ALL LEMONS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL

 ALL LEMONS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL

It's Meyer Lemon season. The season runs from November to March. The lemons you see in the grocery store are called Real lemons. A Meyer lemon is the marriage of a Real lemon and a Mandarin orange. They are smaller, rounder, and more orange in color.

You probably won't want to eat them plain. They are still a lemon, but they don't have the pucker power of a 

Real lemon.

To take advantage of their diversity, squeeze the juice in salad dressing, make lemonade or add some punch to a cocktail or tomato juice.

Here are a couple of  places to get wonderful Meyer Lemon recipes. 

Foodie Crush

100 Things to do with Meyer Lemons- LA Times

DO YOU HAVE A GREEN THUMB?

These lemons are extremely easy to grow. 

Keep the biggest seeds out of the lemons and put them in a small pots with potting soil. Set them in a sunny window. Keep them moist. If you grow more than one, you could give them to your friends. A lemon tree is not actually a tree, it is more the size of a Peace Lilly or a Schafferla.

When your newly planted tree reaches about 6 inches tall re-pot it.

 Our tree is in a ten inch pot.

Put it outside after the last frost and bring it in before the first frost.

Our tree bares 8 to 10 pieces of fruit at a time.

It is my goal on this segment of my blog to teach you to broaden your eating horizons and how to grow most of the food I write about.

Please leave a comment below. 

I'd love to hear what foods you are most interested in. 

We won't be able to grow all the foods .

A Visit With Tierney James and The Dark Side of Morning.

Today I am honored to have Tierney James as my guest. Tierney writes those books you stay up late to read. Take a few minutes and learn about the lady behind Lipstick and Danger.

I love museums, especially those dedicated natural history. One of my favorite subjects concerns Native Americans. That’s probably because my parents and grandparents took me to the Smokey Mountains when I was thirteen. Having grown up in Illinois I’d never seen the mountains and certainly never any Native Americans. Once on the Qualla Reservation of the Cherokee People, among the beautiful mountains and streams, I felt I had been transported to Nirvana. It was then that my grandfather led me to speak to an elderly Cherokee man that spoke little English. I was introduced to him and I swear his warm smile touched me all the way to my bones. He spoke in their native tongue as he laid a hand on my shoulder. Something magical happened inside me. My whole being changed in a flash. 

Years later I student taught on that same reservation in a fourth grade classroom. I lived in a Cherokee Children’s Home and had nine little sisters, that to this day, I love very much. Some I’ve managed to stay in touch with over the years. My life turned yet another corner. I didn’t have a car so I rode the bus with the students each day. There are a lot of funny stories about a mid-western white girl plunged into an amazing culture that enriched my life.

Which brings me to writing. Dark Side of Morning involves a Pawnee culture from 200 years ago. The twist is that it comes knocking on 2017 with some disastrous results. Can you imagine stepping through a portal into another universe? What would be different? Here is a snippet of what to expect.

Dark Side of Morning by Tierney James http://amzn.to/2ieQx6x

Dr. Cleopatra Sommers never came to terms with her father’s disappearance at the Museum of Natural History in Chicago. He had been a Native American scholar that explored avenues of unexplained spiritual paths in their cultures.  The museum had been her home and playground growing up where her father spent long hours working. She was always drawn to one display case holding a mannequin of a Pawnee Indian. There was no way she could know he watched her all those years until the night he crossed over to find her.

Detective Jacque Marquette suspected the beautiful doctor of stealing priceless artifacts from a Native American exhibit. He realized after meeting his identical twin from another time and place, Dr. Sommers might not be as crazy as he initially thought. The layers of concern for his city begin to stack up as he is caught between culture and the Pentagon. Only with the help of a Pawnee warrior from two hundred years ago, can save his city from a deadly disease brought in from a parallel universe.

Wind Dancer had loved the little girl who grew up before him for years. When he decided to cross over to prevent his enemy from finding Dr. Sommers, the bombardment of changes forced him to rely on the ways of the past to survive. Navigating the future proves to be complicated as he teams up with a grumpy detective to hunt down a common enemy. No one expected the price to be sacrificing Dr. Sommers to the Morning Star in order to avert disaster.

You can find out more!

http://www.tierneyjames.com

http://www.facebook.com/TierneyJamesAction

Twitter: @TierneyJames1

The Blog Hop

The Blog Hop.
Thanks to, Amanda Buxton, for thinking I am interesting enough to be in her blog hop.

What am I working on right now?

I am making the editorial changes to my mystery/thriller Tattered Wings.
It is the story of a young boy who kills and why he feels it is necessary.
All through the story are bits of the lives affected by this boy's actions.
Do we make killers or are then born?

How does my writing process work?

Not like anyone else's from what I read.  I always get a kick out of how people say they write. They make their character list, they develop them, they get their scenes in their heads and off they go putting it all together.
This is how it works for me.
I can't sleep. An idea floats around in my head, then it starts beating against my forehead saying "Get up you lazy bum and write  this down because you won't remember it in the morning."
I drag myself out and transfer everything nagging in my brain on to a piece of paper.  I feel relieved and go back to bed. When I get up in the morning to go into my office. I am flabbergasted at what is on the paper. Here is a sample of what was in my head the other night when the idea for the Murders of Madison Hill came to me at 3:35 am.

“He's dead.”   

            “How do you know?”

            “Allen, you can't mistake dead!” Nate was poking the blue blob with a stick.

 “Come on Nate, I don’t like this. I keep thinkin’ he’s gonna move. Besides, if he’s dead we need to tell somebody.”

            “Allen, we aren't supposed to cut through the woods. Mom said next time we did, she’d  ground us.”

            “Jeez, Nate.  How can you think of that now?  If you don't go with me, I am going alone.”

            Nate didn’t move from his spot. He kept looking, prodding, and trying to turn the guy over, but he needed something bigger.

            It was an adult, and he looked horrible.  There was blood all over the leaves around him and the blue jogging suit he was wearing.  There was a definite whole in his head. The eye Nate could see  was open and foggy. Just as Nate began to turn toward Allen, he heard a rustling sound in the distance. It was rapidly getting closer. Nate pushed his little brother so hard he tripped. Reaching down he pulled the younger boy up, grabbed his hand,and ran toward the nearest clump of trees.  Pushing Allen down again, he threw himself on top, and clamping  his hand over his little brother's mouth, he whispered,  “Shut up. Don't move. Don't breathe.”

            Allen began to cry.

 

Hum, now I have Allen and Nate, where do I go from there? Honestly, I don't know but it will be interesting to find out. I am merely the writer and the thing inside of me that guides me lets me have all the fun.

 

What is the hardest part of writing?

 

Actually sitting down and writing. I seem to have a problem concentrating on it for very long. I like to read and walk around the farm. I visit the animals and pet the dogs. My woodshop calls my name because I like to build things. The only way it works for me it to go to the office first thing in the morning and write. I do most of my writing in my PJ's. If I get distracted early, it is a lost day.

 

What authors do I admire?

 

Mark Twain, Jeanette Walls, J.D. Robb, Joan Hess and anyone else you can spin a tale I can not figure out or that makes me laugh and holds my interest. 

Please stop by www.ambuxton.com and see what Amanda is doing. She is extremely talented.  Also. go by and see how Rob Myers does is at www.ignorramus.com