30 June
June gloom has come late to this corner of the world. The heat and sunshine gave way to clouds, a bit of rain, and temperatures in the low 60s (Fahrenheit, of course). This was conductive to property maintenance — I have done battle with more blackberries than I care to mention, and I carry the scars now as trophies.
Strawberries, a few raspberries, and of course, herbs, have been coming in. I helped friends harvest cherries, and was rewarded with more cherries than I could hope for! Most have been either eaten or canned. I do love opening a jar of cherries to snack on in the depths of winter! Some were set aside to become jam. That is a next weekend job.
Herbs and strawberries were either immediately enjoyed or dehydrated for later.
It is Monday as I write this, and I am exhausted. Combination of hard labor at home and too many hours at work are catching up to me. But we must persevere, as this is the nature of life.
I have read some excellent books this week. The Divine Gardener’s Handbook by Eli Snow was an especially pleasant read. Very punk, very hopecore, very queer. All the things I like in a modern novel. I had an advanced reader copy, the book won’t be officially out until August. When it does hit the shelves, I highly recommend that you get yourself a copy!
As for nonfiction, I am working my way through Charles Eisenstein’s Sacred Economies. I expect it will take me a couple of weeks to get through at my current summer pace, as I have little time for the more concentrated reading necessary for such a work. Thus far, I have found it thought provoking and engaging, which is what I like best in quality nonfiction.
Finally, my own writing continues apace. I have made quite a few plot discoveries in the Ragman. Pandora, especially, surprised me by becoming more than just a sentence in a paragraph that developed some of the lore of this world. Before I mainly had fully developed characters strutting around the room, but only the idea of a story. Now I have both the story and the characters, so it is time to lock them in a room together to see how it all plays out. How exciting!
Over on Medium you can read Convenience Is a Trap, where I try to lay out why we need to do hard things and accept that kindness can actually be cruelty.
Enjoy the week, friends. Do something radical, revolutionary, and remarkable!
Yours in hope,
Jenny Wren 