Cora Seton's Blog, page 16

Walking in the Woods With Author Gemma Halliday

I really need to post more about my vacation – we had a terrific time in the Adirondack mountains of New York, and in sunny Santa Cruz, California. We lived a long time in Santa Cruz, and it really is the home of my heart. My kids were small and we had so much fun on the beaches, in the redwoods and in town. I’ve visited several times since I moved to Canada, but my husband and kids hadn’t been back in 9 years. Along with looking up all the houses we lived in while we were there, and going to the beach multiple times, I had a chance to catch up with one of my biggest inspirations as an author – Gemma Halliday.

I know Gemma through a writer’s blog, and I’ve always appreciated how much information she, as an established writer, is willing to share with new and aspiring authors. Always gracious and friendly, her media-savvy and marketing skills also inspire me. As an introvert (and a sometimes grumpy one at that), she’s taught me that it never hurts to smile and take the time to answer a question.

Gemma’s a busy lady, so I hesitated to ask her if she’d like to meet in person when I visited California, but she agreed readily and we ended up getting our whole families together to hike the Henry Cowell Redwood Trail in Felton. One of my favorite, favorite places in the world, it was great to have a passel of kids along to walk the trail – both young and old – and to experience the enormous redwoods again through their eyes. Gemma’s husband and mine hit it off right away (phew!), so we got to chat and hang with the kids and chat some more as we walked the mile loop. Add in a picnic lunch and a visit to the museum and gift shop and everyone was happy. Nothing like getting book marketing tips from a successful author while walking past 2000-year-old trees!

If you haven’t read Gemma’s books, check out her High Heels mysteries, her Hollywood Headlines series, and more! 

The Cowboy Imports a Bride is Here!

Now available in ebook and print format!

Rob Matheson’s a fighter. Flattening enemies with his fists or with his legendary practical jokes, he’s a tough enemy, and a troublesome friend. But Rob doesn’t know how much longer he can keep up the act. As his buddies get married one by one, he’s left with his lonely life – and the sinking feeling he lost more than his dreams when he traded them for a thick skin. Now Rob’s father has issued a challenge – he’ll give 200 acres of prime Montana ranchland to the first of his four sons to wed. No conditions, no meddling. Could this be a chance to become the man he really wants to be?

Morgan Tate’s worked for years to climb the ladder to a top job at Cassidy Wineries, but Duncan Cassidy, the boss’ son, always stands in her way. Now he’s issued an ultimatum; marry him or he’ll make sure she never works in the wine industry again. Morgan wants marriage – and a family – but not with Duncan. A certain cowboy in Chance Creek, Montana, has stolen her heart.

When Rob offers Morgan a proposition – marry him and split the land – they both find themselves with an ethical dilemma. They don’t know each other well enough to wed, but they can’t lie about their intentions before God and man, either.

Now they’ve got sixty days to fall in love, and a passel of family and friends determined to keep them apart. The victims of Rob’s previous jokes are lining up to get their revenge, and Morgan’s half-sister, Claire, is stirring up their mother’s past.

Will it take the biggest practical joke of all to convince the world – and themselves – that they’re truly meant to be man and wife?

Buy From Amazon (Kindle)

Buy From Smashwords (all ebook formats)

Buy From CreateSpace (Print)

 

Yummy Brussels Sprouts!

I love Brussels Sprouts, and as I’ve said earlier, I had no idea you could just grow them in your garden. I spent a decade in Santa Cruz, California, where farmers grow them on the cliffs beside the ocean up Highway One, and I’d always supposed it took that exactly climate to be able to grow them correctly.

Happily, I was wrong! They grow just fine in my own garden here in Northern BC. And to prove it, I harvested some, steamed them, slathered them with butter and dill, and ate them yesterday as part of a harvest day attempt to process (and eat) everything in my garden that was piling up. They were yummy. The only question I need to answer is that they’re supposed to be harvested after a frost, and there’s no way the ones I picked yesterday would make it that long. I either need to plant later, or do something differently. Or maybe freeze the sprouts before we eat them? Not sure, but will find out.

I also harvested a bunch of cayenne peppers off a plant we bought this spring at the farmer’s market. I guess I didn’t really believe they were cayenne peppers. I grabbed a handful, chopped them up and threw them into a homemade salsa I’d concocted to use us the cherry tomato avalanche, along with some onion, garlic, cilantro, and lime. I figured I’d take a scoop to try it out before packing it away until dinner. OMG, that was one of the hottest things I’ve ever tasted. Smoke coming out of my ears and everything. My daughter wondered why I was shrieking and hopping around the kitchen. I ate a piece of bread and butter and all was well again, although I don’t think my taste buds are quite the same yet. We’ll use that particular batch of salsa as a base for chili, and a base for spicy spaghetti, among other things. I think if we parcel the heat around a bit, we’ll be okay.

More cayenne chilis in hand, I used some local ground beef and potatoes to make empanadas. I love the way they turned out – the crust was flaky, and the insides savory. If I was on it, I’d post a recipe….:)

I washed up plenty of carrots for  snacking and made up a Thai slaw for today’s burritos, too. All in all a very productive day doing something I absolutely love!

Sad and Happy News

So, the sad news we came home to last week was that one of our chickens didn’t make it through the summer. Unfortunately, the coop they boarded in while we were gone didn’t have a roof, and we hadn’t clipped our chickens’ wings. One of them flew the coop, and was never seen again. RIP Sammy.

The happier news is that the other three are all in good health, and began to lay eggs! The family presented us with our chickens’ very first egg (carefully blown and preserved) and my daughter has placed it in a handmade felted “nest” on our mantlepiece. Each chicken is currently laying an egg per day, usually between 8 am and noon. My daughter loves to hunt for them in their pen and brings them in daily. We are all very impressed with our chickens.

In other good news, we’re feasting almost daily one salads from our garden, peas galore, and I’m waiting for one strange squash to ripen enough to pick. (If only I knew what it was, and when to pick it!)

In very exciting news, my brussels sprounts plants have survived, and I believe I’ll actually get to eat brussels sprouts later this fall. I had no idea I could grow them, and just planted them on a total whim. If they work, next year I’m planting a whole row of them!

I won’t lie – I miss our lost chicken – but we’re all putting a brave face on for each other and loving the birds we still have. I hope everyone else’s harvests are coming along swimmingly. Drop me a line to let me know what you’re plucking from your garden.

Book Release Schedule Update

Shh! Don’t tell anyone, but I took almost the whole summer off. I packed my husband and kids onto a plane and zipped off to the Adirondacks for over 3 weeks, then on to Santa Cruz, California for another week. I arrived back home just in time to scramble to get ready for my next book release – The Cowboy Imports a Bride.

This is the third book in the Cowboys of Chance Creek series, and this book features Rob Matheson and Morgan Tate. If you’ve read The Cowboy’s E-Mail Order Bride, or The Cowboy Wins a Bride, you’ll remember that Rob is a veteran practical joker and Morgan is the half-sister Ethan and Claire Cruz never knew they had. Rob and Morgan are both ready to make big changes in their lives – here’s the blurb:

Rob Matheson’s a fighter. Flattening enemies with his fists or with his legendary practical jokes, he’s a tough enemy, and a troublesome friend. But Rob doesn’t know how much longer he can keep up the act. As his buddies get married one by one, he’s left with his lonely life – and the sinking feeling he lost more than his dreams when he traded them for a thick skin. Now Rob’s father has issued a challenge – he’ll give 200 acres of prime Montana ranchland to the first of his four sons to wed. No conditions, no meddling. Could this be a chance to become the man he really wants to be?

Morgan Tate’s worked for years to climb the ladder to a top job at Cassidy Wineries, but Duncan Cassidy, the boss’ son, always stands in her way. Now he’s issued an ultimatum; marry him or he’ll make sure she never works in the wine industry again. Morgan wants marriage – and a family – but not with Duncan. A certain cowboy in Chance Creek, Montana, has stolen her heart.

When Rob offers Morgan a proposition – marry him and split the land – they both find themselves with an ethical dilemma. They don’t know each other well enough to wed, but they can’t lie about their intentions before God and man, either.

Now they’ve got sixty days to fall in love, and a passel of family and friends determined to keep them apart. The victims of Rob’s previous jokes are lining up to get their revenge, and Morgan’s half-sister, Claire, is stirring up their mother’s past.

Will it take the biggest practical joke of all to convince the world – and themselves – that they’re truly meant to be man and wife?

In other news, if you take a look at the top of my home page, you’ll notice a new book – The Cowgirl Ropes a Billionaire. Some of you are probably wondering where the heck that one came from. Wasn’t The Cowboy’s Eco-Bride supposed to be book 4?

Well, in a word, yes. But Bella Chatham, Chance Creek’s veterinarian, made a cameo appearance in The Cowboy Imports a Bride, and demanded a book (and romance) of her own. Those of you who can’t wait for Cab Johnson – Chance Creek’s Sheriff – to get his shot (haha!), don’t despair. His book is coming next, and it will both round off the first romantic series (books 1 – 5, which feature Ethan Cruz and his three best friends), and start off a whole new Chance Creek series. (Yes, we’ll find partners for some of Rob’s three brothers as well as a few new cowboys in Chance Creek.

If you can’t tell, I’m having a blast writing the Chance Creek novels, and there are many more installments to come. I hope you’ll check back often to read about upcoming releases, and my adventures on my one-acre mini-farm. (More about that in the next post!)

The Flower Garden

Last Saturday I looked at my flower garden and couldn’t stand it anymore. So I spent an afternoon weathering bouts of searing sunshine and misty rain to dig out almost every plant within it and move them all around.

When I inherited the garden last spring, it took some time just to clear out all the plants that didn’t belong in it. I’m not sure how many years it had been left to run wild, but it was overgrown with weeds and had a short row of cedar trees in it I didn’t care for. Half of the garden had been in shade, but now it’s all in complete sunshine all day long, so some plants simply haven’t made the transition.

I took what was left and moved them into more pleasing positions, then realized what the overall problem was. Almost every one of them is of medium height, making for a rather uniform – and boring – garden. Now I need to go buy short plants and tall, spiky plants. My dahlias coming in will at least help fit the latter bill, but I really should run out and get a ton of annuals.

But here’s the problem. In a matter of weeks I’ll be heading out to New York for most of the summer. Do I plant flowers that will be gone by the time I’m home? Or just leave it for next year?

Chicken/Shed Update #2

A couple of days ago I posted about our new chicken coop/run attached to our small shed out back. Since he was working on the building already – jacking it up and installing the coop and run – my husband decided to go ahead and just turn the rest of the shed into a greenhouse/potting shed while he was at it.

He took off all the wood along one wall, and voila! – an old set of windows we’ve been holding onto for about six years miraculously fit perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. Since the shed itself isn’t exactly “square” anymore, the windows don’t line up perfectly, either, but that’s okay. The first of several greenhouses and cold frames we’ve planned, it’s great to open up the space to put our tomato plants. Terrace can be a cloudy, raining place at times, and tomatoes here need a boost of heat that only a greenhouse can give.

There’s hope for tomatoes this summer, yet. We had a number of cherry tomato plants growing already. For father’s day I got hubby a beefsteak one. We’ll see what we get…

Wood For Sale

Need wood? We’ve got lots, as you can see. Actually, this is nothing. We’ve sold lots of truckloads since last fall – enough to pay for the cost of having so many trees taken down.

Our neighbors still hate us for what we’ve done, and no amount of gardening or sprucing up the place will change their mind, probably. Eventually, our orchard will green up the place, but I’m afraid that’s still a few years off. Meanwhile, we’re stuck with a stark view of our neighbor’s house, which, incidently, has hardly a tree on the entire property. (Hmmm.) We’re known locally as “the folks who flattened that place on the southside”. Sigh. Yep, that’s us.

On the plus side, we’ve nearly finished splitting all those logs. My 16-year-old son handled most of it, with an electric splitter we swapped from a neighbor farther down the road for some cedar chunks and an overgrown rhododendron. I bet my son will be glad to see the end of that job.

And, about half of our fruit trees are in, along with 1,000 strawberry plants, some blackberries and a ton of lettuce. This won’t be our most productive year, but we’re much further along than we’d hoped to be due to the incredibly mild winter we had.

We’re debating whether or not to install a cedar or spruce hedge along the boundary between us and our riled-up neighbor. I’m all for it. The husband is taking a little convincing….

Chicken update

We finally finished the chickens’ coop and run. It’s embarrassing how long it took to get that done, and even more embarrassing to admit how long our poor chickens lived in a cardboard box in my office!

But they’re happy now, and I’m happy they’re out of here. Don’t get me wrong – I love my chickens, but the smell was getting a little intense! After much (much!) debate, we decided to hang our run off the back of the smaller two outbuildings that came with this house. That meant my husband had to haul out all the wood we’d been storing in there, and he figured as long as he was cutting holes in the walls, he might as well do a complete reno on the shed.

First he had to jack it up and level the building. Next he installed the “coop” part of the chicken coop inside the building and made a door to the outside. (I need to go back and get more photos, I’m realizing). We can shut this door up tight for nighttimes, then open it up again in the morning. The door opens down and acts like a ramp for the chickens to climb in and out of their coop.

The run juts off the back of the shed and is well enclosed by wire. We actually laid down two sheets of plywood underneath the run and attached the wire mesh right to it. We’ve put so much effort into raising these hens we didn’t want them exposed to predators coming up under the fence.

So far it’s worked well. We’re feeding them a mix of purchased feed and just about all the compost we make on a daily basis. Chickens are even faster than worms at turning table scraps into food for your garden. When my husband cleans out the bedding in their run and coop, he adds it to our larger compost bins to age. Someday down the road it’ll end up back in the ground around our garden beds.

We should start getting eggs in September! Can’t wait!

On the Road to Prince Rupert, Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about my trip to Prince Rupert, BC, with two good friends last week. I live in Terrace, BC, which is a small town about 500 miles due north of Vancouver. It’s a small logging town that’s in transition and is also somewhat of a base for many mining and natural resource projects around northern British Columbia. Prince Rupert is 1.5 hours away on the coast of Canada.

I left off after our hike on the Butze Rapids Trail. Exhausted, hot and hungry, the three of us made our way into Prince Rupert to eat lunch at the Crest Hotel. We’d ducked into the hotel before our hike to reserve my friend’s favorite table. Front and center on the wall of windows looking out over the water, it’s the perfect place for watching tankers, tour boats and tugs.

We made it to the hotel just in time and ordered our meals. Here’s a couple of pics of our view:

When the food, drinks and view had restored us to some semblance of our former selves, we headed out to the shops on Cow Bay. I love the Ice House Gallery, which features many local artists and I bought a gorgeous coral purse from Homework. But by far the most fun we had was trying on clothes in another shop down the road whose name completely escapes me. It also features purses and wonderful clothes. We tried on almost everything in the store before we realized it was closing time and we needed to make a break for home.

Most people will never get to see my neck of the woods, and it’s a shame. You can’t beat northwestern BC for stunning landscapes and fabulous people. I’ll keep posting photos to show you all what you’re missing!