UnitedStatesVsWhitePlume

We have passed the cross-quarter of the year.
The Green Comet has come and gone {watch for it again in approximately 50,000 years}. Rhiannon has perfected her signature for autographing books and honored Grandpa Alex White Plume with her carefully hand-scribed note. Such deep snowfall on Pine Ridge this Winter (you may have even caught that on national news), that he couldn't get his truck out to the post office until some serious thawing has happened.. but we know the book is sitting there.

All donor books have now been delivered; should be in hand or arrival imminent, unless we don't yet have an address for you... Memorable Winter animal sightings or signs of animals included Skunk, a juvenile Hawk {breathtakingly came to land close by us as we sat on the sidewalk eating an orange, a snack after Rhiannon's school program at Shoreline campus this past week).., and mystery horse manure on the harbor bridge (a first and exciting in its own right!). 

And for animal sounds(!!!), the tumultuous cacophony of frogs in Arana Gulch, the waterway and common land at the head of Santa Cruz harbor, after the heavens had cried-me-a-river, was off-the-charts phenomenal. As eco-architect Bioneer Bill McDonough would comment, they come from seemingly nowhere when conditions are favorable. 

I like that metaphor.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

This book has been a rosy Winter Journey, for both of us. Watching a 13 year old grow in confidence and grace is a treasure beyond measure.

Thank You Thank You Thank You to each of you who played a part. The Crowdfunder will remain live, since we can, but I will no longer be proactively posting. Maybe we'll say hello on Spring Equinox!

As my old Scottish Dad would say "The best laid plans o' mice an' men gang oft' awry." 

*This is to update our update*

We never shipped on Saturday.., then it was Sunday..., then it was Martin Luther King Day (no post office).. Then today; one single book shipped, which we thought was pretty much Ceremonial, because it was to Grandpa Alex White Plume, the champion of our Tale. We hadn't quite planned it that way but it seemed perfectly fitting how it played out.

Then we finished off after school before dark, hand-delivering on our bicycles, local deliveries to those who were home.

There were several factors that stretched the task, including that we didn't realize that shipping addresses are not collected from donors so we've been slowly checking up on all of those. But also that it was only fair to have Rhiannon pace herself with all the scribing, each book {wore out her hand!}, not to mention that bunch of TOADS she did {each of which was carefully crafted and shaded}.  All of this to say that we did not render this into any kind of onerous task when it turned out to ask more of us than we had first imagined. We just went on our wending way.

 SANTA CRUZ in the WORLD NEWS.. {last thing}; About that 'Atmospheric River,' meaning, someone just dumped the equivalent of 15x the Mississippi River on our home-town...

{Atmospheric rivers can carry up to 15 times the volume of the Mississippi River, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They appear as a trail of wispy clouds that can stretch for hundreds of miles}.

This morning we cycled the five miles on our tandem between the two houses, from Rhiannon's Auntie's house to ours. Our route takes us high up along the cliff looking out across the the wide blue Ocean, across the Monterey Bay, to the South. The Ocean was such a silky, glistening breathless blue. I exclaimed, "Look at it! How could it be so tranquil after what it just did. It's such a bad boy..... Oh..., I know.., it's a Woman."

Update from
*TOAD*
Turn On A Dime Academy

FYI this was our Friday!
The books arrived and a funny thing happened; we discovered we'd inadvertently made a formatting error with one word, because the book software didn't flag that there was a problem. You'll find it on the second page of the book, where we had designed it to say;

Turn On A Dime Academy
TOAD

Except, we put the word "TOAD" in the middle of chevrons like this:

<<< TOAD >>>

Which the software seemed to accept but when the printed books came, it came out like this;

&lt; &lt; &gt; &gt;

So Rhiannon and I went through every book today and she drew a picture of a Toad and I wrote the word 'Toad!'

There you have it! The latest from our Santa Cruz printshop, with another terrific 'cyclone bomb' storm lurking just offshore... This is turning into one utterly memorable Winter.

*~* Feeling Thankful *~*

Quick update here. Happy to say, first batch of books should be shipping to early donors next weekend, Saturday January 14th.
✦¸¸.*'¯`✦* 202​​3​*'¯`✦​✦¸¸.*'¯`✦*​'¯`✦ And we now know that this Campaign will complete its proactive phase on February 2nd.