Sale-ing

Yes, really there was someone called Dagobert Von Wurmser. Finding out these useful things are some the joys of writing historical fantasy.

Writing took a bit of hit the last two days: We had our writers circle meet for December here yesterday, and this morning was taken up by a garage sale, from which I emerged in some awe at Peter's sale-ing prowess. He sees things I don't even notice. I only detect them if they have long spiny feelers or are edible. Cans of oil go right past my vision, as do useful other things like stainless cabinets. Of course it didn't help that it was raining, and there were lots of people in a small space. I am not fond of crowds, even if this is only a Flinders Island crowd - ie. about 5 people inside a 20 foot shipping container. We have moved on the world and have TV again after 2 years, and they were showing some thing about traffic police... and I nearly ran off and locked myself in the wool-shed. Civilization? You can keep it. Anyway, I am now the proud owner of a grindstone and deep fat fryer, and some more bowls. One of things no explains about self sufficiency is that it takes a lot of bowls. The Aborigines didn't have keyboards or I-phones, BUT they had coolamins - which proves you can feed yourself with bowl and without an I-phone. What are gonna do with those pipis (clams) - pile them on the smart phone? Of course self-sufficiency takes lot of other things too (like obstinacy, a peculiar type of highly intelligent stupidity, which will evolve inventive ways to keep the beetles off the strawberries, at a cost in labor and time and intellect and materials (although the main materials are mostly scavenged the bits used to assemble the contraption are not.) that dwarfs the elegant and relatively cheap simplicity of buying a few punnets of strawberries from the supermarket. But hey, they're OUR berries, and taste better. Ask the beetles.) But I suspect the principal requirement is a mind that can look at someone else's junk and say 'I could make that into...' and actually do it. Of course this usually takes junk accumulation into the stratospheric level. And it often also involves a series of sequential events - like the old quest computer games. You can't do this (B), until you have that from task (A), and when do that you do the next (C). D E F.... and so on all exist in your head like a series of chess moves. You have all the bits for E some for C and need that for D... and you're waiting on finding a bopamagilvie for A. I don't know if my mind is big enough for this, I may have to write fiction and go fishing...
which is not happening right now as the work demands and weather has turned nasty, to help me work.

Anyway, once again unto Cavalry battles.