The author of A Journey Around my Skull, an inspired illustration/design driven blog, mentioned Lubok in his recent post "Russian Fairy Tales from A. A." and he/she inspired me to go deeper.

The lubok or Russian popular print is a variety of Russian popular art. In Russian, Lubok (Cyrillic: Russian: лубок, лубочная картинка) Earlier (latter 17th, early 18th century) they were woodcuts, then metal engravings or etchings, and in the 19th century produced by lithography. They sometimes appeared in series, which might be regarded as predecessors of the modern comic strip. Cheap, simple books, similar to chapbooks, which mostly consisted of pictures, are called lubok literature or (Cyrillic: Russian: лубочная литература). Both pictures and literature are commonly referred to simply as lubki. The Russian word lubok itself means the inner bark of the linden tree and refers to a technique of woodcut from bast of the linden tree, which used to be a common material in Russia for manufacturing various items: bast shoes, baskets, chests, etc>"

So...does any of this look familiar? Need to dig deeper..but figured I would let you in on the research.

Just finished processing left overs into rice pudding with cherries and lemon zest and a pile of cortland and macintosh apples into bowls of applesauce...

Need to go poke more apples. Just was thinkinig of you...and didnt want to let the day slip by without a little gumdrop.