Here is the information about the Herb Society's Green Bridges Program.
This is an excellent program and even if you don't get your landscape certified, this idea is an excellent one.
HERB SAMPLER Second Edition (my book)
Buy one for yourself and consider getting a few more. They make great hostess gifts, housewarming, and anytime gifts.
 |
| Row covers, arbors, bean/plant teepees, and more. |
Yes, this is a repeat from 2023 but the information is so-o good. And at the bottom is information about our May 18 Annual Master Gardener Sale.
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Check out the Herb Sampler on this Blog
SPECIAL Price reduction on this 5 * * * * * book
At our monthly Writing is Fun meetings we decide a prompt for writing for the next meeting. Length is set at 2 pages so we can read them at the meeting. There is quite a diversity of writing. Some are real life recollections, some fictional vignettes, and sometimes there's a poem.
The prompt for July 2022 was Speed. Here's what I wrote. A little true, a little not.
The Excitement of Speed– Carol Kagan
July, 2022
It was a dark and stormy night. The
Friday regulars from the University made it to Testani’s Restaurant before the
deluge. Steph and Donna, freed from the antiseptic smell and bright lights of
the lab, loved that they were invited by the Air Force students to join them. Dim lights,
aromas of pasta and garlic, the low murmur of voices and clinking of bar
glasses greeted them. They filled the table in the back near the kitchen.
Mario came over. Drinks first. Doc
James had his usual Tanqueray gin on the rocks with an olive. The Air Force guys
went with various brands of beer. Steph and Donna ordered a glass of house red.
But Jon, the prissy rich-kid riding out the summer working in the lab, had just
turned 21.
“It’s my birthday,” he called out, glancing at Steph. “I’d
like to have ‘Sex on the Beach’.” One of the current popular drinks.
Laughter ensued. He would loudly tell
Mario that several more times and each time he looked over at Steph
When dinner was over, the tables were
cleared, and another round of drinks ordered. Steph knew her limit and switched
to soda. The Air Force students and Donna would be walking over to the Reed
Hall dorms and ordered more drinks. Doc James was finishing his second gin.
And Jon said longingly,
“I want to have ‘Sex on the Beach’.”
Ann Testani swung open the kitchen
door carrying a full tray of pasta dishes and a piece of tiramisu with a
candle.
“So we keep hearing. No beach here, but there’s free dessert,
birthday boy.”
After the song was sung, he
dramatically made a silent wish, blew out the candle, and turned his head to
Steph. Doc James threw two twenties on the table and left to drive home.
Everyone else wanted to wait out the rain.
After dinner talk got started when
the movie Top Gun was mentioned. “I have the need … the need for speed,” was
called out. This got the fighter jet stories rolling from the Air Force guys -
Capt. Jim Ryan, known as “Skip,” and the other pilots, Jason “Rico” Shay and
Ray “Bans” King.
“When I am speeding up high and wide,” Jason growled,
swirling his arms around, “I hate to decelerate to take the tight turns. Losing
speed.”
“For me, the speed is exhilarating, exciting,” said Ryan, “but
there’s that bone-crushing price to pay when you hit the deck, grab the wires,
and slam forward for the stop.”
The stories continued until someone
came in and announced the rain had stopped. The Air Force guys and Donna headed
out leaving Jon and Steph. Jon had too much ‘Sex on the Beach’ and couldn’t
drive home.
“I’d ask you to take me home, but the Jaguar is manual, a
stick shift.”
Steph sighed, noticing he had to mention he had a Jaguar. “I
can drive a stick shift.”
When they opened the door to leave,
it was pouring rain again. The car was, of course, protectively parked far away
from everything else. They ran through the flooded lot and wasted time as Jon
fumbled for the key.
“I’m driving. I’ll open the doors,” she said, grabbing the keys. He stood there.
"Wheels on the other side." She ran around, opened the door and slid in.
They were in the car. Both soaked
all the way through, water dripping onto the leather seats. They sat there, cold,
and slightly out of breath.
As she started the car she told Jon. “I’ve got this. Just sit back and relax. I know where you live.” Then she began talking to herself.
"Wheel's over here. Focus. Thank goodness this is the original
gearshift knob; five gears AND with a diagram. Let’s see if I can get the feel
for this clutch.”
Deep breath. Pushing in the clutch.
Pulling the shift left and back. Slow release on the clutch, a slight press of
the gas. A few hops, then okay. By the time they got to the street she had the
hang of it. At the beltway entrance, accelerating to merge was oh, so fast;
zero to sixty in seconds. Faster than she had ever driven. The lights turned
rain into shining diamonds.
For Steph, this was exciting. All that talk about speed and she was speeding around the beltway. There wasn’t much traffic on the beltway. Shifting gears, the engine revving as she watched the RPM’s rise and dip and rise again Just a little faster. Shifting again and smooth on the clutch. Jon was slumped in his seat. She was sitting straight up, following the headlights as they lit up the lines on the road. Feeling so excited, so light, like rising in a jet.
“Christ! How fast are you going?” Jon bolted up and
shouted, “One hundred and twenty!! Get
off the gas! We’re hydroplaning!. Ease off! Don’t brake. Hold tight to the
wheel!”
Steph saw that the front end of the
car had lifted from the road. Only the back wheels touched. She eased off, held
the wheel tight and steady but the exit was just ahead. As the front end
floated down, she made a wide turn, using the full width of the exit and a
little more. They eased out onto Northern Avenue and crept along at the speed
limit. Steph’s adrenaline still pulsing.
Pulling into the driveway, Jon
reached over and pressed a button, raising the garage door. She slowly moved
the car inside.
“I am soaked through to the skin,” she said. “I’ve got to
get this stuff off and dry. Let’s get inside.”
They headed into the house and began to peel off their clothes. Jon thought to himself “Maybe my birthday wish will come true tonight.”
# # # #
HERB SAMPLER Second Edition
Buy one for yourself and consider getting a few more. They make great hostess gifts, housewarming, and anytime gifts.
At our monthly Writing is Fun meetings we usually have a Fast Write where an object, word, or other prompt is decided upon and each of us write something for five to ten minutes. There is quite a diversity of mini-writes. Some are real life recollections, some fictional vignettes, and sometimes there's a poem.
The prompt was this bottle. Here's what I wrote. The line break is where my time was up. Some in the group wanted it "finished." I did that at home and here's the "rest of the story."
The Bottle – Carol Kagan
September 2023
The bottle sat on Dr. Foster’s shelf. It was round, and short, and had a glass stopper pushed down into the neck. The afternoon sun streamed through the one crooked slat on the blinds and struck the glass. Sparkles were scattered across the gray walls of the room.
Five-year-old
Amelia was sitting near the doctor’s wide oak desk in a room with a doctor’s
office, antiseptic smell. Her mother and the doctor were talking but she wasn’t
listening. She was fascinated not by the bottle but by what was floating in the
yellow fluid inside. The thing had not floated to the top. It was unmoving and
just hung in the center of the liquid. It wasn’t round or square or long but it
definitely looked like food. Why would Dr. Foster keep a small piece of food in
a bottle?
Although
she had been told to stay still and sit on the chair, Amelia slowly bent
forward from the waist to get a closer look at the bottle. Squinting her eyes,
she stared then pushed the toes of her shoes on the carpet and slowly lifted up
just a bit, inching forward on the seat. There were thin pieces of hair or
sewing thread sticking out of it, but they were so tiny, so far away, she
couldn’t tell if they were moving.
Her
thoughts were interrupted when the room became quiet and still as Dr. Foster
and her mother had stopped talking. She sat back on the chair and looked at Dr.
Foster but she couldn’t help taking another quick look at the bottle. He turned
his head to see what had captured her attention.
Pushing back his desk chair, he stood and reached up for the bottle. He knelt in front of Amelia and slowly turned the bottle around.
= = = = =
The front of the bottle had
clear liquid in it! She could see it was a bug with a small red head and
little, tiny legs and feelers in front. He turned the bottle around and
it was yellow again. She could see a bright yellow spot on the tail of the bug.
“This,”
Dr. Foster said quietly, “ is a firefly or lightning bug that fell into this
bottle of white corn syrup just as it was flashing its bright yellow light.”
Amelia
leaned forward to get a better look. She had never seen one up close. On warm,
late summer evenings she had captured some but always let them go without
really looking at them.
Amelia’s
eyebrows wrinkled up as she asked him, “Why do you have this?”
“There
are some things that are just very unusual. That the lightning bug fell into
this bottle with such a skinny opening is unusual and that it was flashing at
the same time was unusual. But I don’t know why the corn syrup where the light
was shining turned yellow. And I never found anyone who knows why.”
“I would
like to have something unusual to keep,” Amelia said, looking at her mother who
smiled at her.
“Something
unusual will be happening in your family," Dr. Foster smiled. "Sometimes mothers have two babies at
the same time. That’s twins. You will soon have twin brothers join your
family.”
# # # #
HERB SAMPLER Second Edition
Buy one for yourself and consider getting a few more. They make great hostess gifts, housewarming, and anytime gifts.
At our monthly Writing is Fun meeting, we choose a prompt, or topic, for the following month's writing. Limited to 2 pages so we can read them at the meeting, there is quite a diversity of interpretation on any given topic. Some write a fictional vignette, a real life recollection, and sometimes there's a poem.
The prompt was secrets.
Secrets – Carol Kagan
July 7, 2023
Take a brief moment now and think of a secret that
you’re keeping from others.
You have secrets. I have secrets and so does everyone
else. It’s something we humans do - hide stuff from other people. On average, according to
behavioral scientist Dr. Michael Slepian, we keep as many as thirteen secrets
at any given time. According to him, after research involving more than 50,000
people worldwide, the most common ones are lies we’ve told, ambitions, mental
health and financial struggles, and hidden relationships.
What is a secret? Merriam-Webster lists it as “something kept hidden or unexplained.” Slepian said, "I define
secrecy as the intention to hold back some piece of information from one or
more people. The information itself is the secret.” And it’s only a
secret until you tell someone.
The hardest secret to keep is the one
you think about most often. The weight of a secret comes from hiding it and
carrying it alone. This burden can cause depression,
anxiety, or shame. There can be feelings of
isolation or phoniness. Yet if you are looking for support, the fear of the
response may hold you back. You fear that once you tell, you have not opened a
door but have removed it from its hinges and thrown it up in the attic where
the secret used to hide. There would be no more hiding.
Disclosing a secret electronically is
cracking the door. The secret can be seen by whoever can look in. texts,
emails, social media posts like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and comments on
electronic blogs can be found and searched. Not good places to unburden
yourself.
Writing it in a diary or journal
leaves that door open and a secret can be found. Sometimes it is discovered
without you knowing. A casual remark or quiet question can reveal that it is no
longer a secret.
Is there a way to unburden yourself from carrying the
weight of a secret without telling someone? without revealing yourself in the
telling? without worrying about judgment or fear of the repercussions?
The answer is “yes.”
You can reveal your secret, anonymously, to PostSecret.
This is an ongoing community mail art project,
created by Frank Warren in 2005, in which people mail their secrets anonymously
on a homemade postcard. Selected secrets are then posted on the PostSecret website
or used for PostSecret's books or museum exhibits. Reminder: They are anonymous
as long as you don’t disclose information about yourself.
It is easy to tell your secret this way. Take a
postcard (more if you want to tell more secrets). Tell your secret anonymously.
Stamp and mail the postcard. Tips: Be brief, write legibly in big bold letters,
be creative. The postcard is your canvas. Mail to
Post Secret,
28241 Crown Valley Pkwy.#F224, Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
This month I will create and mail a postcard with a
secret. I will send my secret to Post Secret and next month I will tell you if
I feel better.
Post Secret https://postsecret.com/
I felt better and hardly think about it any more.
Here's a sample of postcards they receive.
~ ~ ~ ~
HERB SAMPLER Second Edition
Are you interested in growing, cooking or crafting with herbs? Here's your book.
Buy one for yourself and consider getting a few more. They make great hostess gifts, housewarming, and anytime gifts.
HERB SAMPLER Second Edition
Buy one for yourself and consider getting a few more. They make great hostess gifts, housewarming, and anytime gifts.
At our monthly Writing is Fun meetings we decide a prompt for writing for the next meeting. Length is set at 2 pages so we can read them at the meeting. There is quite a diversity of writing. Some are real life recollections, some fictional vignettes, and sometimes there's a poem.
Adventures in Walmart – Carol Kagan
November 3, 2022
Ruth Ann just started the night shift after years of having a regular work week. On Thursdays, after her shift was over at 4 she headed to Walmart for the weekly grocery shopping. Now it was midnight as she made her way through the quiet halls, past dark rooms and the occasional whirring of a floor waxer coming from nearby.
She found a parking space near the door, and made sure she had her list, coupons in her purse and cloth shopping bags. Into the bright lights and through the door. Ruth Ann was hit by the intense odor of floor cleaner, stopped quickly, and looked around. Several feet in front of her was the ubiquitous yellow plastic tent sign – Caution wet floor - Cuidado Suelo Mojado – with the little stick figure slipping silently.
There were hardly any customers but there were workers, wrapped in white, bobbing up and down from cartons to shelves, stocking items. There was a familiar beeping of a forklift in reverse coming from the far back area as she turned and headed past too many choices of yogurt and variations of orange juice.
A young guy was pulling milk jugs from the shelf and putting them on the floor. He grabbed other ones from the pallet on the forklift and shoved them to the back of the shelf then replaced the others in the front of them. The forklift left and he continued down the shelves, shuffling items from front to back.
In the canned goods section, she wheeled around a small roadblock of a worker placing bright red jars of tomato sauce on the top shelf. Ruth Ann chose a box of angel hair pasta and checked out the sauces. The top shelf held the more expensive, special recipes. The store brand was within easy reach but there were so many choices. She laughed to herself as she thought about when she was a little girl and sent to the local grocery for spaghetti sauce. She didn’t even have to think about what to get as there was only one brand.
Ruth Ann wheeled the rattling, squeaking cart around the stockers and through the aisles, picking items and putting them in her cart. As she approached the meat section she could smell the fish at the seafood counter even though there were few of them in the case. Only one person was minding the deli counter but was much more pleasant than any of the team there during the day.
The odor of wet cardboard wafted through the produce section from cartons of damp lettuce and cabbage. But over in the fruit section the green and red apples smelled sweet.
Ruth Ann was trying to decide which apples to get for pie when the clerk stacking bananas surprised her and said “Hi, how are you.”
“Fine. Just looking for a good combination of apples for pie.”
“Where are you now?”
“Maybe Granny Smith for tart and Fuji for sweet.”
“Hold on for a minute,” the clerk said.
Ruth Ann looked up at him staring at her, holding a cell phone in his hand.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone. Can I help you with anything?”
They both smiled and she said “No.”
In addition to quite a few self-serve checkouts, there was one cashier at the register, looking bored with no one waiting. She headed to the register.
“So, slow night, Jolene,” she asked after checking out the cashier’s name tag.
“Always is. Did you find everything you wanted?” she replied as she started to slide items past the scanner.
“I did.”
And so ended Ruth Ann’s nighttime adventure at Walmart.
~ ~ ~ ~
HERB SAMPLER Second Edition
Buy one for yourself and consider getting a few more. They make great hostess gifts, housewarming, and anytime gifts.
 |
| 100% of sweet basil germinated |
Did you save seeds from last year or get some from another gardener? You want to make sure these seeds are viable and will grow.
 |
| Place 10 seeds on a paper towel |
 |
| On a table in a warm room |
 |
| Thai Basil seeds 7 of 10 =70% |
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
HERB SAMPLER Second Edition (my book)
Buy one for yourself and consider getting a few more. They make great hostess gifts, housewarming, and anytime gifts.
Here is the information about the Herb Society's Green Bridges Program. This is an excellent program and even if you don't get you...
