The Writing Life (and garlic addendum)

Okay, for those of  you who are wondering, the garlic was a failure. My oven's low temp of 170 farhenheit was too hot. I'm blaming my oven. The chopped-up garlic turned brown, which it mustn't do, brown and hard, yet still gummy on the inside. A dehydrator is a must and I have one somewhere in the cluttered closet of my writer's room, but for now I'm turning my efforts elsewhere: to Old German tomatoes and Italian roasting peppers for salsa, chop chop chop, basil and parsley and....oh, yes, of course garlic! Good thing I have 15 pounds set aside for my October plantings. Then there's my grandma's dark fruitcake to make, no candied fruit, just dates, figs, dried apricots and cherries. Wrapped in brandy-soaked cloth for weeks and week. (Use a low temp for  long baking, not NOT 350 F. my mistake). I have oven issues.

Getting out of the kitchen, I have some writing news. Perseverance pays. My poems (two!) are in the new issue of The Slippery Elm Literary Journal 

And in the new issue of the Midwest Review  (number 9) which will soon be showcased on their site. The Review publishes work from writers in or from the midwest region from where words percolate in obscure places.  

I have more news on the horizon about which I'm excited beyond words, so who needs a dehydrator when Indi publishers and small university journals are flourishing and our libraries are opening to stretch and stir from their pandemic lockdowns. Perseverance is my word of the day. All you writers out there, never never never give up.

Now why on earth is that rooster crowing when there is no tinge of pink in the sky? What is he crowing at? Orion charging across the sky in his new change-of-season finery? I know...he sees the light in my window and thinks I'm about to throw open his door and sow some oats.

Not even close. I have a dehydrator to find and words to write and coffee to brew. 

Over and out

for now.

Thanks

for 

reading

this

impromptu

post.