From Annie: 3rd Leaf is plucked

Hi everyone! Annie here. Today at my tea house I’m not serving tea, but I am serving story!

We hope you like this leaf. The flavor may be a little strange, but hopefully fun and silly too —

Interruption from Santa: Annie, that metaphor doesn’t work! You can’t have flavors that are silly!

Excuse me! This is my post and I can write what I want. I think that flavors can definitely be fun and silly, and this one is. It’s certainly weird too. But hopefully interesting weird.

I and my associate Tam (who you will eventually meet) hope you enjoy this cup of the adventure!

This In From Shell: Second Chapter up and running!

Hi! This is Shell writing. Just letting you know that the second chapter — or “Leaf” as we’re calling it — is now posted for your reading pleasure!

Jane’s pretty busy just now, baking nine double-layer chocolate cakes to sell at the county fair this weekend, on behalf of 4-H. Annie thinks she should be baking lavender cakes with lemon buttercream frosting sprinkled with calendula and rose petals on top. Santa approves of Jane’s choice of just plain chocolate (always dependable). She approves that Jane is using all organic ingredients, but disapproves that, other than that, there is basically nothing healthy about these cakes.

I think a red-white-and-blue cake would be really fun. Maybe a triple-layer white cake with strawberry filling (organic strawberries of course, Santa!) between layer one and layer two and blueberry filling between layer two and layer three. Red-white-and-blue sprinkles plus berries on top would be great too.

Anyway we all hope you enjoy this next chapter of the story. And if you happen to be at the San Mateo County Fair on Sunday (June 13) between 2:30 and 5:30PM, drop by the Youth Exhibition Hall, where 4-H will be running the cake booth. You’ll meet Jane, her daughters, and some other 4-H folks, and you can buy pieces of homemade cake if you’d like. Annie and Santa also want you to know that there will be a lot of great chickens being showcased at the fair. As you’ll discover soon in our story, my cousins are totally loopy about chickens!

Oh, by the way, here’s a drawing I made a couple of years ago of the bard foxes. I really have been dreaming about them for years!

Bard Foxes - art by Shell