It's time for WHAT?

Mid-county scene, looking north

Looking south

 On the home front

Cucumber vines climbing screen

Parsley going crazy!

Chimichurri on pasta

Cucumber vines have blossomed, and parsley was so bushy and plentiful that I made a batch of chimichurri, tried it on pasta, and recommend the combination. Mixed in avocado the next evening for a tortilla chip dip, and that's good, too.

 

Although daisies are taking their sweet time, I have hopes they will be blooming soon, and meanwhile, I pore over catalogs and books on perennials and dream of paths winding through yard-sized gardens.

 

By the way, have you ever heard of ‘pour-over coffee’? Apparently, it’s a thing. New to me!

 

(That’s the pore/pour lesson. I’ll let sleeping dogs lie for today on lie/lay.)

As for Sunny Juliet, we are varying the tennis ball retrieval game, starting today, so stay tuned!

Always ready...

Now, "Jump!"

My recent, albeit modest stroke of genius

 

You know how you have a brilliant thought while driving or before falling asleep – sometime when it’s too much trouble to stop to write it down – and you think, I’ll remember that. And then so often you don’t? One of those thoughts visited me one evening, like a brightly colored bird that quickly flitted away before my eyes closed, and somehow (this is the miracle) I remembered it the next morning!

 

…I was thinking of the years when Northport was in the doldrums and people who accidently wandered off the M-22 loop would ask in whiny, put-upon voices, “What’s the matter with Northport?” I was sure it was just a matter of hanging on before Northport would turn around, and in the meantime I subbed at the school, picked apples, worked on a garden crew, etc. – all to keep my bookstore afloat.

 

…I was thinking about all the times people had said to me (as if contradiction were unthinkable), “No one reads books any more.” One young father, his toddler riding piggy-back on his shoulders, waved his hands to indicate my array of volumes and told the boy, “Someday all this will be gone.”

 

...I was thinking of when Borders came to Traverse City and what a fabulous bookstore it was (then) and how someone said to me mournfully (as if I had been trying to do something like Borders, when my bookstore idea was so very, very different), “Oh, you just can’t compete with Borders!”

 

Now in 2023 Borders is no more, everyone loves Northport, and people are still reading books. Lots of people! Many even buy books! Hence -- my anniversary motto for Dog Ears Books: 

 

“Disproving the skeptics for 30 years”

 

What do you think? “Three decades” or “30 years”?

(My personal life motto)

 

Authors in Northport

 

Tuesday, July 11, is the first of four evenings in the Friends of the Library (Leelanau Township) Summer Series, with Dave Dempsey kicking off the series this year with Great Lakes for Sale. Remainder of the 2023 series will feature the following authors and books:

 

July 18, Jacob Wheeler, Angel of the Garbage Dump: How Hanley Denning Changed the World One Child at a Time

 

July 25, Sarah Shoemaker, Children of the Catastrophe

 

August 1, Soon-Young Yoon, Citizen of the World: Soon-Young and the UN

 

All four summer author events this year will be held at the Willowbrook on Mill St., each one beginning at 7 p.m. The events are free, and no reservations are required. Books will be available for purchase.

 

Reminders

 

Join Northport booklovers for these events, visit Dog Ears Books Tuesdays through Saturdays this summer, follow “Books in Northport” and share it with friends. Thanks, all! Thirty years!!!