A Very Special Birthday . . .

[lavendertook]

It's shirebound's birthday! I bet she'd like to hear about all the news from the woods of the Shire.




But I haven't been able to think in Westron since Chapter 3 Book 1 of FotR, let alone speak it, so how will I tell her?



I know! I'll tell Pippin and Pippin will tell her all about it!

Happy Birthday dear shirebound from my neck of the woods to yours! May your year be filled with health, puppy snuggles, singing muses, and all the things you want to do at the pace you want to do them! *squooshes*

Comments

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Did you take these photos, Lavender? How cool that you spotted a fox that stayed long enough to photograph it. I see them trotting around here occasionally but blink and you'll miss them!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Yes, I took them. This fox seems to do rounds in the woods out my window midday. I've spotted hir a few times this winter when there's been snow on the ground and I've been home and chanced to look out at the right time, though I saw hir once around sunset. I'm sure the fox is doing rounds on non-snowy days, but is harder to spot. I'm sure I won't have a chance of spotting hir once the leaves are back.

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Oh, right, the lack of leaves. Yes, that is the Great Revealer. I find that true on my walks, walking the familiar trails in the nearby park. It seems a large wooded world in the summer but when the leaves are down, that it is not very large is made obvious. :)

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's a big part of the depressingness of winter. It shrinks the world. I can deal with the cold--it's the lack of green, and I guess the embroiderment of the world that makes things harder to take. I would not do well ina desert climate either. But the gift is all the birds and other critters that winter can reveal to us.

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I like that way of describing it, a lack of embroiderment. Though in a large landscape I can think the woods beautiful, like Tolkien's description of the leafless winter trees, still lovely in their "shapely nakedness". Trees reveal their structure in winter, deciduous trees. But parklands definitely shrink in winter. It reminds me of when I returned to Rome after college -- our military dad had been assigned there when I was five and six years old. Coming back to see the same places was disappointing, and self-revealing (that I had grown up, literally)--they all seemed to have shrunk. There was a favorite fountain we kids had liked clamboring around, hanging from its fountain-spouting prows, that was shaped like a boat. It was at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. When I went back there as a twenty-five year old, I couldn't find it. It turned out it was there all the time, but, recessed as it was into the courtyard, I hadn't recognized it, its sides, its stone hull, were so low!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Studies in bark, lichen, and moss have gotten through many winters. I need to do a big bark post.

Thank you for that image of Rome and your childhood. Where else did you grow up? I lived in a small town in southern New Jersey my first 22 years--same house and everything--very boring. The UK is the only place I've been too on the other hemisphere.

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Where in southern New Jersey? By the shore, south of Atlantic City? We went to Cape May once (for our daughter's graduation from Coast Guard boot camp), and it was very pretty. Or do you mean further inland?

We moved around a lot when I was little. We lived in Connecticut, Massachusetts, England, France, Italy, California, Washington (State), Tennessee, New York and northern Virginia. My dad retired from the military when I was in middle school, which was shortly after we moved to northern Virginia. That's when my moving around as a child ended.

Bark, mosses and lichens? I'm mighty fond of them, too. :)

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Further inland, closer to Philadelphia. The town has gotten a lot quainter and artsy since I lived there--much more a place I think i'd enjoy.

What was your favorite place(s) to live? Do you miss moving around?

OK, I'll have to do a bark post for you, soon. (-:

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Close to Philadelphia? I went to graduate school there, a small place between Germantown and Chestnut Hill, north and west of the main city. What was the name of your town?

My favorite place we lived? It's difficult to say. As a child my assessment of favorite places was based on what friends I had there and places available to play together. Thinking about the same places from an adult's point of view is quite different. :)

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

What school? My town is Collingswood--it's between Camden and Haddonfield.

Gotcha.

[shirebound]

Pippin just translated all the fox's greetings, and there were many woofs! and grrrrfs! Thank you for the news from the Shire, my friend. I wish you as lovely a year as you wish for me. ♥

*smishes and squishes*

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Good girl, Pippin! Thank you, my friend! *sknishes*

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

A Perfect greeting for our friend.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you, m'dear. (-:

[lbilover.livejournal.com]

Whee, I've been dying to see the fox photos and here they are! And so cunningly presented, too!!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your enthusiasm, my friend. I have so many pics for you most of all I have yet to post. (-:

[grey-wonderer.livejournal.com]

Pretty fox! Great photos. Did you take those?

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

I did. This critter does midday rounds in the woods out my second floor window. I'm sure I won't catch a glimpse of this fox once the leaves are out.

[jan-u-wine.livejournal.com]

that fox certainly gets around.....not to mention that it has surely surpassed The Great Vulpes in age....

lovely pics....

Happy Birthday, S-B!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Is this a Generic Great Vulpes in the manner of the Old Took, or a fox character from somewhere?

Maybe it's a Valinorian fox--animals in Valinor age by Valinorian Years . . .

Thank you on the pics

[jan-u-wine.livejournal.com]

yes, a generic GV in the manner of the Old Took....

I love that fox in LOTR, and throw him in any of my stuff I can......

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

He is quite a beloved fox. (-: