It was a foggy morning walk on the gravel road to the Sisters as August made its grand entrance on the summer scene this week.
After days of drought, the rain was forecasted at 70 percent last night. Ella called the weatherman, a douche bag. That was very appropriate, since “douche” in French means shower.
On Tuesday, I went to the Paulson’s pumpkin patch farmer’s market north of our ranch. I bought our favorites, peaches and plums for the classical Czech summer fruit dumplings dish topped with cottage cheese.
I had to pass on the first harvest of cucumbers, since we will not have the time to can them this year. But we do have a good stock of last year’s sweet and sour pickles to get us through the winter.
Purple blue plums are also the main ingredient in plum brandy, known as “slivovice.” I call plum brandy, the Moravian gold.
It looks like an abundant harvest this year.
Czech fruit dumplings with cottage cheese
The Paulson’s farmer’s stand overlooks the vast fields of vegetables, fruits and orchards that were wilting in the heat, along with some marigolds by the fence.
“Did you do the rain dance?” asked me the owner sitting comfortably in an orange folding chair behind the counter loaded with fresh produce.
Among the novelties at the stand were sweet jalapenos. I have yet to try them. But, I did buy yellow cauliflower and red lettuce for different color varietals.
“No, should I?” I asked.
“You should do it every morning,” he said.
Then, I remembered while watering the patio garden, I did run a stream of water on my brand new mysterious “rain chain” and on the tin sunflower, causing it to whirl.
And it finally rained, this morning after I dropped off Ella at the summer school. I went to my favorite hideout, and it poured on the lake. I watched the rain swirl and twirl on the windshield.
But, before that, being totally stripped of any energy, I ate the entire Chocolove xoxox Almonds & Sea Salt dark chocolate bar. It tasted like heaven, after weeks of starving myself for the book signings.
To my great delight, I discovered inside the chocolate wrap a poem by Alexander Pushkin:
Thou and You
She substituted, by a chance,
For empty ‘you’- the gentle ‘thou.’
And all my happy dreams, at once,
In loving heart again resound.
In bliss and silence do I stay,
Unable to maintain my role:
‘Oh, how sweet you are!’ I say-
‘How I love thee!’ says my soul.
It’s going to be a great August.
I am looking forward to the Czech Harvest Festival this Sunday in Bannister. Watch for post.
I am exhausted and ready for a vacation. Follow me on my author’s journey deeper into the Midwest as the sands shift some more into a new book.
I need some reprieve after all the commotion with the recent book Shifting Sands Short Stories that came out in July, both in kindle and paperback on Amazon.
I still have quite a way to go before the vacation next week, so at least I can write about it. It feels good to finally be able to think about some time off.
Watch for exclusive excerpts from the book, and more author events coming to the area.
What keeps me going are my morning therapeutic walks on the gravel road into the peaceful untrodden meadows, and meditations with Deepak & Oprah.
I especially love the Desire & Destiny meditation about fulfilling your purpose in life. It seems so relevant now with the new book.
Today, I did Day 12: “Inspired Me” with the centering thought, “I am inspired. I am unstoppable.”
I found out that I’ve been pushing too hard. I need to be effortless.
Copyright (c) 2017. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Watch for Emma’s take on lust. Many of the characters in my new book Shifting Sands Short Stories are driven by lust, which underwrites their love for each other.
In the story Death Song, both Vadim and Maria have an obsession with each other that manifests itself in unusual spaces.
Number one on my list is to send out the mass press release about my new book Shifting Sands Short Stories to my media contacts, and to follow up with them.
It’s no ordinary Friday, as the late July sun shines on my new book Shifting Sands Short Stories. The paperback came out at the beginning of July.
Writing, collecting and publishing the stories that I have gathered for over more that two decades wasn’t a walk through the strawberry fields by any means.
On the contrary, the stories and their characters are not Shallow.
Check out one of the major characters, professor Martin Duggan who struggles with his own perfection.
Excerpt from the Temptation of Martin Duggan short story:
“He walked to his gray Chevrolet, the only brand he trusted over the years. Just like everything else Martin had ever owned, it was perfectly clean. He didn’t forget to grab a bottle of cold diet Coke from the machine.
Driving through Rocky Rapids was a balsam on his nerves. The town was neat and clean too with a few banks, a video store, a car dealership and a long gone Spartan grocery store.
Rose used to shop there, when they still loaded groceries into cars back in the 1980s. As a remnant of the past, there was a Bear furniture store, a drive up restaurant and a Dairy Queen by the city park and creek.
It could have been a perfect day, in a perfect life in a perfect town of one perfect professor and a perfect couple.”
At one of my newspaper jobs, the publisher called me shallow for not following up on a major story about a Belding boy who delivered his sister in the bathroom of the family home. After being syndicated by the Associated Press, the story made it to the Dave Letterman Show.
Dave held up the front page of the Ionia Sentinel-Standard with the story.
However, I did not know about that, another paper reported on that.
“You are shallow and selfish,” said the publisher.
it’s yours forever.”
authoremmapalova 