Almost wordless: Who needs expensive bird toys when there are rolls of paper towels to chew!
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More Wordless Wednesday. © 2014 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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Thank you to everyone that stopped by to enter the giveaway last week.
Winner: Kimberly V
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Welcome to Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia of To Be Continued, a place where readers share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.
After several years of being on tour with different blogs as the monthly host, the Mailbox Monday Blog is now the permanent home for the meme.
Here’s what arrived last week.
New Arrivals
Revival by Stephen King from Simon & Schuster Audio.
A dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.
The Jaguar’s Children by John Vaillant from Houghton Mifflin.
A gripping survival story of a young man trapped, perhaps fatally, during a border crossing.
How was your week?
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Judith of Leeswammes’ Blog and by Courtney of Stiletto Storytime are once again organizing a Book Bloggers Holiday Card Exchange.
I’m being lazy today and reblogging Judith’s post to pass on the word. Click through to her site for all the info and sign-up information…
The Book Bloggers Holiday Card Exchange is organised by me at Leeswammes’ Blog and by Courtney of Stiletto Storytime. Two years ago, Anastasia of Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog passed the baton on to us. Anastasia is the originator and ran this very popular event for two years. Courtney and I took over two years ago and had two very successful events in which 80 people took part.
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. We’re very late announcing the card exchange this year, so timings are tight!
Info
1. Sign up for the exchange by December 5th, 2014.
2. Emails with partner info go out December 8, 2014 (please check your spam folder if you…
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In North America the turkey is the iconic symbol of the Thanksgiving day holiday and is usually depicted as a cute bird in drawings, cartoons and images wishing everyone a happy day.
For most of us, our first-hand experience with the bird is cooking the domestic species for Thanksgiving dinner. But did you know that Wild Turkeys are a fairly common bird? They can be found across most of the United States and parts of Canada, although they are more common in the east.
Male Wild Turkey
This is the image that usually comes to mind when thinking of a turkey.
I photographed this male bird in the spring. He was strutting around all puffed up, displaying his tail feathers, and calling out “gobble, gobble, gobble” to attract a mate. Males will breed with multiple mates and leave the chick-rearing to the females.
Turkeys Live in Flocks
Wild Turkeys live in flocks and can be found year-round in open forests in the US and parts of Canada. They will venture into backyards and eat at feeders, but usually only on property adjacent to the woods.
The turkeys spend most of their time on the ground where they forage for seeds, nuts and berries. At night, they roost in trees.
Yes, They Can Fly
Turkeys usually walk or run on the ground. They can also fly, although I rarely see them do it. They will take flight in response to feeling threatened or to reach treetop roosts.
A Curious Bird
There is a large flock of Wild Turkeys that are year-round residents at a nearby park and adjoining golf course. They will wander out of the wooded area and can often be found roosting around the buildings or looking at their reflections in the windows. They don’t mind people, but will run if anyone gets too close.
A Recovered Species
In the early 20th century the Wild Turkey population began to decrease due to habitat loss, over-hunting and their popularity on the dinner table. By mid-century they were almost non-existent in Canada and rare in the United States. Eventually game officials set up a program to protect the species and their population has rebounded.
Have you seen a Wild Turkey?
Click HERE for a dynamic map of sightings over the past 4 years. Type your city in the location box to zoom in to your area and find out where the turkeys are living.
This post is linked to Saturday Snapshot, hosted by Melinda of West Metro Mommy.
© 2014 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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The Cat, the Dog, Little Red, the Exploding Eggs, the Wolf, and Grandma
by Diane Fox, Illustrations by Christyan Fox
Publisher: Scholastic Press | August 2014
Age: Preschool – 3rd Grade | 32 pages
A comical twist on “Little Red Riding Hood” told by Cat and Dog!
Cat is telling a story… or tries to anyway. Dog keeps interrupting Cat with questions. He’s not really paying attention and keeps adding his own comments and interpretation of the story. In the end, Dog is a little confused:
So let’s see if I have this right. The Red Hood is on her way to help an old lady when she meets the Wolfman. He has an evil plan. He likes to dress up in girls’ clothes and eat people. He and Red have a big battle and Red’s father puts an end to Wolfie.
Children who are familiar with the Little Red Riding Hood will be laughing at the absurdity of taking a fairy tale literally as I was. But even those who don’t know the tale, or are too young to understand the misinterpretation, will enjoy the interaction between Cat and Dog.
This is not a picture book but it does have cute comic book style sketches on every page along with the text, which is also in comic style above the head of the character that is speaking. There is also a little lesson in the story about not interrupting and paying attention to others, and is delivered with a fun dose of humor. And maybe a lesson there for adults too!
Rating: 3½ stars
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Source: Review copy provided by the publisher through AmazonVine.
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The Pocket Wife
by Susan Crawford
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: William Morrow
Publish Date: March 17, 2015
Format: Hardcover | 384 pages
Rating: 4 of 5
From the Publisher
Dana Catrell is horrified to learn she was the last person to see her neighbor Celia alive. Suffering from a devastating mania, a result of her bipolar disorder, Dana finds that there are troubling holes in her memory, including what happened on the afternoon of Celia’s death. As evidence starts to point in her direction, Dana struggles to clear her name before her own demons win out.
About the Story
Dana’s neighbor and friend, Celia, has been murdered and Dana is a suspect. But Dana, who suffers from bipolar disorder, hasn’t been taking her medicine, resulting in manic episodes. And there are so many things now that she can’t remember.
For Dana, the day Celia died is all a blur. Could she have killed Celia? They had too much to drink that afternoon, and then there was an argument, and that photo – did Celia really show her a photo of her husband with another woman? And now the threatening notes – or did she write them to herself? Is someone lurking outside her house, watching her? Does someone want to kill her too?
My Thoughts
Using multiple points of view and written in the third person, the reader experiences both the confusion and jumbled thoughts of Dana, a very unreliable narrator, and Jack Moss, the level-headed detective assigned to solve the case. There are plenty of potential suspects and interesting characters including Dana’s unlikable and uncaring husband, a neighbor obsessed with his volunteer job as the head of the neighborhood watch, and even Celia’s own husband, to keep the pages turning on this fast-paced, tightly-framed mystery.
Multiple plot twists divert suspicion among the characters and keep the reader on edge. And although new information is routinely uncovered, we keep coming back to Dana in her manic, frenzied and confused state as she tries to remember what happened and make things clear in her clouded mind. The ending went in a direction I wasn’t expecting, but it was an acceptable twist in an enjoyable debut novel.
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Source: Review copy provided by the publisher and Amazon Vine.
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