Chemo Tips: No Horror Stories, Please

Fishing while bald. Remember to breathe fresh air and feel nature all around . . .

Three days after remarrying in January of 2016, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I am now three years cancer free.

I published my first novel, Deadly Trespass, when I was done with chemo but still deep in radiation therapy. I dedicated much of the next year to publicizing it.

This fall I will publish the second Mystery in Maine, Deadly Turn. Almost a third of it was written before I was diagnosed. . . .

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Weird Gardening: Ticks, Slugs, Cats, and Beetles

A few years ago, writing for a regional paper, I went looking for unusual garden tips, first interviewing Joanne Suley, a spunky Skillins Greenhouses instructor. “People are just going to think I am horrible,” she said.

When asked for unusual solutions, Suley had plenty. “For slugs, I shake out salt or use circular sandpaper I cut and arrange around a plant. Slugs don’t like to cross it because it does rip their stomachs up.”

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Maine's Coast for the Proletariat

Over 97% of Maine’ s coast is privately owned and much of that is behind lots of signs telling us we can’t go there. How on earth are the rest of us to get to salt water? Enter the Maine Coastal Public Access Guides.

Several years ago, I was a writer on this project and since then I’ve shared secret beaches, picnic tables, kayak launches, quiet places to take a lawn chair, and excellent tide pools to explore with kids.

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Do We Wait Till it Dies? Cabbis Scrabble

“Do we have to wait until it dies?” asked my husband, watching a struggling caddis fly cover the Scrabble square he wanted to use.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “They’re landing and taking off again.”

Lured by lantern light against the dark woods and even darker river, at least four types of furiously just-hatched caddis changed the game. (read more)