I like books. Must be the understatement of the year. I come by my appreciation for printed books honestly. My mom is a reader, both my grandmas were readers, and one of them had a habit of giving me books as gifts. I have passed my fondness for books onto my children. All of them enjoy visiting bookstores and when we were in Portland visiting my brother years and years ago, our favorite place, the…
Time to pretend I’m a grumpy old man shaking my fist at kids who would so much as look at my perfect lawn … but, darn, those conscientious dog owners! How dare they take their dogs out each day, giving them long strolls through the neighborhood? Who are these kind-hearted people who care about their pets? Have they been watching the Dog Whisperer or the Doggie Dominatrix? And why are there so many of them?…
This may come as a shock to Harry Potter fans everywhere (including me!), but I haven’t read the entire Harry Potter series. (The horror!) The first book came out when my children were wee. My oldest was 5 or 6 at the time, a prime age for me to settle in and read to the kiddos. Because the books were released over a series of years, I kept up with reading them through Book 4.…
One of the used books I bought at the Twin Cities Book Festival was Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” It is a 1952 softcover copy that has a slight whiff of incense to it. I have not read a lot of Hemingway during my lifetime, maybe one other book in college. I’ve never been drawn to his books, though I couldn’t say why. Until I read this. Seriously, this is the saddest…
See that pink fuzzy critter in the middle of this dried oak leaf? I thought it was some form of caterpillar cocoon. Some, nice cozy home out of which a butterfly or moth would hatch, with the fuzzy form being suitably appropriate to our Minnesota winters. Ha! I was close, but no cigar. This is a gall. Galls are formed by the activity of insects or mites on plants, including oak leaves, however, the galls…