Lifescapes

Coreopsis: In bloom this week

Plains coreopsis--a beautiful flower, especially when they fill a whole meadow with their sunny yellow blossoms.

But Coreopsis tinctoria (as you might guess from its Latin binomial) isn't just pretty to look at when it's blooming. It's a great dye plant, and often used to create a strong yellow-orange color on wool that has been pre-treated ("mordanted") with an acidic or alkaline substance to "fix" the color. I've used alum, which is easy to find and use and not as caustic as some of the others.

Picking the flowers is fun--you'll need about a quarter pound of fresh flowers, half that of dried. (I often dry mine, to do the dyeing later.)

You'll also need about the same amount of pre-treated wool yarn or fiber. Cover the blossoms (dried or fresh) with water and soak overnight in an enamel or stainless steel dyepot, then simmer for an hour. Take it off the heat and let it cool.

Meanwhile, soak your yarn. When the dyepot is cool, strain out the flowers through a couple of layers of muslin (you can compost the flowers or put them through another dyebath, for a lighter color). Squeeze the water out of the yarn and immerse in the dyepot. Bring to a simmer (please don't boil). Gently agitate the fiber every now and then (you don't have to stir, just push it around). After an hour, turn off the heat and let cool. Take out the fiber, rinse well, then wash in a mild soap and hang to dry. You can reuse the the dyestuff until the color is exhausted.

Here is some coreopsis-dyed yarn and fleece created by the Dancing Wooly Masters. Isn't it simply gorgeous? Their yarns are for sale from Dove's Roost Farm.

Source: dancingwoolymasters.wordpress.com via Susan on Pinterest

Cucumbers: This week in the garden

Out in the garden, the cucumbers are getting ready to swing into their cucumber production number. These are Marketmore, a heritage variety that does well here--takes about 60 days from emergence to my plate. I love to eat them fresh from the vine, with chopped fresh tomatoes, onions, and thin-sliced carrots in a zesty oil/vinegar dressing. Bill (who isn't big on raw food) prefers them pickled.

I always have good intentions about canning, and I even know where the jars, lids, and pressure cooker are! But when I'm working on a book (as I am now--#4 in the Darling Dahlias series), I can't seem to find the time. So I use my mother's 1930s recipe for ice box pickles.

Ice Box Pickles

 

•  6 thin-sliced cucumbers
• 1 cup sliced onion
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon celery seed
• 1 teaspoon pickling spices
• sprigs of fresh dill and thyme

 Bring the vinegar to a boil. Stir in sugar and salt until dissolved. Add celery seed and spices. Cool slightly and pour over the cucumbers, onions, and herbs. Cover and refrigerate. Will keep indefinitely.

I know I'm dating myself, but I remember Mom making these pickles back in the days when we had a real ice box. It was restocked with ice twice a week, when the ice man delivered the ice. ("The ice man cometh," my father would say with a chuckle--which I didn't understand until I was in college and read O'Neill's play.) The ice man drove a big blue truck and carried the ice on his shoulder, on a burlap pad. My brother and I would follow him out to the truck and he'd chip off a chunk of ice for each of us. A nice treat on a hot Illinois summer afternoon.

The ice box pickles are a nice treat, too. If you'd like a bit of color, add some chopped red bell pepper. If you want more zing, add chile peppers (jalepenos, serranos, habaneros, what have you).

Reading note. [In the seventeenth century] cucumbers were in great demand at the local apothecary shop, where they were an important pharmaceutical. The seeds were employed to treat inflammations of the bowel and urinary tract and to expel tapeworms, and the pulp and juice were used to ease skin inflammations and treat sunburns. Even today, beauty consultants in expensive spas often recommend placing cooling, soothing slices of cucumber over tired and inflamed eyes...--China Bayles Book of Days, entry for June 3

 

A Beautiful Mother's Day Sunrise

Source: twitpic.com via Susan on Pinterest

 

A beautiful sunrise this morning in the Texas Hill Country and at the Wildflower Center in Austin (where the photo was taken)--a good place for a Mother's Day treat, to wind up National Wildflower Week. We've had a wonderful week here at Meadow Knoll, with over 3" of blessed rain filling the cattail pond, refreshing our little Pecan Creek, and fattening the tiny green nutlets on Bill's pecan trees. We harvested our last decent crop of pecans in 2009, so we're hoping for an abundance this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garden report. The Kentucky Wonders and MacCaslan beans (both climbers) are vying for top honors this year. We'll have beans to eat in another week or two, along with the new potatoes that I need to dig as soon as the ground dries out a bit.

I'm delighted with the Gonzales mini green cabbages I planted this year. The outer leaves are bug-bitten, but the small, tightly pack heads are perfect and very tasty. One head makes just the right amount of cabbage for slaw-for-two. I'll try these again in the fall.

Book Report. Moving forward with the Dahlias #4 (The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star). This book features a woman aviator, so I've had the fun of researching women airplane pilots of the 1920s and 30s.

As a writer, one of the joys of this series is sorting through photos of the period and pictures of period furniture, dishes, clothing, so I can include authentic details in the books. I've been posting some of these to my Darling Dahlias board on Pinterest--a great place to archive research photos and share them with readers. Although the Cottage Tales series is concluded, I've the same thing with my Cottage Tales board--just updated it with a photo of Beatrix's dollhouse.

And now that my two big conferences are over (Story Circle and the Herb Society), I can get back to blogging more regularly. I'm fascinated by all these web-based ways to share, but I'm always balancing time spent online (which I enjoy) with time spent writing and gardening (which I love). I know you have the same problem: it's a juggle, isn't it?

But on this beautiful Mother's Day, I can only be very grateful for all the things this life has offered me: my three wonderful children and their families, each and all amazing; my husband and life-partner; my work; and the days here at Meadow Knoll.

Reading note: If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.--Master Eckhart

 

 

Yarrow: In bloom this week

Yarrow is such a modest and unassuming little plant, isn't it? Tiny white flowers in an umbrella-shaped cluster, with ferny, feathery green leaves that have given it its species name, millifolium (a corruption of the French phrase, mille feuille, a thousand leaves). Its genus name, Achillea, is an historical footnote: yarrow is said to be the plant that Achilles, the hero of Greek myth, used to staunch the bleeding of his soldiers and treat pain and inflammation--hence its common names, soldier's woundwort, herbe militaire, nosebleed plant. It's been used as a healing herb for over 2500 years; in China, its Asian cousin was (and still is) used to treat inflammations, bleeding, heavy menstrual flow and cramping, and snake bites. It works by virtue of two major plant chemicals that produce blood coagulation, several chemicals that reduce inflammation and relieve pain, and a chemical that relaxes the smooth muscles of the uterus and digestive tract. The leaves can be applied as a poultice and a tea or a tincture can be made of the aerial parts of the plant. A good medicine-cabinet herb, handy to have around.

But I've also been interested in yarrow's uses as a divining herb. I first met the herb in the medieval manuscripts I studied in graduate school, where the Anglo-Saxons called it gearwe and used it as a powerful force against evil. (Other common names: angel flower, devil's pepper, devil's nettle.) It was hung beside the doorway or strewn on the floor to ward off illness, bad luck, evil fairies. And in cases of demonic possession, yarrow could be used as a cleansing herb. In a tenth-century leechbook, for instance, yarrow was prescribed as a "spew herb" (a vomitory) to treat "a fiend-sick man or demonic, when a devil possesses the man or controls him from within with disease."

Yarrow was also used in foretelling the future. Here's a curious little East Anglian charm that combines both its incantatory and its medicinal qualities: 

Yarroway, yarroway, bear a white blow [blossom]
If my love love me, my nose will bleed now 

And in China, yarrow is an important divining herb. Fifty dried stalks are used to cast hexagrams in the I Ching. The procedure is a more complicated and less convenient than coins, but interesting--if you enjoy the I Ching (as I have), the yarrow stalks will give you some insight into the traditional divining practice. 

These days, yarrow has been hybridized and comes in the soft pastel colors of the rainbow. But I prefer the modest white blossoms that remind me of Achilles, of the old Anglo-saxon gearwe, and of yarrow's ability to foretell the future.

Reading note. A Gaelic woman's yarrow charm, translated by Kenneth Jackson: "I will pick the smooth yarrow that my figure may be sweeter, that my lips may be warmer, that my voice may be gladder...May I be an island in the sea, may I be a hill in the land, may I be a star in the dark time, may I be a staff to the weak one: I shall wound every man, no man shall hurt me." (Quoted in The Englishman's Flora, by Geoffrey Grigson)

Wildflower Season

This is our front yard, a billowing blanket of red, yellow, and orange gaillardia--Indian blanket, or firewheel. A stunning mass of beautiful flowers, the legacy of an unexpectedly rainy La Nina winter.

The past few months have been hugely hectic: books, garden, and couple of major conferences. But the book (Widow's Tears, China Bayles 2013) has been delivered; the garden is doing its green thing; and both conferences are history. The Story Circle conference (which I co-chaired with Peggy) was richly rewarding (and exhausting). And the Herb Society of America conference, where I spoke, was great fun. If you're interested in my talk ("The Secret Life of Herbs"), you'll find the text here. Bill brought his turned wood art and I brought books to sell, and we spent two full days connecting with friends (old and new) from all around the country and right here in Texas.

And there was a wonderful honor: the HSA named me their Honorary President for 2012-2014! China is convinced that this is all her doing, of course, since she is the one who owns the herb shop, does all those herbie things, and is featured in all those herbal mysteries. I've tried to explain the situation to her, but even though she is a remarkably bright and perceptive person, she is being remarkably dense about this. But I'm sure I'll be able to find a way to make her understand--eventually. My term begins July 1 and I'm very much looking forward to working with the HSA board members to acquaint more people with the organization's wonderful work. (Did you know that it was the Herb Society of America that created and sustains the National Herb Garden, in Washington D.C.?)

Garden Report

March was unexpectedly rainy, April was unfortunately dry--but last night brought a wonderful (and entertaining) lightning and thunder show and a lovely half-inch of rain. With luck, there might be a repeat performance tonight or next week, according to our weather guru. As you can see, the beans are doing very well (the trellis is made with cane harvested from along the creek). The potatoes are ready to dig--and I can't leave them in the ground because the soil gets very warm in the afternoon: we might have broiled potatoes! The tomatoes are beginning to set fruit, and I harvested the first tomato hornworm this morning. Squished him dead. But of course there will be more. One year, I harvested a gross of the things. That's right: a dozen dozen hornworms.

Book Report. Widow's Tears is done and on my editor's desk (well, in her computer, anyway). I just finished the copy edit of The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose (the third book in that new series). I'm working on the fourth book now: The Darlng Dahlias and the Texas Star. The manuscript of Wild Rose is still making the rounds of NY editors--I'll update you on that when I have any news.

And in the meantime, I'm enjoying what has turned out to be the most spectacular wildflower season in the quarter-century Bill and I have lived here at Meadow Knoll. Every window offers a joyful view, and when I go outdoors, I scarcely know where to look. Summer looms dry and hot over the southern horizon, but spring has been a great delight.

Reading Note:

’Tis a gift to be simple, ’Tis a gift to be free.
’Tis a gift to come down where you want to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
--traditional Shaker Hymn

 

Lady Banks: In Bloom This Week

Lady Banks: one of our prettiest roses. A Chinese import (yes, truly), one of her ancestors was taken to Europe in the 1820s, and hence to America not long after. This is a splendid year for our Lady, the first in some seasons. 2010 and 2009 were drought years, which reduced her bloom; I pruned her back severely in 2007, which reduced the 2008 bloom. I'm glad to see her in such good health, after a long, hot summer last year. The large shrub behind her is a red-tip photinia, also very pretty this year.

The veggie garden is flourishing this spring, thanks to the unusual wet La Nina winter: a "nice La Nina," for a change. The reasons for this unusual La Nina are complex, meterologically speaking, but the bottom line, for us, has been about 6 inches of rain, more than we usually expect in January-February. The Highland Lakes are still far below normal: only 44% full. But we're looking at more rain in the next few days, so that may change.

In the meantime, the mesquites are leafing out (which signals the beginning of our "official" spring), the redbuds are in bloom, the Texas mountain laurel is splendid, and the grass is a bright emerald green. We'll be moving the cows to their spring pasture next week, after feeding hay for the past couple of months--there's a patch of wonderful grass behind the barn that will bring them great delight.

And I've been working in the garden, where the potatoes are coming along nicely, thank you. This is just the kind of weather they love, so I'm hoping they make a crop. We'll know about the middle of May.

Also flourishing: spinach, chard, and kale; onions (bunch and long-day); carrots and radishes; peas (snaps and pod); tomatoes; cabbage; and brocolli. I neglected to put collars around the tomatoes and lost one of the best ones to cutworms, which are especially nasty this wet spring. I got busy and collared everything that might be susceptible. (2" collars cut from recycled file folders.) Hope that does the trick.

Oh, and I ordered my baby chicks! A couple of dozen meat birds (Cornish Rock Cross)--they'll arrive the middle of April and be in the freezer by mid-June. I did this later last summer, and the heat was a huge problem for them AND for me!

Our local wildlife are also appreciating spring. Our favorites: the wild turkeys. There's quite a flock this year, about a dozen hens and three toms. The toms start gobbling loudly before sunrise every morning (there's nothing like being awakened by a love-lorn turkey tom) and showing off their fine tails to the hens, who pay them no-never-mind. One day last week, all three toms encircled a single hen and were displaying madly while she ate her breakfast out of the grass, oblivious to their charms. The toms don't appear to be competitive, except in the matter of tails and gobbles.

Not so favorite: Black Bart the wild boar, who has been tearing up the south meadow. We saw our neighbor out the other morning, in her camoflauge gear with her pig hunting rifle over her shoulder. Unfortunately, it was about 9 am, long after Black Bart has packed it in for the day. If she wants to shoot that pig, she'll have to get out there at sunrise or hang around at sunset, which is when we usually see him. It's open season on wild pigs here, and he's big enough (and slow enough) to be a good target.

Book Report. I turned in Widow's Tears last week: Ruby's book, with China--the backstory is the Galveston hurricane of 1900. I'm still working on various aspects of the Rose Wilder Lane project, but have also started the next Dahlias mystery: The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star. I also submitted another article to Wildflower Magazine, this one on native medicinal plants. My earlier article, on drought-tolerant wildflowers, is here, with great photos by Steven Schwartzman.

Out and about. I'll be at Blinn College this week, in Brenham TX, and in several different venues during April, launching Cat's Claw out into the world. The full schedule is here.

Reading note. Knowledge in depth about one's home region will not strip away the gleaming surface that has been spread over the continent by mass culture and mass production, but such knowledge may reveal to us how thin that surface is, thin enough to see through, as thin as ice on a spring pond.--Scott Russell Sanders, Writing From the Center

 

Spring Green

Yes, I know. It's blowing a blizzard in your corner of the world, while Central Texas is enjoying a green spring already. But our daytime 70s will pretty quickly morph into 80s, 90s, and 100s and the garden will fry, so hold onto your garden envy.

In the meantime, however, we're reveling in green grass--and a goodly harvest of green spinach and chard. I went out with a knife on Monday and cut a basket of spinach. An hour later, it was blanched (boiling water, 2 minutes), iced, and bagged for the freezer. I saved enough for supper and sauteed it with a little sausage, onions, garlic, zuchinni, leftover corn, leftover cooked macaroni canned tomatoes, mushrooms, thyme, and rosemary. Great skillet supper--went together in just a few minutes and cleaned up some leftovers. My favorite kind of no-fuss cookery.

Garden report. The peas are up (some pillbug damage), the onions, radishes, and carrots are flourishing. The potatoes will be up by the end of this week. I potted up my seedling cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, and tomato babies--they'll be under the lights for another three weeks. I've learned that I have to get everything in early because it gets hot so quickly here. But our average last frost is around March 20-24, so I don't put tender things out until the end of the month. That's when I'll start planting beans and southern peas.

Book report. I haven't been blogging because I've been writing like crazy, finishing Widow's Tears. I started it after Thanksgiving and have worked on it steadily, but with interruptions, so the writing has taken a little longer than usual. Also, this book has an historical backstory--the Galveston Hurricane of 1900--so it required more research than usual. I still have a few paragraphs at the end to wrap up, but it's basically finished. It's scheduled for publication in April 2013.

Which reminds me to remind you that Cat's Claw will be out on March 6 (there's a first chapter/excerpt on the book page). Got my author's copies last week, and they're beautiful. Love that cover! Mourning Gloria will be out in paperback in early April.

Next up on the writing desk is the fourth Darling Dahlias mystery, The Darling Dahlias and the Spirit Bean. I have a synopsis (which I did for the project proposal) but not much else, so I'm looking forward to finding out what that's all about. Also in the works: another article for Wildflower Magazine. No news yet on the Laura/Rose project. You'll be the first to hear when I have something to share. I'm currently reading Rose's 1925 book Hill-Billy, parts of which originally appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. What a remarkable writer she was!

Other stuff. The Story Circle Conference is coming up in April, and I've been working (with a wonderful team of conference committee chairs!) on that. I've been doing a cross-stitch piece (a Mary Englebreit teapot) for the Silent Auction--it's done but not framed yet--when it is, you'll get a picture. Oh, and I sent Peggy (my assistant, she-without-whom-nothing-gets-done) a pair of socks I knitted for her. Here they are, keeping Peggy's toesies warm.

Reading note: Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible.—Sharon Schuster (I bought this as a bumper sticker in Berkeley when I was in grad school. I look at it at least once every day.)

Seedlings!

It's that time again. The last frost date here at Meadow Knoll is around the 20th of March, just about 8 weeks away. Which means that it's time to get growing. The seedlings you can see here are broccoli: Green Magic, an early broccoli that does its thing before the weather turns hot. The seedlings you can't see--the ones still under cover, on the heat mat, are cabbage, eggplant (Black Beauty), tomatoes (Porter and Small Fry) and peppers (Charleston Belle). The brocs and cabbages will go into the ground as soon as they're big enough to be moved. I'll pot up and hold the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants until there's no danger of frost.

Next up on the planting schedule: onions (1015Y--short-day onions), which I got online from Dixondale Farms, here in Texas; and potatoes (Yukon Gold and Red Cloud), also ordered online from Wood Prairie Farm in Maine. I usually put potatoes in around Valentine's Day, but since it's shaping up to be a warm spring, I may jump the gun a bit.

The long-term (3 month) weather forecast is for warmer and drier--not a good sign of things to come. But with the new well, I'll have water for irrigation: a big load off my mind.

Book report. I finished the umpteenth draft of the proposal for Laura and Rose and sent it off to Kerry, my agent at Levine and Greenberg. She'll be sending it off to her editors' list (I haven't seen that yet) in another week or two. To those of you who've asked: the usual timetable is for delivery of the manuscript 12 months after the signing of the contract, with publication 12 months after that. So we're at least 24 months away from the bookstore shelves. Don't hold your breath.

Nearer at hand: Cat's Claw, the 20th Pecan Springs mystery, which will be out on March 6 (the first chapter is available at the link). We've set up a drawing page, with an herb quiz for you to have fun with--enter for a chance to win a signed, personalized copy.

In the works: Widow's Tears, which has as a backstory the 1900 Galveston hurricane. The research has been hugely interesting and I've enjoyed pulling together real people/events into a fact-based fiction. The frontstory is a ghost story, featuring Ruby Wilcox. I'm a bit more than half-way through the project (too many interruptions!).

Texas drought and flooding. If you've been keeping tabs on this challenge, you probably saw that some nearby counties got a big rain last week (with a couple of tornadoes thrown in for good measure): 9" in Bastrop County, where flooding has compounded the problems of last fall's big burn at Bastrop State Park. (The park suffered the loss of nearly 100% of its beautiful pine forest.) Meanwhile, the wells supplying Spicewood Beach (about 30 miles south of us and only about 70 miles from Bastrop) have failed and the community of 1100 is being supplied by truck. For an interesting discussion of the issue of "seniority" and water rights, check out this Texas Tribune article. These are not easy times here.

Reading note. Sansom, of Texas State, says that another classic example of "oldest first" is the struggle in Central Texas between rice farmers, growing cities like Austin and residents of the severely depleted Highland Lakes (though this system, managed by the Lower Colorado River Authority, goes beyond and is more complex than the "junior-senior" rights hierarchy overseen by TCEQ). Rice farmers have been using Colorado River water since the 19th century, even before the Highland Lakes were created — and in normal years a few hundred farmers use more water than the city of Austin.

Laura and Rose Resources 1

I've been taking a break from Widow's Tears to work on the book proposal for Laura and Rose, so that Kerry (Kerry Sparks, the project's agent at Levine-Greenberg) can shop it around to potential publishers. Kerry is wonderfully enthusiastic, but there's always more that can be done on any piece of writing--especially on a proposal. The proposal itself is all but finished, and I'm working on the sample chapters.

At some point, I'll post a list of the book's major research materials, but in the meantime, I wanted to share some online resources with you. My favorite is Nancy Cleaveland's wonderful blog, "As a Laura Ingalls Wilder Researcher Thinks." Nancy also maintains an all-things-Laura website called "Pioneer Girl: Fact and Fiction of Laura Ingalls Wilder" and she's on Twitter. Nancy has devoted years of study to the factual Laura, her family, and the places she lived--as well as to their fictional representations in the Little House books. Lots of insight, fascinating facts, and reliable information, fully documented. Both the blog and the website are a treasure trove. If you're just starting your own research into Laura's life, Nancy's work will give you a firm direction (and a wonderful model). If you're filling in the blanks, Nancy's research will help. A recent post, for instance, is called "Starry Papers." It's about the history behind the cut-out shelf paper that Ma Ingalls showed the girls how to cut in By the Shores of Silver Lake. And for a sample of her in-depth research into Rose's life and work, take a look at this post, about one of Rose's early ghost-writing projects. Wonderful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those of you who have been following the progress of our new well, Bill reports that we are now getting 10-12 gallons a minute. The water is completely tasteless and odorless (no chlorine, of course--and no sulphur) and crystal clear. He hasn't hooked the well into our water system yet because the current well is still producing about 2-3 gal/min--adequate for household use. The hookup is a job that can wait until the weather is warmer and we need the new well for irrigation. It's also a big job that requires substantial trenching for both water and electric lines and the construction of some kind of well-house. Ah, life in the country. It's always something...

Reading note. Every human should have the idea of taking care of the environment, of nature, of water. So using too much or wasting water should have some kind of feeling or sense of concern. Some sort of responsibility and with that, a sense of discipline.---The 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso

Happy Dancin'!

Really happy news! Kerry Sparks at the Levine Agency will be representing my new narrative nonfiction project. The working title: Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane: A Tale of Two Women in Tough Times and the Little Houses They Built.The photo is one of their houses: the farmhouse at Rocky Ridge, which Laura and Almanzo built and Rose renovated, now part of the farm museum.

If it seems to you that I've been muttering about this project forever, you're right--but it's even longer than  you know. I started the research in 1991, have continued to add to it over the years, and moved it from the bottom drawer to the top of the desk last summer. Can't tell you how excited I am to be making progress toward the book at last! But I'm not forgetting China. When the proposal is finished and polished, I'll be going back to Widow's Tears and Kerry can get on with her work. It's fun to be working with somebody who's as enthusiastic about the book as I am!