Sunflower Seasons

  This season is long and stretches from March to October where I live.  I start sprouting the seeds in early to mid March and then move them into small cups.  In April the rain is pouring and I dig up the ground, being amazed each year at how thickly covered with grass and weeds it has become over the winter here.  Some years the ground is rock hard, but this spring was so wet it was more like trying too dig in chocolate pudding.

 When I put the seedlings in the ground the first year I was here, I was stunned to find they all vanished overnight.  16 years later I am ruthless on the slugs and snails.  This year they mostly won anyway.  I planted 60 sunflowers and got 9 flowers to reach blooming.  The rain washed away most of the slug bait before I even got back in the house.

 Being addicted to Big's Dill pickle sunflower seeds, I don't eat the seeds I grow, those extend the season and entertain by attracting the clownlike acrobatics of Stellars Jays, and usually volunteer sunflowers mean I get more plants than I actually planted.

 Last year the summer was grey and foggy and the flowers grew but were thin and tall and as soon as they had blooms they couldn't stay standing.

 I never know quite what I will get, but this is one of those things I do for both the routine and the surprise.  I love the little moments of surprising joy that the flash of yellow and the shriek of Jays provide to my Fall, but I also love the green sprout from a dry seed and the seedling that has finally become big enough to resist the snails on its own.  I love the reminder of the passage of time and the reminder that the more things change, the more they stay predictably the same.

 To anyone else who enjoys the common glory of the sunflower.  Have a blessed season because each season brings its own beauty.  Even the season of waiting in the dark to begin to grow again.

Moving On

 Time, the way it changes things and the way the important things remain unchanging in the face of the passage of time, is the underlying theme in the book, Double Time On The Oregon Trail, and in my life.  Lately we have been very focused on waiting for a date we both anticipated and dreaded.  Our son, and the daughter of our heart, were moving away to start their first year of college.  The time seemed to both drag slowly and fly by as other people their age started at schools on the semester system and they waited for a class that didn't begin until Sept. 27.

 Then they were hired to work at the dining hall and their arrival time moved up to September 18, but we still had lots of wonderful days to watch movies and eat big meals and play at the river. And then there was no more time. We were loading the van and driving and driving and driving and realizing that it is a long, long way to anywhere from Del Norte County California.

There were hugs and tears and a last day exploring around the San Francisco, Tiburon, Great Highway area and then more hugs and tears and SMILES.  There is so much joy in seeing babies turn into wonderful people, and seeing impossible dreams become reality.

 I have not written much in the last month, but now there will be time, and I have been lucky enough that some people are starting to discover my books.  I had a teacher of a 5th grade class order a class set of the Oregon Trail book.  I was thrilled by that of course, then I came home to find that "Lisa Day on the Web" had posted an excellent review of the book too.

http://lisaday.weebly.com/4/post/2012/09/double-time-on-the-oregon-trail.html

 It is funny, sending your kids to college, and publishing your book are two things with a lot in common.  You put so much time and love and effort into both writing a book and raising a baby, and then you offer it up to the world and open your hands and wait to see what happens. You hope that you have built it a strong enough bridge that it can move on into the rest of the world and find welcome and love and success.

September begins as the Giveaways end.

 Well, I love summer, the way most people on a school year cycle love summer.  The fact that the paychecks stop coming and their can be expensive, time demanding requirements to do things like update credentials and take classes does not stop me from enjoying the chance to spend more time with my own children.  The fact that my children are no longer children does cut back on the time that they need me around, but I still love every minute they choose to spend with me anyway.

 So I signed up to write in CampNanoWriMo again, and I did, but didn't  reach the goal I had set for myself of 50,000 words.  It's Ok though, I loved the process and have a good beginning on the next Duffy Barkley Novel.

 I spent a lot of time with my husband and we walked in the redwoods and on the beaches and by the river.  I went camping once, had a few picnics, spent time traveling with the youngest son and my daughter-in-love.

 I tried to do some book promotion by hosting a 5 day free kindle giveaway on each of my three books.  I also just closed the Goodreads hosted giveaway of 5 paperbacks of the newly published, Double Time On The Oregon Trail and have five winners from the 612 who signed up.

                                   The Winners are:

T. Nicholas	of			OK
P.Riccobono	of			MD
L.WEAVER	of			OH
C.  Mongillo	of			CT
M. Ulrych	of     MI			and the paperbacks are in the mail

 I got to "dogsit" my favorite boxer mutt - my blind and sweet "Grandpuppy" and I had a wonderful summer.

 Isn't this a cool shot?  Now if I could just bury that wounded cherry tree in the ocean for long enough to form amber, I could add to my jewelry collection.

 I'm doing a challenge on the 365 Project, where a lot of September's pictures of the day have to have the same something, same subject, setting or shape.  I chose this funky little set of nesting dolls and have been having fun with that.

I've also been canning and baking because this time of year my yard is bursting with apples, blackberries and plums.  Today I even had a deer coming to beat the bear who usually claims a bunch of my apples come mid September.

Now, because it is a new school year, I get to renew my new resolutions and promise myself that the things I loved, I get to keep

 and the things I wanted to improve, I get to try to do better this year.

May you also get to move forward in Joy that this beautiful life offers so much more than Facebook and endless Political campaigning.