Harvest Monday

 I'm one day late with this Harvest Monday post sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions each week.  I was amazed to have a harvest last week: greens for a stir fry.  There was bok choy and tatsoi that we added to the beef, carrots, and green onions we stir fried.  It was all quite delicious.  Sorry, no photos of the final dish.

Wordless Wednesday - Promises to Come

Compare this to last year.

Winter Neighbors

We have neighbors who live very close by but only in the winter time.  They reside under our deck which is just a step off the ground.  Sometimes, like this afternoon, they can be quite noisy.  It started with squeals and then two raccoons came out from under the deck one chasing the other.  The first one made it up the oak tree on the edge of the glen and the other half-heartedly started to climb after the first but gave up and decided it was time to groom or lick some wounds.  I never got a photo of the chasee which climbed 30 feet up the tree.  The sun was behind it.  Here's the chaser:

Within a half an hour they both were gone.  Back to sleep under the deck?  It was a surprise to see them out and about mid-day.

Agatha Christie

In January I came upon a new paperback of one of Agatha Christie's mysteries featuring Miss Marple.  I hadn't read one of these in years so checked it out.  As I began to read I realized it was a familiar story, but an interesting thing happened.  I was forming pictures in my mind of the characters and the setting but once I realized I had read it before I also remembered how I had pictured it before and it was entirely different.  I decided to stick with my present visualization of the story because I remembered that my first one was much darker and foreboding.  It was still fun rereading the story even though I did remember who did it.  The book by the way was "Sleeping Murder".

Once I finished the book I set a challenge to myself to read all of Agatha Christie's books.  I'm sure there is a challenge out there in the blogging world to do just that but I'm too lazy to go looking so it will be my own personal challenge.  I photocopied the front listing of all her books so as I read I can check them off.  Since I'll be reading other books as well this may be more than a one year challenge (especially once spring comes and the garden calls.)  But for now I have the time to read and enjoy it.

So far I've been sticking to the Miss Marple series and this week finished "At Bertram's Hotel" and "Caribbean Mystery".  The former I had never read but the latter was somewhat familiar.