Slow down, will ya???

Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home
by Heather "Anish" Anderson

It's hard not to tell this lady to get a life! But that would be stupid, she has a life--only not one that many people would recognize as a reasonable way to run out one's days on this planet. And she did try the life that most of us call normal--married with house and day job. It just didn't work for her.

What did work for her were 100-mile runs in the desert, grueling hikes on months long trails. Walking the Appalachian Trial, Pacific Crest Trail, and Continental Divide Trail, then doing the Pacific Crest Train again at a record-setting pace. Despite her speed, she didn't close her eyes to the beauty around her. She didn't hike these trails with both eyes looking down at her watch for days on end. She saw the world around and appreciated it, then trudged on.

It's enjoyable--and a whole lot painful--to read her account of the journey. Or should I call it a race? It felt more like a race. It's not my way to travel nor is it my way to enjoy the world, but that doesn't make it worth the writing of. As I wrote long ago, there are more ways to appreciate the outdoors than looking through the lens of a camera. A lot more.

Gardening in my roots, super roundup

Things are happening out in the garden, but the photographer has been derelict in duty. Any time that could be spent picturing and recording progress, has been frittered away in planting, transplanting, weeding and other non-essential activities. But trust me--it's growing.

We have

beets














black-eyes





















Bok Choy which is for no good reason going to seed already. I'm going to pull it all up today and cook it.








and broccoli, which is doing absolutely nothing but looks very lovely.


















carrots (and a few radishes mixed in)

chard (Swiss chard, if you insist, but why I have to capitalize the S I fail to understand.)

 cucumbers, getting ready to climb that fence









green beans that survived the frost, hurray!

lettuce, lots and lots





onions



























Sugar Snap Peas














close-up to the perfect pea


right before I plucked it

 squash, not yet hit by the squash borers














tomatoes. Too many, if that's possible.











and peppers--never too many!




There are a few miscellany--a ton of cilantro and horseradish that comes up wild; a tiny amount of dill and parsley which hasn't been discovered by the swallowtail caterpillars yet; a bit of sage; a couple of potatoes that were growing leggy in the pantry; some very unhappy garlic that against all rules was planted in the spring; and a few Kohlrabi which aren't growing their bulbs like they're supposed to.
I forgot to mention the very sad eggplant and a few asters I grew from seed.
Also the okra coming up wild all over the place and the zinnas coming up wild from the seed packets I planted last year to get rid of them. Who knows what they will do?

Warning: I'm on a streak of search-and-rescue dog stories

Lone Wolf by Sara Driscoll

Liked it enough to want to read another, but there were so many things I wanted her to do better. The action was fine. The searches were great. The personal relationships and character development were pretty interesting and I hope she continues with the same people and I get to know them better over time.

But (spoiler warning I think), there was a certain shift of perspective that I found cheesy and annoying. Not that I didn't care to learn what the killer was thinking, but not by seeing him and hearing him. It was much more interesting to learn about his personality from how he wrote and how he built the bombs, and the author could have confirmed all these guesses near the end as his identity was uncovered. In this case, show don't tell was a mistake.

Second and last for a sad, long time

Blind Search by Paula Munier

Gosh! Was I sorry to see this one end. The second in a series, and the last for a immeasurably long time. Maybe a year.

The plot was tight and twisted; the private emotions real and raw; the action unstoppable. I swear, when she sets out to write a search scene or a chase scene, she writes it so commandingly that you can NOT put it down until the end.

Unlike some books written by women--and a few by men--I believe this could be enjoyed

My new favorite author. (pretty much)

A Borrowing of Bones by Paula Munier

Mercy and Elvis #1 and many to come, I hope! Elvis is a bomb-sniffing dog, retired when his partner is killed in Afghanistan. Mercy adopts him--or is it the other way around--and tries to retire graciously in the mountains of Vermont. But she's a restless soul and can't find it easy to sit still when explosive residues keep turning up in places where they never should have been.

Ms. Munier can write action like no author I've ever read. There are chapters where you can not stop going, even if the phone rings and the kettle boils over. Mercy and Elvis are truly tortured souls and you have to love them. As mentioned in another book about rescue dog handlers, a few years of hard training to run after your dog where ever he goes makes a person a little reckless, by normal standards. Possibly that's why the real handlers I've read about typically work in teams of three--the extra person is communicator, map-reader, and all-around helper.

Still, overlook a little reckless abandon and you still have to love these guys. Great work, Ms. Munier!

Gardening in my roots, Sad April

On April 14, last Tuesday, there was a frost. Almost all of the shelling beans, green beans, and hot pepper plants were hit.  The cucumbers were dead or damaged. And a couple of tomatoes weren't looking so good. 

Note to future self in case I ever have the courage to try this endeavor again--the plants at the east side of the garden, away from the pecan tree, were hit much harder than those at the west end.

But it appears some of the beans had gotten enough sunlight to progress. Many of them, maybe two-thirds, that looked dead are now squeezing out a second set of leaves. 'Tis a miracle!





Why is there a potato plant growing in my compost bin?

A kinda sorta maybe mystery

Burials
by Mary Anna Evans

Another difficult book to review. I liked it immensely and I'm eager to read more of the series. But it didn't have that little extra whoompf which would make me give it five stars and put the next book on hold immediately.

The heroine-slash-bone detective is great. Her husband is a supporting character and doesn't have much role to play, either in the action or the character development. And there appear to be some children, offstage and ignored. And a father-in-law who seemed intriguing but never seemed to make much sense.

Yet the author creates a good plot and doesn't rely too much on silly coincidences and a perpetrator's monologue to wrap up and explain all the loose ends.