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

Welcome To FoxTales And To My Children’s Fantasy Novel-In-Progress

FoxTales is devoted to magical nature fun surrounding a children’s novel-in-progress called Because Of The Red Fox. I try to post a chapter (called a “Leaf”) or two each week. Often, the characters in that story speak up in the blog posts here, discussing the story and the goings-on in their lives on Yonder Island …. You’ll hear from Shell and her cousins Samantha (known as Santa) and Annie, Leaves the Red Fox, and Tam The Tea Pot, to name a few.

Feel free to comment on the novel, and to share your own thoughts and stories about nature, magic, writing! I read and think about every comment I receive, and try to respond to them all.

May you experience magic wherever you are!
~ Jane