Ripe Tomatoes!

Okay, here’s the deal. This year I got two ‘Orange Peruche’ cherry tomato plants from a friend, just like last year. Planted them in early May I think. Used wall o’ waters, unlike last year and we had sun. And warm weather. Now I have two ripe tomatoes. In the first week of July. I have never, ever had any tomatoes here that early. In like sixteen years or more. Simply amazing year.

On the down side, this has been an awful year for mosquitos. Some days they’ve been out all day and I have to leave all the screenless windows on the shady side of the house closed, since that’s where they like to hang out. Last week I finally got windows washed inside and out and the screens put up, for the windows that have them. So at least on the really hot days we could leave windows open. But some days the mosquitos came out everywhere at 4PM. Arrgh. So doors needed to be closed, even on the hot days. For those of you who haven’t lived in this part of the world, there’s only really 5-6 hot days in the entire year, usually not worth buying an air conditioner for. So I turned the fan on – which blew dust and pollen around – making my already awful allergies and asthma worse. So had to choose between mosquitos and coolness, heat and breathing. Not fun choices. Glad it’s cooled off a little.

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And we have these cool guys, which I just learned are 12 spotted pond skimmers. They streak around and eat mosquitos. Plus there are lots of other dragonflies, and I’m hoping a few bats, doing the same. Noticeably less mosquitos this week. I’d like to point out that I counted more than 12 spots, so I really don’t understand where they got the name. Do they only count the black spots?

 

 

Okay, so I’m whizzing along on the Clarion West Write-a-thon. Last Thursday I finished the first story, a fantasy, and sent it off to my first readers. When I get it back, I’ll revise the story and epub it. I’ll also send free copies to folks who sponsor me. If you’re interested in donating to the cause here’s the link:  clarionwest.org/writeathon

After that I caught up on a bunch of publishing stuff, including epubbing a story I wrote a couple months ago but hadn’t gotten up yet. I just ran out of time.

 

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Here’s  a copy of the cover and the link to Amazon is over in the side column. It’s available, or will be soon, everywhere else as well. It’s a rather dark fantasy for those that like that sort of thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So right now I’m working on a story written by Annie Cox. It’s one of the ‘Bibi’s Bargain Boutique’ series, which are some of my best selling stories. I tried to write it last year, but failed miserably and wrote another story for that collection instead. But last week the voice of the character and the whole story came to me, so that’s where I’m at this week.

So, to wrap things up, because I really need to go write fiction, the mosquitos are dwindling, the temps are going back to normal, the garden’s awash in bread seed poppies,  the cats are limp, the fish are happy, the sun’s blazing down, the fourth of July is almost here (so the war zone out here on the Res is almost done for this year), I got to go hear the charming and gracious Neil Gaiman read last night and life is good.

I’m off to travel to other worlds.

 



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