Writing matters

Whew. Thank you for your patience, dear readers, as I coped with multiple writing deadlines. I was able to boot my latest Love Inspired Amish manuscript out the door at about 8 pm last night.

Meanwhile, I'd like to direct your attention to an interview I did with a lovely woman named Elise Cooper, who reviewed two of my titles: "An Amish Marriage Agreement" and "The Amish Baker's Redemption."

"An Amish Marriage Agreement" is the story that, rather surprisingly, hit the New York Times Bestseller List. "The Amish Baker's Redemption" is its better (in my opinion) sequel. Her interview can be seen here.

Writing deadlines up the whazoo

If I've been unusually quiet on the blog lately, it's because I've had writing deadlines up the whazoo. I'm finishing up a manuscript (due Monday) and have been either outlining or writing a number of articles.

Additionally, Older Daughter has had some exceptionally exciting developments in the past week. I'll be posting an update on those developments shortly.

In the meantime, sorry for the silence!

Four-legged weed-whackers

Three years ago, you may recall, we participated in a county program to reduce underbrush in wooded areas as part of fire-mitigation efforts.

The portion of our property cleared by the crews was wildly overgrown and very, very steep (this section later became our "sacrifice pasture"). The crew did a beautiful job of clearing out the underbrush. After that, we were contractually obligated to maintain the property in a cleared condition.

During this process, we mentioned to the county official that we planned to do this with livestock. She was delighted and said it's one of the best ways to maintain a cleared area.

So here we are, three years later. The other evening, we walked below the sacrifice pasture and remarked how beautifully our four-legged weed-whackers are helping in this endeavor. (That's the corner of our barn on the center-right edge of the photo.)

By contrast, there is a half-acre parcel immediately adjacent to our sacrifice pasture owned by an absentee owner. This parcel hasn't had the benefit of either the county program or livestock maintenance. As a result, his section of land is still a tangled mess of underbrush.

Fortunately, for fire mitigation purposes, this tiny parcel is literally the only overgrown area in our isolated little valley. Everyone else either has open fields and/or grazing livestock, so it all evens out.

My new favorite broccoli recipe

As many readers know, I love broccoli. I mean, I seriously love broccoli.

I've had this veggie prepared in endless ways, but Older Daughter introduced me to a method of roasting it which has become my new favorite recipe.

It starts with cutting up the heads...

...until you have enough for the meal's requirement.

To this, add olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, Panko bread crumbs, and Parmesan cheese (shredded, not grated).

Add these ingredients in whatever proportions you prefer, and mix thoroughly.

Then spread the veggies on a baking sheet. Some of the mixture will have sifted to the bottom of the bowl, so spoon this over the top of the broccoli.

This particular baking sheet belongs to our toaster oven, which I use for roasting.

Set the temperature to 400F for 20 minutes.

And voilà: The best roasted broccoli I've ever had.

Bon appétit!

Wow! Eighteen BILLION!!

I received an email the other day as follows, with the subject line "Are you still alive? Please reply":

Headquarters: Valley National Bank
Address: 1455 Valley Rd, Wayne, New Jersey, United States
Phone: +1 (973) 223 6098

Congratulations! This is the third email I am sending to you. You have been randomly selected to receive US18,400,000,000 and the latest Tesla Cyber Truck from the ongoing Elon Musk raffle draw. Many people around the world have benefited from this raffle. This bank has been entrusted by Elon Musk to process and deliver your winnings to you, therefore, don't sleep on this opportunity.

Kindly provide the following information to proceed:

- Full Name
- Residential Address
- Contact Number
- Email Address
- Occupation
- Date of Birth
- ID or Driver’s License

As of March 2026, Elon Musk, the CEO and owner of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, is the richest person in the world, with a net worth frequently exceeding US600–800 billion. He leads billionaires like Larry Page and Bernard Arnault by a significant margin. According to scripture, blessings are given not to encourage greed but to empower us to help others kindly and generously. Those who give with a joyful heart receive even greater blessings.

Additionally, please confirm if you have authorised Mr. Gordon Williams, an attorney claiming to be your close friend, to pay the US500.00 fee for paperwork, shipping, and customs clearance. He also claims you gave him the power of attorney to receive delivery of this money and the Tesla Cyber truck to his address.

Please respond promptly to clarify this matter.

Mr. Ira D. Robbins
CEO and President
Valley National Bank

Golly. I'd better not "sleep on this opportunity"! Think what kind of farm we could buy with this kind of money! Think how much this "blessing" would "empower" us to "help others kindly and generously"! Think how stylish we would look, driving around our dirt roads in a Tesla cyber truck! Elon Musk is certainly generous to bestow $18 billion on "randomly selected" plebeians like myself.

Pass.

Planting potatoes

I'm slowly getting various things planted in the garden, notably the cool-weather stuff that can handle spring temperatures. Last week I planted potatoes.

Unlike last year, when I planted eight beds and harvested 230 pounds of potatoes, I'm limiting our potatoes this year to just three beds. That's because we are still swimming in potatoes and don't need eight more beds' worth.

I had already layered compost on the beds from a couple weeks earlier, so all I had to do was turn it over (which takes just a couple of minutes per bed).

Lots and lots of worms, always a nice thing to see.

 

 

Now let's briefly digress to last October, when I harvested all the potatoes from last summer's garden. We ended up storing them in burlap bags in the "cool room," a small unheated room Don built off our bedroom as extra storage space.

 

We were pressed into using this space as an impromptu root cellar, and to be honest it's worked out amazingly well. In previous years, without a dedicated place to store potatoes over the winter, they were ridiculously overgrown by April – fine for planting, but not for eating.

But last year's potatoes – and remember, we still have lots – are still in excellent shape, even after six months in storage.

For planting, I brought out the burlap sack that contained the smallest potatoes, which I used as seed potatoes.

I arranged three rows of seven potatoes each, for a total of 21 potatoes per bed, or 63 total potatoes.

Using a trowel, it doesn't take long to bury each potato deeply.

That's as far as I got last week, and ever since then we've been dodging some fairly major rainstorms.

With more rain on the way, the one thing I hadn't yet done was put straw mulch on the beds.

Mulching takes no time at all.

Mr. Darcy supervised the process.

Except for a little light weeding (notably, of the volunteer wheat that will grow from the wheat-straw mulch) – and watering, of course – that's all I'll need to do to the potatoes until October, when I'll harvest them.

It's a good thing I got the mulching done when I did, since we had a dramatic bit of rain move through today.

A wedding reception

Last Saturday, I attended the reception of some friends whose 30-year-old son just got married.

I've known this young man since he was seven years old, and when I was invited to what I thought was an engagement party, I was happy to accept. But as I was chatting with the mother, I asked when the wedding was going to be. "Yesterday," she said, and chuckled.

As it turns out, the couple went to a Justice of the Peace in a nearby town (the county seat) and had a small private ceremony with just the family members present. The bride wore a tea-length casual dress. The groom wore a kilt. (The family are of Scottish descent, so everyone already owned kilts and plaids, which was the theme of both the wedding and reception.)

The reception was also small and held in a local community hall with just family and close friends invited, maybe 30 people in all. It opened with a prayer by the groom's father. There was a small buffet and tea (all made by family members), and two store-bought sheet cakes (one chocolate, one white) for guests, with a small round cake for the bride and groom to cut. No music (except a Celtic playlist softly broadcast on speakers), and no photographer except the groom's talented older sister. Afterward, all the family member pitched in to wash dishes and put the community hall to rights.

It. Was. Wonderful.

Seriously, what this couple wanted was a marriage, not a wedding. They didn't go into debt and spend thousands of dollars on an elegant wedding dress, tuxedos, cake, a DJ, a wedding photographer, catered meal, or any other of the usual trappings of a wedding and big party. Instead, they were able to have a chance to accept the congratulations of their closest friends and family members in a casual and stress-free environment. Now this young couple can look forward to building their future together without debt.

(Here's a blog post I put up a couple years ago with my take on weddings, frugal or otherwise.)

I was privileged to attend this reception. I wish this lovely young couple every happiness in their future together.

Taxes, whee!

As with almost everyone else in the nation, we filed our taxes last week. I do our taxes by hand, as I have for the past 30+ years. However these days taxes don't take nearly as long to do, since (a) we retired our woodcraft business, and (b) I lost my online job a year ago February. Less money means less taxes, right?

Last year, despite a vastly reduced income, we still had to pay quarterly taxes based on the previous year's (higher) income. We had set the necessary funds aside, so this wasn't a hardship. This year though, when we met with our tax preparer, we made sure to stress our reduced income.

In the tax preparer's office, we saw this notice of "Respectful Behavior Required."

When our tax documents were prepped and ready to sign, we weren't altogether surprised to learn we're getting a modest refund. However, we still have to pay some (reduced) quarterly taxes. But here's the ironic thing: Our quarterly taxes, added up, equal the amount of our federal and state tax returns.

Seriously, they equal out almost to the dollar. What we're getting back is almost exactly what we will owe. Therefore, everything we get back will go into the account for paying the quarterlies.

Taxes, whee!

Cotton-candy season

Around here, April is what I call "cotton-candy season" for the simple reason that the wild plum trees explode with blossoms, making the hillsides look like they're covered with bits of cotton candy.

Get the sun involved (either early in the morning or late in the afternoon), and the effect is magical.

Closer up, the trees are no less enchanting.

I took some shots of the blossoms on the plum tree in our driveway.

Then we had one day of brisk wind, and that was the end of that. Without the wind, normally the falling petals coat the roadways. This year, they were mostly whisked away in shimmering showers of white. The petals were too small to photograph during this process (I tried), so all that was left was bits of petals caught in road ruts.

Cotton-candy season doesn't last long, a week or two max (which reminds me of the line "Gather ye rose-buds while ye may" from the poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time").

Because everything is early this year due to our freaky-mild winter, I'm hoping it wasn't too early for the insect pollinators to do their job.