Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everyone! I’ve been busy this week, as most of you have been. My creative juices are flowing again, and I’ve been writing some poems, editing others, crocheting a gift, ordering more, and making additional pieces of my handcrafted jewelry. It’s a busy time of year for all! Earlier this week, I wrote…
blog writing challenges
Winner of My Poem Book Review Challenge Announced & Some Other Comments on Indie Publishing
Today is June 1st! Time seems to be flying! Last month, I ran a contest to get some of the readers who bought my poetry chapbook, Life’s Inspiration and Reflection in a Few Words (2022), to write an Amazon review for the book. If you don’t know, book reviews greatly enhance the saleability of a…
Poetry Friday: The Villain’s Point of View
This Poetry Friday finds the muse with me. I just wrote a poem on the subject of a fabled villain. The words came easily such as they do when I mull them over in my head for several days. The idea is not mine. It is a prompt from our state poetry group, the Wisconsin…
Writing Daily for Five Years: How is it possible?
In late February 2017, I decided to join the Slice of Life Writing Challenge for March. This writing challenge, hosted by TwoWritingTeachers.org, involves writing daily for the month of March and responding to at least three other bloggers’ posts. I did it and then some. I kept writing and writing and writing. Five years later,…
Slightly Silent Sunday: National Parks & Haiku
National Park Lands Conserved Beauty for Us All Vast Sprinkled Treasures Please note all photographs are copyrighted by Carol Labuzzetta, whether watermarked or not. No permission exists to copy or duplicate in any form without permission. Thank you. Today is day 21/31 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge. Thank you to TwoWritingTeachers.org for hosting…
Will Discouragement be Overcome Again?
It’s at this point in the Slice of Life Story Challenge, a little more than half way through, that I always get discouraged. Five years running, I can count on it happening. You know….thoughts such as: – why am I doing this? – why isn’t my readership higher this month than in previous months when…
Bat Cave Shock
I stood there, in the near blackness of the cave, in three inches of water. The sump pump was next to my boots with the electric cord visible through the murky water. I had only been in the cave once before and had not yet become of fan of them. The standing water was caused…
A Time to Prune
Today we pruned the trees in our home fruit orchard. Thirty trees altogether, there are apple, cherry, plum, and pear. Most of the trees are apple of which we have several varieties. These include cortland, honey gold, haralson, honey crisp, and macintosh. We had some other varieties – supposedly hardy to our area, such as…
Slice of Life Story Challenge 2021: Four Years Later & Blog Post 1,320
Today, is my one thousandth, three hundredth, and twentieth blog post! That’s right I’ve made 1,320 posts to The Apples In My Orchard! It all started just before the Slice of Life Story Challenge in 2017. I opened my blog during the last week in February to test the waters and be ready to write…
More Mask Making
Writing every day with substance and relevance is hard. Most days, the words flow from my mind on to the computer screen with minimal effort. Some days, it is a struggle to pull them out. Today is one such day. This is the post I probably should have written yesterday. I need to take my…








