tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40146965604011105152024-02-19T04:55:49.779-05:00Dogear Diarya book blogJeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.comBlogger2587125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-80206376701242985662021-02-28T19:58:00.002-05:002021-02-28T19:58:40.185-05:00noticeDogear Diary has moved to Wordpress! If you are not automatically redirected, please visit me at dogeardiary.com Update your feed to follow my blog at https://dogeardiary.com/feedJeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-12374550154405373412021-02-23T21:56:00.001-05:002021-02-23T21:56:16.975-05:00Backyard GiantsThe Passionate, Heartbreaking and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Everby Susan WarrenI should have guessed that in the world of competitive vegetable growing, there's people whose goal is to produce the biggest pumpkin ever. When this book was written, men aimed to break the record with a pumpkin that weighed over 1,500 pounds (now the world record is 2,624 pounds). This story focuses Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-57567072075767691032021-02-20T12:49:00.002-05:002021-02-20T12:49:53.435-05:00Living with BugsLeast-toxic Solutions to Everyday Bug Problems by Jack DeAngelis This book is very straightforward: an entomologist who worked for the Oregon State University Extension Service for some twenty years, wrote it to inform the general public about bugs. The book identifies the creepy crawlies that are commonly found in homes in the States and tells a little about their Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-19105929483876435172021-02-18T21:58:00.001-05:002021-02-19T11:03:14.208-05:00The Exotic GardenDesigning with Tropical Plants in Almost Any Climate by Richard R. Iversen
This book is about growing tropical plants in a temperate climate. It has information on design- including how to artfully combine the varied textures, colors and growth habits of different plants to best effect. It tells how to cultivate them, including keeping in pots or setting out into beds, Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-45595259078566386572021-02-16T21:46:00.000-05:002021-02-16T21:46:01.533-05:00new shelves!A while ago I said to my husband, why don't we put shelves behind the bed? where there's empty space between the headboard that leans back, and the air duct that juts out. I looked for a long time and couldn't find any ready-made bookcase that would fit at just 9" deep. So he finally built some for me:
I held things up, moved cords for the drill around, painted. Took us about two days. Then Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-80913737042337123012021-02-13T23:47:00.001-05:002021-02-13T23:47:28.153-05:00You Grow Girlby Gayla Trail
When I started reading this book, I thought it wouldn't teach me much new. I could not have been more wrong. Yes, it covers the basics of gardening, keeping things simple and small-scale whether you just have a balcony space or a patch of backyard. Includes explanations on things like mixing potting soil, making compost, cleaning tools, reading plant labels, Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-36367864805499631452021-02-12T00:12:00.000-05:002021-02-12T00:12:07.627-05:00Saving Doveby C.S. Adler
I read this book in a hot bath, just under two hours. It's a horse story where the whole narrative arc is about how to procure treatment for an injured horse. It has a lot of difficult things going on: Jan's father has recently died in an accident, she and her mother are still grieving. They had to give up their large ranch house to live in the small "casita" Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-61563574882062445162021-02-11T23:52:00.000-05:002021-02-11T23:52:30.708-05:00missing migrantsPomegranate Artpiece puzzle- 1,000 pieces. Nice sturdy jigsaw, though a bit difficult- there's all that blue and the variations between pieces are definite but also very subtle. Honestly I thought at first I wouldn't really like doing this one- it's very abstract with a lot of similar, flat colors. I had to do a lot more looking back and forth between closely at the provided image to figure out Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-63535244321978472742021-02-10T12:39:00.002-05:002021-02-10T12:39:55.428-05:00The Rapture of Canaanby Sheri Reynolds
I was skeptical about reading this book because I thought it would have a strong religious bent, but found that once I started it, I simply couldn't put it down. It is about religion, but not the way I had guessed. It reminded me a lot of Witch Child- by the tone, and how it's about a young girl who doesn't quite fit into a secluded community.Ninah belongs Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-89036609464327441542021-02-08T17:59:00.006-05:002021-02-08T18:01:09.097-05:00All My Patients Have TalesFavorite Stories from a Vet's Practice by Jeff Wells, DVM
A nice read from a veterinarian who worked in mixed animal practice, first in South Dakota, then in Colorado. Part memoir, mostly stories about the animals he treated, with a broad dash of humor. He tells about going through vet school, first days on the job, attempts to prove his knowledge and skills to the Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-36566351560480370292021-02-06T15:57:00.000-05:002021-02-06T15:57:28.297-05:00The Rhino with Glue-On Shoesand other surprising true stories of zoo vets and their patients edited by Lucy Spelman and Ted Mashima
I like reading about veterinary work. This collection about wildlife vet care is light reading (ie: not the highest writing quality) with brief, intriguing chapters. The twenty-eight stories are each related by a different veterinarian, with a preface by the editor Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-85789400613816126412021-02-03T16:26:00.001-05:002021-02-03T22:49:15.358-05:00The Flight of the Horse by Larry Niven
I think I got this book at a library discard sale or thrift shop- where I recall snatching it up immediately. I recognized it was book I'd read decades ago as a teenager. It's a collection of short stories by sci-fi writer Niven, in which he diverges more into fantasy (I've never read any of his sci-fi). The first part of the book was very familiar on this Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-61011036435060085522021-02-02T16:02:00.000-05:002021-02-02T16:02:01.645-05:00The Heart of the ContinentA Novel of Australia by Nancy Cato Story of two women, mother and daughter, who worked as nurses in the far Outback during the late 1800's and early 1900's. The first woman, Alix MacFarlane, was eager to study nursing even though her well-to-do parents frowned on it- nursing wasn't considered a proper occupation for a lady then. She worked where she was needed in a few different remote Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-91190576194091689082021-01-31T20:35:00.001-05:002021-02-01T10:13:08.115-05:00new year TBRI used to think of myself as well-read but have long since been humbled by all you wonderful book bloggers who keep reminding me of how many books out there in the world I've never even heard of, much less had a chance to read yet. Hence, another TBR. Thank you, for continuing to add to the piles of titles in my hopeful head.found at my libraryBecause Internet by Gretchen McCulloch- Shelf Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-4200352118413504522021-01-25T23:00:00.001-05:002021-01-26T10:36:54.787-05:00Ella Minnow PeaA Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
I've had this book on my shelf for some two years, but hesitated reading it because well, from some reviews it just sounded too gimicky. It was- and it wasn't. Very clever the wordplay, plenty of charm and humor throughout and yet how sobering the underlying message. The premise starts out with something rather ridiculous- there's a small Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-47918152935233626602021-01-24T16:00:00.000-05:002021-01-24T16:00:29.715-05:00Afternoon of the Elvesby Janet Taylor Lisle
Hillary is intrigued when the girl who lives in the house behind her shows her tiny little cottages built of leaves and twigs. Sara-Kate tells her in whispers they were built by elves, and soon has Hillary wrapped into the imaginary world of the elf village. The other kids at school scorn the idea, and talk unkindly about Sara-Kate- her worn clothes, Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-34714418484848526342021-01-24T10:00:00.000-05:002021-01-24T10:00:13.207-05:00The Listening Silenceby Phyllis Root
This is a short J fiction book I picked up on a whim secondhand. It's about a young girl in a Native American tribe. At five years old, she's been living alone with her parents for some time. Her father leaves on a hunting trip and when he doesn't return, the mother goes out to find him. The girl Kiri waits and waits but nobody returns. A couple from another Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-54546646970824488232021-01-23T18:54:00.003-05:002021-01-23T18:54:24.857-05:00Garden Open Todayby Beverley Nichols
Delightful book written by an avid gardener who was famous in Britian. He wrote lots of books about his gardens- this is one of the later ones and frequently makes references to past events or plants he used to grow or things he mentioned in other volumes, but never in a way that left me feeling in the dark. This book seems to have a focus on flowers, in Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-69533126600188275422021-01-22T11:58:00.009-05:002021-01-22T11:58:57.350-05:00Onions in the Stewby Betty Macdonald
You know a book is going to be good when you're already laughing aloud on page four. Very lively and funny, this. It's about when Betty Macdonald lived on Vashon Island (across the sound from Seattle) with two daughters and her second husband. Time period is the late forties. Some things like doing the cooking and housework for a family with Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-43587677137151697942021-01-19T14:21:00.002-05:002021-01-19T14:21:42.467-05:00The Gift of the Deerby Helen Hoover
This is a nice little book about whitetail deer in northern Minnesota. The author and her husband lived in a remote cabin in the woods. They habitually put out food for the birds and squirrels in winter and one particularly hard year, a starving deer showed up. They helped the buck survive- cutting cedar branches for it to eat (recognizing that corn would be Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-44833698433119400982021-01-16T19:30:00.001-05:002021-01-17T15:06:38.170-05:00e-reader book caseWell, I made a new cover out of a book for my kindle paperwhite. Same method as last time, gluing the pages together into a solid block, tracing around the device and cutting the shape out with an xacto blade. Pressing and gluing again, making a notch for the on/off switch, and smoothing the inside edges with sandpaper. The first twenty pages or so came out neatly enough that I'm saving them to Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-43046804744874504272021-01-14T18:46:00.004-05:002021-01-14T18:46:42.998-05:00Heart and BloodLiving with Deer in America by Richard Nelson
Marvelous book. It looks at all sides of the relationships deer and people have in this country. The author is a hunter himself but holds great respect for the animals and their environment, which you can palpably feel in his personal descriptions. The opening and closing chapters detail time he spent in the woods with his Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-63421132678143703612021-01-13T09:54:00.000-05:002021-01-13T09:54:59.704-05:00mermaid1,000 piece puzzle by Peter Pauper Press. Illustration by Stephanie Law. I really like the picture- it has a very soft, dreamy quality compared to most of my puzzles. Also a non-glare surface which is so nice to work with. Just one odd thing- the bottom edge of the picture looks like it was copied in pieces and added on to make the image larger (probably to fit the puzzle size). It looks hastily Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-18578535556254294252021-01-12T23:05:00.001-05:002021-01-12T23:05:36.513-05:00The Stallion Kingby Glenn Balch
I'm in the middle of a longer book but needed an easy read for a hot bath, and this was it. Unfortunately I found out pretty quick that like Indian Paint, this book is an abridged version of the original (titled Wild Horse). Wasn't quite as "dumbed down" so I was able to enjoy it somewhat; however it still doesn't really sound like the author's voice to me and will only stay Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014696560401110515.post-59520188043555831012021-01-07T15:30:00.000-05:002021-01-07T15:30:09.446-05:00Braiding SweetgrassIndigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The author of this beautiful book has Native American roots, and scientific training in botany and ecology. She deftly weaves science with knowledge rooted in her indigenous culture, expounding on how if we care for the land and treat nature with respect, the earth will shower us Jeanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02270303640902731044noreply@blogger.com3