Lifescapes

Copper canyon daisy: In bloom this week

Delightful Tagetes lemmonii, or Copper canyon daisy--a tumble of bright marigold-like blossoms in the fall, a strong scent that's unforgettable but hard to describe: fruity, woodsey, minty, lemony. This southwestern native perennial bravely endured the drought without a drop of extra water and is heaped with blossoms this week. I love it. Want more of it, so will dig and divide early next spring.

More El Nino news from the climate-change folks: the current mild event is strengthening, the water temperatures in the central tropical Pacific are soaring much faster than expected. Which means hotter temperatures around the globe but (paradoxically) a cooler, wetter winter for us. So far, our autumn has been simply splendid. Next spring's wildflowers are putting up their leaves and pushing down their roots, so if you were thinking of making a wildflower trip to Texas next April, do put it on your calendar. 2010 is likely to be a make-up year, when the ungerminated seed that's been in the ground during the drought wakes up and blooms like crazy. But El Nino also fosters exaggerated weather events in Texas: tornadoes in November, torrential rainfalls, winter icestorms. Cool and wet is good. Wild and stormy, not so much.

This weekend, I'm reading the copyedited manuscript of An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days, the journal/book I wrote in 2008, which will be published next year by the University of Texas Press. Feeling deeply grateful to Sally, a very fine copyeditor, who reads with careful attention, checks the facts, corrects the errors. And this, on top of the readings and comments by Theresa and Lynne, as well as two anonymous jurors who offered extensive comments. Truly: takes a village--and lots of time--to make a book. And a book, thoroughly vetted and checked and re-checked, is truly different from much of the stuff that's thrown up so quickly on the Web.

Reading note: When writers die, they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.--Jorge Luis Borges

Ripple Run: Drought notes 10

 
 The rain is returning, at last--over eight inches for September, five for October. This is a photo of Ripple Run, which in previous years has been lined with ferns and bog-loving plants. The plants are gone now (maybe they'll be back in the spring?) but Ripple Run is flowing again, happily and musically. The water is still brown with oak-leaf tannins but the silt and mud have settled out. Sheer delight. It's been cool but not chilly and no frost predicted: the grass is spring-green and lush. We moved the cows onto the pasture we've been saving for their winter feed, and they're eating full-time, delighted with a green menu, after lean rations this summer. Amazing to me: the quick recovery of the native grasses. The turkey-foot bluestem is fruiting just now, and the seed heads are heavy and ripe. A beautiful sight--and if there are decent rains this winter, a promise of future bounty.

A hugely busy week last week, beginning with a talk to the University of Texas Press Advisory Council, then book talks with author/naturalist Susan Tweit at Texas State University in San Marcos and Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, the Texas Book Festival on Sunday, and a Story Circle Be Our Guest program with Susan last night. Saw so many old friends, met some ones, and enjoyed every minute of it. All of these author appearances are connected with the publication of Together, Alone, my new memoir. There are two more events in the next two weeks: Wimberley library on Saturday 11/7 and Mason library on Sunday 11/15. After that, I'm taking some time off. Bill and I are going to New Mexico, and to Colorado for Thanksgiving with daughter Robin and her family (including, of course, the newest member, Jasper!).

This week, I've written a guest post at womensmemoirs.com, about using your journal as a means of documenting your life and as a "research document" for a memoir. Please check it out and leave your questions in the comment section. The questions will be the basis of an interview that will take place on Friday. It'll be available via the magic of podcast. Thanks to Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler for inviting me to participate. They do a wonderful job with that website, and offer a very helpful service to women who are writing about their lives.

And here's something new for you: the Darling Dahlias website! Peggy and I have been working on it in our spare time (what's that??) with help from accomplished flower artist Peggy Turchette. It's still early days yet, but people have been asking about the series (not due to be published for another nine months), and I wanted you to have something to look at in the meantime. Over the next few months, we'll be posting some additional material, so bookmark it and drop back in from time to time to see what we've been up to.

Reading note. I think with a kind of awe that no human being has ever made a permanent home on this particular spot on the globe--Bill and I are the first. But that doesn't mean that this place has no history, or that the land has not been used and changed by humans. Its unimaginably long past is written in layers of limestone rock, in tree rings, in th e arrow points chipped by Indians passing through, in rusty cowbells and the marks of wagon wheels on rock. Everything has a tongue. Everything speaks. To hear it, I have to be patient, and still, and silent.--Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place. 

High Water: Drought Notes 9

The drought may not be broken, but it's certainly been bent. We got 5" of rain in 24 hours--very welcome. Our little lake (about 20 acres) is full, and so is the creek. The photo here was taken about 8 hours after high tide on Pecan Creek. The water roared over the bridge in the foreground. You're looking downstream in this photo. Pecan Creek flows into the North Fork of the San Gabriel, into Lake Georgetown, and finally into the Brazos River and the Gulf. We're close (in miles) to the Highland Lakes, but on the north side of a ridge that divides the Brazos and the Lower Colorado watersheds. (Do you know your watershed? It might be important some day!)

The water levels in the lakes are coming up--I understand that the rise in Travis just from this one rain could supply Austin for a full year! But even with this amount of rain, Buchanan is only 44% full, Travis only 49% full. The water levels in the aquifer (especially in our Upper Trinity) are always a mystery, but the situation has to be somewhat improved.

This week, I've been reading galleys of Holly Blues, and take back all the nasty things I said about Word Track Changes, which my publisher now uses for copyedited manuscripts. I still don't like using it (much prefer paper/pencil) but the result is a much cleaner final product. Less work for editorial/production, and eliminates the cost of mailing (substantial, these days). Peggy posted the first chapter of the book on the website. We've also posted an interesting video that describes the brewing of yerba mate, a tea made from the holly plant.

Also this week, an interesting interview with the editor of The Herb Companion, with Vicky Uhland. We talked about the importance of knowing the herbs and food plants that are native to the places in which we live--which can also introduce us to the histories of our places. One of my favorite things to do: walk around our fields and woodlot and name, silently, to myself, the plants I recognize, honoring them, considering the many ways they've been used by humans. It's an important meditation, reminding me that we use plants so unwisely these days. We exploit their habitats (and the habitats of other species that share the space) to the point where the natives are destroyed. Caring people need to do all we can to preserve them and use them with thoughtful consideration.

As well, this week, an interview with Susan Tweit about memoir and place, especially about Together, Alone. Susan and I will be spending some time together over the next week or two. We'll be at Texas State University, the Texas Book Festival, and at a very special program hosted by Story Circle Network and open to all (yes, guys, that includes you!) The events are posted here. Come and say hi!

Reading note. We can lie to ourselves about many things; but if we lie about our relationship to the land [or to the sea, or the wetlands, or the Arctic wilderness, or global warming] the land will suffer, and soon we and all other creatures that share the land will suffer. If we persist in our ignarance or dishonesty, we will die. . . . Seeing the danger of ignorance, we may be moved to invent or recover some of the lore that connects us to the land, that tells us how to live in our place.--Scott Russell Sanders

Ducher Rose: In bloom this week

 
The antique roses--wonderfully hardy and resistant to almost all the ills known to hybrid roses--not only survived the drought (although most lost their spring leaves in July this year) but have put out new leaves and are enjoying a re-bloom. Another indication that "heirloom" or "heritage" plants (non-hybrids) are superior to plants produced by plant engineers. I'm delighted by their beauty and love their fragrance.

Drought note: For the past two years, our bluebonnet meadow has had only a few bluebonnets. Yesterday evening, when I walked there with the dogs, checking out the soil and the grass, I saw strong stands of sprouting bluebonnets, just an inch or two tall. These lupines produce very hard-shelled seeds that require both abrasion and moisture to sprout. The current rains are coming at just the right time. If we get good rain in December, when the plants are putting down roots, we'll have great bluebonnets next April. If you're thinking of visiting the Hill Country, stay tuned for bluebonnet reports. The main bluebonnet area, around Fredericksburg and up 281 to Burnet, has had the same good rains, so their bluebonnets are probably sprouting, too.

Rain this weekend: almost 3" total. The soil is now becoming saturated here and the rain that falls is running off into our creek, marsh, and lake. The creek isn't running yet--that won't happen until the lake fills up, and that won't happen until we get another 10" or so in one "event." Happy days!

Work this week: Three-four more days will see me finished with The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree. Then I need to go back and clean up a few problems, inconsistencies, etc. Planning to turn it in by Oct 20, since I have travel plans for the end of the month. Also need to be picking peas and green beans every day, to keep ahead of the garden. Stir-fry veggies every night, some for the freezer. Still planting, too, for the winter garden: more garlic, more onions, cabbage transplants, bok choi, kale, carrots, spinach. Looking for the first frost by the end of the month or maybe the first week of November.

If you haven't checked out the Cameo-Character Raffle, please do. You've always wanted to appear in a book, haven't you?

Reading note. It never really stops, this business of growing things--garlic goes into the ground agian in October, just as other frost-killed crops are getting piled onto the compost heap. Food is not a product but a process, and it never sleeps. It just goes underground for a while.--Barbara Kingsolver

The working garden

I like to look at the "backsides" of gardens--the places where gardeners do the kind of work that results in fine vegetables and showy flowers. Here's the backside of mine, overseen by St. Francis in the left foreground, whose feastday is coming up on Sunday Oct. 4. You can see the garden gate and fence (click for a larger view) that encloses the raised-bed growing area and keeps it safe from opportunistic deer, rabbits, and raccoons. In front of that, left toright, a pile of oakleaf/cow manure processed compose, a pile of dry cowpies, a bin (black, covered with sheet metal) of fresh cowpies, a compost bin and a second compost bin. A hose, of course. And (you can't see it here) a garbage can of cowpie tea. Soil amendment/soil building is the big project in this part of the garden. We're very alkaline here, so I put a lot of effort into bringing the pH into the neutral range. As I work, I often think about the importance of the soil, the undisturbed grass, and the trees as carbon sinks: organic sponges that soak up at least some of the greenhouse gases that are changing the climate of our planet.

Working this week on the Darling Dahlias (up to 74,000 words now, so I have to start tieing up loose ends). Just got some good news: the large-print rights for the first book have been sold to Thorndike. The large-print editions do well in the online bookstores and in libraries.

Speaking of which, Bill and I drove down to Boerne last night for a full house at the Boerne library--thanks for hosting me, guys--it was great to see the room full of interested listeners who actually laughed at my jokes. (You really shouldn't do that: it encourages me to go on . . . and on . . . and on.)

Family news. As you can see from the featured post at the top of the page, we've welcome Jasper Owen into our family. Mom, baby, and dad are doing well. Grandma Robin is polishing her baby-minding skills. And g-gmama Susan gets to sit back and admire. How nice!

One more thing. Peggy has set up a cameo-character raffle for me. If you've always wanted to see your name in a book, now's your chance! We're raffling off chances for a cameo appearance in one of the upcoming mysteries. All proceeds go to benefit Story Circle Network. Check it out, take a chance (or several), and help to support an organization that helps to support women who have stories to tell. (You have a story, too, you know!)

Reading note. What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.—Muriel Rukeyser

Rain! Drought Notes #6

After an inch-plus of rain, the fall garden is beginning to look almost lush. So far, we haven't gotten the huge downpours (15" and more) that hit Salado and the area north and west of Georgetown, but we're grateful. It's good timing for the winter pasture grasses, which need rain now if the livestock (cows, sheep, and yes, the deer) are to have anything to eat this winter. Also bodes well for next spring's wildflowers, which need September/October rains to germinate and December rains to feed growth. It's all in the timing, m'dears.

And the timing of these rains--courtesy of a large low-pressure area that has parked itself over Central Texas--is just about perfect. Not a drought-breaker yet, at least not here. But if El Nino can produce a couple more of these storms this fall, we'll be okay. It was a joy yesterday to see puddles in MeadowMarsh, the swampy area along the edge of the woods. As the dogs and I took our evening walk, they ran through the water, splashing. We're all joyful.

File this in the best-laid plans department. I was looking forward to a weekend with the copy-edited manuscript of next year's China Bayles book, Holly Blues. Unfortunately, it arrived on Friday--in the form of an electronic file, instead of print pages. I'm learning Word Track Changes, which is okay, not hard, and has its advantages (especially in terms of efficiency and cost). But I've always loved making pencil changes on the typescript, curled up on the bed or in my favorite chair. Now I'm working at the computer, which means seeing the book again on the screen--so screen-based errors will be as invisible to me now as they were before. (They jump out at me on the print page.) A few people have told me how easy this is, and it is--when you're dealing with short stuff. This is a 287-page book, and that's a whole different animal.

Companion photos for Together, Alone. It's so expensive to reproduce photos in books that I decided not to use them in the memoir, which came out late last month. Instead, I'm building albums of "companion photos" on my website. The first of these is available now. Go here and look for the album. We'll post another of these albums soon.

And Sharon Galligar Chance posted a lovely review of the memoir on her blog today. She's reading the book for SCN's Memoir Challenge. If you don't know about this challenge, check it out. We need to know the true stories of women's lives (not a fictional representation of women, and certainly not fictional representations of women by male authors, bless their hearts). That's what memoir, at its best, is all about. True stories of real lives.

Reading Note: Sometimes of late years I find myself thinking the most beautiful sight in the world might be the birds taking over New York after the last man has run away to the hills. I will never live to see it, of course, but I know just how it will sound because I've lived up high and I know the sort of watch birds keep on us. I've listened to sparrows tapping tentatively on the outside of air conditioners when they thought no one was listening, and I know how other birds test the vibrations that come up to them through the television aerials. 'Is he gone?' they ask, and the vibrations come up from below, 'Not yet, not yet.'"--Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey

Growing a Gardener

 

This morning's harvest: tomatoes, green beans, zukes, tatume (summer squash, native to Texas and Mexico, does well in arid regions). I'm freezing the beans, drying the tomatoes, and eating the zukes. The squash is wonderful--will bake it for tonight's supper. And since it's a hot day, I'll do it in the solar oven.

A good harvest, and I do love growing things. But as I look at the garden and its produce, what I think about most is the growth of the gardener: in an awareness of what this soil needs (more nutrients, more humus), what kind of gardening does well here (raised beds), what my garden lacks most (rain). The lack of rain is a serious issue, for it means that in order to produce anything, I have to input water--substantial amounts of water. We have two wells--we bought an adjacent property and hooked that well with ours to improve output. But like most aquifers in the US, and across the globe, our Trinity Aquifer is threatened both by drought and by development. I don't like having to use groundwater ("blue" water, as water folks call it) to keep the garden alive and producing. I'd far rather have rain ("green" water). The yield would be higher, the plants more productive, the strain on our water system--and the aquifer--much less. 

But this morning, on a day that promises still more sunshine and a temperature of nearly 100 (and no rain), I am reminded that whatever else the garden grows, its most important growth happens in me, its gardener, as I grow, change, mature, learn, and celebrate all that is good on this earth, all that grows and gives us life.

Reading note, from Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Wake up now, look alive, for here is a day...just to praise Creation: the turkey, the squash and the corn, these things that ate and drank sunshine, grass, mud, and rain, and then...laid down their lives for our welfare and onward resolve. There's the miracle for you, the absolute sacrifice that still holds back seeds: a germ of promise to do the whole thing again, another time.

Sunshine cookery, solar living

I got a solar oven last year and love it. Here's a photo of supper (macaroni and cheese, with a few bits of ham) cooking yesterday. I put the oven out to preheat for a couple of hours--by the time I'm ready to cook, it's around 325 or so, plenty hot enough to cook/bake almost anything. I posted a couple of photos a few months ago, here and here. I used the oven during the winter, and now that it's summer, I very much appreciate being able to bake pies, cakes, lasagne, etc, without having to fire up my propane-gas oven, a wretched waste of fuel in any season, but impossible in the summer, because it heats up the kitchen. Solar cookery is one of my strategies (like line-drying the laundry, which son Bob calls my "solar dryer") to reduce our dependence on the grid. Our electric coop is moving toward greater use of wind turbines as an energy source, but still relies on coal-fired plants.

Today, working on the current Cottage Tale. I'm up to 22,000 words, about a quarter of the book, which for me means that the "first act" is finished and I need to start developing the complications in each of the three major plot lines. Also, planting carrots and beans in the (solar-powered) garden, and more solar cookery (potatoes, cabbage, and onions from the garden, baked with sausage, plus cornbread). Hope you're looking forward to a restful Memorial Day weekend!

Reading note, from Solar Gardening, by Leandre and Gretchen Vogel Poisson: We believe that civilization has to be reinvented if it is to be salvaged. We need to establish and build a solar culture, one in which light is the mainstay for us and for all our activities...To do this will require that a new class of people take hold: a solar peasantry. These will be people married to a place and to its finite resources, dedicated to extracting life's essentials from the sun and to reestablishing the biosphere and occupying a nondestructive place within it...Gardening is our most direct connection with the sun. It is the gateway to solar living.