Whatever else you can say about the Wallkill Valley, this one thing is true: It is
heartstoppingly beautiful, particularly in the spring when all the greens are tender and fresh, and the breeze carries the scent of stone fruit blossoms.
This weekend was the Gardiner Art Studio tour. Gardiner is suburban New Paltz, and New Paltz is a hippie preserve, where the last hippies roam free, practicing the ancient arts of organic farming, artisanal cheese-making, and handcrafting hideous tie-dye teeshirts. Please to note that in our rapidly technologically mutating world,
anything over 20 years old is "ancient," particularly, or should I say,
especially moi.
The Gardiner Art Studios are not in Gardiner but scattered along the backcountry roads that crisscross the plateau just below the Shawangunk Ridge. So, the tour basically gave me an excuse to explore the countryside. It was a
gorgeous day. A bit cool, so the air had a prismatic quality.
The art was nothing to write home about. But, hey! It was art. Its creators poured their hopes, dreams, & fears into it. I would have bought it all for vast sums of money if I could.
I also spent time at the New Paltz Community Garden. There was a meeting for new gardeners. Technically, I'm not a new gardener. But after joining last year, I did nothing with my half plot after weeding out the five-foot tall nettles—first, there was a hot spell for two weeks where you would basically succumb to heat stroke after five minutes if you ventured forth there even at 6 in the morning, then the person in the other half of the plot planted a bunch of her own tomatoes there. I could have raised a stink about it—
That's my land!—but figured,
Why? Also, Brian was dead. Which dampened my enthusiasm for just about everything.
Anyway, they gave me another half-plot this year. I'm on probation, though.
I will wander out there for a few hours today to finish the last of the heavy weeding and transport some
dirt. The New Paltz Community Garden is right next to the Wallkill River; the Wallkill River floods periodically, displacing huge amounts of rich, river-bottom soil. The Community Garden elders arrange to have that soil collected in a huge mound, free for the having. It's kind of a hassle transporting it to your own garden site, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do, etc., etc., etc.
I also need to pack & prep for my trip to Ithaca. I'm going up tomorrow to hang out with RTT for a few days, which should be the Big Fun. Haven't seen him since November! He has some political pow-wows scheduled, and he's gonna take me with him, so I'll get to see him in action.
I note that RTT seems to have adopted Zohran Mamdani as his personal style icon.
Hmmmm...
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Lonely Prompts Sunday, Week 18 [DW Edition]
May. 3rd, 2026 08:36 pm↑↑↑ Available dates:
May 5 & 7
May 12 & 14
May 19 & 21
Hi and welcome to our first Lonely Prompts day of May. :3 If this is your first time at
How to look for prompts:
We have plenty of prompts that might just nibble away at your brain today. You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^
Whichever you decide to do, prompt or fill (or both), please remember:
1. You can only request five prompts to be filled.
2. You can request no more than three prompts from a particular fandom.
3. You can, however, fill as many prompts in as many fandoms as you'd like!
4. In the subject line, be sure to say whether it is a request or a fill!
5. You must link back to wherever the prompt is in the community archive (whether filling or requesting), and, if you're filling the prompt, please post the fill as a reply to the original prompt.
6. If you are filling an "any/any" prompt, please let us know what fandom you've written it for (or if it's original!).
8. If there are possible triggers in your story, please warn for them in the subject line!
7. If you've filled any lonely prompts in the past week, this is the place to share them!
9. Finally, please remember to add your prompt fills to our AO3 collection: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2026 collection. See further notes on this option here.
How to link:
[a href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/449155.html?thread=70682755#t70682755">MCU, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, She's wearing daisy dukes and one of his button-down shirts.[/a]
(change the brackets to "<" and ">" respectively)
or:
http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/139897.html?thread=30155641#t30155641
Burn Notice, Sam/Michael/Fi, "It's always been you. And it's always gonna be you."
We are on AO3! If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3, please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2026 collection.
If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site: please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)
If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word!
A friendly reminder about our posting schedule: Themed posts for new prompts go up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day for new prompts of any flavor. Sundays are for showing Lonely Prompts some love, whether by requesting for someone to adopt them or by sharing any fills that you've recently completed.