Announcing the winners of the giveaways of the past few weeks. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to enter.
[Winners were selected by random.org.]
The Shortest Way HomeWinner: Carol Wong
Bearers of the Black Staff Clear Your Shelves Giveaway
Winner: Shelver of Bookshelvers Anonymous
K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain
Clear Your Shelves Giveaway
Winner: Anne
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© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Mailbox Monday
Mailbox Monday was created by The Printed Page. It is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their home last week.
Mailbox Monday is currently on tour, hosted by a different blog each month. The November host is Kathy at BermudaOnion’s Weblog .
Another light week as I received just one new book for review. That’s ok, and it should be like this the next few weeks as there are only a few requests outstanding, and maybe I can get a little caught up.
For review from the publisher:
The Guilty One
by Lisa Ballantyne
A little boy was found dead in a children’s playground…Daniel Hunter has spent years defending lost causes as a solicitor in London. But his life changes when he is introduced to Sebastian, an eleven-year-old accused of murdering an innocent young boy. As he plunges into the muddy depths of Sebastian’s troubled home life, Daniel thinks back to his own childhood in foster care – and to Minnie, the woman who adopted him and whose love saved him, until she, too, betrayed him so badly that he cut her out of his life. But what crime did Minnie commit that made Daniel disregard her for 15 years? And will Daniel’s identification with a child on trial for murder make him question everything he ever believed in?
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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.
Share what you read last week and what you are currently reading.
It’s hard to believe the year is almost over, but my calendar does say November and that means only a few more weeks left before 2013 arrives.
This week will be busy. I am hosting Thanksgiving dinner for a small group, but that still means shopping, cleaning and food preparation, so I should get through a lot of audio in the next few days.
Reading/Listening This Week:
I’ve already started reading The Things That Matter and am finding it quite different from what I expected. I had imagined lots of decorating advice but instead it’s much more personal as Nate talks about the many people that influenced him in his life. Next up is Giving Up the Ghost, a goodreads win from a few months ago (yes, I need to catch up!) and two audiobooks, Dolly Parton’s short speech on her philosophy of life, Dream More, and a scifi audiomovie, Resonance, that I requested for review.
This weekend, and especially Friday, I will be participating in the Thankfully Reading Weekend event and avoiding the Black Friday crowds. So there may be more books added this week.
Last Week:
I finished Neil Young’s memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, which was very good; interesting, entertaining and not the usual sex, drugs and rock and roll memoir. I also finish The Yard, and while I enjoyed the story, it was a bit too complex for audio and required a lot of concentration. Reviews will be coming soon, hopefully this week.
What are you reading?
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© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Every year about this time I pull out my peanut butter suet recipe and cook up a treat for my backyard birds. Sure, you can buy suet in the store, but I have to believe this must taste better as they eat it twice as fast. If this recipe sounds familiar, it is, because I posted it last year. Publishing it again gives me an opportunity to post one of my photos of a woodpecker enjoying some suet, and to show it to new readers or those who may have missed it.
Female Downy Woodpecker enjoying some suet.
This recipe does not work in warm weather as the peanut butter will melt into a sticky mess. The stores sell a no-melt formula that works well in the summer, but I take the suet feeder down during the hottest months. There is plenty of natural food available for them and many of the summer residents are insect eaters and won’t come to a feeder.
Peanut Butter Suet
Ingredients
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup lard or vegetable shortening
• 2 cups plain yellow corn meal
• 2 cups quick oats
• 1 cup flour
• ⅓ cup sugar
• raisins (optional)
• chopped nuts and/or hulled sunflower seeds(optional)
Preparation
Melt peanut putter and shortening or lard in large pan on low heat. Add remainder of ingredients and mix well. Pour into a pan and allow to harden at room temperature.
Chop into chunks or squares and place in a suet cage. I like to re-use the plastic molds that the store bought suet comes in. It can also be served crumbled in a shallow dish or pressed into holes drilled in a piece of dead branch and hung in a tree.
Store in refrigerator or at room temperature.
Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Participation is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.
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© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
A few weeks ago on National Public Lands Day I went on a Prairie and Bird Walk at Wolf Road Prairie Nature Preserve, an 80-acre remnant prairie, wetland, and savanna complex that is part of the county forest preserve. Thanks to the Save the Prairie Society, it is now protected from development.
The prairie has an interesting history. This 80 acre parcel of land was originally planned as a 600 lot housing development in the 1920s. Sidewalks were laid in the south 40 acres but the project failed in 1929 during the Great Depression and was never completed. Since then the prairie has remained mostly undisturbed.
The prairie is surrounded by commercial development but is remarkably quiet and peaceful. In the photo above office buildings can be seen rising up in the distance. I could barely hear the traffic on the nearby four lane roads.
The sidewalks and three cutouts for streets still remain at the entrance to the prairie forming an eerie grid through an oak savanah before reaching the open prairie. Some of the sidewalks are intact but most have some damage from trees growing along side them. Above, a large tree has broken one of the sidewalks.
The prairie and it’s wetlands are home to over 150 species of birds, more than 360 native plant species plus amphibians, insects, butterflies, mammals and is a resting point for numerous migratory birds.
Many sparrows and hundreds of goldfinches were eating seeds in the prairie grass. Below is a Tree Sparrow, a migratory bird that makes its home here during the winter.
A Baltimore Oriole nest was hanging in a Cottonwood tree. The orioles were long gone having migrated south a month earlier.
A group of European Starlings were lounging in a dead tree. There were quite a few cavities in the tree and I was told by the bird monitor that they had taken over old woodpecker nesting sites.
This looks like a deer skeleton, but I’m not sure. Yes, it was a little creepy looking but I stopped and took photos anyway.
A walk through the prairie wouldn’t be complete without some milkweed.
These photos are from a few years ago. I didn’t take any pictures on my walk last month but these were taken at the same time of year.
Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. Visit her blog to see more great photos or add your own.
© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Thankfully Reading Weekend
Thankfully Reading Weekend kicks off November 22nd. Avoid the holiday weekend crowds and the shopping and spend time reading.
“There are no rules to the weekend, we’re simply hoping to devote a good amount of time to reading, and perhaps meeting some of our reading challenges and goals for 2012. We thought it’d be fun if we cheered each other on a bit. If you think you can join in, grab the button and add your sign in post to the link-up below. If you don’t have a blog, you can sign up the comments!”
I’m not good with crowds and will be avoiding the crazy Black Friday shopping event that has become a tradition in the US. Instead I intend to relax after hosting the previous day’s Thanksgiving gathering and read a book or two. If it’s nice outside I’ll be out walking and listening to a book, but no where near a shopping mall.
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Virtual Advent
Signups are now open for the 2012 Virtual Advent Tour. It runs from December 1st through 24th.
“Each day anyone who wants to participate takes turns sharing a treat with our friends here in blogland. For example it could be something about your family traditions, recipes, your country’s holiday traditions, or a favourite Christmas memory, movie, book, song…anything you like. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas we would like to hear about what your family does during the holiday season, whether it be celebrating Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever it is that you do during this time.”
This is a fun tradition and I’ve enjoyed participating in the past and have already signed up for this year. More than one blog can be on tour for each day, so choose a date and join in.
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Book Bloggers Holiday Card Exchange
Sign up by November 30th to be a part of the Book Bloggers Holiday Card Exchange.
“The Book Bloggers Holiday Card Exchange is an event in which book bloggers send each other a holiday card around the Christmas period (the end of December). This isn’t just for people that celebrate Christmas, though! Everyone is can join in the fun. The swap is open internationally.”
This will be my first year participating in the card exchange. I’m looking forward to receiving some real mail instead of the usual bills and advertisements and getting to meet a few more bloggers.
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What Events Are You Joining?
Let me know if I’m missing out on any fun Hoilday events.
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© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
The Storm (NUMA Files #10)
by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown
Narrated by Scott Brick
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Publish Date: May 29, 2012
Format: Audio, 10 hours | 47 minutes
Audio Listening Level: Easy – Intermediate
Rating: 3½ of 5
While conducting research in the Indian Ocean, three members of NUMA, The National Underwater and Marine Agency lead by Dirk Pitt, are attacked and killed when an unidentifiable swarming black mass engulfs their sailboat. They had no time to escape or call for help before being overcome by the attack.
NUMA investigators Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala are called to look into their disappearance. Upon closer inspection of the the mysterious mass that attacked the ship, they found it contained nanomachines that were designed by an eccentric scientist. The scientist claims to have no knowledge of the attacks.
Someone has stolen the nanomachines and is using them to tamper with the temperature in the ocean in order to control the weather. Once dry areas of the Middle East will now receive rain; areas depending on the annual monsoon will suffer drought. It’s up to Kurt Austin and his team from NUMA to find and stop the terrorists.
This was 10 hours of entertaining, fast-paced, escapist fun. I enjoy thrillers that have a bit of futuristic science in them and this one didn’t disappoint. There were enough plot twists and action to keep the reader/listener involved. Scott Brick’s narration was a pleasure to listen to as he kept the pace moving and added a level of excitement in his tone when needed.
While I’ve read some of the earlier Dirk Pitt stories, this is my first NUMA Files book. Having the background from earlier books would have been nice from a character development point of view, but it was not needed to enjoy the thriller aspect of the story. For Dirk Pitt fans, Dirk does make a brief appearance as he is now the director of NUMA.
Clive Cussler fans should be happy with this latest adventure from the NUMA files and new readers to the series can feel comfortable jumping in and giving it a try.
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Source: Review copy.
© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Almost wordless: While out on a birdwalk Saturday, I noticed the turkeys were keeping their distance from the humans. They actually flew over a fence to get away from us. A flying turkey is something you don’t see very often. They must know something is up. This is a photo from earlier this year when they were much friendlier and proudly displaying for the females.
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More Wordless Wednesday. © 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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