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Hi everyone!

I'd like to introduce you to a wonderful Youtube channel called Townsends. It's run by Jon Townsend, a historial re-enactor. It's all about life, and mostly food, in the 1700's. Fantastic recipes, lots of great info on life in the 18th century, and Jon, who is truly a lovely narrator: genial, gentle, enthusiastic. I've made several of the recipes and they are delicious as well as being interesting. This is a great channel for hobbit writers, as it gives you a great view of life around the time (maybe a bit before) that parallels the level of development, more or less, of the Shire. The channel has been running for about 10 years, I think, with an episode around every 1-2 weeks, so there are LOADS of things to watch! Please check it out, and please pimp the channel to other hobbity folks. I'm sure you'll like it and will want to watch it further.

Here are a couple of their vids to start your off:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Here's a recipe Sam would absolutely have known how to make:

Watch on YouTube

And a recipe for the holiday table. Frodo and Bilbo would have enjoyed this at Yule!

Watch on YouTube

And now, a reminder: I still have a lot of hobbity stuff on my sale page. If you're looking for gifts for hobbity friends, please take a look! And please let other people know it's there!





Enjoy!

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For all of you with families, and those of you without, wishing you a skyful of magic tonight...


Title: On the Eve of Sunreturn
Rating: G
Pairing: None

Summary: Sam and his family at Yule.


( 'And did he, Dad?' )

In the category of Interesting LOTR Movie Info:

Seems that when Sean Connery turned down the role of Gandalf, he also turned down the biggest acting paycheck in history.

Check out those numbers. Who knew being a wizard could be that cush?


Merry and Pippin glared up at the wizard suspiciously. "Two hundred and twenty-five million," Merry growled.

Gandalf's eyebrows knit together. "Yes, more or less," he answered, then blew a smoke ring. Merry batted it aside.

"How much is that in silver pennies?" Pippin asked Merry.

"More than any of us'll ever see, I warrant," Sam flared. Frodo stood next to him, arms crossed (his right hand conspicuously showing) and lips pressed tight. He'd let Sam do the talking here, he thought.

Sam obliged. "I know it's not my place to ask, Mr. Gandalf," he went on, "but seein' as how your job pays so well, just what did you need Mr. Frodo for? With all that gold, seems to me you could'a bought yourself a fine army to go stormin' the Black Land, and left my master in peace where he belonged!"

Gandalf pulled his pipe from his lips and frowned at the angry faces. "My dear hobbits," he scolded. "Being country folk as you are, you clearly know nothing of how these things are done. The revenue from a back-end deal can take years to sort out, which is why such numbers can be deceiving. I had to take whatever funding I could get, and Imladris Productions was already spread thin, what with the breakup of White Council Pictures, and the losses on the Rangers and their backwoods DIY indies. We barely had enough to bankroll a Fellowship of nine; we were lucky the dwarf agreed to work for scale."

"Don't talk down to me, you Maian ponce," Merry snapped. Pippin squeaked, while Sam smirked and Frodo just covered his eyes. "I may be just a hobbit, but my people were drawing up contracts when you were still in...um, well no, they weren't," Merry ran out of steam for a moment, then resumed with vigor, "But we've been at it a bloody long time. You could have found other sources. Don't you have contacts abroad? What about all that Easterling money? We've heard a couple of you lot went out that way."

Frodo had never seen Gandalf turn red before, but now he was approaching quite a ripe shade. You see something new every day, he thought.

"Watch your tongue, Brandybuck," the wizard thundered at Merry, "or I'll..."

"What?" Merry asked. To Mithrandir's extreme annoyance, the hobbit remained resolutely unthundered. "You'll what? Make sure I never work in this town again? Psh!" Merry threw up his hands. "As if I'd want to stay here, as if any of us would want to work here amongst you longshank power players!" He turned to Pippin.

"Come on, Pip," Merry said with an air of disgust, and turned towards the door. "It's back to community theater for us!" Pippin fell in beside him. Frodo joined them, as did Sam, after a moment of looking like he had more to say and then thought better of it. As the door was closing, the wizard heard Pippin's voice from the hallway, "I told you we should have signed with Kevin Huvane..."

Gandalf took up his pipe again and smoked, puffing out three squares of smoke and a triangle. "Hmpf," he muttered under his breath. "Bloody SAG contracts."

Trader Joe's has hobbit munchies. Over in the frozen section, 12 to a box, called "Mushroom Turnovers". You get a dozen perfectly formed pasties about 2 inches in diameter. There are so friggin' cute, and they are delicious. Not cheap, alas, or else I'd have 'em every day. But a great treat.

Yum.



I was gonna make an appropriate icon for this post, but I suddenly realized that I can't remember a single instance in the films of a hobbit eating. Isn't that weird? The most hobbity thing they do, and other than lembas, we never see them eat a thing. Drink, yes. Eat, no. Think about that.

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Under the Deepening Shadows
by Serai



Alone in the dusk, Frodo leaned against an alder and lit his pipe. The lights from the Party Tree cast a gay tremulous glow, making flickering jewels of the dancing hobbits' shadows. Puffing thoughtfully, Frodo savored the taste of Old Toby, yet another flavor discovered anew after his rebirth into life. Reborn for a little while, to fulfill the last of his destiny - saving the Shire. Looking on Sam's joyous face, Pippin's flirting, Rosie's ringing laugh, Frodo knew he'd succeeded. He sighed. Now he could finally rest. A quiet footstep made him turn.

"Well done, cousin," Merry said, smiling.

Remember how I said I'd been listening to my audiotape collection? Well, there's a good bit of folk music in there, and some really great old songs. I've got old English ballads, bawdy tunes and best of all (for our purposes) - drinking songs!

I've found a couple that are quite hobbity sounding, and I'm posting the lyrics here in case any of you would like to use them in a fic sometime. I would, but I just don't feel there's any drinking-at-the-Green-Dragon scenes coming up for me in the foreseeable future, so I figured someone else could make good use of them. I've done a bit of adapting to make 'em Shire songs, but of course you can fiddle with 'em too.

( I Wish They'd Do It Now )

( When We're Met Together )

( Good Luck to the Barley Mow )

Well, I hope you all enjoy these, even if they don't get used anywhere. There's actually one more song that I just love, but I'm saving that one in case I find a use for it myself. ;)

HEY YOU GUUUUYYYYYYSSS!!!

I'm in the process of changing my photo hosting over to Photobucket (nice photobucket, *pets*), which is a Good Thing. But they got limits on size, boohoo! So the few monster big beautiful Elijah pics I've got on inkfrog at the moment are gonna get resized, darn it.

However, I'm posting them here for all of you to grab! Can't guarantee how long they'll be up - a day or two at most. These are all pics that I scanned and worked on myself, and I can't bear to let 'em disappear without one last hoorah... *sniff*

So get your greedy little mitts on 'em NOW! Send your friends over! Get 'em while they're hot!

You won't be disappointed. Really.

( Elijah in a padded room )

( Angry Frodo Wallpaper )

( Gorgeous Elijah in Black Tshirt Wallpaper )

( Frodo at the Party Wallpaper )

( Frodo Opening His Shirt Like He's Gonna Drive You Mad )

( Possibly the Loveliest Frodo Portrait EVER (and really HUGE )

( Pretty Leo from Deep Impact )

( Elijah cover from an issue of Flix Mag )

( Elijah looking puzzled - Closeup from one of those Toronto pics )



( And just for good measure - Hobbits in the Snow )


( Plus a nice shot of Sean Bean without a shirt... )

( And that classic pic of Sharpe, 'cause we can't have enough Sharpe! )


( Oh, ALL RIGHT. A bit of Viggo, too. Soaking wet, I might add. )



Whew! Them's a LOT of pics. And BIG!! But I think you'll agree they're quite worth it.

Remember - they'll only be here a day or two. So get the word out!

shirebound has a great tag-team fic going on. Sweet and funny, which I haven't done much of. So I thought I'd try a round.

( Pippin rounded on Gandalf with a furious look... )

I did a little work on the spoiler pic from yesterday, and have gotten a bit more visibility in it. I'm hoping there'll be a better version of it sometime soon, but for now I've coaxed a bit more detail out of it, at least. Enjoy!

</center *sigh* :)

Remember how I posted those lyrics from the Jethro Tull album? Well, here's my first real attempt at photomanipulation - an album cover for the Shire Edition of Tull's album, Songs From the Wood.

( Ian and the Hobbits )

Oh yeah, one more thing. I recently found this icon (sorry, can't remember where):



If anybody has the original of this pic, would you please email it to me? I'm having photomanip ideas. :)