Yardzilla

Summer in Phoenix has to be experienced to be believed. The heat can reach up to 123 degrees Fahrenheit, though the average is between 104 and 117. Most of the time the humidity is around 6%. We’re supposed to have a monsoon season, but lately global climate change, or long-term weather patterns, or the heat island effect, or all of the above have conspired to cancel the summer monsoons more often than not. The summer heat in Phoenix isn’t the most uncomfortable, by a long shot -- I think folks in the Eastern part of the U.S. suffer more than we do in the Southwest. But it can be deadly. People and plants feel the withering breath of the dragons of summer.

You might think that’s a problem for gardeners. But it can be helpful, too. Take my yard, for instance, otherwise known as Yardzilla. For 8 years now, I’ve managed to make a happy place for plants. The problem is, it’s TOO happy. When I started out, I had a nice, Martian Garden. Now it’s turned into a Venusian Jungle.

The reason is simple. I planted a bunch of water hogs in my yard, especially roses. I made raised beds out of bricks, which was actually a good tactic. But I had so many tubs full of water-sucking flowers, so many beds full of roses, that the heavy clay soil in my yard became saturated over the years, and that allowed a pernicious devil to enter the picture: grass.

In Phoenix, the grass that survives the best during the heat has an amazing talent for sending tuber-like roots deep into the soil. I once tried to dig it out of a bed it had invaded. When I had dug down 3 feet and still hadn’t found the end of it, I realized that I could theoretically dig down many more feet than I would care to dig, perhaps 10, or 100, or even 1000. This stuff doesn’t need sunlight to survive, it can go dormant for years. Once it gets water, it begins to spread in all directions. When it reaches the surface, it can grow trailers for several feet. That’s what it has done in my yard.

Roses are lovely things, and you can easily get addicted to them. But eventually, a rose bush gets old and wretched, featuring more thorns and barnacles than blooms. That’s for the best -- it’s easier to dig them up when they look that bad. I dug up every rose bush but one in my front yard (the English rose Grahame Thomas is the sole survivor -- it’s a great rose). I’ll do the same in the back. I’ve banished other flowers that want too much water and have shifted toward desert/xeriscape plants that only need to be watered once a week in the summer. The grass is beginning to die from lack of water.

But I still have to dig it up, and I suspect this will take all summer. I can’t work all day at it, because the heat is exhausting. If I’m not careful, I can end up in trouble before I know it -- it’s too easy to get wrapped up in what I’m trying to do and end up overheated. My husband Ernie checks on me constantly, and insists on dragging the big stuff to the trash pile when he sees me struggling. By then I usually have to call it a day and go inside.

But, what the heck. This year, because I’m pouring a lot less water into the yard, the dry summer heat will help do my job for me. And I get to plant all sorts of weird cactus and succulents, a new addiction. Desert shrubs are gorgeous, and my resident hummingbird loves the flowers. And I still have a couple of roses -- just not 24!

And my water bill is lower. That probably should have been my number 1 consideration. Live and learn (and yank grass until the cows come home) . . .

DON'T Drill, Baby -- At least, Not On Earth

Mineral resources on Earth took millions (in some cases, billions) of years to form and are non-renewable, yet the demand for them is increasing along with human population. There are some who might argue that we should dynamite every mountain and dig up every canyon and valley that might conceivably hold even small amounts of the metals we need to maintain our technologies and our lifestyles. But there is a better alternative. We should begin developing a program that will allow us to mine Near Earth Asteroids now so we can have an orbital mining industry in place long before we begin to experience shortages on Earth.

Any mining operation has high, up-front costs. The costs connected with an NEA mining operation would dwarf the costs of current, Earth-bound mines, but the profits and benefits of successful NEA mining would far exceed those that result from conventional mining. An M-type asteroid with a diameter of 1km could contain approximately 2 billion metric tons of nickel-iron ore, about twice the amount of world production of iron ore in 2004. NEAs may also contain other industrial elements and precious minerals like cobalt, gold and platinum, as well as water ice that could be used to make fuel for spacecraft.

The quality of ore in these asteroids is currently unknown, but that is also true of ore deposits on Earth. Though up-front costs are important, there are several other excellent reasons to create an asteroid mining industry, not the least of which would be the new jobs that would be created. Geologists, chemists, engineers, astronomers, astrophysicists, and professionals from related fields would work with mining technicians using a range of equipment and obtaining a level of training previously unheard of in the mining industry.

Another factor to consider is simply the fact that we’re going to be in space anyway, building and improving the International Space Station, sending scientific missions to the moon, Mars, and other planets, and protecting national security. If we can wrangle our raw materials from NEA’s, we’ll improve our ability to live and work in space.

Once we’ve mined minerals from NEAs, a lot of it can be refined and processed in space. The materials we need on Earth could be lowered into our gravity with space elevators. These would stretch from the surface of Earth, at the equator, into a geostationary orbit. Ore could be lowered to the surface, and personnel and equipment could be shuttled to orbit. The carbon nanotube material needed to construct the space elevator does not currently exist -- it would need to be 100 times stronger than steel. We also need to develop space-tether technologies, both for anchoring miners to the asteroids and for the space elevators, to learn how to wrangle long structures in space. High-speed electro-magnetic propulsion technology would also have to be developed.

These are huge challenges, but there is one last, very compelling reason to pursue mining of NEAs, and that is the possibility that someday we may need to intercept a large asteroid or comet that is on a collision course with Earth. If we already have experience changing the trajectory of asteroids for mining purposes, we’ll have a much better chance of nudging one out of a destructive path. And while we’re at it, we might as well carve some cash out of its hide, to pay for the expenses of the mission.

We’re going to be there anyway. Let’s make some money while we’re at it.

The Attack Of The Divergers

Organisms must evolve and adapt to habitats on Earth if they are going to survive to reproduce and pass on their DNA. The human species is the result of evolution, we are descended from simpler life forms whose variations allowed them to survive in changing environments. Yet it can be argued that humans are no longer exposed to our environment. We have machines, clothing, and drugs that minimize our exposure to temperature, weather, and predators. But there is one thing from which we cannot isolate ourselves, and that is gravity (or the lack thereof).

Currently, most of the people who leave Earth’s gravity well are astronauts, who suffer a significant loss of bone and muscle mass, as well as a reduction in bone density, because of long-term exposure to zero gravity. This occurs because in zero gravity there is a shift in body fluids, resulting in decreased blood flow, which in turn makes it harder for the cardiovascular system to get nutrients to the bone. Exercise is known to counteract these effects, but the astronauts must spend large amounts of time doing the exercises. This leaves them much less time to perform the duties for which they went into space in the first place. For this reason, long-term habitats for humans in space would have to include artificial gravity, which would probably be simulated “by using a long-spin arm and a slow rotation." This implies a rotating space station with higher simulated gravity at the outer edges and zero gravity at the center of spin (like the space station in Babylon 5).

If the humans in space are going to diverge, they must be isolated from Earth and never (or almost never) spend significant amounts of time in our gravity well. They would be living and working in space and/or on moons and planets with lower gravity. It’s tempting to predict that these Space Humans would be smaller than us, with smaller, less dense bones. But that assumption is more in line with Lamarck’s Theory of Acquired Characteristics: the first generation of people who colonize space lose bone and muscle mass because they’re living in lower gravities, so their children are born smaller. According to modern evolutionary theory, it’s not their parents’ loss of muscle mass the children would inherit, it’s their DNA and (specifically) their cardiovascular system. Therefore the Space Humans who are most likely to pass their characteristics on to their children will be the ones with a cardiovascular system that can deliver nutrients to their bones (not to mention certain other body parts necessary for reproduction) in lower gravities.

Variability is the most important factor in the survival of any species, and those who can adapt to rapid change are the ones most likely to survive. Size and bone density are physical characteristics that can change even within the lifetime of an individual organism, depending on the amount of nutrients that organism receives and the outer forces (like gravity) acting upon that organism. People who live in space may very well be smaller than people who live on Earth, but any actual divergence will spring from differences that evolve in their cardiovascular systems. Since this system delivers oxygen and nutrients to the entire body, these changes could cause their organs to be different -- including their brains.

When that happens we may begin to see the emergence of a new species, one that can no longer (or no longer wants to) reproduce with us.

Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Giant, Marauding, Mutated Komodo Dragons

I am ridiculously dazzled by how much things have changed during my lifetime. My mother, who was born in 1921, whose father owned a Model T (that was one of the original cars, children), who lived through the Great Depression, the invention of the modern washing machine and air conditioners, WWII, McCarthyism, the assassination of an American president, the Space Race, and the computer revolution just takes it all in stride. But me? I have to sit back and go WOW because I don’t submit manuscripts through the mail anymore. I submit them electronically.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great. It’s fast, cheap. way more reliable, and no one has to worry about anthrax powder in the envelope (speaking of how much things have changed). Honestly, this isn’t a rant against change, it’s just that I’m amazed at how excited I used to get about the mail.

If you were born after the computer revolution, try to get a picture of the situation: When I was a young writer, computers were just making the shift from the big (sometimes room-sized) computers that didn’t have microchips to the desk-top variety. Computer jockeys found the concept of writing actual prose (instead of code) so odd they called it “Word Processing.”

I processed my first words on one of my mom’s old typewriters, a massive metal gizmo so old, it probably belonged to my grandfather. Back in the day, the Smith-Corona company ruled the roost for several decades with their high-quality typewriters, based on designs from the Edwardian Age. You could think of them as Steampunk gizmos. The keyboard you’re writing with now is based on the arrangement of those typewriter keys. I really had to strike those old keys hard, because they were attached to levers that reared up and struck an inked ribbon, which transferred the ink to the page in the shape of the letter. They made a lot of noise, too (that was my favorite thing about them). My metal monster was a Smith, it actually pre-dated the formation of the Smith-Corona company. If I still had it (I have no idea where it ended up), it would be about 100 years old now.

The worst thing about the Smith is that it was so heavy, I had trouble moving it by myself. So my mom gave me her old manual portable. It was a spiffy little thing (still pretty big compared to the Apple MacBook I’m working on now). It had that space-age Sixties look to it. I loved it, but it also was not without its issues. Once I had written a couple of novels on it, one of the ribbon-winding springs broke, so after I had typed about a page-and-a-half, I had to manually re-wind the ribbon. I wrote two more novels under those circumstances. So that was stage 2 of the labor process (stage 1 being the actual writing).

Stage 3 was the cut-and-paste process. That wonderful function that you can do automatically with a computer (GOD I love that), used to actually involve scissors and glue, because very few writers could actually type worth a damn. I type using four fingers, and I can go pretty fast, but my accuracy sucks. Plus I still make goofy spelling errors. That was half the problem. The other half is that you always change your mind about a manuscript, how you want to word things, what order things should go in, stuff that needs to be added, stuff that needs to be cut, etc., etc. So you would get out those scissors and that glue, cut the thing up, and glue it back together again. Seriously. I’m not kidding.

Okay, I’m actually losing track of how many steps I’ve named here, but the next one was to take your manuscript down to a copy place and make photocopies of the mess. They would offer to run it through one of their new, fast gizmos with automatic feed, and I would warn them that my glue-y, fat pages would probably get stuck. Somehow, I managed to make copies worthy of mailing to editors. I still have some of those old photocopies, and I cringe when I see how messy they look. But at the time I was as proud of them as a mother is of her child, so I got two manilla envelopes (bought in bulk, I still have a bunch), addressed one to the publishers, addressed one to myself, went down to the post office and bought postage for both envelopes, stuffed the manuscript, the self-addressed envelope, and a cover letter into the other envelope, and mailed them off.

It felt really good to do that. Back when I was a short-story writer, I often had three or four stories out at any given time. And that brings us back to my original point: the mail. I used to love it so. After going through all those previous steps, once I mailed those suckers off, I really felt like I had accomplished something. I knew it would take editors 1 to 6 months to get back to me, and in the meantime I worked on new stuff to send out.

I often felt frustrated that it took editors so long to send me a YES or NO, but I knew my manuscript was sitting in a very big pile. I figured the competition was stiff. Editors said that 99% of the stories they received were crap, but that still left a lot of stories in the 1% pile. I believed it was possible mine would get picked. So every day, I waited for the mail with bated breath, wondering if an acceptance letter was sitting in there. I ended up selling about a story a year, and if I had never sold a novel, that probably would have been enough to keep me going for quite a while (not money-wise, of course).

To add to my fascination with the mail, my husband and I were courting, long-distance. We met in 1984, but he was living in California and I was living in Arizona. We wrote 3 to 4 letters to each other a week -- we often wrote to each other as a warm-up exercise for the writing we were going to do for the day. We didn’t just gush about romantic stuff, we often wrote about what we were working on, what we were hoping to accomplish. We were pretty hopelessly in love by then (as of this writing, we’ve been married over 20 years), so finding a letter from Ernie in my mailbox often gave me the strength to get though the next few days, to battle giants and dragons.

Getting an acceptance letter was enough to send me into the stratosphere. Heck, even getting a positive rejection letter could do that. I made files for my stories and kept every rejection letter -- looking at the file helped me remember who had already seen the story. (Eventually, those folders got to be kind of depressing, but that’s another blog.) So, perhaps not surprisingly, I eventually started dreaming about the mail.

In these dreams, my mailbox would be stuffed with acceptance letters, letters from Ernie, mysterious checks that showed up for no reason, that sort of thing. But the dream that summed it up was the dream where Godzilla showed up.

If you’ve ever seen the original Godzilla movie (Japanese version, 1954, American dubbed version with Raymond Burr added, a few years later), you may recall a scene where Godzilla was stomping his way through downtown Tokyo. A businessman spots him from his 20th floor window, and starts to run for the emergency exit, but suddenly remembers he has a suitcase full of cash hidden away (don’t all businessmen?), so instead of saving himself, he runs to get the suitcase. He’s halfway out of his office when Godzilla pulverizes the building, and it all crashes down on top of him and his money. The moral of this story? Money is less important than your life.

I dreamed Godzilla had reached my neighborhood and was stomping his way down my street. I ran out the front door and was about to beat a fast retreat when I noticed the mailbox was stuffed full of mail. Oh joy! Maybe there are SASEs in there!

STOMP, STOMP, STOMP . . .

There’s so much mail I keep dropping stuff. I’ve got to pick it all up, it looks like everyone got back to me at once! Oh wow, is that an SASE from Asimov’s?

STOMP, STOMP STOMP . . .

Amazing, I’m hearing from editors I haven’t even sent manuscripts to yet! They heard about me through the grapevine and they want me to send stories! They’re so sure they’ll like them they’re paying me in advance!

STOMP, STOMP, STOMP!

I’m tearing open another SASE when a shadow falls over me. I look up in time to see a giant, reptilian foot descending.

STOMP.

Come to think of it, that last part sums up my career pretty well.

Anyway, I don’t care that much about the mail anymore. I can go for days without checking it. All of the fun has gone out of it, unless I’m waiting for something I bought online. For a while, I used to get excited about e-mail, but since I’m going to be publishing a bunch of new books myself, I don’t expect to hear from editors that way anymore. It’s just not the same.

On the up side, if Godzilla ever does show up on my street, I won’t get stomped because I just had to check the mail on my way out. No, I’ll probably get stomped because I’m old and can’t run worth a damn.

Progress! Ya gotta love it.

UPDATE, 2019: shazam!  Things have definitely improved since I wrote this.  I've sold new stories to Clarkesworld, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Unfit, Uncanny, and several others.  The self-publishing gig was mostly a bust, but I sold two novels to Tor, Medusa Uploaded and Medusa in the Graveyard.  I've even learned to look forward to the snail mail again, though now I have a PO box.  For the time being, I'm okay with progress.  

Maybe I'll do another update in 10 years . . .

Hire An Editor!

I confess, I spend most of my time lost in my own peculiar model of the universe, and I often misjudge people. For instance, I like to use this Comic Sans font on my blog because I think it’s the most readable. But do my readers feel the same way about it?

I also tend to misjudge other writers. It’s tempting to think we’re all the same breed, that the creative process is pretty much the same for all of us, and that we all know there are certain things we have to do in order to present a polished product to readers. But in fact, I’m really not sure how similar we are. Maybe the only thing we’ve got in common is that we’ve been on the bottom of the heap for as long as books (and magazines, and movies) have been a business.

By “bottom of the heap” I mean that we get the least amount of money and respect. For writers, that disrespect begins to pile up from the first moment we dare to submit work for publication, and it continues beyond the life of the writer. I’m not just talking about the innate contempt that critics feel, I’m talking about an attitude that publishers have for writers, because even when we’re big money earners for them, we are still supplicants. At least, we were until recently. Now their game is no longer the only game in town.

And that should be great for writers. Right?

Well, maybe. Probably. Or at least, it won’t be any worse than what we already had going. But here’s where it gets sticky, because there is something the big publishers have that we don’t.

They have really good editors.

This is one of those places where writers diverge. Some of us really HATE being edited. Just how many of us do, I’m not sure. For me, the editing process is absolutely critical to turning out a professional, polished product. I pay a professional editor to go over manuscripts I intend to publish. Her name is Elinor Mavor, and I recommend her highly. I also hire her to do the art I need for covers and for my website. I’m not an artist, and I know that once I’ve looked at one of my manuscripts long enough, I don’t see the mistakes anymore (plus I get heartily sick of it). I need an objective professional to look the manuscript over and point out things I can’t see.

Some writers feel insulted by the process of editing. They feel like they’re being second-guessed, often by someone they don’t respect, sometimes because they don’t have much respect for others in the first place. The fact is, writers can be complete jerks. Being a jerk doesn’t mean you’re not also a good writer. You can even be a delusional jerk and still be a good writer.

By now you’ve probably figured out I don’t have much sympathy for writers who hate being edited. But that’s not totally true, sometimes editors are wrong about stuff. I’ve been lucky -- nine of my novels were published by NAL/ROC, I had excellent editors for all nine books, and I made changes for about 90% of the stuff they indicated should be changed. I didn’t go for 100%. I used my judgement, and made the call to change or not to change. Because you have that choice! Even if you disagree with an editor, you’ve had the chance to look at your manuscript through new eyes, and this is valuable.

Most editing involves tiny tweaks, little changes that make the narrative flow smoother. Other suggestions are more substantial, and require more work and thought. This is not fun, it’s pick & shovel work -- and it’s what makes you a professional. If you’re an established writer I’m assuming you already know all this, though you may have told yourself editing was an odious process that you don’t have to tolerate anymore, now that you’re on your own. And maybe you’re right -- that remains to be seen.

But newbees need editors. And even though I’m not a newbee, I do too. In my opinion, so do most “established” writers.

Looking out at the world from Em Universe, I can foresee a time when editors who used to work for publishers will contract out to writers. Artists who can do commercial work will do the same. Many writers will believe they can do editing and art direction themselves, and a few of them will be right.

Very Few.

Buzz Buzz Buzz . . .

There has been considerable buzz lately about e-books versus print books, what readers want versus what publishers and book stores can deliver, what online retailers can offer versus what brick-and-mortar retailers have to offer, and so on. Writers who currently have contracts with publishers are understandably concerned that e-books may be priced too low, and consequently they won’t earn back their advances -- so everyone is talking about $9.99 to $14.99 as a price point for e-books.

But that price is way too high, and that’s where all this speculation falls apart. I believe the average price for e-books will fall between “free” and $2.99. The reason why is quite simple: most writers aren’t going to work through publishers anymore. And it’s not even because we don’t want to, we simply don’t have the option.

Understand, I’m not just talking about new writers and “bad” writers (I won’t even try to define “bad” writing, I’ll leave that up to the reader). There are a lot of good writers who can’t get contracts with publishing companies. There are very few slots available for print books every year -- so a large number of good writers who managed to sell to publishers in the past, but didn’t win those slots the next time around, are now forced to figure out new alternatives. In the past, your options were extremely limited if your old publishers didn’t care to pick up your new book. But no longer. Now we’ve got e-book formats and the internet.

Does this mean writers who didn’t become bestsellers when they sold their books through big publishers will now turn around and make fools of those publishers? Maybe. But most likely what will happen is that even if they’re not any MORE successful than they’ve ever been, they probably won’t be any LESS successful than they’ve ever been -- so why not take a chance? Why not take charge of your own marketing and pricing? Why not hire your own artists and editors? Why not decide for yourself what’s working and what isn’t, instead of waiting for the decree of some committee that doesn’t have your best interest as the number one priority? And once enough good writers are doing that, we’re talking serious competition.

So now that these good writers are thinking competitively, that leads us back to price again. In the current economy, people are scrambling just to pay utilities and put food on the table, let alone shell out $9.99 to $29.99 for a book (electronic format or otherwise). Eventually that’s going to change, but even that won’t necessarily raise the price of an e-book. If the competition is increasing, writers are going to have to win the attention of readers and then keep it. A lot of crap will get published, but a reader will be able to tell that within the first couple of paragraphs. If they get burned by a writer, they won’t bother with that writer again. The writers who deliver entertaining reads, time and again, will have a better chance of attracting a regular audience.

So as far as prices go -- if writers are offering a few free books, and readers enjoy them, and they go to that writer’s website (or amazon, or apple, or google) and see e-books for $2.99 (or lower), maybe they’ll buy an e-book from that writer. If they really enjoy it, maybe they’ll buy the next one, too. And in the meantime, that writer is going to be thinking up ways to keep attracting them, like audio-visual presentations, mini-movies, inexpensive audio books (another market that could really take off with lower pricing), 2-fers, etc.

Ask yourself this: in the past, when your favorite writer published a new hardback, and you had no money to buy it, did you get it anyway? Did you wait for the paperback? Did you get on a waiting list at the public library and eventually read it for free (or for 25 cents a day)?

If you went ahead and bought the hardback, did you do it because that’s the only kind of book you buy? Or because you just couldn’t wait for the paperback to come out?

I’ve done all those things in the past. I own plenty of hardback books, and I buy old books at antique stores. But eventually I’ll buy an e-reader (I’m waiting for the cheaper, less buggy versions to come out), and I’ll buy e-books too. As always, price will be one of the big deciding factors for me.

Always remember -- it’s not just about what you want. It’s about what you can get. If no one can afford to print books anymore, you won’t get them -- unless you buy used, and eventually they’ll wear out. It doesn’t matter what lasts longer, or what you like best, or how many fond memories you have.

And in another decade it could change back again! Or halfway back. Or something entirely new could happen. It all remains to be seen.

But as for now? I’m a writer. I consider myself to be one of those genies who’s been let out of her bottle.

And I’m not going back in. Count on it.

Geology Lessons From A Miner

Enlightenment is a humbling experience.

And so it was that when I began my trip to Southern Arizona with Ernie and my mother, I felt both excited and intimidated. I had never been south of Tucson. I had a feeling this would be the first of many trips. but I also had a feeling that Southern Arizona would challenge my ability to identify rocks.

Yeah, I know -- it’s not the biggest problem you can have in your life. But I want to be a geologist, not just a hobbyist, not a rockhound (no insult to rockhounds intended). Liking rocks and pondering what they are and how they got there is just the beginning of the process. Sooner or later you’ve got to commit, and then it gets hairy. You find yourself eyeball to eyeball with a roadcut that defies easy classification, and you feel like a total dope.

Highway 90 winds through Tombstone Canyon, past the Queen Mine in Bisbee, down through layers of grey limestone, red hematite, yellow limonite. If you go into one of the antique shops at street level and it features a bargain basement, you can see rooms carved out of natural cement. Now that I’ve been there, and I’ve taken the tour, and I’ve read the wall plaques in the mining museum, I have a good idea what the various minerals and rock forms were in Bisbee.

But as we drove in for the first time, I felt flummoxed. I had only seen light-colored limestone, and I didn’t have any acid with me (I shall remedy that, next time). I also had geology exams to study for, so my textbooks were the first things I unpacked. I had to keep reminding myself -- this is a VACATION. Have FUN !

Fortunately, curiosity rescued my mood. That and the well-stocked coffee station downstairs at the B & B where we stayed (aptly named THE SCHOOLHOUSE). If you’re planning a trip to Bisbee, I highly recommend this place. And a restaurant called SANTIAGO’S. And another eatery (for lunch) called CAFE CORNUCOPIA. And the Queen Mine tour, which (at the very least) will give you some idea what a miner’s job is like.

I found out (by cheating and reading info on the walls of the mining museum) that the geology of Bisbee was shaped by repeated marine transgressions that laid down layers of limestone, followed by volcanic activity that sent lava and superheated gasses into cracks and faults in the sedimentary layers. It was in these faults that the useful ores collected. As we progressed (mostly vertically) into the mine, I gazed at the walls of the tunnel and wondered if I was looking at rhyolite or limestone (probably I saw both).

My epiphany came when somebody asked the miner who was guiding the tour an innocent (yet foolish) question. This fellow worked in the mine for 21 years, and had become an expert in setting explosive charges. He had taken us into a large chamber that had been thoroughly mined of its useful ores. A fellow asked him, “Did you have a geologist to show you what ores to look for?”

The miner didn’t laugh. He said, “No sir. See that red material up there? That’s hematite. That’s the iron ore. That green material? that’s malachite, copper ore. That grey stuff halfway up that wall? That’s lead ore. And that vein over there is silver ore. I didn’t need a geologist to tell me that, it was my job.”

He never worried whether he could identify the rocks. He learned to recognize what he was looking for. And so will I.

Doh!

It was raining when we came out of the mine. The rain rapidly turned to snow. I was oblivious to the discomfort, I felt way educated. That miner didn’t like his job, he did it because he needed to make a living. All he had to prove was that he could do his work well. I can do mine, too (especially if I have acid).

The next day we left Bisbee, land of winding, narrow, windy streets (I got rocks blown up my nose at one point), and drove to the Whetstone Mountains, home of the glorious Kartchner Caverns (where I saw a sample of limestone that was mostly black -- I’m SO confused). Ernie’s blog about that stop is way better than mine, so I linked it. I’m back home now, took those tests, and I’m getting ready to take two more. Gotta do the school thing before I can get out into the field with my bottle of weak acid. But I’ll get there. And I think I'll like my job just fine.

Mysteries beckon, and my curiosity is stronger than ever.

Death By Cookie

In my previous blog I mentioned a certain fondness for desserts, so I think it’s only fair if I give out some of my favorite recipes. This first one was passed along to me by my mother-in-law, Teddie Hogan, the best cook I know.

Teddie’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 ¾ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

½ cup ( 1 stick) softened butter

½ cup shortening

(you can use 1 cup butter or 1 cup shortening if you prefer – I like to mix them in order to get the best flavor/texture ratio)

¾ cup light brown sugar

¾ cup sugar

2 eggs (they work best at room temperature)

1 tsp vanilla

(I also add 1 tsp orange flavor)

½ tsp water (I live in a dry climate – I use up to 2 tsp water)

1 bag semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

(I often add ½ cup walnuts and ½ cup dried cherries)

(NOTE: This recipe can be doubled)

I use a KitchenAid power mixer, because I am a lazy bum. I think my mother-in-law uses her Cuisinart up until the point when she adds the chocolate chips. (She also makes her pie-crust dough using her Cuisinart, which I think is totally cool.) If you use a hand-held mixer, you’ll have to stir in most of the flour by hand. Likewise the chocolate chips and nuts. The directions below apply to the power mixer.

I like to make my cookies big, so this recipe usually makes 2 dozen biggies. If you like your cookies smaller, bake them at 375° instead of 400°. If you like them crunchier instead of chewier, bake them a little longer. Otherwise, you can follow the instructions below pretty closely.

Pre-heat the oven to 400°. Line two large baking sheets with foil, parchment paper, or wax paper.

Whisk dry ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside. Blend butter, shortening, and sugars together with the power mixer. Add eggs and flavorings until just blended. Add flour a little at a time, keeping the mixer running. Add water and keep blending until you have a smooth dough. I also use my power mixer to add the chocolate chips, the nuts, and the dried cherries, but you can mix them in by hand if you prefer.

I use an ice cream scoop to spoon the dough onto the sheets – about ¼ cup for each cookie. If you have leftover dough after scooping 2 dozen cookies, you’re not making them quite big enough (I just glom the remaining dough into the blobs on the sheet).

Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes (unless you like them crunchier, like my brother does). I have a wonky old oven, so I usually check mine at 13 minutes. If I bake them for 15 minutes without checking at 13, they get a little burned. Sometimes they’re ready to come out at 13 minutes, sometimes I let them go a couple of extra minutes (opening the oven cools it down a little, so they don’t get fried).

Two of these cookies at breakfast will take you all the way to lunch (or beyond). I store mine in a ziplock bag. If you store them in a cookie jar, they’ll probably dry out a bit, but if you like to dunk them in your coffee, that works out pretty well. They’re great if you’re going to be hiking all day, and to take on long car trips if you need snacks.

This second recipe is for lovers of strong peanut-butter flavor – it uses old-fashioned peanut butter instead of the homogenous blends. Some people hate the old-fashioned stuff because you have to stir it to blend the peanut oil back into the peanut butter, but it has a much better flavor than the peanut butter that has shortening already blended into it. Stir the peanut butter thoroughly just before you make this recipe.

Em’s Big, Evil Peanut Butter Cookies

(WARNING: if you eat these more than a few times a year, you may drop dead with clogged arteries. On the other hand, maybe the peanut oil is good for you . . .)

1 ½ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

1 ½ sticks softened butter

¾ of an 18 oz jar of old-fashioned peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 large egg, room temperature

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

this recipe can be doubled

Once again, the directions below apply to the power mixer. And I like to make my peanut butter cookies as big as my chocolate chippers, so this recipe makes about 2 dozen biggies.

Pre-heat the oven to 400°. Line two large baking sheets with foil, parchment paper, or wax paper.

Whisk dry ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside. Blend butter, peanut butter, and sugars together with the power mixer. Add egg and vanilla until just blended. Add flour a little at a time, keeping the mixer running, until you have a smooth dough. Add chopped walnuts if you want them – their mild flavor contrasts nicely with the peanut butter.

I use the ice cream scoop to spoon the dough onto the baking sheets, and then I use a fork to make the cross-hatch patterns everyone likes on peanut-butter cookies. But you can also make smaller balls with the dough, moosh them slightly, bake them, and then stick Hershey’s kisses into them when they’re cooling. I like to use the kisses with the almonds in them.

If you’re making the big cookies, bake them 13 to 15 minutes. If you’re making the smaller balls that you want to stick the kisses in (stick those kisses in AFTER the cookies come out of the oven), start checking them at 10 minutes or so.

The big (un-Kissed) cookies are also good for breakfast or to take in your hiking pack.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST:

Em’s Excessive Chocolate Frosting

1 stick butter

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup (slightly heaping) Dutch Process cocoa

about 16 oz powdered sugar (more or less may be necessary, depending on what consistency you want – you can cool the frosting to firm it up a bit, if you want to use less sugar.)

1 tsp vanilla

(you can also use a little orange, coffee, or rum flavorings)

Place the butter, heavy cream, and cocoa in a saucepan over medium heat (stirring occasionally) until the butter is melted and the mixture is just starting to boil. Don’t worry if the cocoa isn’t perfectly blended, but take the mixture off the heat as soon as it starts to bubble. If you overheat it a little, don’t worry, this recipe is actually fairly forgiving if you goof.

Pour the mixture into the mixing bowl of your power mixer or hand mixer and blend in 1 or 2 cups of powdered sugar. You can cool the mixture a little at this point if you want to use less sugar, then blend in some more powdered sugar. Blend in the powdered sugar until you have the consistency you want.

This frosting seems to work best on cupcakes and sheet cakes. If you’re going to use it on cakes or cupcakes you made with a packaged mix, you might want to make it less firm – the cocoa adds density to the mixture, and it might tear tender cakes to pieces if you try to spread it.

If you decide to spread it on either of the cookie recipes listed above, I truly fear for your sanity. Though I do sort of understand where you’re coming from.