The Jump Off Creek

 The Jump Off Creek is a historical fiction novel written by a lady from Oregon named Molly Gloss. A woman named Lydia decides to homestead on her own in the mountains of Oregon in the 1890's. Why anyone would choose such a difficult life is beyond me. She arrives at her cabin to find a couple of men squatting there. They move along and she starts to clean the cabin. She brought a couple of goats and a pair of mules. Her goal is to raise cattle on her land. Her nearest neighbors are a pair of bachelor brothers who lend her a hand and offer advice. Most of the book is about the weather and the hard work.

 

 

Culpability

 Culpability was published in 2025 by Bruce Holsinger. This literary novel is about a family of five. Noah is the father and he is married to Lorelei. Their son, Charlie, is driving the car when the accident happened. Charlie's sisters, Isabel and Alice are injured. The car was on automatic pilot when it crashed into a Honda killing an elderly married couple. Once everyone is released from the hospital, they rent a house on the Chesapeake Bay for a few weeks. At their vacation  home it comes out that everyone in the family thinks the accident was their fault. This book has drones, chat bots, artificial intelligence and self driving cars that lead to new discussions about ethics. I could hardly put it down. I read it in one sitting.

 

 

Top Notch Food

 Today was the final day of the nature convention in Saint Peter, Minnesota. I was up early. I checked out of my hotel and was the first one ready for bird watching. We saw blue birds. We saw a blue bird chasing a squirrel that approached his nest box. That squirrel was running away lickety split. We saw a hummingbird perched on a branch. We saw wood ducks, mallards, and great blue herons flying. We saw robins, field sparrows, chipping sparrows, and clay colored sparrows. We saw downy wood peckers and Tennessee warblers. In total we saw 24 species of birds. Later we had classes. I took one on harvesting fiddle head ferns (ostrich ferns). I took another on plant pressing. I made a greeting card and a book mark. I also made my own small plant press into which I put lilac flowers and fern leaves. Those should be dry in about 3 weeks. My last class was incorporating Indigenous culture into presentations. After that we had lunch and a wrap up session. Food at Gustavus Adolphus College was top notch. One of the servers knew I was a vegetarian and went out of her way to make sure I had enough to eat. Next year the conference will be at the arboretum at Saint John's University.

Nest Construction

This morning I went on a bird hike at the Gustavus Adolphus arboretum. We saw a Swainson's thrush, a black and white warbler, robins, downy woodpeckers, gold finches, Tennessee warblers, yellow warbler, Harris sparrow and a great blue  heron. But the best thing we saw was super tiny and far away from the path. One young woman spotted a hummingbird nest on an oak tree. We watched as the hummingbird came in and out of the nest. She was building a nest for her young ones. This was astonishing. A group of ten of us watched for at least ten minutes. I had other classes today. One was on nature journaling and sketching. One was on moths. That guy had thousands of pictures of moths. I had another class on plant medicine. The teacher is Native and she has a store in Mankato. She studied plant medicine from her grandparents on both sides. She studied at the Rosebud reservation and the Pine Ridge reservation. She made each of us a bag of tea. I chose the sleeping/calming tea. Any day where I can learn something is a good day.

 

Saint Peter

This weekend the MN Master Naturalist conference is at Gustavus Adolphus College. The campus is very attractive. I enjoyed seeing people that I usually see once a year. Dinner was great. We had caeser salad, wild rice, green beans, bread and butter. For protein they had steak and salmon. I had a Gardien patty that looked and tasted like chicken. I even brought it back to the kitchen to ask and they assured me it was vegetarian. I thought it tasted like chicken. But what do I know? I haven't had chicken for 40 years. For dessert they had chocolate cake, cheese cake and carrot cake. Tomorrow I am scheduled to go bird watching at 7 a.m. I hope I can get up that early.

 

 

Braver Than You Think

Braver Than You Think was written by Maggie Downs. This book is a mixture of a travel adventure story and a memoir about grief. Maggie's mother has Alzheimer disease and no longer recognizes her. This is hard for Maggie so she handles it by going on a year long adventure. Her adventure starts by hiking to Machu Picchu. From there she travels through Peru and Bolivia and South Africa. She doesn't have much money so she sleeps in hostels or tents most of the trip. She volunteers at an ape rescue place where she gets attacked and bitten by an ape. Then it's on to Uganda where she thinks she will be volunteering to plant rice or possibly teach English to children. Instead she anchors a radio show for several weeks. Volunteering is another way for her to travel cheaply. Along the way she runs into a few dicey situations. Some people try to take advantage of a woman traveling alone. The author rationalizes her trip by the fact her mother wanted to travel to most of these places but never did. I enjoyed the travel parts of the story. Regarding the grief I thought the author was a bit selfish. 

 

 

In The Time Of Butterflies

 Julia Alverez is the author of In The Time Of Butterflies. This is a historical fiction novel based on the murder of three sisters in the Dominican Republic in 1960. The dictator at the time was Rafael Trujillo. Every house in the nation had to have his picture on display. The story starts when the four sisters are young and living with their parents on a cocoa farm. The farm is prosperous. Trujillo, also known as "El Jefe", ruled from 1930 until 1961. The daughters grew up and got married. Some of their husbands were in the opposition party. One sister and her husband refused to get involved in politics. In the end, she was the only sister who survived. This was a heartbreaking tale due in part because of the excellent writing but also because it really happened.