Dear friends, I am going to recommend a book. Usually I don't do this; as a major scifi fan, I don't expect others to have the same taste. This book is different.

PRODIGAL SUMMER by Barbara Kingsolver has been out for a couple years now, so you should be able to find it at your used bookstores. Pick it up and Read it.

Three separate stories set in the same small town make up most of the novel. A 30-ish woman, an out-sider and newly widowed, needs to learn how to live on the farm her husband grew up on. A 40-something woman, who's given up on humanity, finds love on an isolated mountain. And two old neighbors: she an organic farmer, he trying to restore an ancient tree.

Their stories interweave with mini-lectures on ecology, subtle but key to the characters.

And in the end, we see the stories and the individuals coming together to weave a new future.

This is a novel about living in the abundance of summertime; and this is the perfect time to start it.

Now, on another vein altogether... Would someone please tell me how to write the html to tell blogger to go out and find a picture on the net (when i tell it the address) and have the picture pop up here, instead of just the link?