October 2013 – Planet Laurel

jack o lantern

Some people are into delicately carving elaborate designs into hollowed out pumpkins to create the seasonal exterior lamp we call a “Jack-O-Lantern.

While these can be spooky in the dark, or beautiful works of art, I’m old fashioned. For me, the traditional jack-o-lantern wears a face. That’s why we call it “Jack.”

If you’ve ever tried to light a candle out of doors, you probably understand that a lantern shelters the flame from the wind that would otherwise extinguish it. Glass was at a premium in Canadian pioneer days, but pumpkins were thick on the ground. Since bringing in the harvest made for long days, hollowing out these large squash plants made a simple lantern that could be use out of doors when night starts falling early in the autumn months.

Hallowe’en has long been my favourite holiday, and we always had plenty of pumpkins to carve from the garden. We used to have great fun carving our scary faces into our pumpkins free style. These days many people buy permanent jack-o-lantern substitutes made of ceramic, glass or metal. My preference is always to make my own.

Make A Jack-O-Lantern

1. Cut open the pumpkin,

traditionally by cutting a circle around the stem, which then forms the handle of what will become your jack-o-lantern’s lid. For more artistic designs, often people avoid having the light escape around the edges of the lid by cutting the bottom out of the pumpkin. Depending on your pumpkin’s shape, this can provide more stability to a jack-o-lantern that will stay in one place. If there is any possibility that you will want to reposition your pumpkin once it’s lit, it is best to put the hole at the top.

2. Scoop out the pumpkin guts

using a large spoon. This is a messy job, so I scoop out the seeds and the strings into a metal mixing bowl, being careful to scrape the interior sides of the pumpkin smooth. The seeds can be baked in the oven later.
3. Draw on the face

(or whatever design you plan to use) using pen or marker. You will cut away the drawing as you cut out your pattern. Note: The “child safe” pumpkin carving tool (pictured above) was not very good.
4. Cut Out The Face or design.

If the piece you remove is large, you can do it incrementally. If your child is old enough to carve a pumpkin, s/he is probably old enough to use a paring knife. As you can see, this jack-o-lantern was opened and emptied from the bottom.
Glowstick Jack-O-Lantern . . .

If you plan to place your jack-o-lantern along the path where trick-or-treaters — who often wear flowing and/or flamable costumes are likely to walk, you might want to consider using a glowstick rather than a candle in your jack-o-lantern.

Candle lit Jack-O-Lantern . . .

Especially if you plan on using a candle to light your jack-lantern, remember that it can be a fire hazard, so:

don’t carve the pumpkin a week before so it dry out (I do it on the day)
ensure that the interior walls are scraped clean of all the pumpkin strings
don’t use a candle with a flame that burns high enough to touch the roof or walls of the jack-o-lantern

Tea lights — the small candles used to keep a teapot warm — are a good choice.

Have a safe and happy Hallowe’en.

post script

First, I’ve changed my weekly blog posting day from Saturday to Sunday.

This article needed some photos I didn’t heave, so I found these licensed to share photos on flicker:

fierce dinosaur by SamanthaChapnick
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License and
pumpkin guts by Care_SMC
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License

Adventures with Amazon Central

[This article is reprinted from the Laurel L. Russwurm, Author blog.]

When you decide to self publish, it’s important to be as visible as possible. This is a big part of why I am all over the Internet, and why I’ve just set up my “Author Page” on Amazon Central. Unfortunately the Amazon page is a rigidly set up form that limits what and how authors can share our information.

Possibly the most ironic part of the experience was where the page offers the new user an opportunity to view a “sample” page. What displays is Frank McCourt’s Author Page, which demonstrates where the author photo will sit, as well as showing off Frank’s nice black & white title banner. In creating my own banner, I even made sure to use the exact dimensions of Frank’s banner.

My own black and white author banner, with my gravatar alongside my name written in white letters against a black field

The problem is that while my author photograph rests on the left just like Frank’s, alas, there is no way for me to upload my own black and white name banner to Amazon Central, nor any means of creating one on the site. It is possible such banners used to be allowed, but since that is not the case now, Frank’s page does not provide a true example of how an Amazon Central Author Page will look.

Another difficulty was having a limited space for the biography without knowing what the limit was, exactly. The limit is not screen real estate; it makes no difference whether your words are squished together in a single paragraph or spread out in airy paragraphs. The limit is probably by word or character count, but it required trial and error and tinkering to ensure mine ended where I wanted it to. You can exceed the limit but then are left with only an exerpt, not the best way to make an introduction.

The “Upcoming Events” segment had its issues as well. Naturally I intended to add my participation in NaNoWriMo 2013. While the form allows this, but automatically fills in the venue information with the physical address of the NaNo HQ. My participation will be taking place online, not in California. I can see this being a problem for me forever, since the address for the venue for many of my own events will be “online.” Altering the form to allow the inclusion of a URL as an address would be very helpful.

My last problem is that the section requires an Amazon published book title. While I can understand why Amazon would like to encourage this, NaNoWriMo isn’t an event for selling books that are already written, but to encourage the writing of new novels. Including the name of my debut novel was not really appropriate here, but is required by the form, so I was torn between not making use of the space or including information that isn’t quite right. I’m still trying to come up with a way to make it work.

Beyond these glitches, my page came out fine.

litter liner

Way back when I first became a cat owner, I disliked the fact that plastic cat litter boxes retain odors. So I was very happy to discover plastic litter liners, which were drawstring plastic bags used to line the box. When the litter needs changing, you just pulled the string and put it in the trash. Voila!

But that was years ago. These days, “disposable” plastic is my last choice since it doesn’t break down very well. Then my community introduced the “green bin” program so cat litter could join compostables rather than laying inert in plastic bags in the landfill.

But what about plastic litter liners?

Was there something bio-degradable? For a while I had been spending money buying doggy doo-doo bags made from cornstarch, because they were supposed to be biodegrable, even though they looked like plastic. My husband tried composting one of the bags in our back yard composter, but a year later, it hadn’t broken down at all. So I don’t have much faith in “compostable” cornstarch plastic bag replacements. So replacing plastic bags with something just as bad is no help at all.

But paper is biodegradable, so a thick paper bag — like a leaf bag — would be just the thing. I tried very hard to find litter pan liners made from paper, but even my local specialty pet store had never heard of such a thing. That left me no choice but to make my own. I decided to start with a paper leaf bag. Here in Ontario you can get these in grocery and hardware stores. I found the hardware store bags more durable.

Leaf Bag Make-Over → Litter Liner

Step 1: CUT the top off leaving the bag about twice as high as the litter pan.

Step 2: FOLD over the top, so it is about half again as tall as the litter pan.

Step 3: FOLD AGAIN a little more loosely this time. This makes a bit of a lip that can be shaped to fit the sides of the pan.

Step 4: CUT an extra piece from the paper that was cut off the top

Step 5: LINE THE BOTTOM of the bag for additional leak protection

Step 6: ADD LITTER and the Litter Box Cover if any.

When it’s time to change the litter, remove the litter box cover, and

Step 7: UNFOLD the sides of the bag and ROLL THE TOP TOGETHER

to keep the litter inside, then dispose of the bag in the green bin.

Green Bin photo from Wikipedia shared by NotYouHaha with a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

rose

I like this because it is not perfect.

My neighbour is constantly beheading flowers that don’t meet her rigorous standards, or ripping something or other out of her flower beds. I think roses are beautiful, even when they are damaged or past their prime. Perfection is overated.

Comment on baker’s clay like Mom used to make by a maker’s space – doll house

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doll house

Several years ago I built this durable doll house to barbie doll scale. The wood was largely bits and pieces I had laying about in my workshop.

The bathtub feet are wooden beads; the mirror is a picture frame with silver foil paper inside. I used baker’s clay to mold the bathtub and sinks, and there’s a nice detail shot in the baker’s clay article. .