Et la gagnante est...
Karenk is the winner of an ebook edition of The Summer of France by Paulita Kincer. Félicitations! Please help me to congratulate the randomly chosen winner of this novel. Descriptions in the book brought to mind the wonderful aroma and taste of freshly baked French bread. While some baguettes take longer than 7 hours to make, I found an "easy" French bread recipe on Carpé Season, to try baking à la maison.
If you didn't win this book, don't despair! For other giveaways and reviews of French-themed books, please visit France Book Tours. And scroll down to take a look at the terrific book giveaways listed here, on the right side of my blog.
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Inspired by Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver, and my sister-in-law's family's monarch farm, I planted six milkweed plants to attract monarch butterflies. I shared this experience on Facebook, but since I reviewed the book last month during the TLC tour, and mentioned my desire to find milkweed plants, I decided to include it here as well. I was thrilled when monarchs discovered the milkweed almost immediately, and overjoyed that the plants have developed numerous seed pods, which form if the flower blossoms are pollinated. The third photo shows an open seed pod; these seeds will fly away to create new milkweed plants for the monarchs. (Click on photos to make them larger.)
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Appearing on random Tuesdays, Really Random Tuesday is a way to post
odds and ends--announcements, musings, quotes, photos--any blogging and
book-related matters you can think of. I often announce my book giveaway winners in these posts. If you have miscellaneous book
news to gather up and are inspired by this idea, "grab" the button for
use on your own blog, then add your link to the "master" Mister Linky on
the Really Random Tuesday page.
Happy Tuesday! Your comments are welcomed, as always.
(Photo of baguettes courtesy of Wikipedia.)
Posts
Congratulations Karen!
ReplyDeleteI love that you planted milkweed! You need to read The Butterfly's Daughter by Mary Alice Monroe now.
Thanks, Kathy! I will look for The Butterfly's Daughter.
DeleteI planted a milkweed seedling to attract the monarchs. I hope my neighbors will forgive me when those seedpods open, probably not till be next summer.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you say that about the seed pods, Harvee?
DeleteCongrats to Karen!
ReplyDeletewow, so cool that Flight Behavior [i loved that book] inspired you to do this!
ReplyDeletebonne chance for the French baguettes. tough. the main problem being that flour is heavier in the US than in France. the rare places I find REAL baguettes in the US, I asked, and they import their flour from France, dah.
thanks for all the goodies listed on your right bar, I loved Hoffman's previous book
Thanks for the link to the bread recipe; it really is so easy!
ReplyDeleteI love Barbara Kingsolver, but I've avoided Flight Behavior because I sort of have a butterfly phobia. The park near our house actually attracts tons of monarchs each year; they even have a festival, and I totally avoid going anywhere near there during that time. You've kind of inspired me to at least give the book a try...if not the milkweed :)
Liz, thanks again for sharing your bread recipe! And for your comment!
DeleteHow very cool to have planted the milkweeds after reading Flight Behavior (enjoyed that one). Looks like the butterflies are enjoying them.
ReplyDeleteGreat butterfly gardens. Nice to see you provided habitat
ReplyDeleteWe saw an IMAX documentary of the monarch butterfly and it mentioned how milkweeds in some backyards help them to thrive when in some areas vegetation is being removed by land agriculturers.
ReplyDeleteAwesome plants and Butterflies! Very neat that Butterflies found the plants.
ReplyDeleteThe butterflies are so pretty! Your milkweed plants are way ahead of ours here in the Midwest. And mine in my yard haven't even bloomed yet. I'm still hoping for Monarchs to visit me by next month.
ReplyDeleteWonderful Suko ! The "baguettes" (French, I suppose ! ) and above all the flowers and butterflies.
ReplyDeleteHow gorgeous! You are making me want to plant some milkweed plants myself :) Thanks for sharing these beautiful photographs!
ReplyDeleteThat's such a cool idea to have planted those after reading the book. I love butterflies! These pictures are just gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteThe monarchs are gorgeous and how neat that you were inspired to plant milkweed. Beautiful photos!
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