Lifescapes

Journey's end, and beginning

We put Zach to sleep this morning. He's been ill with Cushings since January, but was doing pretty well--fairly good energy, eating okay. Until last week, and since then it's been a very steady decline. The vet said that he was probably suffering from a cancer that caused internal bleeding, which accounts for the very recent severe anemia (we were treating him for that) and coughing up blood. This morning, he was much worse, so Bill and I (via phone--Bill is in NM) decided that it was the right day to help him end his journey here, and begin our journey without him.

Zach has been our companion for nearly 12 years. He was about 18 months when he came--a refugee from the Round Rock pound, rescued by Dick and Louann Lindsey in 1996--and so his human years equivalent was somewhere in the 90s. A ripe old age for a grand old dog, who was unfailingly loving, gentle, and amenable to most suggestions, although not all, since he was a dog who knew his own mind. He loved going on walks, riding in the van, breakfast and dinner, puppy treats, petting and hugs, and his bed. He didn't like snakes (smart dog!), armadillos (he tasted one once and concluded that they were not on his menu), and being left alone. He ignored the cat, tolerated Lady (who passed on just a couple of months ago), and learned to like Toro, our optimistic, self-confident heeler. He was fondest of Bill, and considered him the Alpha Dog (I wasn't even in the picture when Bill was around). We loved him. It will seem like a different life without him.

Moving on

There's no cure for sadness better than friendship. Thank you for all your comments and emails. And yesterday, I was welcomed at the May meeting of the Herb Society of America's Pioneer Unit, held at Winedale. I talked about herbs (naturally) and Henry Flowers, who manages the gardens at Festival Hill, brought an extensive, impressive display of nightshades. Fun to be with friends, fun to share what we know about the plants we love. Here's just a glimpse of Henry's display.

























Notice the peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos. And here's the rest (second photo)--the potato end of the table! Notice the vodka (you knew that vodka is made from potatoes, didn't you?) and the eggplant: the "mad apple," it was called, when it was brought to Europe from Asia. Henry has also included a petunia, a nicotiana, and several other ornamentals.

























A great display that gave people a very clear idea about the remarkable range of this plant family.

Home again for a while, I hope (with just a couple of day trips out), and happy to be here. It's Bill's turn now--he went off to New Mexico this morning, where he can enjoy some R&R and maybe do a little work on the house. Log houses always need something, it seems! Next week, I'm getting back to work on the next Beatrix book, The Tale of Applebeck Orchard. Can't wait to find out what it's all about.

Reading note. Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can't--and, in fact, you're not supposed to--know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing.--Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Sad news

I'm sorry to tell you this, but Lady suffered a stroke (we think) this morning. She was non-responsive when we got her to the vet and he put her to sleep. She'd been having quite a bit of trouble getting up and down stairs and in and out of the car, but we hadn't quite expected this. She was a rescue dog of indeterminate age. Back in 2000 or so, she appeared at the local Rottweiler rescue, looking for help, and was passed along to the Lab rescue folks, who brought us together.

Lady lived a rich, joyful life, full of grass and trees with teasing squirrels and birds and a creek and a lake to swim in, and food in her dish (her favorite part of the day) and a cool spot beside my desk for long naps on hot summer afternoons. She loved chew sticks and puppy treats and frisbees and tennis balls. She celebrated brisk mornings along the meadow paths and starlit evenings when she could disappear into the grass, black as the blackest shadow. She blessed us with a quiet, undemanding affection. She will be missed.

Pure gold

Paintbrush doesn't always just bloom orange, red, pink. Sometimes it's pure gold. This was blooming in our meadow this morning, when I got home from my short swing through North Texas: Brownwood (where I spoke to the Garden Club), Abilene (the Texas Author lunch at the Abilene Library), Texas Christian University (an author series luncheon), and Barnes & Noble in Fort Worth. A busy three days, seeing old friends, making new ones. It was a pleasure to see so many interested readers! I'm glad to be home, if only for 24 hours--just long enough to answer emails and get some clean undies. Tomorrow, I'm heading south, to Port Isabel and South Padre Island, for an author weekend on the beach, sponsored by the Port Isabel Library. And yes, I'm taking my camera, but not the laptop. So no blogging while I'm gone.

And yes, the blog tour is over. Many thanks to those of you who came along for the ride. You're a dedicated lot, you are! Peggy will be posting winners' names on the blog tour calendar when she gets a chance. Congratulations to all fifteen of you, and to the grand prize winner, as well! It was great fun. Let's do it again sometime. (But not just right away. Okay?)

In the meantime, very, very nice news. Spanish Dagger made the NY Times extended best-seller list and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers best-seller list. China and I are very pleased.

And here's an idea for you, when you've finished reading Nightshade. Click on over to Amazon or B&N and write a review of the book. Easy-peasy, as my friend Dani likes to say. Just tell what you liked (or didn't) about the book. Now is a good time to do it, while there are still only a few reviews up.

Reading note, from Nightshade: The fruit of the silver-leaf nightshade (Solanum elaeagnifolium) is a berry that is yellow or blackish when ripe. It was used by Southwestern Indians in making cheese. The berries were also used to treat sore throat and toothache. Nightshade berries mixed with cream have reportedly been used as a cure for poison ivy.--Wildflowers of Texas, by Geyata Ajilvsgi

Turkey love songs

Walking with the dogs in the mornings, I've been hearing the unmistakable love song of the turkey tom. This morning, he sounded very close, although the dogs were too busy with a rabbit to notice. Not that they could catch the rabbit, who was much too fast for them. But they had a good time trying, while the rabbit was no doubt laughing up her sleeve at their foolish efforts. After I got home and fed the dogs, I looked out into the meadow in front of our house, and this is what I saw.

He strutted his stuff along the fence for fifteen minutes or so. Here, he's inflating himself and lifting his wings, getting ready to gobble. "Come on, girls, here I am, cocked, loaded, and ready to fire--and all yours!"

We've seen more turkeys this year than in previous years. One evening last week, reading in the living room just about twilight, I looked out the window to see a large turkey hen sail over our house and swoop (no other word for it) down onto the grass. They're not noted flyers, so this was a remarkable and lovely sight.

The blog tour is over--but it isn't, of course. Unlike a "live" event, which is over when it's over, the posts will be up for a long time. Eventually, I'll reassemble them into something for my website. But for now, they're on the blogs where they first appeared, and you can read them anytime. Check out the calendar here. Oh, and there's still time to enter the last couple of drawings--but you'd better hurry. Peggy has the last drawing scheduled for Monday, April 14.

I'm out for most of the week next week and won't have the laptop with me, so I won't be blogging. If you're in the Brownwood/Abilene areas, that's where I'll be on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday evening, I'll be at the B&N in Hulen Mall, Fort Worth, just off I-20. It's my only Dallas-FW visit this spring/summer. Hope to see you there. For all the details, go here.

Reading note. I seat myself at the typewriter and hope, and lurk. When an idea appears, I leap on it with all fours and hold it down till I've mastered it.--Mignon Eberhart

Homing--back to the nest

Bill's caption for this photo (a wren's nest on top of his oxygen/acetylene welding tanks): "Cleaning Up After Former Tenants." There was a wooden top over the tanks that effectively sheltered the brood from the weather--a great place to raise a family.

The dogs and I got home from New Mexico late Tuesday night and I spent yesterday cleaning up email (not done yet) and mail (haven't started on that). Apologies for not blogging while I was gone. I had camera/computer problems, yes--but the main reason was my selfish, single-minded focus on the other writing and related reading. Blogging is sometimes a distraction, especially when I'm working out narrative or stylistic issues on another piece of writing. In this case, I was finishing Wormwood and cleaning up the memoir, now titled Landscapes of the Heart: A Memoir of Marriage and Place. I still have some notes/sources to check out for Landscapes and another pass to make through Wormwood (I'll do that in late February), but both projects are essentially finished. And I've started another, a journal book called An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days. (More, much more about that later.)

I went to NM in early December. Bill had been there since just after Thanksgiving, and came back to Texas the day after Christmas--so I had nearly three weeks to myself. There was a lot of snow and a few car problems (you don't want to know), so I was housebound--no hardship--for a couple of weeks. I celebrated a birthday (my 68th), stenciled a border in the kitchen (will post a pic next time), knitted some mitts (good for cold hands in my writing loft), and spent time with the dogs. No TV, so it was a wonderful time for reading/writing/thinking.  Lovely, lovely.

Back at work, with some upcoming things to tell you about. I'm doing a workshop on personal mapping for the Story Circle conference Feb. 1-3, plus a panel on blogging and a workshop called "Here Be Dragons." If any of these interest you, you can register here for all or part of the conference. Nancy Slonim Aronie is the keynote speaker--should be very good. The title of her talk: "We Are All Alchemists."

Paula and Linda and I have also been working hard on the Story Circle Book Review site. I did some reading/reviewing during my holiday break, and we've updated the site with new reviews and a new author interview feature. The first: my interview with Roberta Isleib. Our team of reviewers continues to grow, with some new, strong reviewers joining us. If you'd like to contribute a review, go here for the low-down. I've been researching/requesting upcoming titles from major publishers; we will have a very strong list of review offerings this spring. Now's the time to get involved!

In March, I'm doing Mentor Monday (March 3) for the Sisters in Crime discussion list and looking forward to that. If you're a SinC member and not on the discussion list, go join.  Also, I'm working on the April Texas Nightshade tour now, and will soon have details--a blog tour for China Bayles, too. So watch here for news about that.

Reading note: Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.--Emily Dickinson

Autumn lovelies

This bristly beauty is blooming all across Meadow Knoll, turning the fields a brilliant purple. I know--it looks a lot like a thistle. In fact, the species that grows in California is called Coyote Thistle, which you will understand if you remember that the coyote is a trickster creature. But eryngo is actually a member of the parsley family. I'm not aware that this particular species (Eryngium leavenworthii) has had any medicinal uses. One of its cousins was widely used by the Plains Indians, though. Rattlesnake master or button snakeroot (Eryngium yuccifolium) was used as a sedative, and to treat veneral disease, snakebites, impotence, and intestinal parasites. It was also used in rattlesnake medicine dances. It's said that the medicine men chewed the root, blew on their hands, and could then handle the snakes (it put them to sleep?). I don't recommend that you try this, although the plant itself, in most of its species, would be a wonderful addition to your native plant garden. To see the species native to your state, check out this page.

We're not quite through with the pecan harvest, but Bill took time out to make a trip to Houston to see his mom and brother, and he's mowing today. We'll let the rest of the pecans (about 25% of the harvest) drop from the trees and rake them up. I wish you could see my hands (not). I wore latex gloves, but the tannin leached through the gloves and my hands are stained brown. And I have a couple of events coming up! In addition to the Lubbock event, I'll be at the Dallas Arboretum on November 1, but don't get too excited. I am an "also featured" speaker--although there are some celeb speakers that you would enjoy. Unfortunately, the tickets to the daylong event (if there are any left) are $245. It's a benefit for the Women's Garden, and I understand that the luncheon menu is out of this world. For such an upscale event, Bill suggests that I find a pair of white gloves to disguise my transgressions.

The weaving is going forward: I'm working on a sampler now, trying out some different yarns, just to see how they work. Thinking of some place mats with southwestern Indian motifs for the table in New Mexico. But that'll  have to wait until I have my quota of Christmas scarves finished.

And of course, the writing. In fact, the file is up on the computer (behind this blog) and I have to get to it right now, while the day is still young enough to accomplish something. I'll try to blog tomorrow over at the Pecan Springs Journal, where I'm blogging the book.

Oh, and stay tuned for two announcements: the "secret project" that Paula and Peggy and I have been working on (we were joined by Linda Wisniewski) will be launched this coming week; and I'll be announcing the dates/locations of my Cottage Tales Blog Tour, which takes place in November.

Reading note. For me, weaving is a solace, a retreat from computers and calculators and book galleys and business reports...I will weave to satisfy my soul, and if the results are nice enough to give as gifts or show in public or publish in this magazine (Handwoven), that will be a bonus. I will weave to satisfy my soul.--Linda Ligon, This is How I Go When I Go Like This

Another goodbye

Madeleine L'Engle died this week, at the age of 88.

Have you read her books? My favorite is A Wrinkle in Time, which to my mind is one of the very best children's books ever written. I loved it when I read it in 1963, the year it won the Newbery, and I've read it often since. I loved the imaginative twists, the language, sturdy, straightforward Meg, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, who talks in a hissing wheeze of doubled vowels and consonants: "Wwee musstt ggo bbehindd thee sshaddow." What a wonderful, playful imagination, an imagination full of hope and belief. I was so lucky to find her when I was a young writer, just learning to write for children. She showed me how elegant plain language can be, and how strong the occasionally embellished word can be. I loved her work. What a treasure she was. She'll be missed.

On a happier note, The Tale of Hawthorn House is in bookstores this week. I'm signing, packing, and mailing this weekend, so if you ordered through our website order form, your book will be in the mail shortly. (Thanks, on behalf of Story Circle, which earns the profits from this book sale.)

And the copy-edit of Nightshade, next year's China, is coming along. I'm about half-way through and liking it. A complicated book. Layered. That's because it's the third in a trilogy, and there are lots of pieces of story to be tied together.

Reading note. Suddenly there was a great burst of light through the Darkness. The light spread out and where it touched the Darkness the Darkness disappeared. The light spread until the patch of Dark Thing had vanished, and there was only a gentle shining, and through the shining came the stars, clear and pure. Then slowly, the shining dwindled until it, too, was gone, and there was nothing but stars and starlight. No shadows. no fear... "You see!" the Medium cried, smiling happily. "It can be overcome! It is being overcome all the time!"--from A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle

Watersheds

MeadowKnoll is soggy, there's quite a lot of flood debris along Pecan Creek, and the only road out was impassable for a day or so, as you can see in this photo taken by our neighbor, Judy Cheney. (That's the road, not a stream.)

But things are getting back to normal here, if you don't count the slime mold that's threatening to engulf everything. And while there was plenty of sturm und drang for a while, there wasn't any serious danger here. We took these frequent flash-flooding events into account when we chose the place to put our house.

Things aren't normal in Marble Falls, though. Not yet. For some photos of the flooding along the Lower Colorado and the damage caused by creek flooding in Marble Falls, go here. Even the long-time residents have never seen anything like it, and no wonder: it's being categorized as a 500-year flood.

If you'll pardon me, I'd like to say that this is one of those times when the questions "What watershed do you live in?" and "Why should this matter?" become more than a little significant. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that these two questions interest me. Here's one post where I've raised the issue; there are others. Understanding the watershed you live in helps you understand your place in the world, what makes it a good place, what makes it (sometimes) a challenge. Unfortunately, we usually don't become aware of watershed until something unpleasant happens upstream: 20" of rain overnight; a chemical spill; a break in a sewer line; the destruction of trees and other ground cover that causes streams to silt up. There's more about the importance of watershed here and here. I'd love it if some of this would make you curious enough to find out something about the watershed you live in--maybe map it out (Google will be glad to help), take a drive with the kids to the creeks and rivers and lakes in the system, talk about why you love it and what you need to be on the lookout for.

Now I'll climb down from my soapbox. Took a day off from writing today (close to 60k words on Briar Bank) to do some shopping, pull some weeds, make some felt, do some knitting and reading: Gretchen Legler's On the Ice, a memoir of her visit to McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which just won the annual book award given by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. It's a beautiful book. Read it.

And speaking of awards, Linda Lear's biography, Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature was just named the Lakeland Book of the Year for 2007. It's the first time this Cumbrian literary award has been won by an American writer (if you think it's easy to impress those Brits, think again). Congratulations, Linda! A Life in Nature is also a beautiful book, but since I've been writing about it for months, I'm sure you have already read it. If not, there's a treat in store for you.

Reading note. This is Legler's description of walking across McMurdo, in a chapter subtitled "Bending Into the Wind."

The wind was so strong we could let ourselves fall into it with all our weight and were held upright by the strength of it. We curved ourselves into the wind, taking one clumbsy step at a time. It was enough to make you cry, or laugh, or both--at the futility, the naivete, the arrogance of those old explorers' efforts, but also at the human spirit--all that struggling with forces over which you had no control, trudging forward with some fantastic goal in your heart.

The Cowgirl, the Dragons, and the Ark

Some days, the bear gets you. Other days, it's the cows. And some days, it's the dragon.

Before he took off for New Mexico, Bill moved Texas, Blossom, and Mutton to the barn pastures, where the bluestem and Johnson grasses grow rich and thick. (Johnson grass has its virtues. At least, the cows think so.)

Yesterday, being smart animals, they figured out how to get the gate open and get out. I discovered their sleight-of-hoof yesterday evening, when I drove the ranch truck out to the end of the lane with the week's garbage (we don't want the garbage truck mudding up our driveway). It was getting dark, a storm was barrelling down from the north, the lightning was electric, and there were three loose animals, having a high old time in an unmowed pasture where there's even more bluestem than there is by the barn.

Mutton (the Barbado sheep) is fairly tame, although he has lately fallen into the bad habit of butting. (Want to see my bruise?) The cows are not tame, although they do seem to recognize me as their Main Mama, and will occasionally look up from their grazing when I call. Occasionally.

They do, however, have a hankering after a concoction called sweet stuff, a mix of sorghum, molasses, and corn. So I drove up to the barn, got a bucket of sweet stuff, and spent the next half hour yodeling, shaking my bucket, and trying to look irresistably alluring in the middle of what was cranking up to be a monster storm. Finally, the cows came home. In the rain, I rewired the gate. (The cowboy who wired it in the first place forgot to wire the crucial parts--we won't name him, but his initial is B.)

Then I went home, took a hot bath, went to bed, and spent most of the night comforting dogs who were not happy about the thunder and lightning and driving rain. We all woke up to a flood. Yep. Here be dragons, indeed.

But the animals and I are okay. The barn meadow isn't flooded, and the cows and sheep are wet but safe. Serenity (that's the name of our house) sits high and dry, an ark in bad weather. But it's a different story over in Marble Falls, where people are perched on the roofs of their houses and sleeping in the high school gym. Our rain gauge overflowed at 6" (I emptied it before the storm), but there's a verified report of 17.5" about ten miles south of us, and the doppler radar shows 18" here between midnight and six a.m.. I haven't been out to look at the low-water crossing above the lake, but my neighbor says the road is under water.

The dragons are out and about. It's be a good day to stay in the ark and write.

Reading note (a longish one), from Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World, by Scott Ruseell Sanders:

What did the Ohio mean to the Mound Builders? . . . I would guess that the river was a god to them, a brawny presence, a strong back to ride through the forest, a giver of fish and mussels, flowing always and flooding when it took a notion. If you look at the most stunning of all the earthworks, the sinuous, quarter-mile-long Great Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, with its coiled tail and gaping mouth, and then look at the twisty Ohio itself, you can see that the river is a snake, the snake a river. . . If you are going to survive in the land, if you are ever going to be at home, you must know and honor the local powers, and nothing in this region is more steadily, undeniably powerful than the river.