If it is July 1 or after and if you want to see what we were up to before we left for Alaska, go to Tor.com and look for the various sections of Cory Doctorow's Makers, which is being released on Tor.com over the next six months. Every section of the book will feature an illustration conceived by Idiots'Books and drawn by Robbi. We are sorry to be missing the launch, but perhaps you can check it out on our behalf.

With that, we're truly off (this is being posted from the Anchorage airport, the last bastion of connectivity we'll find for the next three weeks). Be well. And enjoy your running water.

Tomorrow, we will be living here.

We will be in pursuit of this.

While trying to avoid being eaten by this.

We will ride on one of these.

And fish in one of these.

There will be moments of triumph.

Moments of manly fortitude (though few and far between).

Moments of exhaustion.

Moments of questionable parental oversight.

And moments of rest.

I'm guessing that Alden will be harder contain this time around.

But we've decided to bring her nonetheless. But how best to get her there? Instead of suitcases, we travel with coolers full of produce (there are no stores in Coffee Point).

But apparently, Alden finds the cooler not to her liking.

And so we are off. Here's the sad news (for you). I have decided to go off the grid while we are gone. No email, no internet. So no posts. The Barnstorming will be going dark for three weeks. We'll be tuning back in upon our return. Which is July 15 for those of you who might be keeping track. Send me an email if you want to be alerted upon our return.

For now, so long. And enjoy the summer, wherever you may be.

Take a closer look.

I mean, these are extraordinary pants. The leg length is appropriate, but the distance from crotch to waistband is staggering. For whom were they designed? I'd love to see the child that fits them properly. Or perhaps that child would be terrifying.

Because it was Father's Day, my good friend and fellow father Christian was in town (with his wife and child).

It seemed appropriate to document the occasion.

Here is a closer look at Iris, who is coming along nicely.

And here's another look at Alden in her remarkable pants.

I mean, what is it with these pants? There is no way that any part of her pants should be visible in this photo.

I mean, they are horrible, these pants. Just awful. So grotesque as to demand a long stare. I feel like a rubbernecking driver, slowing down to see the grisly carnage on the other side of the highway.

The humanity! The horror! I cannot tear my eyes away.

And yet she seems to take it all in stride, comfortable and secure in herself and in her pants. If only we could bottle this moment and hand it off to her when she hits seventh grade. Who knows? These pants might well still fit her then, at least from the crotch to the waistband.

Urbanite is a free Baltimore magazine that focuses on "the issues affecting the relationship between the city and those who live there." It prizes strong writing, an independent perspective, and really nice design. The August issue has a literary theme, and we have been asked to contribute.

The piece we have been working on is difficult to describe. It is part story, part illustration, and is perhaps most akin to the One-Page Wonders we published on tor.com. The piece consists of three circles of narrative and illustration that recombine with one another to create a seemingly endless number of new stories, but this time, the words and pictures are featured on both sides of the piece of paper. The reader makes a series of folds and an "X"-shaped cut in the middle of the page to assemble the thing, and the number of possible permutations is many. Unlike Ten Thousand Stories, there is no straightforward mathematical formula one can apply to compute the number of different stories one can assemble. Or perhaps there is, and I simply do not know it.

We will post word when the magazine is out on the shelves and available for distribution. And eventually we'll post a version on the site for you to download and assemble at home. For now, though, it's back to work. We need to finish putting this together before we leave for Alaska. Exactly 96 hours from now, we will be en route to Seattle with baby and dog in tow.

Here's the scoop. The great and accomplished Cory Doctorow (journalist, author, activist, and BoingBoing co-editor) is coming out with a new book in the fall. The book, called Makers, is about a couple of guys who invent things out of discarded stuff. They have many adventures with disgruntled goths, kindly squatters, and lawyers from the Disney Corporation.

In addition to the hardback version of Makers, Tor.com is going to release the entire book on its website in 81 sections, starting in early July. Every three days for about six months a new section will be released for your reading enjoyment. And each of the 81 sections is going to be imagined and illustrated by Idiots'Books.

This gets more exciting, though. The folks at Tor thought of us, in part, because of the work we've done with recombining image and narrative in Ten Thousand Stories and the One-Page Wonders series. They were interested in seeing if it would be possible to construct the 81 illustrations in such a way that all 81 would come together to form one huge illustration, like pieces of a gigantic puzzle.

Robbi and I put our heads together and decided that it could be done. And we decided to take it one step further. Each of the 81 illustrations functions as one piece of a 9x9 grid that forms a huge, complex illustration when assembled, but each also functions as a "tile" that is drawn so as to be completely interchangeable with any of the other 80 illustrations. Any side of any tile can line up against any side of any other tile without loss of visual coherence. This means that a person with a printout of all 81 "tiles" could arrange them side-by-side in any configuration (and with the tiles turned in any direction) and create an entirely new illustration each time.

It's difficult to describe this in writing, but in a few short weeks you will be able to go to Tor.com and start reading the story and downloading the illustrations every three days. Additionally, the folks at Tor.com are in the process of developing an online game that will enable you to move and rotate the "tiles" in virtual space, creating new configurations and new illustrations each time you play.

Here is Cory Doctorow. You can learn more about him by reading his blog, Craphound.

Getting the opportunity to work with him is a genuine thrill.

Here he is in goggles and a cape. If you read his Wikipedia article, you'll understand why.

Much more on this to come. For now, we're just excited to get the word out.

Sluggish, lackluster, laconic.

And then I received the following email, and things took a sudden turn.

Dear Matthew Swanson of Idiots'Books,

You recently submitted an entry into the Xerox Solid Ink Print Sample Contest and I am happy to inform you that your entry has been chosen as the winner for the Entry Category of "Professional Graphic Arts!" You have 5 business days to decide if you would like to receive your prize. You have the choice of either a Phaser 8560N Solid Ink Color Printer with 2 months worth of Solid Ink OR a 2GHz Aluminum 13" Apple MacBook.

Congratulations from Xerox!

Sincerely,

Xerox Dude

We had won?! We had to pinch ourselves.

It has been a long time since either Robbi or I won a prize, and we were elated. Especially Robbi.

I was elated.

Alden was elated.

Iggy was still depressed, but had to go through the motions nonetheless.

To explain, we use Xerox solid ink to print our books. Instead of laser toner, which is a fine powder that is affixed to the page in the printing process, solid ink is a waxy chunk that kind of feels like a crayon. The "ink" is melted onto the page as the printing occurs. The resulting images are rich and high-quality, which is one of the reasons we use this technology. Xerox hosted a competition for all materials printed using solid ink. We submitted a handful of books and an essay explaining what we do.

We hadn't had much in the way of expectations, but now we're awfully glad we decided to enter. Now, apparently, we have five days to decide whether we want to receive our prize. I'm trying to think of a scenario in which someone would not want a free printer or a free laptop, but have so far come up dry.

As if to compound the insult of her illness, we decided to try on Alden's new rain gear in advance of our trip to Alaska. She was not amused.

But she will be dry as the cold, wet tundra winds do blow.

Notice the coordinated green pants.

No one dresses this nice up there.

So the baby has been sick. Robbi and I have just been heartsick. Both of us had computer data snafus in the last few days. Mine resulted in losing more than a year of my writing files. Robbi's computer decided to purge a few weeks of photos. I cite these difficulties by way of explanation for the silence here of late.

In more cheerful news, Volume 21 was mailed out on Saturday. Titled The Last of the Real Small Farmers, the book represents a departure from our usual fare on several fronts. On one hand, we decided to widen the collaboration. Friend and fellow writer Brian Francis Slattery joined us in putting the thing together. Also, Volume 21 is not fiction. It is, in fact, an illustrated oral history of sorts. Brian and I edited an interview with a guy named Bill and Robbi illustrated it. I'll post some images in a few days.

We did have one particularly nice moment this week. A few nights ago, Robbi happened to look out the window just as the sun was setting. The sky was gorgeous, and so we went outside for a better view. It had just stopped raining and everything was glistening.

We feared the camera wouldn't be able to do justice to the sky, and it didn't, but even this faint approximation of how things looked that night, with everything in profile, gives a sense of how lovely things can be, even in the middle of a bad week.

Robbi is so good at noticing the small, important things in life. It's why I like her so much.

Here, the expectant crowds wait for the show to open.

Alden helped Robbi set up our booth.

Slowly but surely...

...everything came together.

Eventually, we were all set up.

Her work complete, Alden tried to escape into the city. As I chased her, I heard her muttering, "Broadway, here I come..."

Eventually, I convinced her to stay, citing such fun things as puppets.

She was utterly unimpressed.

Eventually, she fell asleep in the middle of the floor behind our table.

We used her as an object lesson to the folks who stopped by, citing her as the inspiration for The Baby is Disappointing.

While she was asleep, Robbi considered trading her for this less disappointing baby, the property of our friend Shawn Cheng of Partyka fame.

Ultimately, Shawn decided to keep his baby, so we nudged Alden further under the table and resolved to wait for her to grow up.

If you enjoy this sort of thing, the show is open from 11am-6pm Saturday and Sunday (June 6-7). The show is at the 69th Regiment Armory (68 Lexington Avenue, between 25th and 26th Streets). We can be found at table 432, which appears to be pretty much in the center of the room. It costs $10 to get in the door.

Here's the poster.

As for our booth, we'll have all 27 of our titles for sale, plus our very first item of Idiots'Books apparel, a baby onesie that Robbi dreamed up in the middle of the night last week, designed at 4:00am, and had printed later the following day.

If you happen to be in the city or near enough to come in for the day, we'd love to see you. We'll trade books for babysitting.

The promised happiness soon followed.

First, the skewering (fun, but difficult).

Followed by the approach.

Which sometimes goes awry.

But she is determined and persistent.

And has a truly enormous mouth.

She is developing some specialized techniques. For example, the front-facing.

The backhand.

And the ally-oop (fork to fist to mouth).

As far as Alden is concerned, the only problem with strawberries is that, eventually, they all get eaten.

"Oh look," I said, admiring the lovely photograph on the front. "What a nice postcard. David must really care for me."

And then I read the back.

On one hand, I am flattered that David went to such lengths to insult me in this manner. After all, he had to purchase an expensive international plane ticket, conduct exhausting research on the Golden Phoenix, navigate the complex Japanese postal system, and find a pen. It is this last step, I suspect, which challenged him the most.

I have been absent from these pages for the last few days on account of my computer being in the shop. But the helpful folks at the Annapolis Apple Store have made it like new. It was interesting, and somewhat discomfiting, to be away from my computer for three days. I realize how deeply ingrained and instinctual my compu-habits have become: the checking of email, the browsing of baseball box scores, the scanning of salacious headlines on the partisan news sites. It was probably good to be forced to pare back for a few days, a needed diet for the cyberfat.

Plus, being away from my computer has given me more time for the things that really count in life. Like reading postcards from a dear old friend.

But because Robbi loves parades, and because Alden deserves the opportunity to decide for herself that parades are no fun, we went out into the sunny throngs. Fortunately, the parade route passes about 100 yards from our front door. Alden walked to the corner on her own two feet.

Once we got to High Street, she climbed up onto my shoulder to have a better view.

The sun was out and the streets were full of happy people. A bunch of bagpipers went by. I kind of had a nice time in spite of myself.

The Chestertown Tea Party is a pretty big deal on the Eastern Shore. Bands and historical reenactors of many stripes come from near and far to participate. But our local marching band is my favorite. In part because of the jolly plush crab that ambles along with them wherever they go.

Alden was unsure of the crab. She was glad that he was far away.

But then he got closer. She was glad that he was no closer than he was.

But then he got closer. She turned to me as if to say, "Please tell me he's not going to get any closer than this."

But he did.

And Alden decided that he wasn't so bad after all.

Later, I asked her if she had enjoyed the parade, but she would not say. I get the sense she didn't want to hurt my feelings.

Because she has no confidence in her ability to persuade young plants to big plants that will actually provide us with food, Robbi purchased the "Fail-Proof Tomato Kit" online. Its name was affirming. So yesterday we opened the large box and Robbi started assembling her kit, which is basically a large plastic tub with a reservoir that holds water.

As long as the reservoir is not empty, the thing will water itself so that you do not have to remember to do so yourself, thus removing one of the most common factors in tomato failure.

Part of the fail-proof tomato kit was two large bags of topsoil. Robbi mixed the soil with fertilizer in our recycling bin.

And then she mixed it again with her hands. This is the part of gardening I have the most trouble identifying with.

Then she filled the special fail-proof trenches with soil. I get the sense that the trenches are a very important aspect of the fail-proofness.

And then she poured in the rest of the soil.

Once the fail-proof was full of dirt, it was time to select the lucky plants that would get to live in it. Robbi surveyed the collection of small tomato and bean plants she has been growing in the window and tried to determine which seemed to have the most promising characteristics.

Oscar observed the proceedings but did not share his opinions.

Eventually Robbi made her selections.

Instead of choosing the most vital plants, she picked a tomato plant with a bent stem. She is a perpetual champion of the downtrodden, a inclination that extends even to the choice of seedlings.

I wonder if it will be appropriate to bring up this flawed selection if the plants fail to thrive. I think perhaps I will keep such observations to myself.

My job, in addition to taking photos of the magic as it happened, was assembling the horrible metal tomato cage.

I very nearly failed, mostly on account of my bad attitude about the whole thing.

But I soldiered on, not wanting to be the weak link that proved the fail-safe tomato grower wrong. I'm sure there is a clause somewhere that voids the guarantee in the case of there being a surly, impatient husband in the mix.

Eventually the cage was assembled and Robbi was pleased.

Today we got the topsoil for the actual garden bed. I poured it into the frame we built the other day.

Alden helped.

She was fascinated with the dirt. Perhaps this gardening thing skips a generation.

For a while, Alden helped Robbi plant.

But after a while she lost interest and just ran around.

Several of you have asked me to post some pictures of the barn from the outside. Here's a shot that gives you a sense of where the garden is in relation to the barn.

If you are one of the many people who apparently have imagined this barn on 300 lonely acres at the end of a long dirt road, we are sorry to undo what must have been a very pleasant daydream. No, ours is an urban barn, smack dab in the heart of Chestertown's sleepy historic district. Our fertile acreage is limited to that little strip of green between the sidewalk and the street, but this is enough, it seems to keep Robbi very happy and Alden in a perpetual state of wonder.

We will chronicle the non-failure of our tomatoes as weeks pass. Or the failure to not-fail. Whichever the case may be.

I can't help but feel sorry for those poor suckers who were in the hunt for different types of excitement than the kind we offer at the Barnstorming, where we seem to talk about nothing but babies, books, and murals. But whomever was looking for our friend Jon Kravis would have had something useful to read.

Perhaps when we are in Alaska, I will have occasion to snap some photos of country boys on 4-wheelers (though given that it's usually about 45 degrees up there in the summer, the boys in question are unlikely to be hot).

The other items on this list, I am afraid, are better left to others.