreaker" done in time to meet my original goal. Or at least, I am not holding my breath at this point.

And in all honesty, it may have been too optimistic for me to aim for that goal in the first place.

Why did I chose September 1st as a goal for my next release date?

Well, it was the garden remodeling.

"See, I told you that he was going to talk about his garden remodel again. And again. And again."

When my wife decided that she was going to spend her inheritance on remodeling the garden, she thought that it was all going to be done by the first of June.

I laughed.

My father used to do remodeling and construction. I spent many summers and Christmas vacations on various job sites as my father tried to get me interested in the exciting and profitable world of construction and remodeling. I was not interested in that type of construction (don't get me started on the task of Fictional World Building--we will be here all day). [I was also not interested in farming and auto mechanics, just in case you are curious.]

Therefore, I had experience. I knew better. I did not need to pull out my Tarot cards to know that she was wrong. I saw her June first, and raised her a bet of September first.

And given that I am in the midst of a rebranding and relaunch of my career as a writer, what better way to celebrate than to release a book in one of the two new series I was working on?

(Axe Murderer of Titan--science fiction--pilot book of Icarus Above a Dark Earth.)

(Heartbreaker--urban fantasy--book one of Queen's Huntsman.)

But as I said, I don't think that I am going to make it.

I am still going to try.

After all, I still would like to have a book releasing near the date of my first Dark Arts and Crafts BBQ Party With Optional Drumming.

We will just have to see what happens.

The Sun--from the unfinished Monkey Tarot.

So what am I actually going to harvest this summer?

A sidewalk that does not kill people.

I kid you not--the sidewalk that they just dug out was that bad.

And a fence.

Because I like to pretend that I am not that neighbor.

You know--the neighbor that might be an evil Tarot reading witch who meets clients at his house.

Plus my storage sheds and the house trim got repaired and painted.

Basically, it is the yard and garden that I always wanted. The type of yard that one expects to find strange musicians, pot smoking artists, writers of the odd and wonderful, evil witches, and wise Tarot readers in. You know--my type of party.

And yes. it will be a monthly thing with BBQ and drumming. (Well, after my wife finishes her second Master degree work.)

Here is a video showing the current state of the yard...sort of...it devolved into a game of How Many Complaining Cats Can You Count?

[Mad Uncle Morgan shows off his yard.]

{For some reason, Blogger is not letting me embed the video.}

Oh about that September first estimate on mine? Well, we were informed just yesterday that the back gate we want will take a month to get the custom order done.

Damn good fortune telling considering that I never pulled out my Tarot deck for this one.

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Please fence me in (I want to drum with witches)

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When our Tarot Blog Hop wrangler, Joy Vernon, posted the topic for this hop, I had to laugh. “Don’t fence me in” was the exact opposite of what going on in my life.

This spring, my wife decided to use her inheritance from her mother’s death last summer to pay for house and garden repairs and upgrades. One of the things that my wife has wanted for years is a privacy fence. And after many, many years, she had talked me around to her position. If nothing else, I no longer wanted to look at the dead brown knee high grass that my southern neighbor insists on having.

Plus for many years, I have wanted to have “Dark Arts and Crafts” parties. You know—weird artists, indie writers, crazed magicians, and amusing witches, possibly armed with drums and wands—all making noise around a fire pit. One of my entry points into the local occult community was the monthly drummings that a friend of mine (Cassandra Ravenwolf) used to have over at her house. I met my wife at such a drumming. I was heart-broken when Cassandra left town with her husband (Brian) to be closer to her in-laws. And I have waited patiently for some other member of the community to create such an event…but after fifteen years (maybe a touch more), I am out of patience.

So my wife and I are getting a new sidewalk (goodbye Sidewalk of Death), traded our chain link fence for a nice wooden one, new front windows and doors, got the garden sheds painted. Plus I am doing a major purge of stuff I do not need (“Oh look, it is a stack of Rocky Mountain newspapers—didn’t they go out of business ten years ago?”); so far, three whole SUV loads of newspapers have been taken to the recycling center. Plus we are going to be painting some of the inside rooms of the house, building some custom book shelves, and generally organizing the mess.

(Please note that one of the reasons that this is all happening is that I am fairly stable—well, more stable than I was for the first fifty years of my life—on my current round of meds and a pot chaser. Don’t knock my pot chaser—it helps keeps the migraines and panic attacks at bay.)

The work on the outside should be done by the beginning of August. Then I get to switch my attention to Icarus--science fiction—“A thousand people live and work in outer space. They depend on Earth for a supply line. What do they do to survive when Earth goes dark?”—a rather long project that has much in common with eating an elephant “one bite at a time.”

So what the heck does this have to do with the Tarot? (An important question given that this is the Tarot Blog Hop.) Well, after all this is done, a certain amount of ritual and classes will be attempted at my house, and I might be doing some in-person Tarot readings (I hate reading Tarot over the phone and internet). So for the sake of my business (and my wife’s pottery business), we needed a new fence.

"Do you want to see naked witches dancing?"

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