Dear Diary,
All has gone pretty well since I moved to Southfarthing into my very own house located in a village called Elderglen. Ma still keeps sending me stuff, mainly pies and biscuits, so that I wouldn't forget to eat something once in a while. Like that would ever happen! I have tried to find some furniture for my dear hobbit hole, so that it wouldn't be the least homely house in the known world.
Nevertheless, my dear old ma doesn't have the money to pay the upkeep of my hobbit hole, so I need to earn some money. I have spent much time plucking taters on farmsteads and helped people out in the Shire. I have sold some of my goods at the Michel Delving auction hall. Lumber sells well, so I have been wandering around and looked for some wood. Some odd fellow told me that there would be plenty of wood in the forest near Buckland, so I went there and... Good grief that place was nasty! I found some branches alright, but them wolves and bats and angry bears did not welcome me to their forest, so I needed to stay sharp and move around stealthily. At some point, a huge black bear spotted me as I was plucking some nice mushrooms. Luckily I had my knives with me and survived the little conflict. And the bear... Well, I just got him stuffed by the Inn League taxidermist (a talented fellow at the Bird and Baby inn). Now that bear is sitting comfortably in my hobbit hole with a nice Inn League hat on his head and keeping me company in the evenings. I named him Stinky, as he smells a bit odd. I put some flowers around him to cover the odor a bit.
The bear wasn't my only discovery during this forest trip. As I was trying to get a wagon to deliver the bear corpse from Buckland to the taxidermist (it was way too heavy for me to carry!), and negotiated about the price, a Bounder came walking up to me. He noticed my forester's axe hanging from my backpack. The axe was crafted by my father who had gone missing as I was a wee hobbit lass. The axe had a lily-of-the-valley carving on it. The Bounder told me he had seen a similar axe before. I immediately got goose bumps: It had to be my father's axe which had the very same carving on it! I asked the Bounder who had been the owner of the similar axe. Bounder answered: "I do not know his name, and he was wearing a hood, so I couldn't see his face. But a hobbit he was, certainly. He was headed for the Old Forest, but I do not know why. Maybe because of them mushrooms..." Then the Bounder excused himself and headed for the grocer.
I felt a bit controversial about this information. I was happy to hear something about my missing father, but the fact that he had went to the nasty forest I just had the pleasure to visit myself... The thought that I should look for my father and his traces in that gloomy place makes me shiver! I really need to sharpen my knives in advance, just to be sure that I won't end up being stuffed in some forest bear's own house with a silly hat!
Well that's all for now, dear diary.
PS. Well, the bear wasn't actually killed by me, it met its end rather by misadventure. As the bear attacked me, I threw all those mushrooms on the ground and started running. The bear came after me, but it stepped on the slimy mushrooms and slipped. Unfortunately the poor bear hit his head on a huge nearby rock, and hence the bear's days were over. So I really cannot take any credit of killing it...
