Journaling the day again! (I guess I lied!)

 Woke up way too early to cat scratching at my bedroom door at 4 a.m.  S must have let him in when he got back from girlfriend's at some point in the night.  Grrr.  Put cat out and tried to go back to sleep, gave up at about 5.

Coffee, fed cat, sat and thought.  Wrote up a new year's plan for organizing the house with adult children in it.  Tidied kitchen a bit.

V came upstairs.  She has old snowpants and boots from D that might fit L.  It is supposed to snow tomorrow!

Read some Winter Holiday - almost finished.  Hope to finish today and make booktube video.

Somehow need to go to 2 stores today.  Can I recruit one of my sons to run to one of them?  What to have for dinner?  No idea, don't feel cooking today.

D came up.  Gave him some eggnog.  He played on switch for a bit.  Says he wants to keep reading The Enormous Egg.  I read him a couple of pages.  He keeps saying that an egg can only hatch what its mother was!  He's not buying the premise of the book that a chicken can hatch out a dinosaur!

V left for work.  It is nice that she is getting D up, bathing him and getting him dressed in the am.

Made breakfast for R.

D not hungry yet.  He's been playing a lot with his stuffed Pokemon plushies and making up games with marbles.

Did Advent calendar.  He's still kind of upset about the Angelfish.

Did regular calendar with him.  He played some more.

The neat thing is I just have to put out his printing workbook and when he sees it he just sits down and does the page!  My kids were never like this!  

Had to wash our Christmas cookie cutters.  Activity for this morning is making playdough Christmas cookies.

D is playing so nicely this a.m.  Played a lot with playdoh, did lots of counting, built a city out of lego.  He designed it so the ocean was on one side and he had a lot of fun building a sea wall to keep it from flooding his city.  

Couldn't get him to eat breakfast so early lunch with a leftover cheeseburger from Sunday night's dinner  

11:00 Beatrix Potter storytime from Outschool.  Cutest thing ever.  The teacher read Mrs. Tittlemouse out loud.  D really enjoys this every Tuesday.  Starting in the new year though we are switching to a French class at 10:50 a.m. for him, also through Outschool.

After story,time, I forced D to go outside.  He resisted but I said just 15 minutes outside.  We wound up staying out 45 minutes.  It was cold. He was having fun playing by the stream and watching sticks float down the stream.  But he got his hands wet in the cold water and couldn't take it after a while.

Came in.  I made him and R hot chocolate.  D played on Switch again, Pokemon.  It's been a much better morning than yesterday.  Now it's 12:30.

Now he's made me help line all his stuffed animals on the couch and is leading them as a choir leader!

Lost control of things. Sean was watching him while I tried to make a booktube video but that took longer than I expected.  Then I took a shower.  D watched Moana (sp?) with S and then starting watching Pokemon tv.

4:30 Another Outschool zoom class. This is a winter camp (just 4 classes in December) for learning French.  Next year we are going to drop the Beatrix Potter (she's going to run out stories soon!)  And have another ongoing French class every Tuesday at 10:50 a.m.  D enjoyed it.

After that he immediately wanted to go back to watching Pokemon but I then I remembered that we had planned to clean up the living room to make it ready for a Christmas tree.  He was excited to help!  We tidied and then he held the dustpan while I swept.  We rearranged the furniture a bit too to make room.  Not sure when we'll get our tree but probably soon.  So that was a nice shared chore time.  I am trying to get him to do a couple of chores a day with me. With one child and so many grown ups, people do everything for him.  So it is good for him to learn to help out and that he is capable of helping.

After cleaning the living room he sort of wandered around and then wound up going up to J and playing video games there.  Sigh.

I did not plan anything for dinner.  Everyone ate meals at weird times today.  V is probably working late, S went to babysit L while H and P go see It's a Wonderful Life.  R isn't hungry - the lunch he got didn't agree with him.  So it is just me, D, B in quarantine and J for dinner.  One of my neighbors is cooking curry.  I went out to put the chickens to bed and it smells heavenly.  Can't I just go over and invite myself to dinner there????

J ordered Thai food.  I'm done.  I have been up since 4.  

Remembered to light candles again!  Yay me!

Ate late, said prayers, R was just putting D to bed when V came home.

My last post? Journaling the day

 I think I am going to abandon this blog.  Sob!  I've been at blogging for a long time, off and on, over the years but I just don't feel the impulse very much anymore.  I am enjoying my booktube channel.  I like posting photos on Instagram.  I am trying to cut back on facebook but I am involved in a couple of groups there that are still relevant to me.  I really only use this blog to keep track of my book reading but I could do that more efficiently I think if I really took my goodreads account more seriously.  

But I thought I'd journal this day.  It is December 14, 2020, a gloomy, rainy, chilly Monday.

Woke about 5:30, coffee, fed cat, sat and thought

Read some Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome

Cleaned kitchen some - mostly loading dishwasher, tidying, wiping down counters and table

Watched a little youtube, checked out facebook

V went to work

D came up (already dressed) and played on switch, made him some vanilla milk

Moved laundry, put on load of dish towels and napkins

Got dressed

Did Advent calendar with D.  It was a slow rainy morning so I didn't feel like rushing him off the Switch.

Made french toast and sausage for R and any other family members who wanted it.  No one was up though but D and I.

Read next chapter of The Enormous Egg while he nibbled some cheese.  He's not very engaged by the book though.  Might DNF it.

Did our regular calendar (wooden board with date, day, time and weather)

D carried down a pile of his clean laundry to put on his bed.

D started playing with legos but left them all scattered everywhere.  Lots of mishaps and accidents this a.m.  Must be the rainy day.

B is home from visiting A and is self-quarantining except D went in and chatted with her for a bit.  Sheesh.  Brought B up some breakfast.

Read or rather since it was in French, retold The Red Balloon while looking at photos in book.  Read Frog and Toad All Year, got interrupted because R came down with news that angel fish had died.  Very gross.  Eel was feasting off its eye.  Really impressed D.  We ceremoniously took it out (in the rain) and dumped it in the garden where it can decompose into the soil.

Got out wikkisticks and spelled the word fish in honor of the dead angelfish.

D hung out with S while I tended the chickens (late) and ran to the library.  Man, I have not had a solo trip to the library in forever!  Felt good but a little nervewracking too b/c of covid.  I went to look for cozy mysteries for the booktube Cloak and Dagger Christmas reading challenge.  I was able to get a bunch to choose from.

Came home and showered while at this time J played video games with D.  J is off this week from work because he had too many hours to roll over into 2021.  S had his piano jury this a.m.  I think he has one more exam or end of year thing before his semester is officially over.  B's semester ended last Friday and then she went to Phila for a weekend and is now quarantining just to be on the safe side.  

Came down and resumed D responsibilities again.  He's watching kids tv now.  

Heating and A/C guy arrived.  Hope he hurries.  It stopped raining and I was hoping to take some packages accidentally left with us to the proper address a couple of blocks up.  Before the sun goes down which is early these days.  Hurry up service guy!

Cleaned kitchen some more.  It is always dirty.  I never get it 100% clean - more like 40 to 80%.  

Realized J was home so I asked him to watch for the service guy and D and I took our two block walk to return the packages.  It was good to get out even though cold and raw.

Service guy left.  Humidifier is finally running.  The dry air was wreaking havoc on my sinuses.  

J and S are once again playing video games up in his room.  I need to start dinner in about 10 minutes.

Wow, the wind is really picking up!  Glad we took our walk when we did!

D is back down this time watching Pokeman.  Sigh, he gets too much screen.

Making meat loaf, roasted potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes.  I don't think I have ever cooked them before.  I might have eaten them.  Just roasting in oven with onion, garlic salt and olive oil

Have quick google meets meeting with sisters and Eileen to see how she is doing.  Then have 7 o'clock meeting (zoom) for hypothermia shelter.  Might be able to eat between those 2 things!

Lit both Advent candles and Hanukkah menorah.  Pretty proud that I've been 90% consistent in remembering to do these things!

Had meeting with E.  Ate - discovered that I do not like Jerusalem artichokes!

Looonggg meeting about hypothermia shelter.  didn't end until almost 8:30.  

R instead of doing something else with D sat and watched UP with him.  Sigh.  The kid was in front of a screen of some sort for maybe 7 hours today.  We were bad before about this but an only child during covid in the winter is miserable.  

Said prayers.  Cleaned up a bit.  Forgot to give B dinner so gave her food up in her room.  She is already hating this quarantine business.  

Went to bed very early.  So glad house humidifier is now working!

My Response to Pope Francis' Statements in New Documentary

1)      First off, the whole phrasing of “ God made me gay” and “gays have the right to be in a family sounds so bogus and is such facile theology I find myself really doubting this story.  , I really doubt the Pope who has written beautifully profound things like Laudato Si’ or, the one who gave us the beautiful homily of hope in the midst of soaring death rates in the rainy dark and empty St. Peter’s piazza,  would say such cheap sound bite things which show such a lack of understanding.  I think these are taken out of context and filtered through the documentary maker’s own all consuming world view on this issue.  I highly suspect him of propagandizing for his fetish cause.  Also, I can’t hear or understand the statements myself because I don’t speak Spanish, so I can’t tell you exactly what he said.  I don’t know how he edited things.  I have to rely on interpreters.  So that gives me another layer of questioning the actual statements.

2)      We’ve already heard from this guy (sorry too lazy to look up his name!) last year.  This is the same interview but now since it’s in a documentary it is ‘news’ again.  We’ve already been through this, though.  Are we going to repeat this one interview and a couple of sentences somehow every year and act aghast all over again?  Which brings me to the next point.  We are gullibly at the mercy of cynical and exploitative forces in the media.

3)      The media knows that anything controversial is clickbait and means money to them.  Therefore their primary purpose is to stir up controversy. (Not that they don’t do good at times but you definitely have to sift the wheat from the chaff these days when it comes to trustworthy objective reporting of news).  They also have an agenda of undermining Pope Francis and the Catholic Church.  This is easy to do since the church has been dealing with corruption at high levels, all kinds of sordid sin and is full of sinners, including the pope, who often say foolish things or don’t exercise the prudence they ought to.  We are such an easy target.  And we are money for these folks.  Bad combination.

4)      The media works to divide us and we now are living in silos where we demonize the other side unthinkingly.   We are conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs to salivate and growl at every stimulus they’ve trained us to respond to.  Don’t be a Pavlovian dog!  Instead pray for the fruits of the Holy Spirit.  Exercise patience, self-control, kindness, humility especially when talking about the Holy Father. And do not spread untruths, gossip, scandal, detraction over the internet.  Do not post when you are upset.  Make that an absolute rule.  Practice self-sacrifice by not indulging in keyboard rage.  Go off and pray, give thanks to God for all his mercies and blessings.  Do something more important!   (I am talking to myself here as much as to anybody!).

5)      Read church history. The Church has always been a mess.  Judas started things off badly!  Peter goofed up repeatedly.  “Look not on our sins but on the faith of your Church.”  There is a reason that is a part of every Mass’s prayer!  Read church history to get a better perspective.  We’ve made it through truly horrible times and we’ll do it again!  In spite of the fallen nature of man.

6)      Remember Pope Francis was giving a private interview.  Learn your own Catholicism better.  You as a Catholic should be able to distinguish between when something is spoken magisterially and when it is an off the cuff remark.  Why don’t you know your faith better?  Ignorance means you are easily manipulated.   Take responsibility!

7)      I really like, admire and trust in Pope Francis in many ways, but I do think he can be sloppy and unclear at times. The media and his enemies (the Enemy!) exploit this.  No one is perfect. Today is the feast of St. John Paul II.  He is rightly revered, but he also had some terrible glaring faults.  Much sexual abuse went on under his reign and in fact people tried to warn him and he turned a blind eye.  The Legionaries of Christ and his explicit support of Marcial Marciel are a despicable legacy of JPII’s reign.  There are people alive today who are the walking wounded, having suffered severe trauma because of the Catholic hierarchy’s outright complicit or negligent approach to the problem of sexual abuse by clergy.  In fact, the guy who did the interview with Pope Francis may be one of these walking wounded.  The sin of abuse reverberates again and again down through time.  Yet we respect and love JPII.  Apply the same standard to our current Holy Father.    Or as St. Paul said, examine everything, take what is good. 

8)      I remember when gay marriage was becoming an issue, there were people who supported the idea of a civil union because it would be a secular, governmental thing and perhaps would keep us from redefining sacramental marriage.  I remember people saying that marriage used to only be a church thing and it was the anti-Catholic French Revolution that made it a secular thing.  I remember arguments like that coming from conservative and faithful Catholics.  I don’t think supporting civil unions is anything but an attempt to keep civil authorities from imposing on religious teachings.   Or at least it can be construed that way.  You may vehemently disagree with this and my memory is a bit fuzzy but I do remember that there were a variety of approaches to this issue taken by various conservative voices. 

Fall Garden Thoughts

 I have kind of stopped posting here because Blogger updated and I can't figure out how to post photos.  And in fact, I copied book covers from Amazon and they disappeared.  So now I don't know how to blog properly anymore and I am too distracted and busy to stop and figure it out. 

But the gardeners came today and cleaned up the garden for all and so I am very happy.  They only come six times a year and it isn't quite often enough.  I should be doing more but honestly I am new to gardening and I have so many other things going on and only a limited amount of energy.  And my arthritic knees are really starting to hinder me.  

After two years with this garden I now have a better idea of what I like:

Herbs - I want way more herbs.  I need two giant St. John's Wort bushes to be moved so that I have access to the herbs.  The way they are now I can not access them without having to haul myself up a wall that is about 1.5 feet high and my knees just don't want to do that.

Fruit trees/bushes - except fewer chokeberries and lots more blueberries and maybe raspberries.  We had a disappointing yield for fruit this year except for the strawberries.  I'm spending my winter figuring how to take care of fruit trees/bushes for better results.  That's my winter homework assignment.  Actually, I need to see what to do for the fall for them as well. The gardeners did some but I might want to go further to protect them from disease and make them more robust.

 We are putting up a garden on the side of the house.  We have to move much of it because it was accidentally on our neighbor's property.  We got new neighbors and it turns out they want to fence in all of their yard.  So we have to move trees anyway.  So we are just going to redesign that area.  I am excited.  Going to try to plant paw paw trees for starts.  Squeee!

For veggies - I am determined to figure out how to have greens all winter.  I bought a cold frame to put in a raised bed.  I plan to try to grow brassicas and beets there).  I also am going to keep growing microgreens in the study window.  I want to get grow lights and have a real indoor kitchen herb garden.  I also want to try to grow lettuces and maybe cherry tomatoes indoors by a window with a grow light.  I'm just going to experiment.  I do seem to be growing carrots and potatoes successfully in the raised beds  My sugar snap peas don't seem to be doing anything.  Perhaps they need some fertilizer. Must see what to do about that.

I also am going to try to clean out the junk closet at the end of our mudroom and turn it into a cold storage room.  I am going to experiment with trying to keep apples and winter squashes in cold storage there.  I also want to start a prepper pantry.

So those are my thoughts for now!

Classics Spin #24 - Winning # is 18!

Number 18 on my list this time around turned out to be Minor Works by Jane Austen.  

Classics Club Spin #24 List of Potential Wins!

 Here's my list of 20 potential reads for the next spin.  I am deliberately picking shorter or easier works because I am feeling rather overwhelmed with the non-reading portion of my life!  This is also limited by the fact I am just pulling books off my shelves I've been meaning to read for ages.  The Power and the Glory is a favorite of mine but I haven't read it in decades so time for a reread.

Here's the link to the blog post for the spin:  https://theclassicsclubblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/01/cc-spin-24/

1. Utopia by Thomas More

2.  Paradisio by Dante

3.  King Lear by Shakespeare

4.  The Complete Tales of Alexander Pushkin (might just read a selection)

5.  Short Stories by Flannery O'Conner (read a selection)

6.  The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne (This was originally published in 2 volumes.  I've already read volume 1).

7.  The Light Princess and other Tales by George MacDonald

8.  Common Sense by Thomas Paine

9. Civil Disobedience and Other Essays by Henry David Thoreau

10.  Self-Reliance and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

11.  The Story of the Golden Fleece by Padriac Colum

12.  Classic American Short Stories from Dover (read a selection)

13.  Best-Loved Short Stories also from Dover (read a selection)

14.  Seneca On The Shortness of Life

15.  Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

16.  T. S. Eliot Collected Poem (1909-1935)

17.  The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

18.  Minor Works by Jane Austen (read a selection)

19.  The Gift of Good Land by Wendell Berry (read a selection of his essays)

20.  Little Lord Fauntleroy by Francis Hodgson Burnett

40 Day Novena

I found about this 40 Day Novena (7/7-8/15) via the Catholic Unschoolers group, I think.  I am adapting it to suit my life, my personal challenges and failings.  If I did it as recommended, I know I'd never been consistent.  It is extremely hard, nigh impossible, for me to maintain consistency for 40 days straight.  I really think I am ADD and that is how it manifests itself in me!  So I am using this as a excuse to up my game a little bit, but also consolidate things that I have been trying, halfheartedly in many instances, to do already.  We'll see how it goes.  I am thinking even making the effort is part of the spiritual battle! 

My game plan: 

Reflection:

• listen to a homily every day - could be Bishop Barron, Bishop Burbidge, from my own parish, or some other reflection from another priest
• Reading - I am slowly rereading Augustine's Confessions and also reading Compassion & Conviction; The (&) Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement.  I'm also reading a collection of short meditations from Bishop Barron, entitled Centering.  

Prayer:

• Lauds every morning
• Divine Mercy every afternoon (need to set alarm for 3 p.m.)
• Night prayers with my family

Reparation/Penance:

• Confession - I need to quarantine as much as possible until after vacation (to keep my father in law safe) so I will go in early August.  
• Each day I will perform a work of spiritual or corporal mercy.  I am already on prayer requests team from my parish which is a good thing.  Two other things I can do are:  pick up trash around my neighbor when I take walks and remember to buy extra groceries and take them to the drop off at my parish for the food bank.  Next month I'm scheduled to make chicken for the homeless the first Thursday.  I also consider taking my glass recycling to the drop off site a corporal work of mercy since it helps Creation (and I absolutely hate the sound of breaking glass.  Gives me nightmares.  I have to grit my teeth the whole time!).  Conscientious recycling is a work of mercy!  Deliberately choosing to buy ethically and locally even if it is less convenient and more expensive is a corporal work of mercy, I think!  Wearing a mask, even though I hate it, should count too!  I don't hate it for political reasons, I just find it intensely uncomfortable!  I will brainstorm more to come up with ideas I can implement.  It is hard to do something every day in normal times, during CV19 it's even harder but I'll still work towards that goal.
• Consumption of media will be restricted to the following:  facebook for a quick check in with possible posts/messages from family, also I am in a discussion group about Christian civic engagement.  But I'm just going to dash in and out, no hanging out!  I will watch homilies, but that's different, I will still keep up my booktube channel.  That has been nothing but a good thing to me.  But, I will watch only one other booktube channel a day and one gardening/homesteading channel a day.  I often binge watch. I might keep up Instagram because I mostly just post photos of nature or books.  Only takes a minute. No twitter which I recently returned to. No political youtube, no politics anywhere!  I need a breather.  Although, I also am going to attend a maybe three zoom meetings.  Does that count?   Otherwise it would be in person and wouldn't be social media, so I don't think I'll include them.  And they also could double as spiritual or corporal works of mercy because they deal with racism, police brutality and the environment.  I want to restrict the totality of media consumption to one hour a day, whenever possible.  Some days will go over but most days could easily be restricted to 30 to 45 minutes.   Oh dear though.  This is all so complicated!
• Fast from sugar - this is something I regularly try to do but lately have been very bad at.  So I'm going to get stricter about this.
• Abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays.  I try to do this also but often fail utterly!
• Exercise 1 hour a day - this includes walks, gardening, playing outside with D.  However, I also need to stretch regularly and I need to include in this doing at least 15 minutes of housework each day.  I am so lazy.  Outside of cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry, I hardly touch anything.  I wait until someone is coming over or there is some sort of pressure from something to get me going.  It's awful.  If I take a 15 minutes walk with D in the a.m.  Weed for ten minutes, kick a ball around with D or horseplay with him, plus some sweeping, vacuuming, scrubbing, I could get in an hour easily and will probably go over it.  But in truth I probably need at minimum two hours of this low key movement to be healthy.

Bookish Update - 7/5/20

We had a lovely low-keyed 4th of July.  R really outdid himself  He went out on Friday to buy fireworks.  The usual places weren't around and he had to really hunt to find them.  He also is trying to get the hang of his Big Green Egg that he got for Father's Day.  So for the third time he tried smoking ribs.  Ribs are really work intensive, starting the day before.  Anyway this was the most successful attempt so far.  He also got the meat from this local organic butcher shop that we'd never bought from before.  Wow, the meat was really delicious.  The hot dogs made by the butcher shop were the best I have ever eaten.  Man, I'm not kidding.  I am not even particularly a hot dog fan!

But also the 4th of July was sweet because of D.  He played in the big blow up pool with his Mama.  He misses her so much during the week that it was really nice for him to have an extended time with her.  And then she bought him a star spangled pin wheel, an Uncle Sam hat, and some red, white and blue pom pom type things that he loved.  And he ran around playing with them for hours.  He loved Rick's BBQ and then staying up for the fireworks.  He kept pronouncing it as the BEST, DAY. EVER!  LOL.  He is so darling and such an incredible blessing to us.

We ended the day by watching Hamilton, though it is quite long so we only managed to watch the first half.  I had heard some of the music but had never seen it.  It's a weird, anachronistic take on Hamilton's life.  I found it at times quite clever and catchy and other times rather clunky and I kept laughing at the wrong moments which I think annoyed B who is a deeply devoted fan.  I was underwhelmed by Lin-Manuel which surprised me!  But the guy who played King George, and the guy who plays Burr were outstanding.  And Hamilton's wife, Eliza, has the loveliest voice!  I could listen to her all day.  Hopefully we'll finish watching this evening.

Anyway, to catch up on my reading.   I am more focused on my youtube channel than blogging about books here. I love being part of the booktube world.  It gives a whole rich dimension to reading for me.  So I have posted about all these books over there.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome:  I find the life of Ransome himself very interesting and would like to read a biography about him.  I got a slow start on this book which is well written and charming but paced slowly and so gentle it wasn't holding my attention until about half way and then I really got into it and wound up finding it quite delightful.  I am looking forwarding to reading Swallowdale, the next installment of the series, some time this month.

A Long, Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott:  This book was rejected by publishers when she wrote it back in 1866.  It finally got published in 1995!  It is a Gothic romance of an innocent young woman who gets trapped into a bad marriage and her attempt to flee from her evil husband.  It's quite dark in that quaint, Victorian way.  I found it quite enjoyable though it did go on a bit too long.  

John Adams by David McCullough:  Oh how I loved this book.  It was hard to read at times because so much of Adams life actually touches on issues we are living today in the wake of George Floyd protests.  Fascinating and highly readable account of the great man's life which includes his fascinating and great partner in life, Abigail Adams.  I learned a lot.  

*Blogger has updated and now I can't figure out how to link books to Amazon or other sites.  Sorry!

Pretty Garden Photos

Garden Walk

Garden Disarray

Ripening Aronia Berries

My bed of Ox-Eye Daisies

July 2020 TBR

Finish John Adams by David McCullough by July 4th.

At some point continue to read Augustine's Confessions with Ioana.  Depends on her schedule.

The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Work:  A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Selection of Minor Works by Jane Austen

The Life of Olaudah Equiano

Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome

Compassion & Conviction; the (&) Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement by Justin Giboney, Michael Wear and Chris Murphy

Garden Update

Weeds are still my major issue.  Here's what I've done:

• Weeded most of the bindweed and some other stuff too.
• Bought and received my my stirrup hoe and did some weeding.  Works pretty well!
• Also received my Fiskars Weeder which looks dangerous so I haven't attempted that one yet.
• I did a lot of weeding (well, a lot for me!) and had to take it easy for a day because my stupid wrists and fingers get all arthritic.
• Today I push mowed the back yard (which is small).  It was a good workout and so I've taken it easy for the rest of the day.
• Sadly the birds are enjoying our small blueberry harvest.  Sob.
• I also talked to the lawn and landscape co. and they will start mowing the lawn again (J had been doing it all spring while furloughed, but now he's back to work and since they have a reduced crew he's working longer hours so I didn't want to ask him anymore.  And S just doesn't do lawns.  He's not that kind of guy.  I guess I'm being sexist here because I or B could possibly do it too but I just don't do noisy, dirty machines with sharp blades and she takes after me).
• The landscape guys will also take out that bush in backyard
• mow behind our back fence
• cut back along the path in the backyard and put in new mulch there.
• We received the new chicken coop.  As soon as the bush is out, we'll put together the coop and put the chickens there.
• I got a pet sitter for vacation! 

Garden Log - 6/23/20

Today I:

• Weeded in the herb bed and made a slight dent in the Bindweed and Horsenettle.  I also weeded some in the Coneflowers (which were being strangled by the Bindweed) and the Lenten Roses.  There was an empty patch of mulch behind the thyme and rosemary that has been completely taken over by Stilt grass and Horsenettle. It has almost annihilated my Rosemary! It's a big area so I though that would be a place where I could try the smother with cardboard idea.  I tried and it looks woefully inadequate.
• In the afternoon (just now) I had S help me  I broke up more boxes and had him get up into the bed (it is raised and my balance is not good.  Just trying to hoist myself up on the garden retaining wall and then trying to carefully walk between the wanted plants to get to the weeds is impossible for me) and put more cardboard down and also to hold down the cardboard with chunks of firewood because the cardboard wasn't heavy enough to actually smother the weeds.  
• I also cut out the Black Walnut saplings trying to take over the spirea.  At first I only notice one but once I got in there I realized there were several saplings.  I can see portions of the spirea that are starting to die.  
•  I also worked on pulling more bindweed in the Spirea.

My plan is to work 15 or 20 minutes every morning before it gets hot.  And then if the day turns out to be ok weather wise and I have the opportunity to work some more when I can.

I am off to research how to prune a pumpkin plant!

Weeds

Weeds are taking over the garden.  In a no till garden, weeds are supposedly, eventually going to decrease over time because, again supposedly, by not stirring up the soil but by building it through mulch, weed pressures will gradually diminish.  Well, right now we have tons of weed pressure as they call it.  I'm feeling a little defeated.

Here's my overall strategy:

• pull some every morning to at least to keep some under control
• Chop and drop to use as ground cover BEFORE they go to seed.  They seem to go to seed very rapidly before I can catch them.
• Use cardboard to smother really bad areas if I can
• Gardening company will come a burn them away at some point during the summer (but until then I have to keep them from taking over)
• Learn to see if there are any benefits to the weeds.  For instance, we can eat dandelions.

I am trying to learn to identify all the weeds currently invading my garden.

This is a wild morning glory or bindweed.  It strangles out all the shrubs and wraps around everything.  It also grows thorns eventually.  It is a big problem in the front garden.

More bindweed.  It grows super fast.

This, below, is something called Horse Nettle which I had never heard of before and I don't believe I have encountered it in our yard before.  It is nasty!  Very thorny stem which makes it hard to weed without thick gloves.  It grows super fast as well (I guess all weeds do) and it has invaded my herb garden especially.

The photo below actually shows three different weeds that are taking over.  The St. John's Wort with yellow flowers are on the left of the photo. They are supposed to be there! The green clump at the top and the bottom of the photo is wild violet.  These pretty weeds, lovely when in bloom ,are aggressively taking over everything in my yard, my front lawn and all over all other areas of the yard.  I really need to get it under control.  In the middle is a dandelion, which I really feel no enmity toward as it is an early pollinating plant for bees and we do eat the greens from it.  And finally to the right of the photo is creeping sorrel.  I need to research this to see if it has any benefits.  It is a very delicate, low growing plant, very easy to weed.  I don't feel too hostile towards it either.

Japanese Stilt Grass is another major annoyance.  It grows everywhere and so quickly, it is impossible to keep up.  This is the weed I most think smothering with cardboard will work.

Below is Common Mugwort.  I have one area of my yard where I can not get anything to grow except this stuff.  I have been trying to get rid of it over the years and it always comes back, hardier than ever. I might try smothering it with cardboard too. 

The weed below looks innocuous enough.  I think it is called Boneset and apparently it is poisonous to cattle!  How it got in my yard I do not know.  Luckily I do not have cattle to worry about.  I do have a cat who occasionally likes to snack on grass.  Hopefully, he won't confuse the two.  This weed is popping up here and there all over the place.  I just pull it up when I notice it.  It's pretty easy to weed.

The photo below is Fleabane, which has delicate little daisy like flowers, quite pretty.  I haven't been very aggressive about weeding this one.  Will I live to regret my leniency?  I must admit I am a sucker for wildflowers.

Here's a pumpkin volunteer that comes back in the same spot year after year.  Well, maybe it's only been three or four years.  I keep forgetting about it and letting grow wild and it winds up taking over the garden by the Lenten Roses.  This year I am determined to learn how to prune it back so we can get a nice pumpkin for Halloween.

And finally (at least for this post!  I have more weeds I could talk about) this is a black walnut that has decided to grow up in the middle of my Spirea in the front garden.  Black walnuts are toxic to other plants near them, so I had better get this one cut down before he does any damage.

The Grey Woman and other short stories by Elizabeth Gaskell

I've been downloading only free reading on my Kindle this year.  I took on this challenge to not buy any books this year.  For the most part I am enjoying the challenge.  It is getting me to read the books on my shelves, many of which have been on a vague TBR list for ages.  It's pretty sacrificial though, especially with the libraries closed for three months (they've opened now to holds and curbside pick up). I have to admit that I have relieved the impulse to buy books for myself by buying books as gifts for others! 

I however had one little issue:  I do like to have a read on my Kindle.  During the night, when I have early morning insomnia, my back lit Kindle is a wonderful thing.  I have already this year read two books that my husband bought last year (or maybe earlier than that) as well as a reread of a book I got myself.  But if I want to find new material it can be hard to find something I want to read that is free.

On booktube there is a monthly or maybe bi-monthly read along of Victorian Literature.  The current selection is an edition of Elizabeth Gaskell's short stories, entitled after one of her stories, Cousin Phillis.  I didn't buy the book but I did manage to find the story itself free on Kindle.  I also found another story, The Poor Clare. Then I found a collection of stories called The Grey Woman. 

I love Elizabeth Gaskell.  Her stories didn't disappoint.  Some of them were more Gothic in tone than others.  But I enjoyed them all.  I did a review on my booktube channel. 

Trying to Pretty Up the Backyard

I am trying to be a better steward of our little patch of earth.  Our backyard is divided into three parts.

• left half of fenced in portion is a big permaculture garden
• right half of fenced in portion is our recreation/play area
• right side of yard outside the fence is more garden, a path down through the trees to the stream, firewood stacks, fort, etc

This post is about our recreation/play area:

Our patio is a little too small.  I regret we didn't make it bigger.  R's huge gas grill (which we use frequently), the bench, the fire pit and now the Big Green Egg which is his Father's Day gift crowd the small space.  My husband is extremely hard to get presents for and usually Father's Day is about a card and maybe a very small gift.  But he asked for the Big Green Egg.  I am excited to see how it works.  Hopefully it will last for years and years.  He hasn't officially gotten it yet but we had to have it delivered and assembled on Wed.  He's being very polite and not mentioning the fact it is sitting out there in full view.  LOL.  Surprise!

We had leftover flagstones from various projects and we just laid them down to sort of expand the patio area.  I like it!  I put two chairs off the patio to help it feel bigger.  It does feel bigger.  It's nothing fancy but I find it makes the whole area more pleasant.

We bought this blow up pool for D.  This summer of the coronavirus means he doesn't have any play dates.  So we are trying desperately to keep him busy.  He has really been loving this pool.  I have never gotten a pool like this before (maybe once a much smaller pool that feel into disuse quickly for some reason).  I had to learn how to clean it.  They get gross!  It took me two days.  We had to drain it which took quite a while, then we cleaned out all the debris that had fallen in, dead bugs, twigs, leaves, grass, dirt.  It had gotten really slimy too all over the bottom and sides with this brown type of mold.  This was after only 2.5 or 3 weeks of using it.  So we dumped all the remaining water out and I sprayed it with a mild bleach solution and then wiped the whole thing down, rinsed it again thoroughly.  Another thing no one tells you about these pools is that if you put them on grass (and that was the only level spot we had) the grass underneath begins to die and lets off the most awful smell, kind of like manure.  Yuck.  So I looked up about how to solve that problem and one suggestion was to put sand down underneath.  Well, we happened to have three bags of play sand left over from two years ago when R built D a sandbox.  So we used two of those bags to lay over the dying grass, then put the pool back in the same space.  And I also bought a pool cover to keep gross stuff out.

The sand trick really worked!  No more bad smell.  However, we have not tried the pool again this week because either the temperature was on the cool side (and the pool area is fairly shaded) or it was raining.  And it's supposed to storm and rain for the next five days!  But I am sure we'll get to use the pool plenty of times before summer's end.  It's big enough that I might dig out my swim suit and spend some time just soaking out there while D plays.

And this is the sandbox.

Ugly sandbox covered with tarp and last bag of play sand. 

Unfortunately, the tarp is an inadequate cover and the box got infested with spiders and toads.  Ick.  So I am not sure what to do with it.  I'd really like him to have a sandbox.  We have an old fairly beat up turtle sandbox that maybe I should try to clean as much as possible and fill with sand.  But that might offend R.  It's a delicate situation.   And then do we want the sandbox and the pool near each other? Because that seems problematic to me.  

Anyway, I am trying to make the backyard kid and family friendly.  It's a pleasant place to be.  We spend lots of time out there and also on the screen porch.  

More Herb Drying

I am just working through my herb drying experiment a little bit at a tim

Yesterday morning, D helped poke holes in two paper bags again.  He actually wasn't in a cooperative mood so that didn't last very long.

I snipped a bit of rosemary:

And a bit of thyme:

And wrapped the sprigs together with old twisty ties, placed into paper bags and then closed with rubber bands, labeled and dated them.  They are also now sitting on the shelf in the study.  It's supposed to rain later this morning so I plan to slip out and snip some more to dry.  I am discovering one needs to harvest a lot of thyme to get just a little of it.  The leaves are so tiny.

I also took some pictures of the garden where I am dissatisfied with the placement of plants.:

In the above photograph, you see the yellow flowering shrubby St. John's Wort to the left and then the thyme with its tiny purple flowers to the right.  Behind them in the back by the fence is my very overgrown oregano (tall green spikes) and then to the right of that a bush of purple sage.  Then there's another taller kind of gangling bush, which I don't recall what it is.  Between that gangling bush and the thyme in front, which is hard to see because the Japanese Stilt Grass is taking over, there are some plantings of rosemary rapidly being strangled out!  I don't know if you can see it but between the St. John's Wort and the thyme there is a gray stone wall.  That bed is slightly raised and has a retaining stone wall.  In order for me to get back to the herbs planted behind the St. John's Wort, I have to hoist myself up on the wall and walk over the plants.  I have several more St. John's Wort planted to the left of the photo, inside the fence.  You can't see it in this photo though. But I really want to get rid of the St. John's Wort shrubs in this photo, so I can easily access my herbs. 

Here we are inside the backyard fence at the other end of the long row of St. John's Wort.  I like the St. John's Wort there.  It's gorgeous, but I hate the tall grassy plants that are behind it.  I just think they overpower the area, are not that attractive and you can't tell from this, but the one on the right is actually shading out a little pineapple guava sapling.   I am really tempted to just cut these bushes way back for now but get them removed and plant something new this fall. 

Mint Drying Activity (Suitable for a 4 year old!)

 First, I found some old lunch paper bags at the bottom of a drawer!  Hooray!

Then D took a wooden skewer and while I held the bag, he punched holes.  Very effective and satisfying!

Then we went out to the mint planter on the edge of the garden, examined the leaves to make sure there were no bugs crawling around and snipped off a few.

He then got bored and wandered off.

I examined each sprig carefully and then using old twisty ties from bread bags wound then together into groups of three or four sprigs.  I put each grouping into a paper bag and then closed the paper bag with a rubber band.

Labeled with name of herb and date and put them into the study to dry.  (The study is located right over our furnace and is always the warmest, driest room and there are shelves in there to keep the bags of herbs out of the way.) 

Ta da!  I'm going to do this with our sage, oregano, thyme, rosemary, lemon balm and lavender.  And if I ever am able to grow basil, that too.  But I have so far this spring killed not one but two basil plants.  I can't understand it.  I have grown it before on my kitchen shelf and it lasted quite a long time.  And basil is my most used and very favorite.  Sob.

This whole process is super simple, which is right at my skill level!  I have been saving old spice jars and plan to store the dried herbs in them eventually.

I also hope to harvest and dry rose hips this year.  I understand that is not supposed to happen until after the first frost though, if I am remembering correctly.  

Drying Mint

Today's plans, besides general tidy up of patio area and some weeding (must be done today because it is supposed to rain for a couple of days midweek), are harvesting and drying mint.

Supplies needed (I don't have anything fancy and my house is in such a state of cluttery chaos, just gathering these things might be problematic!):

• scissors or clippers to clip the mint
• a paper bag with holes punched in it to dry the sprigs of mint in
• something to bind the sprigs together - like a twisty tie or rubber band (all my rubber bands have mysteriously disappeared though, even though we had a dozen of them wrapped around the knob over the sink just a few days ago.  What happened?  Who took them?)
• A dry, warm place to hang them.  The study is pretty warm and dry, maybe I can hang from the bakers rack that is in there?

We'll see what we accomplish today!

Garden Goals for 6/14/20-6/20/20

Two years ago (only that long?) we hired a permaculture, organic garden company (consisting of one guy and 3 or 4 assistants) to put in a garden for us.  I had incredibly grand plans and we only implemented part of them, which is good because I immediately got overwhelmed.  Gardening, especially if you are doing it in a permaculture way, is incredibly interesting, rich and complex. I still don't remember all the plants he put in and I don't know if I like all of them or if I like their placement.

I tried to weed and take care of maintenance but it soon became obvious that my arthritis (and my inconsistent energy levels) were going to rebel.  I have an especially arthritic knee (thanks Dad!  I must have gotten that from you!) and it goes into full rebellion.  So we hired the same gardening company to come by six times a year for maintenance.  I piddle around gently doing whatever I can (which is wholly inadequate) and occasionally I get other members of this household to help me.

I am slowly learning, but because I am easily distracted and because I am overwhelmed, sometimes, unfortunately, I put off dealing with it.  This is crazy because I love my garden so much.  It gives me so much pleasure.  I am thrilled by it!  And it is even a religious thing to me.  Gardening has deepened my faith and is a way of expressing gratitude and praise to my Creator.  I had not expected that!  Thank you, Jesus!

So I am intentionally making this blog more about gardening so that I can really keep a journal to help me along in both organizing and recording information. 

Mint truly is the easiest thing to grow!  It smells wonderful!

GOALS FOR THIS WEEK:
1.  Mint - I planted an old planter with mint last year and it has come back with abundance.  I want to try drying mint the old fashioned way.
2.  Protecting the blueberries.  My blueberry bushes are beginning to ripen.  There do not seem to be as many blueberries as last year, as I recall.  The birds have definitely discovered our garden (also squirrels and chipmunks) and so I want to figure out how to use bird netting.  I bought some but haven't put it out to protect anything.
3.  Continue weeding here and there where it looks the worst.  I plan to employ cardboard a lot to smother the weeds.
4.  Weed and prep veggie beds.  These need a lot of tender care.  I am late dealing with this due to covid 19.  I need to try to see if any seedling/starts are available.  I only have three tomato and one red bell pepper in, 3 sunflowers (from last year), potatoes planted from grocer store ones going to seed) which need some care, garlic which I am not sure when to harvest.  My lettuces have completely bolted and look wild and beautiful but are no longer edible.  I may also plant some seeds I have.  It's a bit late but better late than never.  I may need help with planting.
5.  FATHER"S DAY GIFT! - R is impossible to buy for but this year he actually requested this fancy new grill.  Very expensive - a purchase for a lifetime.  It's being delivered Wednesday.  So we need to dejunk and tidy up the patio area.  We have some leftover flagstones that I want to lay down in certain spots to increase the patio area.  It's just a bit too small for use. 

We don't have a lot of blueberries.  This little bush is the most promising out of the 7 we have.

These tasks may roll over to next and beyond. 

To be continued!

Changing Up This Blog

I have decided to change the name of this blog to one that reflects my two great hobbies as of right now, reading and gardening.  The quote from Cicero feels appropriate too, because  along with reading and gardening, I also love to study Latin, read classics, and tend towards (Christian) stoicism and (Christian) humanism and Cicero fits well there too for me.

I am excited to continue to journal my reading adventures here, but also to include much more about my gardening adventures as well.

Purgatory by Dante - Classics Spin

I am a week late with this post.  I didn't quite finish my Classics Spin in time.  I was a day late (first time!), but I did get it read.  And I am glad I did.  I feel slightly more educated.  I have heard about Dante's Divine Comedy for ages and ages and now I have officially read the first two books, Inferno and Purgatio.  Maybe one day I'll get to Paridisio as well!

I mostly read Anthony Esolen's translation for its ease and clarity; a real pleasure to read.  I found his notes very helpful.  However, I also would dip into Dorothy L. Sayers translation which I also enjoyed.  But what makes her edition so powerful for me were her extensive, clear and masterfully done notes to explain all that was going on in the text.  Really, her brilliance shone through her explanations and she made my enjoyment and comprehension of the story so much deeper.  I think her take on the masterpiece is a masterpiece in and of itself. 

There is so much going on in this story.  Dante was brilliant. He combines references to ancient Greek and Roman literature and history, Scripture and Catholic liturgy, contemporary (to him) literature and politics, (even science!) as well as a deep exploration of theology sometimes orthodox (like relying on Thomas Aquinas) and sometimes a little heterodox (his own sort of theological meanderings). All this written in a particular poetic style that employed so many clever devices such as acrostics, number play, plays on words, etc.

I only glanced the surface.  But what I saw was illuminating and admirable.  I so appreciate the Classics Club because at long, long last I am getting around to reading great literature I've heard about all my life and didn't get to in my years of formal education.

Catching Up on Reading

I really am into my booktube channel now.  So I guess I can only do some much social media at once.  This blog is dying a slow death.  But to prolong the agony, I will post what I've read since my last post way back in April.

The Marriage of Katherine by D. E. Stevenson.  A gentle novel in a trilogy perhaps? (I think this one is the second book, but it works as a stand alone as well).  Very pleasant escape.  Made me want to go to Scotland!

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.  A disappointment for me.  I have been wanting to read it for ages but found a lot of it annoying.  I did a video on it here.

Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.  This is a classic I've heard about all my life.  My interest in it renewed when I reread Little Women recently which references it a bit.  I did a buddy read for this one which really increased both my discipline in sticking to it and my enjoyment of it.  I actually found it an interesting read.  I am glad I read it.  The language is antiquated but the story line is simple and fairy tale like.  The underlying theology though gets a bit arcane at times.

Rose In Bloom by Louisa May Alcott.  This was April's read for the A Year With Louisa May 2020 challenge.  I enjoyed it but reading too much Louisa May Alcott is getting a tiny bit old for me, unfortunately.

Eagle Against the Sun by Ronald Spector.  This was a big survey of the Pacific Theater in World War II.  Very well written but chock full of facts and numbers and military stuff.  I don't know how much I retained, but I was rather ignorant of a lot of what went on in the Pacific at this time.  I read this because I wanted to know more about my father's experience as a fighter pilot in the Navy during WWII.  He fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  It took me 2.5 months to work through this book, but I am really glad I did!  Worthwhile.

Radical Prunings by Bonnie Thomas Abbott  This is an odd but very funny novel in the guise of a collection of a gardening columns.  Sometimes scathingly funny, sometimes sweet, sometimes absurd, sometimes actually giving good gardening advice, it was a fun, light romp.  I enjoyed it.

Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott.  Alcott poses as Nurse Periwinkle here but it really is a memoir of her time working as a nurse in a Civil War hospital in Washington DC.  She tells her story with a lot of humor, wisdom and pathos.  It's as if Jo March were talking.  She doesn't dwell on the fact that she got really ill while working at the hospital and that the doctors treated her with mercury which caused lifelong health issues that eventually led to her premature death.  I guess when she wrote this she wasn't aware of the damage done though she did experience insanity for a bit after getting home, probably the mercury poisoning.  Anyway, none of that is in this book, but it does give a good sense of how they did things during the war.  It was a break from the type of novels I've been reading by her this year (Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom) and I appreciated the different flavor!

Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson.  This is a classic of nature writing.  Williamson, a veteran from WWI, wrote it between the wars.  He moved to Devon which he loved.  He studied the natural world there.  Tarka isn't a children's book at all.   It is not sentimental but a dark and beautifully written book about the sheer joy of existence and the brutality of survival and death as told through the eyes of an otter.

Classics Spin #23 - my list

This is an adjusted list of the classics that I want to read.  This year I am doing the #Yearofreadingonesown challenge, which is a challenge to not buy any books this year but to spend it reading all the unread books on my various shelves at home.    The exceptions to this were the Louisa May Alcott books I didn't own already because I also am doing the #LouisaMay2020 challenge which is to read one book by her a month. (April is Rose in Bloom and May is Hospital Sketches)  Those I am trying to find for free on my Kindle. Or I may be able to get them out of the library via ebooks.  I haven't quite figured out how to do ebooks with the library, so that may or may not happen.  Anyway, I did a search through the house and here are the 20 books I came up with.  A few of them are rereads and a couple are books I had planned to read anyway (or in truth, have started reading already).

Classics Spin #23

1) Odes - Horace
2)  Democracy in America by Tocqueville (this one is long so I might just read excerpts)
3)  The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (Already started reading)
4)  Utopia by Thomas More (I know I own this but couldn't find my copy)
5)  Out of Africa by Isaak Dinesen (reread)
6)  Purgatorio by Dante
7)  Mythology by Edith Hamilton
8)  Short Stories of Flannery O'Conner
9)  Short Stories of Pushkin
10)  Favorite Tales of Sholom Eleichem (started reading)
11)  Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot
12)  The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne
13)  Bleak House by Dickens
14)  The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas (pretty sure I read this already but maybe not!)
15)  Civilization by Kenneth Clark
16) Till We have Faces by C. S. Lewis (reread)
17)  Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (already started reading)
18)  The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov (reread)
19)  The Leopard by Lampedusa
20)  King Solomon's Ring by Konrad Lorenz

Reading Catch Up!

I don't know why I suddenly stopped blogging.  You would think with this quarantine thing, I'd have the time, but I tend to take what free time I do have (keep in mind I am quarantining with 6 other people!) to do my booktube channel or I take the time to . . . . READ!

My reading in March was influenced by several things.  First, I am doing a 2020 challenge called Year of Reading One's Own which is a challenge to not buy books but to read those unread books gathering dust on your shelves!  March was also the Middle Grade March book challenge, so all these books are Middle Grade level.  Also Lent and St. Patrick's Day played a part in inspiring reading choices in March.  Here's what I have been reading:

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare - a reread, still excellent!  About a young man chaffing under the Roman occupation who encounters Jesus.  Good Lenten read!

Black Potatoes; The Story of the Great Irish Famine 1845-850 by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.  This book has been sitting on my shelf for years.  I did read parts of it when I first bought it, but not cover to cover.  Excellent addressing of the topic; just the right tone and level of detail for middle grade students.  I found the illustrations (from actual newspaper articles at the time) really interesting and compelling.

So Far From the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins.  This is an unusual story in that it is a  childhood memoir of the daughter of the occupying Japanese in Korea during World War II.  When the Japanese control collapses in 1945, her family must flee for their lives.  Harrowing and I think a bit adult for middle grade, but absolutely riveting!  I bought this book years ago at a library sale and I don't think anyone had read it until now!

Homesick; My Own Story by Jean Fritz - This is another book that sat on our shelves and I don't think anyone read it, even though we loved Jean Fritz's history books.  Well, it was excellent!  Highly recommend!  It tells the story of her childhood living in China during the year 1927 when they had to flee the Communists.  Her father ran the YMCA in a city in China.

Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott.  The story of a girl named Rose who has been recently orphaned and goes to live with and get to know her extended family.  Her new guardian is Uncle Alec, a ship's doctor, and she also gets to know her aunts and her seven lively boy cousins.  Lovely, cozy read.  Quintessential Alcott!  This was both Middle Grade and part of my #LouisaMay2020 challenge.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.