Holiday Gratitude:Friends

Nothing Gilded, Nothing Gained-Period Drama on Paper at Middlemay Farm

Thanks to all the kind and supportive bloggers and readers of my novels for making this a wonderful year!

My cover designer SAMANTHA HENNESSYcreated these adorable seed packets in honor of our next cover collaboration on the continuing BUCK CRENSHAW SERIES of novels. Aren’t they sweet? We have some great ideas for the cover of the book, but this was just for fun. The packets are filled with lovely Forget Me Not seeds. Sprinkle a few in your garden and have blooms for years!

Leave a comment for your chance to win a pretty packet! I’ll pick a few people from a hat!

Seeds need a hidden time  in winter. We need germination time and stillness, too. I’ll be taking the holidays off to read books (and blogs I’ve neglected), be with friends and family and do a bit of much needed germinating.

Love and friendship to you all!

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Silver and Gold

Snow Bear Contemplates Life When His Tractor Won’t Start

 

Bees Love Borage

Dog Dignity (Not So Much)

Elizabeth came to us with a messed up eye. She looked like she was always winking (my mother always said never trust a person who winks). I suppose we could have returned her to the breeder ( that was never going to happen!). Her eye lashes curled in when they should curl out which required surgery.

Anyway, here she is doing her best to stay calm and carry on. The vet warned us her eye would look worse before getting better. We felt sorry for her and let Elizabeth sleep with us. Two adults, an affectionate, bed-hog dog and a plastic cone. My husband moved to the couch after  a while (he didn’t want to trouble Elizabeth’s sleep).

 

“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.” ―E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

An August night’s rain brings a soft morning to our acreage. As the men go off to work and early football workouts and the girls awake at a camp on Lake George I spend a few magical moments with the animals and land I’ve neglected for the last few weeks. I won’t notice the weeds or the fly tapes in need of change. I’ll just dash off for my camera before the sun rises too high in the sky.

The sheep are the first to notice my approach.

 

The mama goats complain now and the babies we lock up for the evening (so we can get first dibs on milk each morning) complain as well.

Blue Jays take over the mornings where robins have left off and everything is soft.

 

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” ― Bernard M. Baruch