End of the Month Still Life

Part of our incredible bounty of tomatoes in 2011 - over 1,000.  There are still slightly more than 100 on the vines in the greenhouse, but the 2011 gardening year - one of our very best ever - is pretty much over.  The Black from Tula tomato crop is finally rapidly ripening.  Some of these above will be made into sauce, some dried.  The rest will be eaten fresh.

I'm reading and reviewing Amanda Coyne and Tony Hopfinger's upcoming book, Crude Awakening.  I've read more books about Alaska this year than any year since the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I was thinking of writing a historical book about Alaska myself.  Crude Awakening is quite good, about how oil politics corrupted our policies, and how the playing out of that corruption led to openings for the opportunistic and often lucky Sarah Palin to advance her self-serving career.