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For those of you who are new, welcome to my usual newsletter, where I chat about this that and the other.
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While it’s still summer time, we’re starting to harvest some of the fruit we grew this year. All the plums have been harvested. A bunch of them have been turned into delicious shrub, while the rest are still in the process of being turned into wine.
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(A shrub is a drink that we make out of equal parts fruit, sugar, and vinegar. We put that all into a jar, let it sit on the counter for a few days, then strain off the fruit and use the syrup in drinks. The fruit is also consumed, generally with yogurt.)
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We didn’t have many figs this year. We harvested what we had and dried them. Will either cut those up and add to tea blends, or just snack on.
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The aronia won’t be ready until mid- to late-September. We tried making shrub out of those last year but it wasn’t really successful. Not sure what we’ll do with those this year.
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The grapes are coming along nicely. We’ll make both wine and shrub out of those when it’s time. Here’s what they look like at this point. Not quite ripe, but they will be ready in a couple weeks.
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FYI: we tie mylar tape on the wires that hold up the grapes. That’s what the red and silver shiny stuff is. It shifts and shines in the slightest breeze. This spooks the birds and keeps them away from the fruit.
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Now, onto more froggy adventures!
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I have a folded up camp chair that I keep on my front porch. There’s a frog who’s decided that it’s HIS chair when I’m not sitting on it. He’s almost always there, and frequently serenades me in the evening.
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Every time I want to sit in my chair, I have to vacate the frog. I put him into the grass about ten feet away from my front porch.
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Earlier this week, I was cooking ribs on my grill. The first hour I smoke the ribs, then for the next two hours I spray them with a sauce every fifteen minutes. (Sauce this time was about a quarter cup of tequila, cranberry juice, soy sauce and maple syrup, mixed with half a cup of water.)
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I’m writing while I’m sitting there. Still, I can’t help but notice the frog hopping back up onto the front porch. He didn’t immediately hop over to the chair, but onto the leg of the table beside me.
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He turned his back on me with a huff.
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This happened a couple of times before he decided that the table was going to be his playground for the morning.
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He leaped from one of the table legs to the other, showing off I guess.
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Then he climbed all the way up the table leg.
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At some point, he decided to climb across the mess table on the underside of it. I kept track, admiring his tenacity, as he occasionally lost the footing of his hind legs and so he’d flail for a few seconds, just holding on with his front feet, his little legs dangling and swinging from side to side.
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Eventually he tired of that and climbed the wall behind me. I’m not sure if he was serenading me at that point or chastising me for taking his chair.
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(And yes, at that time I did go and get a bowl of water for him that he splashed around in for a while.)
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Eventually, he decided to head to a different playground, and the last I saw of him that morning was him determinedly hopping around the side of the house and out of sight.
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He was back in the chair later that evening (I checked.)
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Here’s another picture of him just hanging out on one of the pots, staring at me now and again for having the audacity to be sitting in HIS chair.
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I’ll be sure to let you know if there are more froggy adventures later, as there probably will be.
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My niece keeps telling me I need to name him. Perhaps Prince Harry, as he does have very red coloration in some lights. Thoughts? What would you name the frog who haunts my chair?
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Daring starship captain? Check.
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Best friend/deadly assassin? Check.
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Aliens? Still searching...
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Rosey builds personalized racing starships for a living. She doesn't care about finding live aliens.
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However, she will go and check out this supposed alien wreck for her best friend, Jamaal.
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What she discovers may change the galaxy.
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Alien Wreck—the start of a new, fast-paced science fiction series by master storyteller Leah R Cutter—leads the reader on a daring galactic treasure hunt, with everyone racing to find the missing pieces of the alien puzzle.
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Be sure to read the rest of this finished series!
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Abandoned behind enemy lines. On a captured, enemy vessel.
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Ensign Ulysses Fortier must figure out how to fix the damaged freighter he has taken command of, even though his people are severely outnumbered by the existing crew.
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And there is the cargo. Or rather, the alien slaves being transported.
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Uly has his work set out for him, forging three different crews into a single entity.
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When the pirates capture them, his challenges only escalate.
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But nothing will stop Uly from rising.
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Book One of the Corsac Fox, an exciting new military space opera series.
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