June 25

New attempt to make daily posts. Today I drove over to St Louis to drop off wool with a friend (she took 4 bags full!) before mom gets back down here withe the boys and this year's haul of wool.  I put like 8 bags in the car, and let her chose from what was there. She Tok four, some for herself, and some for a friend. I then went down to JC where I picked up some Lava rocks from Gabby, who also gave me a bag full of pork/boar(!) that her husband had hunted. Which was unexpected. Thankfully, We reorganized the chest freezer, so there was actually room for the stuff. I look forward to eating it. I also offered help with the butchering when the time came for the next hunt.

One of the things I like the best about the people I know is how generous most of them are. I get wool for free from a friend, I give the extra away. A friend gave me some fish for free that she did not like, and it just all goes around, and no one nickel and dimes each other with a strict accounting. It is so nice to have the financial flexibility to give what I can, and receive without feeling guilty.

By the way, I still have wool left, and I am about to get this year's haul.  Let me know if you want any. 

Here is my little hill with the sones added. Mom painted a bunch of little stones a couple of weeks ago, and I needed to move some of them so that they would still be visible. 

Also, one of the roses in the front is blooming, and while I know they are invasive and need to go, the blooms are so pretty!

And look at this monster weed in one of the blackberry patches. Plantnet says it is pigeon berry but I don't know what that is so not very helpful.




Books for the day: 

I finished Dawn Caravan by Elizabeth Hunter last night. Loved it. Here is what I wrote about it last night. 

So. I have stopped reading series because the author got this great tension between characters, and then never resolved it in any meaningful way after 17 books. Ok, I stopped reading well before th 17th book, and the particular books I am thinking about are probably way past that number anyway. But for some reason 17 popped into my head as the number to use here. No idea why. 

But to get back on my topic, I was kinda dreading this book that I just finished, because it was a continuation of a story that had some great sexual tension that the author has been setting up as background in like 9 books, and then used as the foreground of like 3 books/stories and it was starting to get to the point where I would have stopped reading. And I did not particularly want to do that because I love her writing. But... it was starting to become very annoying. 

Now, paradoxically, by near the end I was worried because she finally resolved the tension exquisitely, but now I was wondering if she was going to hop onto different characters for her next book or how she was going to make the next book “interesting “. Like, was she going to invent something to put distance between the two that she had just masterfully managed to bring together but not make it too HEA, which I know is tricky for a writer. 

I was so relieved! She managed to use the last 5 pages to NOT invent a ridiculous new tension betweens the protagonists, but to make me all interested in what was going to happen next! While not feeling like it was an awful cliffhanger. I mean, she set up her next story, but I don’t feel like the story she just finished was unended. 

Which is really hard thing for a writer to do! 

I am really so very impressed with her writing. 

By the way, if you are wondering what book it was, this particular book was Dawn Caravan by Elizabeth Hunter. 

I would, however, recommend, if you are new to her stuff, that you read A Hidden Fire, a book that is actually FREE right now on amazon. I think Dawn Caravan has enough back story filled in, that if you are familiar with paranormal fantasy, you would be fine reading it, but I think you would enjoy it more if you started her world from the beginning.

And I have been listening to the audio book version of Alpha Night by Nalini Singh. I read the book a bit ago when it came out, but am borrowing the audio version from the library because frequently, the first read though of a new book by an author I like is just a gulp it down so I know the story, and then I listen to it to actually get details and enjoy it at leisure. It is very similar to her past books, but I have enjoyed it nonetheless.  I do like that, unlike with Mercy's and Adira's books (and some of the others) there was not the whole thing about the man needing to be strong enough to best them. I mean, she does talk some about how strong Ethan is, but he doesn't need to be stronger then her. I always think of it as the Red Sonja syndrome. I would still love to see her write a Dominate Female and a Submissive male (not BDSM, just how she has things in her world).