The last four pounds of sausages are dry! Today, at last, I sent off the sixty pounds of elf sausages and forty of orc that Lindir requested I send to him in Imladris before the start of Winter. Pending no unexpected delay, they should arrive on time, and even if not, thank Manwe for the weather, I shall be free of his demands until the middle of Spring. I will not miss sneaking around like a rat with a shovel amidst the burial mounds of Lothlorien's cemeteries for him.

I intend to spend the winter with my family. I have neglected them and Orophin in particular appears to be suffering for it. Only last week, he was dismissed early from his primary school botany class in disgrace and I was summoned to meet with the teacher. Apparently Orophin plucked out the eyes of the classroom mascot - a Rhovanion dwarf hamster - before the start of class and then, during class, slipped them down the back of the elfling sitting in front of him. Needless to say, neither the teacher nor the class were particularly impressed.

The act itself does not shock me; tormenting animals is a favourite hobby of his that he is permitted to engage in at home in his room. It is the context that disturbs me. Why would he do such a thing in public? To a creature so obviously valued by his peers and teacher. Has he no concept of the word discretion? I have lectured him time and time again on the appropriate times and places for sadism, but seemingly to no avail. He seems to suffer from the same absentmindedness as his mother, who still has not noticed, dear lady, that I am not her husband Halmir save in appearance. I hope Orophin grows out of this strange phase and develops some of the prudence of his younger brother Rumil... or even Haldir. Indeed, perhaps I should encourage him to spend more time with Haldir. In spite of Haldir's hatred of me, and his awkward friendship with that cursed creature, Lindir, Haldir does not appear to dislike either of his step brothers - far from it - incredibly, he seems to tolerate their company rather well when they are not hungry and attempting to gnaw on his limbs.

Speaking of Haldir, yesterday he began archery lessons with the adult trainees. He is still only an elfling of forty-six, but his skill with the bow is now so advanced that his primary teachers believe that his talent would be better nurtured in the barracks. Soon, in a few summers, he will come out onto the borders with me. When he returned from his first lesson yesterday, I overheard Orophin ask him if Haldir might teach him how to shoot a bow. Haldir avoided answering the question and I think he did so deliberately for the same reason that I would have done the same: in light of the Rhovanion dwarf rabbit... hamster... or whatever sort of rodent it was incident, I think Orophin, at this point in time, cannot be trusted to not shoot all of us.

Perhaps it is my fault that he is unable to differentiate between socially acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Perhaps I should not have agreed to take him with me to exhume his former classmate's body from the south-west cemetery that night last summer. Perhaps I should not have carven up the corpse in front of him. Then again, he did not protest the recycling of the elfling's flesh and devoured it quite happily with the rest of the family (except for Haldir, of course) over the next few days so perhaps I am dwelling needlessly on the incident. Orophin did say that he had not been friends with the elfling... or did he say that he had been friends? I have forgotten; I should have paid more attention to his words at the time. Or not; Rumil accompanies me regularly to my workshop where I ferment and dry the meat that I send to Lindir and has demonstrated no ill effects from being exposed to my secret work.

Of all my children, I am without question closest to Rumil. Like Orophin he has a happy disposition and can see mirth in everything, but he is also cautious of the ramifications that are tempted by my work and Orophin's interests. Two of his self-declared favourite activities are observing my work and enjoying its produce: the meat and the stuffed animals that I create for him to sleep with at night. Recently, he has also displayed an interest in cooking and sewing, and frequently badgers his mother to teach him these skills. She has agreed to do so, but perhaps I should take him under my wing and teach him the skills myself. I doubt that he desires to learn his mother's vegetable recipes or her cloth sewing techniques, areas on which she will undoubtedly focus - she wars daily with Rumil at the table on his dislike of vegetables and indeed anything except for meat. She calls him her Carnivore. She has nicknames for all of the children. Haldir, of course, is her Vegetarian. Orophin has a number of nicknames. She called him Cat Skinner after she found his first skinning attempt in his room - one of our cat-loving neighbour's more noisy cats. Then she named him Toe Collector on finding his collection of dried toes in her old jewelry box, which Orophin has appropriated. Most recently, she has named him Eyeball Plucker, on account of the incident that I mentioned earlier. She uses these nicknames in private and infrequently; indeed, I have noticed that she increasingly stays away from Orophin. I suspect she is frightened of him and after he asked her if he might add one of her toes to his collection, I am not surprised. He is very imprudent.

Incidentally, after he asked his mother for one of her toes, he asked me for one of mine. I advised him to take one of his own if he was desperate, but he looked at me most confusedly and said that it would hurt if he took one of his own. Plainly, then, he has an unusually low tolerance to pain and if I hear of more public displays of sadism at school and/or his school grades slip further, I can threaten him with a belting to prompt him into prudence and to work harder.

Rumil, like me, has a high tolerance to pain. When he clamboured into that coffin two months ago and the lid fell and crushed his leg, he barely cried out and waited until I had finished refilling the grave whilst he kept watch before excusing himself to visit the healer. The leg is completely healed now; Haldir removed the cast last week and has dutifully taken Rumil for after-supper walks with him every day to exercise the limb. They seem to genuinely enjoy each other's company and until I see evidence that Haldir has ulterior intentions, I will not interfere with their growing friendship. I saw Rumil's favourite stuffed dog on Haldir's bed mat again this morning, proof that Rumil slept with Haldir last night rather than with Orophin, as was normal until last week. It is for the better, I think; Rumil has been more awake and I have seen fewer new cuts on his body since he made the move.

I wonder if perhaps the two incidents: Orophin's mutilation of his class' mascot, and Rumil's new friendship with Haldir and shift out of Orophin's room, are related... that would explain the thirteen fresh rat entrails that Haldir asked me to clean out of his bed mat this morning, the reason why I went into his room. According to Haldir, they appeared in his bed whilst he was asleep. Of Orophin and Rumil, Orophin is the only possible culprit. I cannot see why Rumil would leave entrails in his own bed. I will need to keep an eye on all of them.

Haldir's relationship with Lindir also seems to have soured. Oddly enough, in spite of the almost two score summers since I became Lindir's meat dealer and Haldir, Lindir's go-between, I do believe that until last Summer, Haldir was taking Lindir's orders for me to send him pounds of "strawberry cake", "extra moist strawberry cake", "liquorice", and "sherbert" quite literally. He only realised the connection because I happened to be doing the cooking that Summer's day and referred, off-hand, to the elf steaks that I had grilled for dinner as "strawberry cake". I think his realisation that Lindir is as much of a cannibal as the rest of the family is a positive development because he no longer tries to provoke me by mentioning the name of that Imladris brat. Save for today, when I had need to use the name of that brat to address the packages, these last few months have been the most Lindir-free and therefore, peaceful, months since Erestor first adopted Lindir as his ward. The next few months until his next order arrives will, I hope, be even more blissful.