Harvesting--with Help from the Dog

Unseasonably cool day here in the Los Angeles basin. Last week's triple digit baking-in-the-sun temps have given way to an overcast, comfortable 70's. Whatever the reason, the garden is loving it.



Belle and I harvested fennel and mustard seeds this morning. Usually, she's really good about not bothering the plants. (Well, except for green "bell" peppers. All bets are off when those are ripe!) But apparently, when I start snipping off fruit or pulling up veggies, that means it's time for us to be bopping or digging up the plants.



A couple of firm "no" commands had her pouting next to me (until she got distracted by a lizard). So I got about a tablespoon of mustard seeds from the one plant that survived the snails, probably an equal amount from the fennel stalk I allowed to go to seed. Broadcast a few of each kind into their respective pots and brought the rest in for cooking.



Harvesting and the cool weather, and this being the first post-Labor Day weekday, has me really feeling like autumn has arrived. I have no illusions that the heat and Santa Anas are done for the year. But for today, I'm going to start a nice chicken rice soup, throw some Italian spices in with the breadmaker ingredients, and enjoy the California-style "change of season."



Deadline coming up for a romantic erotica story. Maybe I'll write about a homemaker cook?

The Scheherazade Plan

I have two "day jobs": home-based writer of steamy love stories and housewife making a whole lot of expenses not happen. I've had 300 short stories published, so I still have a ways to go to reach Scheherazade's 1001 Arabian Nights. Fortunately, my husband is a great guy, and I have a computer. I also have a garden, pets, dishes and laundry.

Sometimes I wonder, would Scheherazade have been such a prolific storyteller without servants—and without the incentive of having to come up with a cliffhanger each night so her psychotic (albeit “the king”) husband wouldn’t kill her in the morning?

Scheherazade told stories to save her life. I tell them because being a writer is a fundamental part of my life. So I’m going to see how hard it is to be as prolific a storyteller as she was in a nonlethal setting. I’m going to write 1001+ love stories while happily married and while wrangling the blasted housework.