Auntie, would you like to borrow my straight jacket for Max? He wouldn't be able to pick things up and eat them, just throw himself around and into walls
I am working on the illustration for her second short story this weekend. Should have it finished for her tomorrow
I really like her writing and even had my book club read her novel as my pick a few years ago. I didn't tell them it was written by my sister-in-law. Just said it was from an unpublished author and that she wanted completely honest opinions. Everyone liked it and believe me, if it had been bad, I would have heard about it! LOL She is shopping her novel through the "old school" agent system, but decided to release the short stories on ebook. I think that may be a good way for her to break out and get some recognition.
We can't talk politics, but we have similar taste in literature and love talking about books. My SIL is pretty cool for a leftist pinko commie democrat
On the home front, I am taking a break from cleaning the duck pen. Yikes! All those extra drakes and all the extra rain really made a mess of things. As OFG calls it... POOP SOUP! I've hauled 3 heavy loads in my little red wagon and have put the duck muck on the garden beds. I only have 2 done. No worries...plenty of poopy straw to cover the rest of the beds! I had been using straw for bedding but because of the Texas drought, all the straw is going out there and my local store wont be carrying it anymore for quite a while. Since the big fall clean up can't wait anymore, I will pick up pine shavings and use that until the leaves start to fall. It is usually pretty dry around here this time of year, so I should be able to use the leaf blower/shredder to make my own bedding. Not sure the leaves from the yard will last all winter, but the leaves will really cut down on the bedding bill.
I also cleaned out my 3 sisters garden bed. I have been picking corn here and there over the last few weeks. The squirrels got quite a few ears, but I got enough to freeze a few bags. I don't use it often, but I like to have some on hand. I have been wanting to experiment with coconut flour based muffins with corn and jalapenos as a corn bread substitute. Since I have had trouble finding affordable organic sweet corn, the little bit I got from the garden will do nicely. I also ended up with 6 pumpkins. Well, 5 hubbard squash and 1 blue pumpkin. ALL of the pumpkins have nibble spots from evil squirrels, but not too bad. 1 small hubbard squash that was growing up in the grape vine looks like hell though. I guess they have been munching on it the whole time. Evil beasties!
There were quite a few millet plants growing in among the corn and pumpkins. Again, the work of the evil squirrels. They have been stealing seeds from the quail pen. Nice to know, though, that I can grow millet. I pulled the seed heads and threw them in the quail pen.
Well, need to get my butt back outside. I will try and post some pics later