I have to get on the road again! My blog stats while I was traveling were sometimes over 800 readers a day. Now, as I quietly reflect, readership is hovering around 100. I am thankful for all of you who check in daily, weekly or just when I travel. I am grateful for your Amazon purchases as well.

The rain has moved on to the Midwest. This morning Tango and I are outside. Huge, lusty bees are pollinating the hollyhocks, which are wildly overgrown. If I don’t remove the seed heads next month, my yard will be a solid mass of hollyhocks next year. Right now, several edges along the grass are inundated.The other edges are rimmed with wild sunflowers (giant sunflowers that re-seeded and are still tall but with smaller flowers).

A dove is hovering, moving from the heat pump to the ground. He is peering into the hollyhocks, apparently concerned about something. Tango is hunkered as close to my chair as possible, like he does when he is afraid.  I have suspected that a bull snake lives in this tangled mass of backyard. Hmmmmm.

Which leads me to observation five: I can stay more connected to the outdoors even when I am not camping, My backyard is like a wild kingdom, thanks to the many bird feeders and blooming flowers. I look forward to working in the yard this fall. My biggest challenge will be getting outdoors more in the winter. Working on that.

I discovered that I am out of good coffee so I have been sipping instant. I miss that good coffee flavor but am happy for the caffeine. I stayed up too late reading All the Land to Hold Us, by Rick Bass. Wow! He is one of the best writers today. He has an immense appreciation of the natural world and the history of people who pass through.  His website describes the book this way:

Rick Bass brings a lyrical lushness to the harsh backdrop of West Texas in his masterfully crafted fourth novel. All the Land to Hold Us is a sweeping tale of those who live on the desert’s edge, where riches—precious artifacts, oil, water, love—can all be found and lost again in an instant.

You can buy the book at Amazon, but if you subscribe to their new program Kindle Unlimited, for 5.99 a month, you can read unlimited books (that are available in the program), up to ten at a time! I greedily downloaded 10 books immediately and was stunned to find Rick Bass’ new book available on the program. Also, many of the Best Writing books, which I love, are on the program. At the Kindle Unlimited link above you will see that you can do Amazon searches for only books on that program. Hot dog!

I am not making any money by revealing Kindle Unlimited to you! I just want you to know that It is awesome if you are a piggy reader like me. I was  spending $60-70 per month on Kindle books (many of those for work).  I will still buy a few books each month that are not part of Kindle Unlimited, but nothing like before!

BTW- This is not the same as the Kindle Lending Library for Amazon Prime members. In that program you can download one book at a time, again if they are participating in the program. That is like the Amazon Prime Video library.

I will stop with the Amazon promotions, but first, if you have not accessed the free music and playlists from Amazon, check that out too. It is part of Prime Music. I have been a little piggy with the music too, so far about 10 free playlists in my Amazon Cloud library and a bunch of new songs. I often just stream off my phone using the music app and little speaker or light-weight headphones if I am walking.

On with the day. Happy reading!