Such a good title, I wanted to like it

The Coincidence of Coconut Cake
by Amy E. Reichert

Such a sweet little book and I have to recommend it to everyone...but it left me a little flat. I just wasn't/am not/have not been for a long time, a big fan of romantic comedies. Like coconut cake, it was sickeningly sweet with almost no fiber. There is a good looking recipe for coconut cake at the end.

I knew there was going to be an element of romance but I thought there was going to be more restaurant management, character development, and especially more food. She describes her food critic as being able to write about food in an exciting, compelling way; one that went beyond superlatives and made you share the dining experience in an almost visceral way. Was that wishful thinking on the author's part? Because she didn't--and I don't know if that was because she couldn't, or because the editor told her to cut the food porn and stick to the romance.

Add onto those complaints my eternal dislike of the writing style of alternating chapters between "he" and "she" POV...and I almost gave up halfway. But on the other hand, it was a refreshing demonstration of the "rescue myself" theme of women's fiction. True, the heroine didn't realize she was dating a jerk until events slammed her in the face and forced her to; but at least she learned from the experience.

Good sequel to 1491 but not as earth-shattering

1493: Uncovering the new world Columbus Created
by Charles C Mann

The first parts of this book concentrated on the spread of plants and microorganisms from Old World to New and back again, and it was truly fascinating. Were there really no earthworms in the Americas until farmers brought them in tree root balls? How significant were malaria and yellow fever in promoting Negro slavery? Very. How did sweet potatoes and corn cause the Chinese population explosion? So much interesting stuff!

Later on, when he described the endless wars and expansions of Europeans across the Americas and the far east, he started to lose me. Only at the end, when he wrote about the Philippines and their unique but all too common loss of biologic diversity, did I come back on board.

Among many things that us insular Americans never realize is that for every Caucasian person who came to the Americas, there were ten (or more) Africans. And another thing is the overwhelming death rate experienced by all of the people--immigrants, slaves, and native Americans. He doesn't mention it in the book, but could our peoples of the Americas have undergone a small dose of "survival of the fittest" along the way? Although we no longer have smallpox and dysentery, yellow fever and malaria (at least in the north), selection for resistance to these diseases must have been tremendous.

Birds and birders and all kind of good stuff

Kingbird Highway:
The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder
by Ken Kauffman

One of few nonfiction books I've ever read that brought me to tears--not from sadness--that's common as crows--but from the simple magical beauty of learning. Of figuring something out, something real, something that would live with you forever.

I don't want to quote his last chapter--I want you to read it for yourself and see why it made me cry. But I'll steal from his Afterword:

The most significant thing we find may not be the thing we were seeking. That is what redeems the crazy ambivalence of birding. As trivial as our listing pursuit may be, it gets us out there in the real world, paying attention, hopeful and awake. Any day could be a special day, and probably will be, if we just go out to look.

The author's evolving perspective made me especially happy because it agreed with what I'd found out for myself. Watching birds just to collect species in a life list is a fun game, like fishing, but not an end in itself. For me, anyway. When I catch a fish, it's caught. Done with--it's either thrown back, saved to clean, cooked and eaten, or possibly mounted as a trophy. But my interaction with the living fish is pretty much over as soon as I haul it in.

Birding shouldn't be that way. You can catch a bird many times. You can watch a single bird over many days; watch a flock over many weeks; watch a mated pair raise their young; and even watch a whole species over a lifetime. Mockingbirds, for instance, take their song from the sounds they've heard around them--every mockingbird has a unique, fascinating repertory; I can listen for a long time and still not recognize every song.

So this is a lesson I can relearn every time I raise binoculars to eyes--it's not the species, it's the experience. If that means sitting for hours on end, behind a spotting scope at a bird blind with a jacket over your head, that's what it means.

And I see I've digressed. I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this book and heartily applaud him for experiencing it, documenting the trips and sharing it with me. Thanks!

Gardening in my roots, finally fall

Turnips!  Planted way too close together. I was in a hurry when I planted but even so I couldn't imagine how I'd managed to pack so many seeds so close together. But when I went out to replant the missed spots last weekend, it was obvious. Turnip seeds are tiny, and black.  You can't see where they landed one second after they land.

The rest of the stuff I planted is pretty sad. Three or four scraggly beets.  A half-row of radishes with a few carrot sprigs in between. A half-row of what I think are Daikon radishes. But don't blame the gardener!  The temperatures were still in the mid-80s when I planted, and we had no rain for two months.

Tuesday, Leaving Cooper Lake State Park

Despite going to bed very late, I got up a little early. Early enough to enjoy a cup of coffee before dawn, while the air was still pleasant. That's a big part of what camping is all about.  (There are lots of big parts, and all together they add up to at least 200 percent of the experience.) 

We got in a quick fishing trip in the morning. No birds except a possible Osprey on the way out. I'd put it at 75% probable Osprey--nothing else it could have been except an immature eagle and it just wasn't.

When we returned to pack up camp, I finally heard what I'd been hoping for over the last three days--amid the near-constant chortle of white-eyed vireo, the occasional cheep of cardinal, the very disgruntled squawk of a Great Blue Heron disrupted from his hunting ground, and the sometime chatter of chickadees...I heard an unfamiliar bird call!  Did I see it? Well...no. But I will someday.

There was nothing exciting on the trip home. Again, I followed the boat and it followed the RV.

NOTES

1. Not really. Remember the pre-made roasted veggies for lunch wraps, and remember to throw in an occasional sweet potato for supper.
2. Just give up on the idea of camping in Texas in August or September. We were lucky with White Oak Lake--a cool front had come through. Don't count on that happening again.
3. When fishing on boat, get out earlier. You're never going to see any birds--or catch any fish--in the heat of the day. And when you're truly miserable, jump in the water!
4. If you do get stuck in weather too unpleasant to enjoy outside, treat yourself to a tall glass of iced tea and a good book on the sofa. Sure you could do that at home, too, but you never do. You always find some cooking, cleaning or gardening to do.  There is no cooking, cleaning (not much) or gardening when you're camping--enjoy it!

Monday at Cooper Lake State Park (September 16)

                                Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, 
                                                                        and then it is disgusting. 
                                                                                           -Dave Barry

We did breakfast but still made it out on the water pretty early. The sun was already up and getting pretty painful, but after  couple of hours the clouds started building up and things became almost bearable. But no fish  and--worse!  No birds.

We straggled back and realized that Zack had been barking pretty much the whole time we were gone.  Yarp, yarp, awp. Yarp, yarp, awp. I know he was because I heard him while walking back across the fishing pier instead of taking the longer road around in the scorching hot truck. I could hear him long before he could have possibly heard me. Our poor neighbors!

So there went the morning, and sadly, not the best way I've spent a camping morning. It'll get better when the weather cools down. I was a little depressed after that until I realized I had a new toy to play with--my birthday present camera.  Hurray!  So I turned on the water heater (to do dishes), ate a bit of lunch--

Aside: anytime I feel like doing the prep work, here is a magic recipe for camping lunch heaven:
1. Take an assortment of veg--zucchini, carrots, bell pepper, mushrooms (required), eggplant, onion, anything else that looks good.
2. Cut into french-fry sized pieces, as much as possible. Slice mushrooms.
3. Starting with the slowest cooking items, put on baking sheet and sprinkle with olive oil and kosher salt.
4. Bake at 425 about an hour, scraping up and turning every 10-12 minutes. I put the carrots and pepper on first, then added the zucchini and eggplant, then the mushrooms. Experience will tell but there is no wrong way.
5. When everything is soft and sometimes a little blackened, sprinkle with sliced green onions.
6. Take it camping, along with tortillas or wraps and some sort of soft spread. Sour cream, avocado, or even baked sweet potato are all excellent.

Okay, that was a long aside. But I'm not sure if I can roast vegetables in the RV convection oven, so I should do it at home. After lunch and dishes I played with my camera and tried to take it outside to do a zoom shot of a great egret, but our neighborhood egrets had all vanished.  The ten-inch tall tripod is cool, but not very useful unless you have a tabletop, automobile hood, or some other support. Plus, at full zoom, my finger introduced so much shakiness into the photo I'm not sure how well it will work with an actual bird. I tried it a little on the picnic table but the heat drove me back inside.

By then it was getting into the late of afternoon, so I walked the dogs and quickly lost my patience at Zack. He doesn't know "walk"; he simply knows "smell". He is capable of keeping up with Izzy and me, but will only do so for the shortest of periods. Soon he is pulling over into the bushes, smelling every leaf and stick and rock and bit of grass and bare ground...

After that I put Zack inside and gave myself and Izzy a quick walk around the campground loop. We didn't go as far as I wanted--a red car was circling the loop and behaving oddly, so I backtracked and walked the other way to the camp host site. So rather than going one full loop, I went two-thirds of a loop twice. Hey--isn't that farther?

fyi, I'm not normally such a coward, but the campground was nearly empty. The only spots occupied on Monday were the ones by the lake and the three uphill from us. And the car was a small one, with dark tinted windows. It seemed very out of place. Later I passed it at the restrooms and an older man and woman got out, so they were probably just scouting out a place to go camping or have a family get-together. Silly me.

We went out on the boat again in the late afternoon. As the sun set, the lake grew silky smooth. And just as the haze over the water thickened to invisibility, the lake was inundated with terns. Medium-sized in a loose flock of about ten, hovering and diving shallowly into the water, then taking off so fast I couldn't be sure if their heads went under or just the tips of their beaks. I hope they fed well.

Because...we didn't get a single bite. It was worth the experience seeing the sun going hugely down over the lake and seeing the sudden onslaught of terns; it was even worth the whapping big bump I gave myself on the "funnybone" in my knee when climbing down to hook up the boat in the dark. But it wasn't worth the crunching noise the trolling motor arm made against the dock as the boat swung in. I was distracted by a huge spider and didn't see it heading directly to the high-standing dock until it was too late to push off. Horrid.

(The motor doesn't appear to be hurt, just the bolts that hold the bracket anchoring it to the deck.)

I took a hike to the bath house before supper and ended up getting all sad at the sight of the Milky Way. I'd tried showing that to my Callie many times, but she could never see it. Probably because she needed eyeglasses those times. But this night, a blind man could have seen it.

Day Two at Cooper Lake State Park (September 15)

                                                        "Carpe Diem" does not mean "fish of the day." 
                                                                                                    -Author Unknown

We tried hard to get an early start on the lake, but what with me giving the dogs an extra-long walk and then fixing and eating breakfast, we didn't succeed. Finally, at around ten o'clock, we left the poor dogs in the RV and headed out to the launch site.  Launching was fairly painless--Ed's become pretty good at backing the trailer down a ramp--but I was disappointed at the total lack of bird life to observe while he did all the work.

And so it went for several hours. No birds and even fewer fish. Ed caught a smallish white bass. I caught naught but a slight sunburn.

It's a nice lake, a little smaller than Lavon but with fewer "arms", so the water is all in one big sheet. At one end there are drowned trees sticking up in water; and when we were coming back in and overshot the cove where the ramp is located, I saw a few birds around. Cormorants in the distance and a possible tern that was out of binocular-range so fast that I couldn't guess at the species.

It was cooler than it had been the week before, but at 96 degrees still deathly hot. I sat outside for a while after "fishing" but I wasn't really comfortable until I went in.  Yes, it was a stupid idea to go camping when the temperatures were in the upper nineties, but I didn't know the forecast when I planned the trip. I was hoping for low nineties. Here is what I wrote:
It's miserably hot and I have no energy to do more than the minimum of dog walking...so...put it together. No birds. No energy. No scenic view. And after three hours of not fishing, I stink.

Our plan was to take an afternoon break and then go fishing in the evening. But Ed wanted to go in search of a creek where he could get shiners--all the minnows he could catch close to our campground were perch. So off we went on a drive. We ended up pretty much circling the entire lake to end up at the dam, where we drove down a long, long roadway behind the spillway down to the river (creek!) that created the huge lake.

They had a pretty fancy fishing station set up there; two people and a kid were fishing at the top and another guy was bow-and-arrow fishing down in the water. Ed took his traps down to the creek and I wandered around bird watching, or trying to. There was a big old Great Blue Heron up in the grass on the other side of the creek. He just stood there for the whole time we were there, which turned out to be a very long time indeed. A trio of snowy egret sat on the rocks in the river and posed for a gorgeous picture, but of course I didn't have my camera. And from time to time I'd gaze across the creek and see a stick standing up in the tall grass that turned out not to be a stick at all, but the neck of a smallish Great Blue Heron.

If I'd brought the dogs, we'd have gone for a long walk upriver and around, but by myself I wasn't too motivated.  Plus I was hot. We stayed so  long, with Ed watching minnows and me wandering around and seeing only the same egrets and herons, that I started getting dehydrated. I had been thirsty when we left; I took no water; it was a 35-minute drive out plus another ten minutes getting down to the creek; then over two hours muttering about and waiting.  But I discovered the restroom was open and the sink worked---water! Warm but potable. When you're thirsty enough, even warm water is heaven.

When we got back--a shorter drive but still thirty minutes--it was getting dark already and neither of us were really interested in taking out the boat.  Dinner was barbecue chicken, expertly prepared on the grill by Ed, plus mashed potato (Ed), sweet potato (me--heavenly!  I get tired of them quickly but when I haven't had one in while, I love 'em!), salad (me) and ranch style beans (Ed.)  Laugh if you will, but there's not much better eating when you're tired.

Cooper Lake State Park, with boat

Trip date: 14 September 2019

We took US-380 east to Greenville, then got on I-30 East via the truck route (not the google map route!). From there we proceeded to ignore google's shortest route and went on the Sulphur Springs, where we exited on TX-19. We went north to Birthright, then west on FM-71 to FM-3505 and into the park.

1. Planned distance: 72.6 miles
2. Map time estimate: 1:23
3. Adjusted estimate: didn't calculate
4. Actual distance: about the same
5. Actual time:  unknown
6. No stops
7. Average mph trip: unknown

This is going to be extremely atypical of a trip. For one, I don't have a clue about when we started, when we arrived, how far the trip was or where the map took us. I was driving the truck--all I saw was the RV and boat in front of me.  For two, I lost the pictures because my phone died. For three, it wasn't very much fun. You'll see....

Here is my guess about the route:

Since we were taking the boat and needed the truck to launch it, I drove the truck while the RV drove the boat. See, the boat trailer is a little wider than the truck, so in order to drive it on roads without a shoulder--or worse, on a street with CURBS on the side--you have to constantly remember the extra width. When taking turns, you have to keep glancing back and forth to the side mirrors. I got pretty at good doing that in the five minutes it took to drive over the the Princeton Walmart, where we swapped the trailer from truck to boat, but doing that for a whole hour to Cooper Lake would have been nerve-wracking!

Also we didn't have the braking assist installed yet, and when the truck was up to speed and had to stop, it could really feel the boat's weight pushing against it. So it made more sense to let the Mammoth Motor Vehicle pull the boat.

When I chose Cooper Lake as the first place to camp "with boat," we still had the aluminum jon boat. The plan was to choose a place where we could pull it up on the bank and leave it there, jumping in and running out whenever we pleased, hassle free. So I located a suitable lake, not too far away, reserved one of the spots on the lake's edge closes to the boat ramp. It would have been perfect....

Except that between reservation time and trip time, the jon boat had been superseded by a 17-foot bass boat with a huge motor and a lot more depth of keel. When we arrived and found the campsite, Ed waded out into the water to check the depth.  He waded a long way--as long as our ropes could reach--and was still in water no higher than his knees. If we'd pulled the boat up there and the lake level went down in the night, we'd be stuck in the mud. In the Texas. Mud.

So that was a wash out. We parked the boat at the boat ramp and headed the RV to its site.

It wasn't a bad site. There wasn't any shade for the RV but a couple of scraggly trees provided thin shade for our patio/backyard.  The banks of the lake are lined with thick thickets of honey locust, willow, and brush of all sorts, but the COE had mowed a fifteen foot wide swathe from our picnic table to the lake. So we have a lake view, sort of--only a little constricted.

No birds at all. Okay, there's no such thing as "no" birds. A few Great Egret by the water; a squawky Great Blue Heron; cardinals, Carolina Wrens, chickadees and the eternal white-eyed vireo. But that was about it.

If you walk past the overflow parking area to the next camp site, a short path cuts through the woods to a big, lighted fishing pier. A boardwalk goes on across the creek to a fish-cleaning station and the boat ramp on the other side.  The fishing pier was not in very good repair and the water beneath it was unmoving, green and murky. I could imagine it being a great place to hang out during spring rains, but right then it was icky. There could have been alligators there, or huge snapping turtles or show-moving carp. But you you look carefully, you could see raccoon tracks in the mud. Just because I don't like a place, don't mean the critters don't.

By the time we'd parked and unhooked and moved and hooked, and Ed had set the minnow traps to catch (unfortunately) a single perch, we were tired and it was dreadfully hot outside. I had the bright idea of cooking supper first; going fishing later.  And that would have worked well except that the night's supper menu included steak, baked potato, and skewered vegetables.  By the time we'd cooked and eaten all that food, we were no longer interested in fishing. Instead, I took my towel and soap and went on a hike to the restroom/bath house.

On the way I paused to let a big ol' snake zigzag by. The light was poor but I could tell it was slender, long (about 3-1/2 - 4 feet), fast moving and beautifully colored. I'd guess it was a King Snake but I didn't get a picture to check.

The showers were even nicer than those at White Oak Lake!  They were clean and spacious, with awesome water pressure. I took a delicious shower and returned to the Mammoth home for an early last dog walk, sleepy television watching, and bed.

Sprighly old ladies make the show

The Plot is Murder
by V. M. Burns

At first it was really good...and then I got bored. The "main" mystery was okay, but I disliked the side story of the mystery novel that the main character is writing--she made it a little rough and unpolished (I think she did that on purpose) like the first draft it was supposed to be. But its tepid romance between its boring, shallow characters started to get me down. I'd probably have liked the book better if I'd quit reading those chapters and stuck with the good stuff.

And good it was!  I couldn't always follow the plot--the alternating suspicions of confusing characters--Clayton Parker, David Parker, Robert Parker, Diana Parker, Uncle George (was he a Parker?)--lost me frequently. But the side characters, Nana Jo and her friends from the retirement home, were funny and fun.

I wonder--now that the baby boomers are aging, will we see a series where the spry old ladies from the retirement home aren't just the amusing sidekicks, but rather the stars of the show? I'd read it!

Bird Watching Refresher Course

Pete Dunne on Bird Watching

Made me realize I need a new category of books for my retirement list. I already have a category called "Books I want to buy before retirement"--it contains "Wildflowers of Texas" and Birds of Texas (Keith A. Arnold.) I might also place "Identify Yourself" on there, and if I can find a decent guide to butterflies, moths and dragonflies I might add that.

Pete Dunne on Bird Watching--which is excellent, by the way--goes on a list called "Books I want to checkout and re-read frequently." I don't feel the need to own it, but I want a frequent refresher course of his advice, such as:

When you see a bird you cannot identify, study it. When you see a bird that you can identify, study it even more closely. The best way to recognize an uncommon species is to be intimate with those you see commonly.

[he goes on...]
Plump and long-billed and feeding like a sewing machine? Dowitcher. Not so plump and not so long-billed but longer-legged? Yellowlegs.
[...]
All those small sandpipers, those peep All those different plumages. All those molting birds. It was a veritable avian chimera!

I'm myself at the chimera stage right now, but with careful study and many hours in the field, Mr. Dunne gradually learned to tell them apart. Most of the time, of course. One thing I'm learning from the experts is that it's okay, sometimes, to admit you don't know. That doesn't mean you give up, though--it just means you're open to the possibility that you might be wrong sometimes.

One big mistake I tend to make is to assume a flock of Canada Geese is simply a flock of Canada Geese. But contrary to the rhyme "birds of a feather flock together", that ain't necessarily so.

The first thing to do when coming on a flock of gulls (or shorebirds...or waterfowl...or blackbirds...) is to identify the familiar birds that constitute the bulk of the flock. Next, look at any individuals that do not fit the norm. For instance, you may see a bird that stands slightly taller or is noticeably stockier or whose color differs by a shade.
Those differences don't necessarily require concerted study. They naturally draw you eyes. So relax. Let your eye be drawn to them. The study comes later.

Another thing that can made a bird stand out is position--it might stay at the edge; other birds might avoid it. I recently observed a flock of doves sitting on power lines...but one of them, off to the right and not exactly fitting into the masses, had a square tail, a bigger head, a streamlined body. And when they flushed, it became clear he was not a dove at all. Merlin!

Gardening in my Roots, time begins

No, not quite. It's still 90-plus degrees outside.  But weekend before last I dug the grass roots out of the bed that's going to be "fallow" next spring, then I hit Tractor Supply for turnip seed. Incidentally, I came back with beet seed, bunching onion seed, AND turnip seed. 

After that I sorted through my leftover seed packets and found radishes, carrots, daikon radishes, and lettuce. And after all that, I did nothing.

As I mentioned, it was still 90-plus degrees outside. Last weekend, more like 95-plus. I just couldn't imagine seeds sprouting in this weather. And did I mention that it hasn't rained since mid-August?

The weekend after that, which would be the end of September, I planted them all and covered this with an improvised "shade screen" made of plastic tubing and a couple of old sheets, all held together with safety pins.  And now I water, and wait.

Great thriller-ish mystery

Fractured Truth
by Susan Furlong

Darn--I forgot to write about this as soon as I'd finished it. I get fuzzy on the details if I wait too long. Too late now--here's what I remember.

I loved it. I hated the story--poverty and prejudice and cockfighting and murder--but I'm fascinated with the characters she is creating. Or maybe not creating--maybe she's just pulling them from real life. Wow. She's that good.

My gut feeling about the series is that even a male person could enjoy it. (Hint, hint.) The actual detecting she does is a little sloppy: hit-and-miss you might almost say. But the parts on cadaver dog work are pretty good although it doesn't what I've read about  how sheriff's departments interact with dog search and rescue teams. Typically the team is a "team" of one or more dogs, a handler, and a communications person. It seems odd that the sheriff would keep her on staff. And I thought it odd that she never mentioned the training refreshment exercises that dog handlers typically do, almost constantly. But then she finally did--so, clearly, she's done some research.

This is the last book in the series for now. So I will have to wait and hope it won't be long for another.

Cooking Aboard Your RV
by Janet Groene

This is a nice little book and I learned some stuff from it about convection oven cooking, but I wouldn't suggest buying it without taking a quick look first. I checked it out of the library, flipped through, and am now ready to take it back.

My problem was that there wasn't enough information about anything. It touched on topics briefly, but very briefly. If you're an absolute newby in RV living and if you don't know your way around any kind of kitchen at all, try it. For me, however, there was very little I didn't already know. And some things that were awfully irritating.
Examples:
Use diced fennel root as part of the celery measurement in chicken salad sandwich filling.
Who in the world has diced fennel root in an RV?

Plastic measuring cups do nothing but measure. instead, get stainless steel measuring cups, which can also be used for melting butter or heating syrup on a burner set on low.
Me: I melt butter in plastic measuring cups in the microwave all the time, and, a tippy little stainless steel cup holding melting butter or syrup on a gas burner is just a disaster waiting to happen.

Her fish stew recipe with 11 ingredients, including four tin cans, an onion and a bell pepper that have to be diced, fresh parsley to chop, and fish fillets to thaw.
Me: How is this fast or convenient? (as the back cover proclaims)

The minestrone has 5 cans to open...I hope she's camped near a dumpster.

Make a zesty vegetarian pizza by toasting English muffins.... or worse, flour tortillas.
Me: Sorry, that's not pizza.

On the other hand, I kind of like her chicken and dumplings recipe. If you've just hit the farmer's market in spring, you could grab an onion, some carrots, garlic, celery and peas, and whip up a halfway good version with things you'd be likely to have in your RV pantry--chicken bouillon and biscuit mix. Except I currently have neither of those...I should add them.
So her book did teach me something.