Meet MelanieM

♦♦MelanieM (owner and reviewer, ScatteredThoughtsandRogueWords)

“When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.” – Louise Erdrich

I am a retired Park Naturalist living in Maryland. I have always loved to read and books, in every form from plastic baby books to papered tomes and now eBooks, have been a constant companion from my earliest memory. I was one of those kids reading under the covers with a flashlight and who could recite whole passages from favorite stories. My love of horses lead me to Marguerite Henry and Misty of Chincoteague, my love of dogs to Fred Gibson and Old Yeller, my love of raptors and wolves sent me to Jean Craighead George and her books My Side of the Mountain and Julie of the Wolves …well, you can see where this is going. Basically, I have been on a journey all my life where my love of books and my other loves/passions have fed each other, intertwining until they are inseparable. Still am. When I go, my books are going with me.

When I am not reading or writing reviews, I am tending to my gardens and my terriers. The terrors three are my ever present and judgmental supervisors. They have an opinion of everything I do and are very vocal about it. I have one who I swear is channeling a Siamese with his constant chatter and bemoaning of his fate as third dog. And then there is Captain, my whacked out African Grey with a mouth on him to make a sailor blush and a repertoire of annoying sounds guaranteed to send St. Francis over the edge. Quiet in my household? Not so much.

I have a frustrated frog in the pond out back and a Great Blue Heron who is determined that my small fish pond’s population never exceed two. A robin nesting in one of my hanging baskets, so no watering there and goodbye expensive plants. And a house finch in the decorative little hanger by the front door who finds our need to enter that way an affront to her endeavors.

I don’t have to think fondly back on those days of exploring in my Park, the damn things followed me home!

So anyway, I love to knit and fondle yarn. My yarn collection has every color, texture and fiber I could find. Now I just need the time and place to knit without interference, yeah, like that is going to happen, especially now that the blog is about to get bigger. So that’s me, kind of. Living the life in the temperate state. Check in with me every now and again.

I will leave you with a picture of my frog *shakes head*. Ah, hormones. To contact me, write me at Melaniem54@msn.com. No screeching please, I get enough of that from Captain.