National Scavenger Hunt Day & The Goonies!

It all started with the skeleton under the floor…

Today, May 24, is National Scavenger Hunt Day! If you like hunts, but aren’t participating in a real-life hunt today, here’s a fun way go on a scavenger hunt in your imagination…with my middle-grade chapter book, The Secret Astoria Scavenger Hunt!

The story opens with…

“The human skeleton dangled from an invisible cord beneath a clear floor panel, light from the nearby fireplace flickering on the top of its skull…”

So where do The Goonies come in?

I dreamed up the story when I was in Astoria, Oregon, for The Goonies Anniversary Celebration. 

If you’re a Goonies fan, you know that the 1985 movie was filmed in and around Astoria—and every five years, the town puts on a big event celebrating all things Goonie!

But the inspiration for the book goes waaay back. When I was a kid in St. Cloud, Minnesota, one of my friends lived in a big house with a secret passageway. And when I was even younger, I always dreamed of having a secret room of my own. So being very intrigued by secret and mysterious places…

And being a big fan of The Goonies movie, that weekend visit to Astoria, I visited an amazing Victorian home, lots of historical sites, and fascinating nooks and crannies. My writer’s brain did a lot of alchemy, and in popped a story about 3 plucky kids going on a ghostly scavenger hunt!

Here’s the Victorian mansion that inspired the haunted B&B in my story

And the old Astoria county jail, now the Oregon Film Museum, that appeared in the movie…and where my fictional scavenger hunt begins!

Also, while writing the book, I was reading Anne of Green Gables. I was so taken by the sweetness and innocence of that story, that I wanted to reflect that simpler time in my book. It’s for tweens, but younger kids, and early teens might like it too. 

Here’s more about the story…

The Goonies Anniversary Celebration brings Seattle tween Morgan to Astoria, Oregon, for a fun weekend with her younger Astoria cousins, Sean and Ronan. The boys have just entered a spooky contest inspired by the movie, and Morgan wants to help them win…and she’s determined to make their Anniversary Celebration weekend together the most memorable ever!

But there’s something really peculiar about the bed-and-breakfast where Morgan, almost thirteen, and her mom are staying. When an even more outlandish girl at the B&B asks the three to go on a cryptic quest on her behalf—a scavenger hunt that could help the boys win the contest—Morgan and her cousins begin a rollicking visit to Astoria’s most famous spots.  

Yet as the weird hunt kicks into high gear, they discover a mysterious boy is following them all over town.

Here’s Astoria’s historical theatre, reputed to be haunted. It inspired the scary theatre in the book’s scavenger hunt!

With the stranger in hot pursuit, the kids realize that the secrets and legends of old Astoria may be haunting them. Will Morgan, Sean and Ronan be able to escape from the powerful forces of the past?  Or will they remain trapped in a world of shadows and dangerous secrets?

To celebrate the 10-Year Anniversary of The Secret Astoria Scavenger Hunt, I’m offering a special sale on my store… Buy the paperback, and get a free print copy of the first book in the series too! Price includes shipping! 

The sale goes through June 8, 2025, this year’s The Goonies Anniversary Celebration, or while supplies last. And even if you only take a look at my store, I appreciate your supporting my small business!

If you prefer ebooks, you can find The Secret Astoria Scavenger Hunt at all your favorite bookstores…Amazon, Kobo, B&N, and Apple Books. You can also get the auto-narrated audiobook at Amazon! 

The Secret Astoria Scavenger Hunt is a tale that also touches upon the ways kids find their place in the world. And if you’re a big Goonies fan, here’s where you can find out about the 2025 Celebration! 

Free Irish “Beach Read” Romance…a First-time Freebie!

Book 2 of my Irish series

Sparkling banter, family secrets, and a slow-burn romance…Mother Love, my Irish “beach read,” is a free ebook this week!

In this rollicking, engaging romantic novel, 30-year old Grainne embarks on a summer of discovery—she’s confronting her feelings about her complicated mother and embarking on her own impetuous plan, just as her longtime crush turns into a passionate love affair. 

You can find the ebook on Kobo, where it’s been selected for a special free promotion…just scroll down to “Find your fave new reads…” 

The ebook is also free at Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and just about every other ebook store. 

(But not Amazon…sorry. Tech issues.) 

Here’s more about Mother Love, Book 2 of the Village of Ballydara series:

For her thirtieth birthday, Irish girl Grainne (pronounced “Grawn-ya) Larkin yearns for three things: her mother's love, a baby, and her old flame Rafe Byrne—not necessarily in that order. On Rafe’s wedding day—a business tycoon, he’s marrying a rich, gorgeous American blonde to please his family—brash, irreverent Grainne decides to settle for second best: the nice guy in the wings, who’s successful and mad about her too.

Yet the Larkin family, as usual, muddles her “failsafe” plan…Grainne's oldest sister pressures her to leave Dublin for the quaint little village of Ballydara, to help their beautiful, complicated mother Eileen launch a B&B. Given her turbulent relationship with her mam, the last thing Grainne wants to do is live with her.

But when Rafe turns up in Ballydara a free man, Grainne plunges into a no-holds-barred pursuit of her lifelong dream. Yet Grainne may discover that opening her heart—to Rafe, to the prospect of motherhood, and to her mother—is the biggest risk of all…

And There’s Another Freebie:

Book1 of the Ballydara series, It Only Takes Once, is permafree—that is, free every day…

Book 1 of the Ballydara series—a fun Rom-Com

And since Mother Love will be free through the Memorial Day weekend, now is a great time to grab both ebooks for free…You’ll find links to all the ebook stores and lots more about the series at www.susancolleenbrowne.com!

Magical Garden Pest Control and More Homestead Garden Class Insights

Barred Owl…Photo credit: Pixabay

Have you watched “The Biggest Little Farm” documentary? You’ll never look at garden pest control the same way. More on that below…

This spring, my “Grow a Homestead-Style Food Garden” had so many interested students, the college ran a second session! 

The second class was just as fun and insightful as the first, but a pair of students shared a garden pest control strategy that’s actually a bit magical…

Back to “The Biggest Little Farm.” 

In the film, the farmer couple watched helplessly as their crops—in which they’d invested years of hard work—were devoured by pests. Then, they had an insight: 

Put Mother Nature to work! 

By creating habitat for certain wildlife, and adding certain farm animals, they discovered every pest has a predator:

*Hawks eat starlings

*Ducks eat snails

*Spiders and wasps eat caterpillars

*Ladybugs eat aphids, and

*Owls and snakes eat gophers

The two students I mentioned above, a married couple, had created a wonderful food garden…then the pests arrived. Critters were attacking everything they grew, from starlings, rats and mice, to voles and squirrels. They said the starlings were the absolute worst.

They couldn’t harvest anything.

But the husband, an engineer who likes to tinkerdoodle around his property, had a brainwave: 

An owl house!

It’s also known as an owl box. It’s like a birdhouse, only really large, where owls can raise their young. You can find kits online, but if you’re handy, you might make your own.

He shared how his owl house came about: after thorough research, he hand-built his own owl house. He advised to make it larger than most kits; his owl house is 2-feet x 3-feet, with a 6-inch round opening. 

On the floor, he uses twigs or wood chips for bedding.

An owl house is just not a simple box: you need to attach hinges to one of the walls to make it moveable. This way, you can simply lift one side to clean out the inside a couple of times a year.

My student placed his owl house in a tall fir at the edge of his property. Online, I saw you can set it at a height of 10 - 20 feet, but he recommended 12 feet. 

He also installed a wildlife cam, and showed me a video. In it, the owlets are staring, big-eyed, into the camera. He said he and his wife spend a lot of time watching them!

Anyway, in a short space of time, the starlings were the first to vamoose, then the rest of their garden pests disappeared…Like magic!

We have lots of barred owls around our neighborhood—here’s a story about my recent encounter with two of them. Since we also have LOTS of voles, my husband John is looking to build an owl house too. 

But if you have lots of pests, and are just beginning your food gardening adventures, here’s something to consider:

Rhubarb: A resilient crop

Why not start by growing food crops that don’t really have pests? While voles do eat rhubarb roots, the rhubarb root systems are very robust, and can generally hold their own. Garlic and onions aren’t plagued by critters that I’ve ever seen. 

Homegrown is the best tasting garlic you’ll ever eat!

Plus these crops are easy to grow. A win-win! 

More Interesting Tips:

Fava Beans: We were discussing cover crops, pros and cons, and one student said, “Fava beans work great.”

These aren’t the regular Fava beans, but a small Fava bean specifically bred as a cover crop. She said when you’re ready to overplant your Fava crop, you can pull the plants out easily—unlike most cover crops that have to be tilled in, and often get invasive.

Dairy Whey: One student makes a lot of homemade yogurt. I’ve made a few batched of ricotta cheese. If you’ve ever made either one, you know you end up with a lot of whey. If you don’t have pigs to share it with, what can you do with whey?

This student actually dilutes the whey with water, and uses it in her garden…and reported that regular whey applications have made her asparagus patch flourish!

I hope you love these off-the-wall tips as much as I do…and I’ll report back once John builds our owl house!

Natural Garden Pest Control—Homestead Garden Class Takeaways!

Peppermint will repel mice…too bad it doesn’t work on the horsetail

Just about everyone with a food garden discovers the truth early on: it’s fairly easy to grow home-grown goodies, but the real challenge is protecting your crops from pests!

Teaching “Grow a Homestead-Style Food Garden” every fall and spring, I get a wonderful side benefit:  the students invariably share all kinds of food gardening tips. 

In my recent class, we had lots of interesting questions and insights…this time, mostly about pests and pest control. 

And specifically, non-chemical gardening strategies. 

Beer works for slugs, but you can use the cheap stuff!

Slugs:

Since we reside on the mossy side of the Pacific Northwest, slugs are probably our most pernicious pest. As usual in my classes, the topic of slugs came up right away. One student had a garden full of strawberries, but said every year, the slugs eat every last berry. 

Now, there’s all kinds of poisons available—but who wants their berry bed full toxic substances! Another student raised her hand.

“Beer,” she said. Lots of other students chimed in, in agreement. I had actually heard long ago that setting out shallow dishes of any kind of beer is a fail-safe, non-toxic slug killer. The slugs come crawling…then will drown themselves in no time flat. 

Or maybe they just get pickled in the alcohol. Either way, it works!

Another student looked rueful. “Just make sure you empty the dish frequently,” she said. She confessed she’d gone a couple of weeks without dumping out the dead critters…and it was unspeakably gross!

Since my husband and I don’t keep beer around, and we’ll never remember to buy any, I use “Sluggo,” billed as “safe for organic gardens.” This product is iron phosphate, which is somehow tasty to slugs, but doesn’t really poison them. Instead, it gives them a stomachache, and they’ll just crawl off somewhere to kick the bucket. 

Pest Control Products: Neem Oil, Diatomaceous Earth and Beneficial Nematodes

Several students were interested in manufactured products for food crop pests, and mentioned neem oil and diatomaceous earth, two manufactured products that are generally considered safe to use. My research indicated that yes, both are considered non-toxic.

Neem oil is from a neem tree, and apparently you can mix it with water and spray it on both soil and plants to kill pests. Diatomaceous earth is a powdery formula of silica compounds, which are abrasive to insects’ exteriors. I understand some people use it inside their home for critters like ants.

It doesn’t sound terribly toxic, right? However, neem oil can cause stomach upsets in  humans, while diatomaceous earth can irritate the lungs. 

Beneficial nematodes are basically tiny critters that live in the soil and eat the pests’ eggs and larvae. If you want to purchase them, they come in a powder, (a refrigerated package), and you mix the powder with water.

I mentioned these in earlier posts—for 3 or 4 years in a row, John and I faithfully deployed beneficial nematodes to address the apple maggot infestations in our orchards. Sadly, the nematodes seemed to have no effect.

However, there’s another method that has worked for us: first, you thin (remove excess fruits) the apple tree thoroughly, then you staple a Ziploc baggie around each remaining apple while it’s about the size of a quarter. Neither the apple maggot moths nor their larvae are able to penetrate the plastic bag! 

My own position is to use natural methods of pest control. We use sprigs of mint to repel ants and mice, and have several small patches of peppermint around the yard. We’ve planted an extra patch next to the house foundation, a spot where ants like to enter our house!

Also for ants, you can set out a mixture of cornmeal and cayenne. The ants love the corn, but the grain will swell in their digestive tracts. Plus cayenne pepper won’t go down easily either!

You can use soapy water on aphids, and hand-pick larger pests off your veggies.

I learned another insight earlier this spring: healthy plants repel pests best! If you build healthy soil, with lots of organic matter and natural fertilizers like compost, you’ll raise healthier, sturdier, and more resilient plants.

That made perfect sense to me. We don’t use any pesticides, herbicides or fungicides in our garden, and have very few pests…

You can do any easy search on this blog for more in-depth articles using beneficial nematodes, and the Ziploc technique!