Peas, books, and blogs: How stalking your favorite authors just got easier!

It is important for you, dear reader, to know that I have never before been able to make a plant grow. I am the opposite of a green thumb, I am a brown thumb, nay, a dead thumb. That is how bad I am at growing things. Nevertheless, this morning I found myself spritzing my extremely robust looking sugar snap peas. "How did this happen?" you may very well ask. Well, I read a book, that's how! And not a gardening book, at least not in the traditional sense.

I read Made From Scratch by Jenna Woginrich, a book about a girl in her 20's starting a homestead in northern Idaho with not much more than a smile and a can-do attitude. It's hilarious and inspirational, and in fairly short order Jenna had become my personal hero. I now read her blog every day, and it is just as entertaining as her book. (http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/) Now you're asking "What does this have to do with peas?" I'll tell you! She challenged all of her blog readers to take part in the great Snap Pea Challenge! We were all supposed to plant our seeds on the 15th of February so we could track our progress together. There are even t-shirts for this shindig! Now I, the Killer of Kale, the Brutalizer of Broccoli, have five, adorable, half-foot-high sugar snap pea sprouts.

How great is it that we live in a time when something like this can happen. It used to be that authors were distant entities that couldn't be reached by the masses. They weren't your friend much less your gardening companion. Now, you not only can find out what an author had for breakfast on their blog, some authors will become friends with you on Twitter or Facebook or last.fm! Ever wonder what Neil Gaiman was listening to when he wrote Coraline? What an amazing age to be a bibliophile!

-Wally