Posts

vegetable gardening

Vegetable Gardening For Non-Rabbits

/in , , /by

I planted a garden yesterday.

Well, it wasn’t actually as simple as that. I spent weeks dithering over how big it should be and what I should plant. The most complicated part of vegetable gardening for me was figuring out which plants like to be near which other plants. Also which ones detest other plants. It was a bit like planning seating for a wedding reception when the families involved are the Montagues, the Capulets, the Jets and the Sharks.

Tomatoes like carrots, but they stunt them. Eggplant likes being near thyme, but thyme doesn’t like being near basil. Cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage don’t get along with some nightshade plants, like tomatoes and green peppers. But they thrive when inter-planted with lettuce. Eggplants, unlike their nightshade family cousins, seem to get along with everybody. It took index cards, spiral bound notebooks, scissors, tape and the ever amazing glue stick to finalize the seating plan.

Then I did the actual planting – Woohoo! So far it’s been two days and I have remembered to water the plants. I talk to them, and tell them supportive nurturing things. Maybe vegetable gardening is my thing. If that was all plants required for a successful harvest, I wouldn’t worry.

But I know the real danger is lurking in the dark.

Don’t let the cute ears and twitchy fluffy tails mislead you. Those sweet little rabbits you see on the lawn at night when you are taking your before bedtime stroll are like Pirates of the Caribbean but armed with teeth instead of daggers.

I’m hoping to buy them off with the strawberry plants. So if you see a rabbit with strawberry mash dripping from its long adorable whiskers, you’ll know where it has been.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

birds

Birds and Humans: Parallel Universes

/in , , /by

The Private Lives of Birds

A family of birds lived in the wall of our house last Spring. They might have been wrens or sparrows. Small birds look alike to me from a distance.

They raised a brood of four most of which raising I missed out on since I am not willing to climb up to the second floor on the outside of the house. Besides, I wasn’t invited to their apartment and I have an aversion to crashing parties.

The part of their family life I did see involved the teenager birds, brash and adventurous. They chased each other from bush to tree to grass and back, stopping sporadically on the roof line where they made caustic comments about the passersby and their dogs.

Once, when the bird family was out running errands, I asked a handyman to close up the entrance. We figured the teens were old enough now to be on their own and the parents might be looking to downsize.  The handyman stuffed some insulation material into the vacant hole and tacked a shingle over the entrance.

But later that week we found the shingle on the lawn. A day later long bits of insulation were scattered around the yard. The family simply settled back into their space as though they had assessed the new home makeover, found it lacking and decided to return the nest to its former decor.

This year, the little apartment is less popular.

A family stayed there briefly, maybe the same one. And a chickadee has been eyeing it recently. Any day now I expect to see a robin with some sparrow clients, hopping along the window ledge. He will expound on the virtues of the place. It’s air conditioned in Winter, warm in Summer, sturdy construction, safe from cats. They will counter with the negatives. The bedrooms are too small, the bathrooms need remodeling, there’s not enough storage and there are rumors of a maniac who wanders about the neighborhood stuffing houses with insulation.

Maybe the original family will come back one day for a family reunion. They will chatter about how the old neighborhood has changed. The adults will compare notes on trees they remember sitting in, delicious bugs they have found in the yard, and funny things the children did when they were young. They may even glance down at us humans occasionally, but without much interest.

We’re hardly worth paying attention to. We can’t fly and we all look alike.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

Trees

Trees’ Fashion Tips for the Spring Season

/in , , /by

Trees are in Prom Mode this month.

I wonder how trees feel this time of year, bursting with blossoms. Overdressed? Or finally hitting their stride?

When a tree goes to Sears or Macy’s to find a Spring outfit, does she head directly to the formal wear and chose a fluffy floral confection, or does she drag her roots down the aisle slowly, looking longingly at the track suits and blue jeans as she trudges along.

Surely not every tree wants to look like, well, like all the other trees in bloom this week. But tradition cannot be ignored and for trees heading for the debutante ball, there are certain expectations which must be met.

The obvious things can’t change. She’s not going to have a slimmer trunk before the big event. She put on a little weight over the winter and there isn’t time to diet it off. She can’t rely on the wind for exercise – sometimes there is wind and sometimes there isn’t. And surgery is out. The very thought of it makes her cringe.

Still, there are reasonable variants and accessories a tree can get away with – matching squirrel earrings, a rakishly tilted bird nest behind her leftmost limb, a delicate ivy necklace, and moss slippers. So she does her best, fluffing up her branches to make the best of her blossoms and swaying gently in the breeze. It’s hard to stand out, especially when one is surrounded by younger trees.

She remembers what it’s like to have a slender trunk, soft velvety petals, smooth bark. But even though looking beautiful is more work now, it’s less stressful. She knows what she is, and it’s good enough.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

snowflakes

Snowflakes As Romantic Heroes

/in , , /by

Love in a Time of Snowflakes

No two snowflakes are alike.

I think that old adage is supposed to evoke the majesty and infinite complexity of nature. Instead, I keep imagining some little guy sitting on a stool at a lab counter peering into a microscope and saying, “Nope. Not the same. Again.”

I think the emphasis on the importance of individuality is interesting though. As a society, as human beings, we all want to believe we are distinct even as we wish to not stand out that much. Most of us don’t want to our differences to separate us. We want them to make us special, intriguing, attractive.

We want differences we consider attractive, like the sapphire eyes of a mermaid, a lithe graceful body, a porcelain complexion. Most of us don’t yearn to be blessed with myopia, a port wine stain, or a body shaped like a spark plug.

This is where romance novels shine.

In a romance novel, snowflakes are not just different.

They are flawed in ways which prevent them from connecting with each other.

A snowflake heroine will be certain no one could love a girl with an asymmetrical shape. She’s pretty sure that’s why when she fell onto a city street as a child no one looked for her. A snowflake hero may have lost one of his six arms in his service in the snowflake blizzard army. He will feel it is unfair to burden a girl with a man who can only carry five bags of groceries at a time.

But overcoming these feelings of being unbearably different is what romance novels are all about. It may be true no two snowflakes are alike, but despite their unique attributes no one will confuse a snowflake with a can of tuna fish. In the end they are not that different. Any other snowflake can relate.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

worms

Worms and Their Adventuresome Lifestyle

/in /by

Today I happened across some worms stranded on the blacktop after a storm and wondered why. Surely things haven’t gotten so bad in Worm-Ville that citizens are flinging themselves onto the street in protest. So I did what any socially responsible person would do, in addition to returning the worms to the grass. I looked up worm habits online.

It turns out there is a bit of a dispute. Not a rabid one. It seems worm experts are more laid back than, say, the folks who write letters to the editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. (More on that another day.) But still, there are some wild new thinkers among the group and what better place to learn their perspective than the internet, an impeccable source which contains only truth and goodwill.

For years scientists thought worms fled their waterlogged holes because they didn’t want to drown. But it turns out worms aren’t particularly bothered by water in their homes. Saves on washing the floor, for one thing.

So now there are other theories. Some scientists believe worms associate the vibrations caused by raindrops with the noise made by certain predators like moles.

This would imply worms are pessimists.

After all there is no particular reason to think every knock on the door is a worm-icidal maniac.  But the other two theories are more upbeat. I like cheery people as a general rule so I was excited to learn worms may be optimistic and open-minded about the future.

One scientist posits that worms use rain as a way to travel longer distances than usual. He didn’t say how far and personally I think this matters. There is a difference between traveling to the next flower bed and traveling to Indonesia. But to be fair, I hadn’t considered the possibility worms wish to travel at all. If they do, where? And how does a worm hear about attractive worm destinations? Is there a worm tourist agency? Are the ads for foreign climes filled with puns?  (“A temperate climate – Worm and sunny all year round.”)

Or maybe the average worm’s travel goals are more modest.

“Jerry,” booms the game show host, “Tell Mary what she has won!”

“A trip to gorgeous other side of Main Street where unexplored tunnels and delightful cavernous sewers await your pleasure. You and a guest will travel in style in the rainstorm of your choice, slithering speedily across downtown to the other side of the road with only minimal risk of being stomped on, run over, or dried out. Congratulations!”

The idea of mating in the middle of the street is even more optimistic. I am a contemporary romance writer and even my characters have never considered that as a realistic option. On the other hand, risking life and limb to find that perfect mate is standard fare, at least in romantic suspense. With all the danger, excitement, romance and travel to foreign climes, Worm Love could be the next big selling sub-genre of the world of romance novels.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.