After taking Mom to her doctor early this morning, she had the bright idea to go to Home Depot.

“Great,” I said, “We can pick out a tomato plant for you.”

Mom mumbled something I didn’t catch, and if I have learned anything in the 50 plus years I’ve known her, I really should have been very afraid.

Well, I pulled into Home Depot in Gurnee, and made the observation that the parking lot looked a lot like it does on Black Friday.

Mom smiled. “It’ll be fine, Look, there’s an opening on the other side of the store. We’ll park over there and walk.”

“Over there” happened to be about a quarter-mile away, but so what? It was early, and Home Depot had an entire section of parking lot blocked off with plants and mulch. I got Mom in the wheelchair and we headed out. I realized later I should have taken a backpack and a bottle of water with me, because between dodging traffic and garden center flatbeds, we were lucky to make it to the store with our lives…and during store hours!

I was thinking about a cart, but when we went through the doors there were only five carts to be had.

“We don’t really need a cart, do we Mom? After all, we’re just grabbing one silly little tomato, right?”

So bent  was I on weaving through the throng of people, I did not notice her set jaw and furrowed brow-definite signs Mom had other ideas. It would have at least given me a heads up that I was headed for trouble. We snagged a cart on the way in, but I figured Mom was just being prepared.

We made it to the garden center relatively unscathed, but came to a stand-still right at the entrance. A wall of people stood between Mom and her tomato, and we were not moving. From that point, I was just following in her wake. I apologized to the lady with the scraped Achilles tendon, and jumped out of the way of the guy who bounced off the left wheel of the wheelchair, and I suddenly found myself in the tomato aisle, looking for the perfect Roma. The aisle only had three people in it and I knew it would be smooth sailing from then on.

Uh, except there was a little mishap with a particularly rude gentleman. At one point, I turned to Mom to ask how she liked a particular plant, only to find her burried in the armpit of a guy who leaned so far over the arm of her chair,  he fell right into the Sweet 100′s. I started down the aisle only to watch him go behind the wheelchair and knee the back, which sent Mom rolling toward me.

As she was holding a plant in each hand, she couldn’t get to the wheels, and the rude guy lost interest in the plants he wanted so badly, and walked the other way! A Good Samaratin snagged Mom before she clipped anyone or took out the heirlooms, and a great employee named Danny showed up and saved the day.

Danny blazed a trail down the center aisle, and under Mom’s direction, pulled a flatbed out from under a table. I trailed behind, carrying my lone Roma, while Danny and Mom filled the flatbed with potting soil, peat, three more tomatoes, a cuke, fertilizer, three peppers, two large containers, and a bag of dahlias.

Danny was such a good guy, he even helped load everything into my car! The not so great part was unloading it all when we got back to Moms, but I persevered. We potted it all up, ran other errands and ten hours after I started my day, I was on my way home. About half way home, I had a great feeling of accomplishment wash over me…..that is, until I got to 173 and Deep Lake Road

It seema a very large snapping turtle decided the swamp was sweeter on the other side of the road, and was slowly making his way across the north bound lane of traffic. I swerved around him and nervously waited at the stop light, hoping the guy behind me missed the snapper as well.

I got through the light, made a U-turn in the Wal-Mart parking lot and sped back through the light, pulling off the road. I scrounged around in the back of my car, and realized I had nothing to heard Mr. Snapper back to his own swamp. I grabbed the only thing close to a shield, and blessed Danny from Home Depot once again, because I had the cardboard box from the all Mom’s plants in the back. I grabbed it and headed for the snapper, who was in a stand off with a young man in a “95 Will Rock” van.

The turtle must have known I was the enemy, because he spun around, hissed open-mouthed, and attacked my plant box with a vengeance. He did not want to go home, but I was determined he was not going to be turtle soup this afternoon.

Well, he went, but he was not happy.

I finally got home and what do I find? A crumpled honey-do list and no Bob…..seems Bob took the “day off” thing seriously. He took a looong nap, then went down to the local gun shop to jackpot with the owner and a couple other guys. Right now it’s after midnight and I’m still writing. And Bob? He was tired and went to bed about an hour ago. Poor guy, he had a full day!

Buzz races against time trying to find the murderer at a time when the County Fair is ready to open, the carnival comes to town, and Buzz croaks her only entry for the third year running in the “Third Annual Miller Sisters  Best Tomato Contest.”

Oh-oh, don’t look now, but Mary Cromwell is in charge of the talent contest at the fair, and it looks like it’s going to be a sell-out crowd. Meanwhile, the rest of the Geriatric SWAT girls are setting a trap in the Ag building, laying in wait to catch the notorious garlic thief; and ready to pounce on the dirty rat when he makes his move!

Talk about making moves, will our heroine finally let the sheriff catch her until death do they part? Or will one too many concussions beat J.J. to the punch?

Find out soon when Totally Evil comes to a loony bin near you!

Chapter 1

I hate dead bodies. Have I mentioned that before? Dead bodies in the pouring rain are exceptionally objectionable. Crap. I knew this would happen. It’s me. My fault. I’m a jinx!

Murphy’s Law runs rampant in police work, as it does in my Irish family. If anything can make a crime scene more miserable, it will happen when I’m around—guar-an-teed! If someone gets himself knocked off outside, it is either fifty degrees below zero, raining, snowing, or 110 degrees in the shade.

Today I stood in an ice-cold deluge behind Sal’s Diner. I was soggy, crabby, talking to myself, and in desperate need of a cup of coffee and a roaring fire. Well happy horse hockey Buzz Miller, at least the rain will wash some of those maggots off the corpse before you have to handle it.

I always like to keep a positive attitude.

I pulled up the collar of my raincoat and dumped about a half gallon of icy rain water down my back. Cussing a blue streak and dancing around the parking lot doing the Funky Chicken made for a short outtake of levity on an otherwise dismal day. I was sure glad I could provide the half-time entertainment for all the laughing idiots standing behind the police tape. I hoped they were as cold and miserable as I was. Wouldn’t you think one of them would offer to share an umbrella? Their collective teeth clacking together sounded like a marching band cadence at post rest. Along with the smell of soggy hot dogs and hot coffee, it all added to the half-time atmosphere of a rain-out dead-guy show. Thank God the football team had enough sense to stay home.

“Don’t you people know it’s raining out? Go home and read about it tomorrow in the paper!” I yelled to the crowd.

They laughed and waved from behind the tape. Someone gave me the thumbs up sign and another gave me the finger. I squinted through the rain. Hey! That almost looks like Mom back there. . .naw, must be my imagination—but I snuck one more peek to make sure.

I was so busy trying to make out who the finger flipper was under all that rain gear that I didn’t see that I was closing in fast on the dumpster. The crowd frantically waved and pointed again and I raised a hand to wave back. I slammed right into the side of the dumpster, jarring the lid and dislodging the garbage which had been piled up there after the body had been discovered.

With leftover pizza and congealed, unmentionable glop raining down on my head, I stumbled back a few steps, throwing more colorful language across the parking lot, and shaking rotten food out of my hair. The crowd roared and Sheriff J.J. Green poked his head out of the dumpster. “What the heck, Buzz? Why are you banging on the dumpster?  That is so not funny, old girl.”

The crowd echoed “Oooooo, Old Girl,” and I flicked potato surprise in their direction, while glaring at J.J.

Now I admit I might have been a little owly at that moment, but I let fly in a loud voice every complaint from dying of hypothermia to miserable maggots, and moving to Jamaica to escape Wisconsin weather in the early spring. Meanwhile I continued to pick rotten eggs and slimy muck out of my hair. Humph-good thing I’m a multi-tasker…maybe the rain will wash the rest of it out. Ha! There you go again with the optimism, Buzz Miller. You’re a regular Pollyanna.

J.J. had the nerve to grin. “Look on the bright side, Miller; at least you’re not on insider detail with me this fine morning! Toss me that pitchfork over there, would you?”

I had a vision of tossing the pitchfork tine-end first, but his and my mother were both in the crowd watching. “Find something exceptionally yummy in there Green? Nothin’ like a slimy restaurant dumpster with corpse alfresco to get the appetite goin’, eh?”  I handed him the pitchfork…handle first.

He grinned and I heard, “Pretty smart mouth for someone with maggot soup in her hair, Miller.” Right before his head disappeared over the side.

I immediately grabbed my head and realized he chumped me out. Again. I moved away from the dumpster to the sound of laughter from the White Bass Lake citizenry, along with the dumpster divers echoing guffaws from inside. “Mag-got SOUP! Mag-got Soup!” I gave up and let them yell.

J.J. and FBI Field Agent Luke Hall were taking care of the body recovery end of the crime scene while I handled the perimeter portion. The crowd behind the yellow police crime-scene tape was made up of die-hard Cheeseheads, ages eight to eighty. Among them was a group of two-fisted hot dog eaters who were probably those same guys you see in their skivvies at the January Bears-Packer game with big letters painted on their huge, bare, beer bellies.

They were flanked by members of the local chapter of the Polar Bear Club-those wonderful idiots who participate in the annual Polar Plunge; where hundreds of brave (or dumb-depends on your point of view) souls dive into freezing Lake Michigan or other frigid local lakes from January to March across Wisconsin from Eau Claire to Green Bay, and down through Milwaukee into Pleasant Prairie. They raise money for Special Olympics-a great cause and one of the best reasons to pay your friends to go jump in the lake. The Polar Plunge participants earn a special “license to chill,” and help a wonderful and worthy cause at the same time. I personally belong to the “Too Chicken to Plunge” crowd, and I am proud of it.

Movement across the parking lot caught my eye. Behind the only shrub in a three-block area I eyeballed Rosie the News Whore with her nose pressed against the window of the WSEZ media van. Rosie knew better than to get any closer than within fifty feet of me because she knew I didn’t need much of an excuse to kick her butt. Immature as it seems, I’ve fed my childhood hatred for Rosie from the time she and her rotten cohorts ratted my sisters and me out about who stuffed Mac O’Dell’s laying hens into the phone booth outside Sal’s Diner when we were kids. Tattle Tale Rosie grew up mean and graduated to Rosie the Floozy when she bragged about sleeping with her journalism professor to get a “B.”  At the time I asked her if the grade was for journalism or was she just a lousy lay. Gee, for some reason she has reciprocated our mutual loathing into adulthood, and about thirty years later we still banter back and forth in a totally immature way.

Rosie tried her journalistic “luck” in Milwaukee, but no matter how many news executives she got “lucky” with, she kept ending up hung over and alone in the morning, and no job with big network television.

Five years later she came crawling home with her tail between her legs and a reputation for doing just about anything  (or anyone) to get a story, and Rosie has since been dubbed “Rosie the News Whore,” and will forever go down in history as the Monica Lewinski of White Bass Lake.

Sitting in her warm van with her pug nose against the glass, she reminded me of my Bulldog, Hilary making those wet-nose trails across the window when she saw a stray hound dog lifting his leg on a hydrant.

No one was lifting his leg anywhere that I could see, so Rosie must have been entertaining herself by watching J.J. fork garbage from the dumpster into Sal’s parking lot. Though J.J. never treated Rosie with anything worse than polite disdain (if that was possible), it still made my blood pressure skyrocket when she twitched her rear in his direction. I already chased her off with the pitchfork once today, and had a wonderful, warm moment of imagining Rosie accidentally tumbling head first into the rancid dumpster, her stilettos flipping helplessly in the air.

Tearing my green-eyed fantasies back to the cold wet parking lot,  I watched as J.J.’s deputies, Moe (Darryl) and Larry (Phil) sifted through the trash J.J. and Luke tossed out of the dumpster, onto the plastic sheeting spread across three parking spaces.

Sal poked his head out the back door of his diner for what must have been the fiftieth time that morning. He bounced on the balls of his heels and stood on his toes, waving a spatula in my direction. I waved and called “No updates yet, Sal!”

He waved his spatula again and bits of egg flew into the air. “Okee Dokey Buzz, you gonna tell me first ‘cuz it’s my dumpster and my dead guy, right?”

I smiled and nodded and lifted an arm to wave back. Water trickled down my arm and all humor vanished.

Geez. I thought as I shook my sleeve. His dead guy? Since when does ending up in a rented dumpster define ownership of a corpse? What the heck is this sick town coming to?

I summoned up what I thought was a smile “Sure Sal,” I half heartedly yelled back, “I’ll give you a holler when we get something.”

Sal looked confused and a little scared and ducked back in the diner.

Shaking my soggy sleeve I thought, why the heck do I do this? Buzz Miller, YOU are an idiot!

Sal rewarded me with a beautiful smile. “Good, Good; uh, thanks Buzz, I’ll send out more coffee!” Satisfied, he hustled back inside.

That’s why you do it, Buzz. You get free coffee. “Thanks, Sal!” My mood lightened as I wondered if Sal would throw in a doughnut along with the coffee.

Just then I heard the roar of eight cylinders eating up the road and my newly found positive attitude took a dump right there in the pouring rain.

Totally Decked, my Christmas short story, sold like hotcakes. I don’t know if it was the bad Santa, the flatulent Bulldog, the budding romance between Fred Miller and the cute guy from the coffee shop, or the elf who took off with the frozen rats, but I am sure glad it was well received!

Totally Buzzed is the first book in the Miller Sisters Mystery Series. First out in September, 2010, “Buzzed” serves as the introduction into the crazy life of Buzz Miller and her sisters. This book is screwball comedy at its worst (or best, depending on your point of view). One person said they started out by reading about a murder, and the next thing she knew, she was launched into a scene from The Three Stooges. I wanted to thank her, because that is exactly what I wanted, but I don’t think she meant it as a compliment…I guess not everyone can appreciate humor in its lowest form!

Then there is Totally Fishy, the second Miller Sisters Mystery. My husband, Bob, had a hand in the storyline; many of you already know him as Captain Bob-the fish guy. Bob and I keep tropical fish, and Bob has developed several varieties of fish foods, which is taking the fish world by storm. You can see what Bob does at captainbobsfishtales.com.

The story involves a shady fish guy, a gold mine, two scientists from South America, two bargain-basement assassins who keep bumping off the wrong guys, a geriatric pole dancer, and some really, really, really bad guys.

Thanks again for your support, and watch out for Totally Evil this fall from Echelon Press!

Let me tell you a little story about this dahlia. I ordered these dahlias and they arrived in pretty tough shape. I took a picture and emailed it to customer service. Kathleen McCarthy wrote back immediately, and with no muss, fuss, or argument, sent me new ones in a matter of days. This bloom is on a first year plant. They were prolific bloomers, the first dahlias to bloom (I had eight varieties in this area), and the next to the last to fade. They were wonderful! I can absolutely recommend Willow Creek Gardens, and I look forward to ordering from them again.

Back to the subject at hand, your dahlias will fade and start to darken-usually after a couple light frosts, and definitely after the first scrape-the-stuff-off-your-windshield frost, so keep watch. The buds turn black, the  stems fall over and get kind-of mushy in places.  In the picture on the right, you can see the blackened bloom. I stood the stems against another plant, but they have already fallen over, and they are ready to dig.

Be sure to give the stem a wide berth-the dahlia bulb has fleshy lobes that grow outward from the stem. Though they are not far from the surface, the lobes can grow six inches or more from the stem.

Sink the shovel into the soil and gently lift the plant. You can see how the lobes fan out from the stem. Be sure not to break these off. The lobes are delicate, and can easily break.

I use a hose to get the majority of the dirt off my bulbs. If you put your bulbs-any bulbs-to bed with the dirt still attached, you run the risk of putting any critters crawling in and out of the dirt to bed with them. Just think! A nice warm cozy winter home with as much to eat as you can hold, and conditions perfect to reproduce and allow future generations of bugs to feast on your stored bulbs!

The last step we will cover today is bringing the bulbs down to the laundry tub and finishing the cleaning process. Once your bulbs are clean, place them in a place to dry which has good air circulation in and around them. I use my little indoor green house where I sprout everything in the Spring. I peel back the plastic and dry my bulbs on the wire rack. I leave the greens attached for the time being for two reasons. One, to keep my smaller bulbs from falling through the wire, and two, so I can identify them later. I also place a tag on them to identify the name of each dahlia.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Petal Pushers-the continuing saga of putting your dahlias to bed!

                                                                                           Happy Gardening!

However, the caladium wilted, the coleus has a pinched and saggy look to it, and most of the hostas on the north side of the house are finished for the season. I’m about ready to break my containers down and plant the heuchera and grasses I used. I also need to mulch my little Lo and Behold Buddleia heavily, or I might lose it over winter.

I have started cutting back some of the hostas that flopped over, and the grasses that aren’t very interesting in the winter, but I am so pleasantly surprised by my dahlias sticking it out I can hardly stand it!

This is the last plant to bloom this year. Miss Eileen is her name and she is just beautiful!

This is the top bloom from the picture above, and that is a full-sized paper plate behind her. I don’t purposely try to grow giant blooms. I know people who pinch off all the buds except for one. I know folks who mix up special soil like mad scientists, and I know one guy who does everything but stand on his head and light his hair on fire to get great blooms.

 In all honesty, I have found if I mix up a good combination of potting soil and compost, if I keep them watered well and even, if I feed them regularly and give them additional snacks during bloom time, plus a little relief from the hottest summer sun, they remain happy and are still blooming on October 21st.

In other words, show your dahlias the love and they will love you back!

Happy Gardening!

Hosta la Vista Baby! That is the title of my newest Olive Branch Mystery! Give it a try-it’s only 99 cents!

 Speaking of hosta, I knew a guy who yanked his hosta out of the ground like weeds. “Hosta laVista” to him meant get rid of as much of the stuff as he could. He mowed it down too! I think he must have been very disturbed (sorry Dad). The hosta on the left is “June,” and it is one of many hosta in my yard. If you look close, you can see it is three distinctly different colors in the variegation. Very beautiful.

I figure hosta have to be about the most misunderstood plant in the garden. I have a lot of them now. I remember the first time I walked into Graf’s Garden Center. I had a shady, mostly bare spot along the east side of my house. I asked owner, Carole Graf what she would suggest I put there that I wouldn’t kill.

Carole asked if I had any hosta.

“Hosta? Yeah I got some of that, It’s green and white with ugly purple flowers.”

“Buzz, there is more to hosta than just a plain green leafy plant.”

“Yeah, there’s a green and white one too.”

“Ever seen Orange Marmalade?”

I stared at the picture. “Wow. It’s really orange.” What a dope. Good thing I have a lot of investigative experience, right?

Carole laughed. “That is the Spring color, and the new leaves come in orange, but yes, it’s beautiful.”

“I guess I was thinking there were only two kinds.”

“In the “Hostapedia” by Mark Zilis, there are 7400 descriptions of hosta.”

I stood there looking dumb. “Wow.” Great communication skills run in my family.

“Here’s another one,” Carole said. “It’s called ‘Liberty’.”

“It’s sure got my vote. Look at the frilly thing it’s got going with the leaves! It’s…It’s…”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Carole laughed again. She laughed often at me in the early days. I miss her a lot, but she sure taught me about how beautiful planting with hosta can be. Check out these sights-you will be surprised and amazed at the variety of hosta available these days.

Some of these sites are wholesalers, but they have wonderful educational material on hostas. Some also offer companion plants. Check ‘em out and tell me what you think!

http://www.qandznursery.com/index.html

http://www.hostasdirect.com/hostas-for-sale

http://www.greenmountainhosta.com/

http://www.nhhostas.com/companion-plants.htm 

http://www.nhhostas.com/companion-plant