The Gingerbread Tree

My kids named this beautiful red maple when they were young. Not sure what made them think of gingerbread, but the name stuck.

Another chilly, breezy day. It barely reached 50 degrees (10 C), but again was sunny and pretty. I stayed inside for most of the day and battled the sugar ants that had invaded our pantry (I won the battle, but don't know about the war). Now at midnight I'm revisiting a book I enjoyed last year and put on our bookclub's calendar. The book is The Outcasts of Time by historian Ian Mortimer, who calls it "historical fantasy" - two brothers are infected by the plague/black death in 1348, and for each of the next 6 days they wake up 99 years later, hoping to "do good works" and earn their way into heaven. Along the way, of course, they see huge change of every sort. Should make for an interesting discussion tomorrow.