Interesting post over at Dead Guy on what book buying will be like in 5 or 10 years. I love Janet’s posts, and I always find the topic of book returns by stores to be interesting. I never understood how publishers allowed returns to get so out of hand (For example: A bookstore is moving? They send everything back instead of paying to move it.) The basic problem is that publishers made it too easy to return anything. The booksellers have nothing to lose if they don’t push sales (even by such simple things as doing the marketing they sign up to do.) In the past, the only way a publisher could get a book to the public was through stores. That simply isn’t the case anymore and it’s high time the booksellers lost some of their leverage and had to start doing more to sell what they actually order. They would waste less fuel (in getting books there and then returning them), and other people’s money if they weren’t allowed to willy-nilly send anything and everything back.

Anyway, in the article Janet basically thinks that bookbuying is going the way of print-on-demand. You walk in, browse, and when you buy the book, it’s printed right there in the store. In the comments, someone argued that regular bookstores would never go away completely because there are collectors and die-hard book shoppers (I’m paraphrasing). Hmm.

My take? Things do change. I used to browse a bookstore almost every weekend. Now? I browse Amazon or other online bookstores, including Barnes and Noble (their website is somewhat faster a lot of the time.) I used to buy at least two to five books a month. Now? I go to the library once or twice a month and I buy almost exclusively online. For one, the selection is much larger and let’s face it: I don’t like every book I try. I’ve gotten pickier and I want to try authors for free. For two, the used book selection became very accessible–both by listing and by price about 7 years ago. So for several years, I did most of my purchases via Amazon used.

Right now I’m finding that used books are no longer nearly as accessible by price because of shipping charges. Until there is some way to combine used books and save on shipping, this route is fast becoming obsolete for me. It’s actually cheaper in many cases for me to find three or four new books on Amazon and eliminate shipping charges altogether using their promotions. I get more books in one drop. It takes me longer to shop, but I store up the books I read about that I want and then I go buy them all in one or two clicks.

There are times, of course, when buying used is still the cheapest option, and I will contiue to exercise such option when that is the case.

The point I’m making is that people younger than me are going to be even more inclined to shop online. They grew up with a computer in the household. They won’t care if it’s print-on-demand or shipped from a warehouse. Buying online will be a normal part of their lives and they may never even learn the fine art of browsing. For those desiring instant gratification (been there with books many a time–but often, the bookstore doesn’t have it anyway!) the bookstores will always serve a purpose. Bookstores are already changing–they are becoming places to socialize. This may or may not lead to a book purchase.

I agree that book buying is changing. I happen to think that it is going to be more influenced by online purchasing than changing bookstores. Bookstores will change, but they would have to change an awful lot to get me back in there. If they become more “interactive” in sales by adding video and sound, that’s not going to bring me in the store. To get me, the product would have to be accessible and cheaper than I can find online. Right now that isn’t the case and it doesn’t appear to be headed that way.

What are your thoughts? How do you buy most of your books now? Has that changed in the last 10 years?

Heliotrope is an online magazine put out by the fine folks at www.FantasyBookSpot.com; mostly spec fiction although in issue 3, they did do a crime story and I hear more crime is to come. This latest issue there is an excerpt from Sandra Ruttan’s latest book (crime fiction). I haven’t read any of the short stories, but you *must* go check out the cover of the latest issue. The artwork is totally awesome!!! It was done by artist, Teemu Vedenoja.

Helioptrope Issue 4

We stayed at a great little place in DC and it was in fact, the only place I found that was remotely affordable. 

I found 25 Quincy Place through the rental service www.Rentalo.com.  This place won’t be for everyone; it’s about 1/2 mile from the nearest metro station, which means quite a bit of walking if you aren’t used to it.  The nearest grocery story is a metro stop away–but another 1/2 mile walk from that metro to the store, so to get groceries, you have to be prepared for about 2 miles of walking total.  It’s doable if you’re in shape and don’t mind carrying the groceries.  Of course it would be even easier if you’re willing to pay for a cab to get yourself situated.   You can rent a car, of course, but I believe that only certain sized cars can be accommodated and there may be an extra charge for it; check the rental page for details/updates.  Not only that, parking a car in a lot of DC locations appeared to be next to impossible.

We loved this rental for several reasons; one of which was price. For four of us to stay in a hotel would have been $200 to 300 a night and we would have had to cancel the trip altogether.  We stayed at the Quincy place for around $150 a night for all four of us (not including tax and check the rules for minimum stay requirements.)   There are two bedrooms in the place so we had our privacy.  The master has its own bath; the other room has one three steps down the hall, and there’s a powder room on the first floor.  The neighborhood appears to be in the middle of renovation, but it was not noisy either during the day or at night.   The people renting the place were wonderful–they answered my questions and went above and beyond in a couple of cases. 

You’ll do a lot of walking in DC if you decide to use the metro to get around.  Again, it’s very doable if you don’t mind walking and are in shape for it.  Carry a water bottle–and an umbrella!

Eats

I spent a significant amount of time reading through the Washington Post recommended eating sections online.  Don’t bother; it was completely outdated and wrong for most of the restaurants we tried, especially where prices were concerned.  In our search for good restaurants, about all we did was add a lot of extra walking.   We should have eaten at Union Station more. Union Station was accessible, had lots of food choices and had some of the most reasonably priced food we saw.  I don’t usually recommend food courts, but honestly the price/quality was better than at least two of the sit-down restaurants that came highly recommended.  We got breakfast goodies from two of the bakeries at Union St, and there’s a place there that serves a full breakfast (dad recommends the french-toast). In addition, I highly recommend Great Wraps for sandwich type goods and Burrito Brothers for their wonderful selection of very large and reasonably priced burritos!

Other than Union Staion, I recommend a stop somewhere in Chinatown.  We ate at Full Kee (509 H St. NW, Washington, DC) and the food was great.  The prices were around $10 to 12 dollars per entree, but we generally ordered three for the four of us and had the perfect amount of food.  Full Kee served hot tea with the meal, a tradition that I love.  Since no one else in my family drinks hot tea, I got the whole pot!

There were lots of other places in the Chinatown area; many of them looked very good and prices in this area seemed to have a wide-range to cover all budgets.

That about sums up the DC trip.  All in all we had a decent time, but I don’t think I’ll need to go back anytime soon. I felt we saw everything we needed to and it’s always good to be back home!

Been a while since a book has made an entire post by itself.  This one will make the author favorite lists as well.

The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez   With a pulp-fiction cover and the ridiculous idea that anyone would want to read about a robot detective in a futurized (and much changed) earth, this book is a great read.  It’s funny, it’s comical, it’s absorbing and most of all, it’s FUN.   Martinez does such a good job with characterization, this robot manages to be endearing yet stay within the bounderies of a robot!  Fantastic!

As I mentioned in a few other posts, the museums weren’t everything we expected.   The best, by far, was the Natural History museum. An excellent displays of rocks, gems and metals (gold, copper, silver, paladium)  with everything well marked and easy to read.  The Hope Diamond was also displayed (would have been nice if the story of the curse that supposedly follows it was posted.  Or even a larger post of where it was mined and who owned it.) 

There was also a very good display of preserved animals–a chance to see what ibex, bats, and various other animals look like.  The display was well done and enjoyable with many exhibits.  There was also a separate exhibit with birds.

The mummy exhibit was almost interesting, but I’m afraid compared to the British museum it came across as rather scant.  There is an exhibit of a human mummy and a very interesting one of a bull that was mummified.  The stone sarcophagus didn’t look real.  The wooden coffin looked very real and was interesting.

There was also a dinasaur exhibit on the first floor geared towards children, but worth a very quick tour.

One of the more frustrating issues we dealt with was the lack of information–both inside and outside the buildings.  When you are in the courtyard of the “mall” of museums, the buildings are not marked well.  You have to walk up to the actual door to see the name of the buiding.   Finding out what is on display inside pretty much involves looking for yourself.  The volunteers at the information desk do hand out a booklet that is supposed to help you decide which museums to visit, but the information is so scant and general, it is not worth the paper it was printed on.  Most of the “guide” was ad space.  The most useful information was a map of the buildings that I printed before I left.  I think the same map was probably inside the guidebook, but the one I took was very helpful when we first stepped off the Smithsonian metro station and had to choose an unmarked building to get started.

For some odd reason the back of the museums where the streets ran were better marked.  There were even ads outside the buildings with some pictures and information about what was on display inside.   I’m not sure why this type of information isn’t available from inside the courtyards and why there isn’t more information available.  I know that the Smithsonians have a lot of material.  I wish they’d include more of it in their exhibits and some sort of online listing of what can be found at the various museums.  I know the displays change frequently, but keeping an updated list would be extremely helpful to visitors. 

We saw an ad on the DC metro for a “live frog” exhibit at National Geographic, so when the museums weren’t working out too well, we decided to find it. It rained the day we went, but the frog exhibit was worth the walk in the rain. It wasn’t a large exhibit, but we enjoyed the variations in the frogs and of course, found the poison dart frogs fascinating. They are the most beautiful of frogs (well, they are the most colorful anyway) and also the most deadly.

Indigenous Emberá people of Colombia have used the poison from the frogs for centuries to tip their blowgun darts when hunting, hence the genus’ common name. There was a nice display of a blowgun and the the quiver used to store the darts. From what I read, the toxicity of the frog is most likely dependent on what the frog eats; frogs in captivity are not toxic and for those in the wild, the toxicity varies in each population.

We hadn’t intended to visit the botanical gardens in DC. I mean, you can pretty much put up a garden anywhere, but when the museums didn’t have enough to hold our attention…

Turns out the garden was one of our favorite places. Granted, it was pouring rain outside so we probably stayed longer than we otherwise might have, but it was orchid season! There were other flowers there too, of course, but the gallery below is pretty much dedicated to the orchid room. The last flower in the picture is actually from a tree that was along the Potomac basin. I don’t know what kind of tree it was, but the flowers were just gorgeous. Only about half of the flowers in the botanical garden were marked so if anyone wants to write in with a name, I’ll add a caption. My favorite was the purple flower with white lace lines through it–there was no marker, but what a lovely, lovely orchid!

Click on the pictures to see larger images.

Recently completed the grand tour of Washington DC. Took the parents and took in museums, monuments, restaurants and anything else we could find. The problem? The museums were a bust as far as good ones. Yeah, I know. I almost had to read that twice myself. The great Smithsonians were like a picked over Blue-Light Special clearance section.

What the hell happened to them? I was there twenty some years ago and loved them. There was so much to see, I could barely stand still long enough to take in the exhibit in front of me. This time around, it looked like some marketing specialist for modern art was in charge during the renovation. Two of the museums in the mall area were still under renovation and completely closed. That in and of itself was a bummer. Why weren’t some of the exhibits from those museums moved to other buildings? There appeared to be PLENTY of empty space in the buildings we visited.

Just one example: In the Native American building, the first two floors were dedicated to empty hallway space, a restaurant and two very small museum shops–the only exhibit was a canoe that appeared to be a “replica” rather than a real one on the first floor. The hallways were wide and empty enough to race bicycles.

There were a lot of contemporary bowls and contemporary native clothing–essentially native garments done by today’s artists. They were gorgeous mind you, but I really didn’t go to a museum to see a modern artist’s rendition of an outfit that was originally designed back in the 1800’s. Several were sewn in 2000 and after, sitting next to the odd one here or there that were made in the 1800 and early 1900s. All of them were beautiful, but you had to check the dates to even know whether you were looking at something done by modern hands, or something done back on the plains using hand-prepared hides, bones, and seeds. There was little documentation to explain what ceremony the outfits might have been used for.

There was very little pottery and if there were old ones recovered from archaeological sites, I didn’t see them, mainly because once I figured out we weren’t talking history, I moved past them. There may have been older pottery bowls mixed in, but there was only a single, short wall of pottery period.

Drawers along one wall contained arrowheads and some steel tomahawk type weapons. Not much by way of documentation to be able to tell who used the weapons, although there were dates.

There were no teepees or utensils such as bone needles, scrapers for the hides, stones for grinding corn. In fact, there was very little information about the different tribes–none of the various artworks such as blankets (Navajo), baskets, pottery or dolls (Kachina or otherwise). I think I saw a few pieces of Indian jewelry, but not much (Not a single piece of Zuni jewelry, for example.) From what I recall, each tribe had their own styles when it came to pottery and painting of pots. Too bad the Smithsonians hid all that in the back somewhere. I certainly would have liked to see some of it.

The Indians didn’t all live the same. They had various ways of life–hunting, planting, pueblos, war-mongering, etc. None of that was mentioned anywhere. The different arts and ceremonies from the different tribes was completely missing. What a letdown.

We also visited the Smithsonian Castle, a museum that supposedly had exhibits/examples from each of the other museums. It was very nice and the samples were great–All two rooms on one floor that was was shared with an eating area and a small restaurant/snack place. We thought we’d be able to see some things from the museums that were closed. And we did. Probably two or three exhibits. What a letdown.

I don’t understand what changed or why. The Smithsonians are supposed to be premier museums in the world, certainly in the United States. There may be more lighting and “interactive” displays, but the content was sadly, sadly lacking. I’d rather have clutter to explore and wonder about than artfully arranged glass cases with one sample of one theme.

I’ll blabber some more about the trip and post some photos in future posts. We did enjoy the Natural History Museum–it contained at least 3 floors of exhibits. My husband visited the Space museum and found some good things there, although there were probably a few too many “replicas” rather than the real thing. Its main purpose appeared to be dedicated to entertaining small children.

We also enjoyed the monuments. There truly is something wonderful about reading the inscriptions at the Lincoln memorial in the hushed environment. People were very respectful and polite.

Yellow primrose looks like egg yolks dropped across the lawn just before dusk. Their bright yellow color is an echo of the sun.

Pink primrose are open during the day. The are often in large clusters along the highways in the Hill Country of Texas. In my yard and in the park they are more like a scattered bit of decorative wrapping tissue waving in the wind.

I’m not certain of the correct name, so I call them wild violets. They are such a gorgeous purple, just little jewels at the ends of thick blades of grass-like fronds.

Update!!! Kat over at the Armies reading group tells me these are, in fact, Spiderworts!!!! I am very happy to have the right name! Now if that one last type of wildflower comes up this year, I’m going to post it and see if I can find out the name of it!!!

Last, but not least–the winecup. What a delightful flower. The color is so intense, and only a few cups grow together. When driving, you see a quick spot of brilliant color that makes you want to go back–what could possibly be such a rich, reddish purple? These beauties seem to mostly spread by creeping, but the flowers are about a foot apart and grow perhaps six inches high. They are a wonderful spot of color anywhere, but stand out in fields of bluebonnets and paintbrush.

I was going to do wildflowers because quite a few have popped up, but I haven’t put up the ones in my garden either! I hope the tomato plants do as well as the flowers this year, because I’ve had a great crop of colors. There’s probably six to ten tomatoes out there, but the largest is about the size of a golf ball–excepting the single grape tomato that is about, oh, not even pea-sized yet!

The cucumbers are just starting and so are the zuchini. Of those the zuchini grows the fastest. I expect the first one might be ready by the end of the week.

It rained last night–and both rain barrels are full! This will keep me going for at least the week. After they are empty, we might raise them just another six inches or so. The higher they are, the better they drain.

I usually have quite a field of wild flowers in the back, but this year, the flowers are a bit scant. There are more Indian Paintbrush flowers than bluebonnets this year. The rain came at a good time for the paintbrush, but wasn’t plentiful enough for the bluebonnets. Still, they are a pretty landscape and I enjoy them!

In Texas, these bright orange flowers are known as Texas Paintbrush. Of course!

This week’s Reads

This week’s reads are actually “Listens.” I drove to Houston this weekend and took along some podcasts. Two were quite good and made the trip go faster–both happen to be from Clonepod (I had some other podcasts from another station, but they weren’t remarkable enough to mention). These two spun along, working their magic:

I Have A Daughter by Catherine Edmunds is a bit of a love story–and a deep wish that we could always protect our children.

The Poisoned Chalice by Brian Stableford is an interesting little elf tale. It’s an adventure, but it’s also got a lot of “consequences” in it. I enjoyed this one a lot.

I have a mother-in-law file that includes stories about mom. Some are about mom and dad. This one is about dad.

I recently planned a trip to DC–taking my parents from NM and my husband and I from Austin and spending a few days touring the museums. Dad loves museums, but with his eye condition, he’s a lot slower getting around than he used to be. This means I have to plan trips where he can do things at his own pace. He hates getting on a plane, however. Or being in public where he might run into someone. Or…well he has a lot of excuses for any activity that is outside his immediate comfort zone.

But I plan the trips and he goes anyway. This morning, on the phone, I asked him if he was excited about the upcoming trip to DC.

“I’m not going there.”

“Yes you are.”

“Nooo, I’m not.”

As if he hasn’t been bragging left and right about this trip. Mom has already told me that he’s told all the neighbors and half the relatives.

A little while later in the conversation he asked, “How many days are YOU going to be in DC?”

Eye roll. I told him, “You’re going to be there 3 days.”

“I heard about this really great tour bus ride,” he said.

“What is it called?”

“Red (the neighbor) told me about it. It sounds like it would be neat.”

“What’s it called?”

“It’s a tour bus. It goes to a lake and monuments and all the places.”

Sigh. I’m sure there is only one such tour bus ride. Should be easy to find. NO PROBLEM.

I sent him a bedspread for an early father’s day present (he’s been asking for a new one. I got him a handwoven wool one from Spain.) When I asked if he liked it:

“It’s pretty, but I don’t know if I like it yet. Lots of blue.” For dad, there are no simple questions. Liking a bedspread involves how well it fits on the bed. How well he likes it over time. Is it warm enough? Is it too warm?

“Did you notice the other side is the opposite colors–brown/blue?” I asked.

“No, they are the same.”

“No, they are not.”

“I’m gonna check.” Pause. “Yup, they are the same.” Pause. “Blue and brown and…” pause… “There’s blue on both sides, but there’s more white on this side. Or maybe brown.”

Yeah, maybe.

Sorry folks, this one is a tad blurry!

You’ll also notice, if you look closely, that it is NOT a red rose. Oh, but it is supposed to be! I specifically went in search of a rose like Grandma’s, comparing descriptions on the internet and even seeing some bloomed. Finally I settled on a Gypsy Rose. A nice bright red, big bloom and great smell.

I watched it grow. I watched the blooms form. Strangely they were kind of pinkish orange…sigh. The plant was mismarked! I was *very* disappointed, but the rosebush was planted. Worse, I had also bought a Miss All American Beauty–for the only other location that I could use for a rosebush. No more room for rosebushes.

This pretty orange rose smells very nice and lasts very well as a cut rose. Sadly, the bush is a *climbing* rose bush, which means I must spend more of my gardening time pruning it. At least the All American turned out to be a bush type, rather than a climbing type.

Rain Barrels Yup, you guessed it. Still needing a little bit of adjustment. Today I planned on emptying them, using the last of the water for the garden. Two things went awry. The water in the main barrel was beginning to smell–very, very bad. I think the oak pollen was happily rotting away. Secondly, after I propped them sideways, not all the water would actually drain. No way was I leaving that smelly water in there! So we had to disconnect the two barrels and empty the water out the overflow. The problem with this is that the connection was intended to be permanent–using tie-wraps. Looks like we need something that I can take on and off because I’ll definitely want to empty the barrels completely, especially during times of the year when there is potential for mold, smell and any other nasties that I haven’t thought of yet.

If anyone is looking for us, we’ll be at Wal-Mart and the auto store checking out hose clamp type things to find something that can be taken on and off.

These flowers were in the yard when we moved in–along with bunchs of other native wildflowers such as blue-eyed grass, evening primrose, and the Texax dandelion (which isn’t a dandelion, but a rather large, pretty yellow flower). I added bluebonnets and paintbrush, which are also native to the area. But this little pinkish flower has remained a mystery. I don’t know its name, and so far I haven’t seen it elsewhere. It grows well in partial shade to almost full sun. It doesn’t need much water and it blooms about now every spring. I’ve dug up some of the plants and moved them around to various areas that needed coverage. I enjoy the blooms a lot. If anyone has any idea what they are called, let me know!

(The grass-like fronds are the leaves that belong to the flower. The stalks/leaves look vaguely like bermuda grass in that the fronds are flat and before it flowers, it kind of waves in the wind like an over grown wild bermuda grass.)

Update: A blog reader sent me an email identifying the flowers as Moss Phlox! I think she’s right. I had seen phlox in gardening sections before, but none that looked quite like mine–I didn’t realize there were many different kinds and colors, all with slight variations. Maybe we have this one solved!!

Rain Barrel Update
We finally got about a quarter of an inch of rain–and guess what that equals??? ONE full rain barrel! It didn’t quite make it to the overflow into the second barrel, so the second one only got about an inch or two of water from roof runoff. What does this mean? I’ve got 70 gallons of water for my garden! Of course…the garden got rain too so I won’t actually *need* the water for two or three days, but it’s there!

I got a new type of leaker hose to try out. It’s supposed to work better with very low pressure water (water coming out due to gravity certainly counts). We’ll see how it goes!

Read of the Week comes from GalleyCat this week. Bob Miller–of the publishing world–has moved to Harper Collins to start a new unit. Apparently he is going to attempt a few new things in publishing–no advances, but split profits with authors; no returns from bookstores (an idea that should have been implemented, at least in part, long ago. At the very least a better return policy would be nice, one where it isn’t so easy for booksellers to return a book one week and re-order it the very next); do more with online and ebooks.

There’s some interesting ideas, including some info about Stephen King–apparently he has already embraced the idea of forgoing a large advance in favor of a larger split of the profits. Hopefully Galleycat will follow up on how some of these ideas turn out.

Haunting Clues is now available in audio over at www.Clonepod.org!!! Leslie Ann Moore did a great job recording the story, using a few voices, accents and good pacing–definitely a giggle or three.

It’s April 2008 already. Don’t ask me where the time goes!

The lilies are looking great and there are more colors to come. Even without any planning on my part (I just pick flowers I like) I’ve managed to have flowers coming in as others are going out. It’s been a great flow and I’ve really enjoyed the spring this year.

Best read of the week:

What if you went missing? Would anyone find you? What if your body was found? Could anyone identify you? Sometimes the authorities don’t have the manpower to do everything. That’s why this story about a bunch of volunteers that try to help was such a great read.

Garden Update
The currant tomatoes are, uh, well, getting big. Okay, they are the size of small peas–which means they will turn red soon! That’s the good news. The bad news? I’m starting to see dreaded Spider Mites. Time to get out there and spray whatever works best. I actually use a special spray for spider mites. No, it is not organic. I’ve tried organic for these pests, believe me–lady bugs, organic herb oils, neem, etc. The neem oil works best, but it can burn the plants. It would probably be my second choice, but I’m lucky. I still have some of Green Light’s stuff that is specific to spider mites. I don’t think it kills anything except mites (it might kill spiders too.) At any rate, I’ve never found anything that works better. I spray twice at this time of the year and then I’m done. The only plants that have tomatoes at all are the currant tomatoes–which means that none of my fruit will get any of this nasty stuff on them.

In past years when I tried to use soap and water or neem oil–I’m out there spraying for a lot longer, fighting a lot harder, and sometimes the whole year. Frankly I wasn’t up for it this year. I did it completely organic last year, and I was wiping spider mites off the leaves every single day just to keep up.

Woohoo! Today I fiinally purchased my first two rain barrels for collecting water for gardening and possibly the lawn. I HATE spending money to water the lawn. Water in Texas is Quite Expensive. We stopped watering the backyard a long time ago. It’s a big yard and there’s simply no point in pouring all those dollars just to grow grass. Of course, rain barrels in Austin run 60 to 95 dollars–until I found them on Craigslist in a GREAT deal. Went and picked them up and they will soon be ready to go! We’ll need to install a bit more gutter and get some cinder blocks to hoist them up, but hopefully this summer I’ll spend a little less money keeping the front lawn looking presentable.

On the reading front, I’ve got Sandra McDonald’s The Outback Stars checked out from the library.

The freesias are blooming–just one or two here and there. I’ll put up a picture when more open. This is my first year trying them and I must say they’ve been very easy. I should probably have planted them deeper as the plants tend to lean over, but the flowers are gorgeous and it looks like there will be a lot of them. The bulbs were quite cheap considering the price of most bulbs. I think I paid six dollars for twenty-four bulbs of different colors. They are really pretty.

www.TheTownDrunk.org has their new issue out. Two new stories. Both of them were pretty weird this time around.

3/8/08

Unburied the plants this morning when it hit about 40. They all survived! Oh, there’s some freeze damage on a few leaves and some leaves just get battered by being covered in mulch, but all in all, I don’t think I lost any.

So I rinsed them off and they got some sunshine today. We’ll see how they look tomorrow, but they should be back on their way to getting big enough to supply me with produce.

For my future reference, I need to keep sawdust on hand for these late freezes. Past years I’ve used that instead of mulch and overall I think it’s a little kinder to the plants. Either way, mulch or sawdust, you have to apply it carefully. You have to support the lowest leaves by piling the stuff underneath and then slowly building up around each plant limb. Near the top, I usually end up with a pyramid shape and that’s why some of the top leaves freeze–not quite enough mulch stays in place. It trickles down the sides.

Onward to tomato season!

March 6, 2008

What with global warming and all, it seems that the Hill Country, Texas is having a couple of nights of late-season freezing. I’ve lived here going on seven years and not had a freeze this late in the Spring. But don’t worry, I mulched around the bases of the plants up to the top leaves and covered them. I may lose some, but hopefully won’t lose all.

The life of a farmer. Hail and all.

Update 5:15. I think it’s sleeting.

I know, I know, I promised these beauties days ago! Yes, I’m a little lazy about uploading pictures…

On the reading front, I finished “The Spellman Files” by Lisa Lutz–a Dilys award nominee. It’s got a lot going for it, but I haven’t read any of the others, so who knows which deserves to win??? It is a light-humorous tale, good beach reading.

Over at FBS, I interviewed Jim Hines–that interview should be posted by this weekend and I’ll update the link when it goes live. Jim has a new book out on March 4–Goblin War and I reviewed it already over at FBS.

Spring is here! My daffodils said so!

Finished reading Old Man’s War by John Scalzi and really enjoyed it. I added him to favorite authors under science fiction–the first time I’ve had a need for the category since I don’t like very much science fiction!

www.ClonePod.org has accepted Haunting Clues!!! I’ve been told that the talented Leslie Ann Moore will be reading it. I can’t wait. It’s tentatively scheduled for about 3 months from now.

I’m in the middle of listening to The Poisoned Chalice by Brian Stableford. I was really pleased to see this story out there because I’d often thought about reading Fantasy Gone Wrong edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Brittiany A. Koren. The Poisoned Chalice appeared in that anthology a while back and now, thanks to Clone Pod, I get to try a story for free!

Anyone that knows me or that reads my blog now and then may figure out that I don’t make my living from writing. That doesn’t mean I’m not interested in money matters or how much writers make or even money management; in fact quite the opposite. There’s a reason I link to www.BearMountainBull.com, my husband’s investment blog (and where I contribute).

When I started writing, hanging out at the occasional conference and talking to other writers, I noticed pretty quickly that very few writers had a business plan. Money management? Taxes? Not high on the conversation list.

Today I ran across a couple of posts that discuss money and what writers get paid. One such article is on Jim Hines blog–he’s a successful writer–three books published with a major publisher, many published short stories, and more books on the way–but Jim Hines doesn’t make his living writing. Another is John Scalzi–an even more successful writer, at least by writing income standards. And do note that he makes money writing fiction and non-fiction. He’s been freelancing for a lot of years. He has a plan; he’s a professional.

Hines’ article is very interesting because you’ll learn what a lot of authors may make when they have three books out. John Scalzi’s article covers not only basic finance, but has some info that is specific to writers. It should be required reading–and not just for writers.

Here’s a small sample of Scalzi at the top of one rant:

But you want that 42-inch 1080p TV! I understand; I want it too. What you do is save for it. When you save for something, it’s like you’re making a payment on it, except that you don’t have an evil credit card company charging you 19% for the privilege. I realize it’s condescending to put it that way, but, look: If people actually knew this, they wouldn’t have thousands in credit card debt, now, would they? And yes, it’s true that while you’re saving for that HDTV (or whatever), you don’t have it, and we as a nation are no longer used to the idea of not having what we want now now now now now. Well, get used to it, you insolvent jackass. Otherwise some bank owns your ass well into the next life. Really, that’s all I have to say about that.

Garden
All the tomatoes are out there. If it freezes…well, let’s not think about that. We’ve got some nights in the high 30s coming along, but it’s getting towards mid-Feb. A freeze could happen, but it gets less likely each day. The tomato plants look very small out there, nothing like a plant that can support a half pound tomato.

I put the zuchini, cantaloupe and cucumber seeds in pots indoors. Something kept eating the seeds I tried outside. No doubt some nasty worm that is now fat. Hopefully the plants will be up soon. I’ve had pretty low germination luck with a number of the seed packets that I purchased this year. That’s the first time it’s happened. The Siberian tomato seeds took about 12 seeds before I got two to come up.

Reading
I finished reading Clues, Haunts and Mystical Madness! For the most part, excellent stories. I enjoyed “Computer Virus” by Melissa Mead–it works well in an anthology like this. A light story thrown in there between some of the more intense works. But it is a ghost story so it’s not too light. I think my favorite finds were Martha Well’s works. Very tense, well-paced page-turners. The Chatterslee Circle by Jaine Fenn had some great characterization. I loved the geeks in this story and was reading with great glee. I’m not sure the story actually went anywhere though. It reminded me of when I send an email to people I know about people they know. Fenn writes so that I felt like I knew these guys–but I’m not sure anything really important happened. “And Justice for Doll” by Will Ludwigsen was kind of like that too–an email to family and friends. It’s the type of story you expect to find in Reader’s Digest–cute.

All in all, I was very pleased with my picks. One of the things that I liked about it was that I mixed shorter shorts with longer picks so it made for really easy reading–I could read a quick one or a longer one. All of them were good enough to keep me turning the pages. If I had to build this anthology over again, there would probably be three or four stories I wouldn’t include, but mostly that’s because they weren’t my style or they were perhaps just a little darker than I would have liked. I’ve been out to www.AnthologyBuilder.com since I built this little gem and I already know of at least 5 stories I could include instead.

Garden:

Okay, I put three tomato plants out there. Yes, it could freeze. One groundhog said more winter, one said, “No way, spring is here!” So I only put those out where I had doubles. I still have a backup plant of each of the three inside!

Couple more snow peas/snap peas have poked up. Not a whisper of a leaf on cucumber, zuchini or cantaloupe. I’m hoping with the days in the 70s that they’ll be up in the next couple of days. If not, by about Wednesday, I’ll probably replant.

Impatient? Me???

On the story front, I’m about halfway through “my anthology” I’m really, really enjoying most of the stories. So far there has been only one that I disliked, but it’s a style thing, not that the story is poorly written. There’s been a couple that were “meh” take it or leave it, but the rest–keeping me completely enthralled. The quality of the stories is just really good. Predictably, Jim Hines “Blade of the Bunny” is a favorite and Nancy Fulda’s “Pastry Run” was a very good adventure. Both lots of fun.

“Wolf Night” by Martha Wells–excellent, excellent page turner. “The Thrall” by Mike Shultz– just a fabulous, magic-wielding, page-turning adventure.

As I said, I’m about halfway through. I’d rearrange a couple of them now that I’ve read the stories–put some of the lighter stuff after some of the more intense stories, but it’s hard to know that before you read them…

Oh also on the reading front: Check out Aberrant Dreams latest issue. I haven’t read all the stories, but I very much enjoyed “A Very Minor Demon” by P.M. Griffin. Yeah, it’s corny, but it’s fun reading. The other one I liked a lot, and completely different was, “The Shogun and the Scientist” by Thomas L. Martin. Good adventure.

BMB (www.BearMountainBull.com) is visiting the blog today to post about his latest coffee roasting methods:

After 9-10 years of roasting via the hot air method, with both the Hearthware Precision (no longer in production) and the Fresh Roast Plus-8, I decided to take a stab at an even cruder roast-it-yourself method: roasting on the stovetop with a hand-cranked popcorn popper.

Why would I bother? Two reasons. First, when I was ‘between’ roasters, and my Precision roasters started to give me problems, I wanted a reliable backup in case of a breakdown of my primary roaster. I eventually decided on the Fresh Roast as an inexpensive, no-brainer, backup (now primary!) roaster. But…eventually it too might wear out, so I kept studying the options. The second issue I wanted to solve was that I’ve always wanted a way to roast bigger batches. With both the Precision and the Fresh Roast, it takes around 3 batches to roast a half-pound of beans. For my everyday espresso needs, those three batches last a little over a week, and then it’s back to the roaster for another three. I thought it would be really nice to be able to roast at least a half-pound in one shot, either for my own use or when roasting up coffee as a gift.

So, one day not too long ago I was roaming around Sweet Maria’s site for god-knows-what (coffee probably), and stumbled onto the ‘Stovetop Popper method’ page. The light went on - “that’s it!!” It’s cheap, it’s reliable (all you need is the popper and a stove), and it roasts a half-pound at a time. Score!

The next question to be answered was: which popper to get? Of course, there wasn’t much doubt that I would go with one of Sweet Maria’s recommendations, and the slightly heftier stainless steel model from Back to Basics sounded like a good idea. So I did a little poking around on the web, checking prices on the B-to-B Stainless Steel popper. After much searching, the best deal (though minus the sampler coffee pack offered by Sweet Maria’s) was at WalMart.com. They’ve got the popper for the cheapest price that I could find, AND they’ll ship it to a store near you for free. Done.

Back to Sweet Maria’s for the stovetop popper method ‘tip sheet’. Might as well get advice from those that have done this before.

The ‘tips’ had some good ideas, one of which I was going to do anyway, and that was the ‘dry run’ - put the green beans in the popper, without heat, and see how the paddle pushed them around. So I measured out some beans. Three ounces of beans turned out to be just less than a quarter-cup, so I tossed in about three times that amount. The tips sheet recommended between 6-9 ounces, and that put me right up at the top of that range.

Pushing the beans around with the crank/paddle, I saw that some beans might get pushed up against the edge of the bottom of the pan, and that the paddle tended to keep some of the same beans bunched up against it as it turned. To counteract those tendencies, I decided to stop the paddle, maybe even reversing it slightly, and shake the pan to mix things back up.

With the range hood exhaust fan (which vents to the outside - important!) on ‘High’, I preheated the pan as directed. That only took a few minutes on my gas stove, with the burner at a medium-low setting. In order to check the ‘air’ temperature inside the pan, I dangled a candy thermometer inside. Once the air temp reached around 400° F, I tossed the beans in, closed the lid and started cranking, stopping to shake things around now and then.

The smell of roasting coffee beans was evident shortly thereafter, and just as the ‘tips’ said, first crack started around 6 or 7 minutes in. I reduced the heat slightly, then kept roasting until I heard the snaps of second crack for a while - I was roasting up my espresso blend, which I usually roast a minute or two into second.

One problem that I noticed - I like to judge the degree of roast by the color of the beans, but down inside the pan, the color and/or oils on the beans were pretty hard to see. A small drawback–I’ll have to judge more by sound.

Once I decided the beans were done enough, it was time to dump them into the metal colander for cooling (we’ve got a nice hefty metal colander - perfect for the job). But be careful, because the beans are hot, and the colander will get hot too. You might want to have something under the colander. Not only will it get rather warm, but remember there is no chaff collection mechanism in the ‘popper’ method, so all of the chaff is still in the ‘roaster’ and will pour out into the colander with the beans. Some will slip through the holes. If you’ve roasted coffee before, you know how that chaff can fly around.

I took the colander outside (with oven mitts), and tossed the beans around to cool them, blowing chaff away in the process. I think a better idea would be to have a fan ready and waiting. Let the fan blow over and through the colander as you toss the beans around, and it will help to cool the beans and blow away the chaff.

Once the beans were cooled, they looked and smelled great. My first ’stovetop roasting’ effort was a success.

Next time, I think I’ll have that fan ready to help cool the beans, and I might set up another fan in the kitchen window to help with the ‘exhaust’ effort - the kitchen smelled like coffee for an entire day afterward. But that didn’t bother me much…

So if you want a roasting method that should prove to be quite reliable over the years, and also produces a bigger batch, consider giving the ’stovetop popper’ a shot. It’s cheap, it’s kinda fun, and it works!

Oh wait, there’s one last problem: I’m not sure that you’ll want to use that popper for popcorn after roasting coffee in it.