Friday Fluff

I was looking through some older photos and came across a picture of our Clivia plant. It belonged to my late MIL Dot and resides for the winter in Bob's basement. The plant is so root bound that it can barely stand up. I called on a Master gardener friend of mine to explain the best way to take it apart and make at least two new plants out of it. I will screw up my courage and tend to that soon. I'm a little shy about doing that kind of thing since last fall I decided to take my 45-year-old Jade plant apart and just keep the central large, original stem and some of the cuttings. Over the years, I have simply plucked off pieces of the Jade, stuck them in the soil and they grow like mad. Can't count the number of little plants I've started from that old one. Anyway, as fate would have it, the nice fat original stem is not doing well. I'll leave it alone under the grow light but I'm increasingly worried that I murdered my favorite plant. Should have just re-potted the old thing instead of cutting it apart so drastically. Rats.

I just started to read this book. I borrowed this picture from Amazon and it's not really clickable. So far I recommend it highly. I like a good murder mystery and lately I find that I'm getting bored with some of the writers that I have been reading for years. They aren't writing bad books, just some of them are a little formulaic and in one case I had no trouble putting it down and reading a little here and there. That's a sure sign for me that the book is a little blah. I like the un-putdownable book. That seems to be less and less a factor.
However, this particular book is a good read so far and I had a lot of trouble putting it down yesterday. Hoping that it's as good as it appears. The writing is just beautiful. Vivid descriptions and a detailed, evocative, writing. It begs you to continue just to read more about the two main characters and the writer has made the town and it's people a sort of character as well. He's a descriptive writer and you find yourself feeling cold with his talk of the harsh, killing, winter taking place. It's bleak but fascinating. Sort of puts me in mind of early Stephen King. I'll let you know how it holds up. I suppose you can't expect a writer to make every book fabulous and I think the books that are written in series formula like Kellerman, Grafton, Connelly, etc. are bound to run hot and cold. Too bad. Especially the way books are priced today. For that and a number of other reasons, I think the Kindle may be the answer for someone like me. At least I don't think you have to pay as much for the Kindle versions...not sure about that. Space is at a premium around here and we are trying to jettison as much of the stuff as possible. If not we will wind up like the Collier Brothers.....buried by the stacks.

We are having snow showers today. Enough!
Off to the sewing room.