One of my greatest pleasures is wandering through my garden after work, marking the day-to- day changes in nature.  I look for new blooms and “dead head” old ones, pull a pesky weed here and there, look for unexpected surprises, and generally check the status of my little kingdom. I am a flower gardener, but I imagine vegetables gardeners do the same thing.

If you are unsure of how to get started gardening or are an old hand at it but looking for new ideas, CCPL has a series of gardening programs this spring you might find helpful.  From planning and sowing a garden to canning the fruits and vegetables of your labor, we have programs to inspire your green thumb.  We are especially excited about our first ever plant swap on May 8. Gardeners are known for sharing their bounty and here is an opportunity to swap vegetable and flower plants with other gardeners.

What will you be planting this spring?

Since my son may read this, I’ll just say “acute parental anxiety” ensued when, at seventeen, he decided to skip college and accept a brewing apprenticeship in Germany.  My anxiety stemmed not so much from his career choice as a beer artisan, which I see as a growth industry, but for his inability to speak fluent German.  I was pretty sure that Germany had never figured in an episode of Locked Up Abroad, but I knew it to be a country where ice cubes are extinct, no hot food is ever served before noon and t-shirts with cute sayings are universally banned. How would my son ever survive?

Then a spate of novels imported from Germany showed warm soda might be the least of his worries. These gritty page-turners reinvent the Grimm fairy tales – there’s nothing light and cheery here. Instead, Germany is depicted as a land where:

Insular little villages hide pockets of gossipy, vengeful murderers -
Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus

Having a tattoo can get you burned at the stake or worse -
The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Potzsch

Conspiracies involving the bodies of dead foreigners occur in hospitals -
The Russian Donation by Christoph Spielberg

Coroners solve crimes via chatty post-autopsy ghosts -
Morgue Drawer Four by Jutta Profijt

Bearing an uncanny resemblance to someone who then offers you money to impersonate them can result in terrifying consequences -
The Lie by Petra Hammesfahr

Teenage immigrants live in housing projects and write essays entitled “The Story of an Idiotic, Redheaded Woman Who Would Still Be Alive if Only She Had Listened to Her Smart, Oldest Daughter” -
Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky

My anxiety was forever put to rest by a timely visit over the May Day holiday. Who can dislike a country where flavorful, smoked beer is placed in a little red wagon and pulled from one small village to another by groups of friends celebrating with a moving picnic? Just wish they’d believe in keeping the beverages cold…

Check out my Pinterest board for more reasons to break out of your cultural box.

What country has your favorite authors?