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.

Deer love sweet potatoes

It's a good thing I wasn't counting on sweet potatoes to keep me alive over the winter. The deer ate the tops off the six biggest (and prettiest) plants last night--leaving the six smallest intact. I'd never grown sweet potatoes before, so this was an experiment. What I learned: if I want sweet potatoes, I'll have to put them where I can fence out the deer. The dogs and I surprised the culprits early this morning: a doe and two fawns.

This is the first year the deer have come close to the house--perhaps because the man who owns the neighboring property (I won't dignify him with the word "neighbor") has installed a deer feeder and a deer blind on his side of the fence. It's not unusual to see a half-dozen deer eating the corn, which is delivered from the feeder by means of a solar-powered gizmo at twelve hour intervals. This intrepid hunter sits in his blind and shoots them, from a distance of about 25 feet. Shows what a brave, macho sharpshooter he is, doesn't it? Not.

Re: Darning eggs, which Leslie Thompson mentioned in a comment on the previous post. Here's my egg, photographed with my current sock project. (Thought I'd given up knitting, did you?) I inherited the egg from my great-grandmother, Jane Jackson Turnell, who came to America from Lincolnshire in the early 1870s. It's a different style from other egg-shaped darners I've seen. I wonder if it might have been used to darn holes in flat items, like napkins and tablecloths, as well as socks. Anybody an expert on darning eggs? Maybe it has another name, to reflect its different shape?

















If you want to know how this might have been used, I found this interesting tutorial. My mother didn't use an egg; she darned on her fist, and that's how I learned. This egg came along years later, when I cleaned out my grandmother's things. I love it because it's a symbol of my great-gram's industry and frugality, her attention to detail, her care for small things. It's a metaphor for a way of life that will disappear, unless we find a way to keep it alive.

Book report. I'm working on the last chapter today, and maybe the author's note. I may have to take out a section unless I can tie it up. Sometimes little pieces of action--interesting in themselves, but by themselves not very significant--become "islands" in the book. Either they have to be bridged to something else or cut. So I have to fix what I've come to think of as the "ferret" plot. Isn't much of a "plot"--therein lies the problem.

Reading note. Through metaphor, the past has the capacity to imagine us, and we it.--Cynthia Ozick, Metaphor and Memory 

So long, Dolly

Thanks for the rain wishes--we got a half-inch last night, delivered via one of the shower bands that trailed Dolly as she moved across South Texas. San Antonio got a good drenching, Austin got well over an inch, and we got wet. But I'm not complaining. A little wet is better than a lot dry. Looks like the tropics have dried out for a while--nothing cooking from the Gulf to Africa, so it will be a dry couple of weeks ahead.

Dumpster diving. Yes, it's true. Both Bill and I are dumpster divers from way back. Favorite dumpster finds over the years: a wonderful washer-dryer combination discovered in an alley the year my first son was born, back in the Cloth Diaper Era; a cane-seated rocker like the one Jinni T tells us about in her comment, which I used when I was nursing my daughter Robin; a solid cherry fireplace mantle that weighs about 120 pounds, found on a curb, which Bill and I carried some six blocks home; and a useful bamboo wall cabinet snatched from certain oblivion on I-35 (Bill was certain that I would be obliviated). We never throw anything out that's useful; in fact, we rarely throw anything out at all, which presents certain other problems, as you can guess. I think we could live quite comfortably out of our stash, at least for a few years.

Garden report. Fall beans are up, and southern peas. More manure collection going on, and compost building. I'll plant some fall squash in the next few days--maybe it'll do better than the April planting, which didn't yield diddly. Big crop this year: our mesquite trees, which are loaded with beans. I don't have the time to make jelly this year, and I've never tried making wine or flour but it's nice to know how it's done.

Book report. Getting down to the end, with 83,000 words. Yet to be done, the wrap-up chapter, historical note, another historical recipe or two (I love that feature of the Cottage Tales), and a map. Today I'll draft the wrap-up chapter. Oh, and for all you Beatrix fans: Willie Heelis (called Will, in this series) proposes in this book (Book 6)! I hadn't intended this to happen until the next book (7), but he just got impetuous and popped the question. She says no, of course. She said no, right up to the last minute (Book 8). Which is the way it happened in real life, as nearly as we can tell. July 28 is Beatrix's birthday. Please plan a big celebration!

Reading note. Con tuna solo se puede vivir, pero con tunas y mesquites los dos se engorda mucho. Loosely translated: You can live on prickly pear fruit alone, but with pears and mesquite beans, you can get fat.--Mexican saying, reported by J. Frank Dobie 

Hello, Dolly!

Not much to see, is there? Three raised beds, two of them 4x8, the other 3x16, and the blue tubs in the middle, where a few tomatoes will live this fall--if I'm lucky. The beds are built of a mix of sand and humusy soil dug out of the spot where we've been dumping grass clippings and such for the last 10 years. Our native soil--what's left of it here--is an alkaline gumbo. It used to be much more fertile, before the cotton farmers denuded the topsoil and the cotton plants sucked up all the good nutrients. Not the most promising soil for a garden, which is why we put the extra work into bed-building. Everything you see here is recycled. The timbers around the beds used to be a corral fence, the chicken wire kept my chickens in, and the tubs came from a dumpster diving adventure. I won't be planting much until I get back from New Mexico in early September, but I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Oh, and that door in the top left that looks like it goes to a fruit cellar? That's Archie Bunker, where we hole up when tornados threaten. We had it installed after the F5 hit Jarrell, about 35 miles from here. It seemed like a very good idea, although we've only had to use it a couple of times. Archie could also serve as a fruit cellar, if the need (or desire) arises.

Are you keeping an eye on Dolly? Probably not--you've got better things to do, unless you live between Corpus and Brownsville. But we are, not because we want a hurricane smashing into the coast and causing lots of people lots of grief, but because we're desperate, desperate, simply desperate for rain. This time of year, systems like Dolly are about the only way we're going to get it. The way things look now, she might come in too far south to do us much good, but we'll be hoping, right up to the very last minute.

Reading note. Gardening . . . tutors us in nature's ways, fostering an ethic of give and take with respect to the land. Gardens instruct us in the particulars of place. They lessen our dependence on distant sources of energy, technology, food . . . --Michael Pollan

Wild Life

Zach (our elderly black Lab) was paying careful attention to something in the corner of his dog pen the other day--from a prudent distance. When I investigated, I found this fine fellow, only a couple of feet from the place where the bunny nest was (the bunnies having grown up and gone on to greener pastures).

Looks like a rattler, doesn't he? But as you can see, he's lacking a rattle. He (or she) is a diamond-backed water snake, one of our non-poisonous natives. (Bill, who is in New Mexico, identified it when I sent him the photo). The dogs have had rattlesnake shots, although I'm not sure I trust the stuff. And Zach has had intensive anti-snake training (from Bill, a few years ago), so I was glad to see that some part of that training still lingered somewhere at the back of his doggy brain. The snake went on about his or her business. Nice bit of wild life entertainment on a hot summer afternoon in Texas.

Garden update. I planted a couple of short rows of pinto beans this morning. It's a little early--fall beans should go in next month, but I'll be gone during August, so I thought I'd put in a few now, more later. As I mentioned in a comment on the previous post, I discovered (oh, the wonders of the Internet!) that you can take tomato cuttings and root them in water or soil, to extend the tomato season--in my case, to get a jump on the fall garden. I've started seeds of some fast-maturing varieties (55-65 days), but am interested to give this new (to me) technique a try. The beds are finished, the garden is fenced (photos next time), and the compost is decaying nicely. This is not the first garden we've had here, by any means: Bill and I have been "homesteading" our place for a couple of decades. But I let it go when the book travel began taking so much time, and focussed exclusively on herbs. Feels good to be back in the veggie garden.

Book news. Nothing new here, just moving forward. Oh, and backward, too. I took out a plot thread that didn't go anywhere, and will use it in the next book, and compressed a couple of scenes in the early part of the book so I could expand them toward the end. I try to use each scene to move the plot(s) forward--but I usually find by the end of the book (I'm getting close to that now, at 78,000 words) that some of the early scenes need adjustment. How in heck did we do this before the computer? Can you imagine Charles Dickens, writing his installment novels, with the early chapters published before he finished the later? EEK!

And a quick political note. A couple of people have emailed me, suggesting that gardens shouldn't become "political." Well, hey. Everything is political, in one way or another--the way we dress, what we eat (and don't), how we spend our money, the cars we drive, the houses we live in. Every now and then, gardens have become political, too, especially during WWI and WW2, and during back-to-the-land movements, when people felt it important to get in touch with fundamentals. Gardens are politcal again. And yes, it's about more than changing the light bulbs.

Reading note. To take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance is the surest way to escape the culture of fast food and the values implicit in it: that food should be fast, cheap, and easy; that food is a product of industry, not nature; that food is fuel, and not a form of communion with other people as well as with other species--with nature.--Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food 

Abundance

When I get discouraged about what lies ahead, I look at what's around me. This morning, I saw that the mustang grape vine in the hackberry tree at the edge of the meadow is heavy with fruit. The birds are loving it and the raccoons have stripped the grapes within reach, but there's still plenty--tart, but tasty. Nearby, a healthy clump of prickly pear--you've seen the nopales in the grocery stores? Here, they grow wild. And the mesquite trees are bearing a hefty crop of beans this summer, in spite of the drought. The local folk--the nomadic Tonkawa Indians who camped in this area--would have been delighted with all three. They would have made flour of the dried mesquite beans and a fermented drink that apparently packed a lot of punch. They would have eaten the cactus pads and grapes fresh, but also dried them, in what we now call "leathers." We've grown so accustomed to food that comes in boxes and cans, or (if we're lucky) out of our gardens, that it's hard to see what else grows out there.

But as the comments on my last post suggest (thanks to all who've left a note! every one is worth reading and thinking about), it may be even harder to see how we can make any substantial changes. Some of us have been there, done that (gardening, putting food by) and aren't in a position to do it again. Some of us don't have the knowledge and skill it takes to garden, or the inclination, or the space, the climate, the time--and yes, time is a huge, huge issue, for most of us, including me.

But I have the idea that each of us can do something, even if it is just one thing. So I'm making a pledge to myself to make one change in my food life that (if lots of people did it) might lead toward a more sustainable future. When that change becomes a habit--might take a week, might take three or four--I'll make another change, and then another. This week, it's my daily diet sodas, two, usually, in the afternoon. I don't need those. I've got plenty of drinkables: tea, herb teas, water. (Wonder how much oil it takes to manufacture and distribute a two-litre bottle of soda.)

Book report. Applebeck Orchard is moving along, I'm happy to say. It seemed to me that the solution to the mystery was a little too obvious, so I've added a few of what I hope are "obscuring" elements--even though I'm not sure that anybody reads the Cottage Tales for the mysteries. I'm at 75,000 words, aiming for 85,000--so I'm wrapping things up. I'm also working on a big project for Story Circle: we'll be offering several very strong online writing courses this fall. I'll let you know when our new website goes online. Some of you might be interested in taking a class.

Reading note. When I realized that everything was going to change, I was at first afraid. Because, I thought, if my government or public policy or other choices weren’t going to fix everything, what could I possibly do? What hope was there, if I had to take care of myself, if my community had to take care of itself? But when I began looking for solutions that could be applied on the level of ordinary human lives, that involved changes in perspectives and pulling together, the reclamation of abandoned ideas and the restoration of strong communities, I began to feel hopeful, even excited. Because I realized that when large institutions cease to be powerful, sometimes that means that people start being powerful again.--Sharon Astyk, Casaubon's Book

Animal vegetable

Our Story Circle reading circle met yesterday to talk about Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The discussion was one of the most interesting (to me, anyway) that we've had. Of the 10 of us, four of us have, at some time in our lives, grown gardens and preserved (canned, froze, dried, etc) the produce, but all of us recalled--and not always with pleasure--how much work it was, and how time-consuming. The produce was wonderful. The work involved wasn't wonderful. It was work--and we felt it was important not to idealize the work it takes to produce your own vegetables.

Everyone agreed that it is really important to become as locally food-sufficient as possible, but nobody seemed very confident that this could be done. Example: One reader reported that she drove out to a local farmer's garden at 9 on a Saturday morning, to find it completely sold out. The restaurants had been there early and bought everything. Others (including me) reported that the local farmers markets were too far away to justify the fuel to drive there.

And we all reported that the prices of locally grown food were very high--fairly so, everyone agreed, but so high as to exclude people who can afford only cheap, industrialized food. Example: We met in the community room of an upscale grocery, which sells (of course) olive oil. It sells its own store brand ($4.99), many other brands, AND some Texas olive oil, at $13.95. The cheapest vegetable oil? Corn oil, of course, industrially farmed.

All agreed that we have become too dependent on industrialized farming, but that it is hard to see other alternatives. I think we all left feeling--not depressed (well, maybe a little), but more realistic, and with an individual desire to do something to take control of our own food, even if it's a very small step. I came home to see that the carrots I planted last week are up. I can at least grow enough carrots to keep us carrot-happy for some months. Oh, and it rained! Not much, only two-tenths of an inch, but that's better than nothing.

Reading note. A hundred different paths may lighten the world's load of suffering. Giving up meat is one path; giving up bananas is another. The more we know about our food system, the more we are called into complex choices.--Barbara Kingsolver

Dillo Diggers

These guys aren't very bright, but they can do a fair amount of damage in the garden. They've taken a liking to the area around my sweet potatos, which are planted in the rose garden. So far, they've dug up five plants, which I've replaced with slips taken from the sweet potato that's growing in water on my window sill. Remember that trick from your school days? (Three toothpicks stuck into the potato and propped on the rim of a mayo jar filled with water.) Irish potatoes are a challenge here in spring (I'm hoping for better luck this fall, and already have my order in for seed potatoes), but sweet potatoes do well. I've given mine a good start, planting them in holes dug down 18" and filled with a sandy soil, in a heavily mulched area, and I'm determined not to let the dillos do them in, or dig them up.

As I say, these critters aren't very bright, so I've put rocks around the sweet potatoes, thus, hoping to deter them from rooting right next to the plant. I don't want to fence off this area, which is beside our walk. In fact, I was thinking of using it for blackberries--until I discovered that deer are devoted to blackberries. And I certainly don't want to go to war against the deer. It would be a losing battle, anyway. There are many more of them than there are of me.

I've added a list of Victory Garden links. Check them out. This is something we can all do now, wherever we are--and we may find that we'll have to do it in the future. Might be a good idea to get in practice, don't you think?

Book report. Bill went off to New Mexico this week, so I took a couple of days off to clean my office (yay!), do some housekeeping, and catch up on the email. I'm still way behind. I had jury duty on Monday: we found the guy innocent, which would have made China very pleased, I suspect. He got caught in a police sting that we (the jury--six good women and true) did not think was managed professionally. However, I did work a couple of days this week, and am now at 72,000 words on Applebeck Orchard, which means that I absolutely have to start wrapping up the loose plots and do something about the big plot hole in the main mystery. Looks like I have maybe two more weeks of work on the project.

Reading/viewing list. I live in books--do you? I'm currently reading ARCs of two new memoirs for Story Circle, both very good. More later, when the reviews are posted. (Probably much later, since both are October pubs. If you're interested in reviewing for us, or just want to see what kind of books we review, check us out.) Also this week, finished Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, which every informed American ought to read. This is a follow-up to my reading of his The Omnivore's Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which is on our Story Circle reading circle list for tomorrow's discussion. Last night, I watched a documentary along the same lines called King Korn. After Pollan, it seemed a bit simplistic and omitted references to the environmental damage caused by this huge monoculture. But it's good viewing just the same, and if you're just getting into the question of where our food comes from, it's an entertaining and thoughtful start.

Reading note. We hoed out three deep rows, each about seventy feet long, in which to drop our seed potatoes. If that seems like a lot for one family, it's not . . . In my view, homeland security derives from having enough potatoes.--Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Summer symmetries

The button bush is blooming down by the creek, and the humming birds and native bees (we're not seeing many honeybees here this year) are loving it. There's not much else in bloom right now, although it's still summer wildflower season--only a few black-eyed Susans, blue ruellia, and some early sunflowers. Between the drought (the last significant rain was May 16) and the blistering heat (100+ days since mid-May, with only a couple of days relief), everything is pretty well baked, broiled, or fried. The creek is dropping fast, and the emerging mudbanks are covered with coon tracks: they're feasting on small fish and crawfish. The baby bunnies have graduated from their nest to my garden, and Mother Rabbit has already started on her next family, judging from the erotic hanky-panky in the front yard. Oh, and the mesquite trees are bearing a bumper crop of beans, which the deer, raccoons, and rabbits eat with great relish. Summer moves along, in all its lovely symmetries.

Fall Garden Report. I learned a long time ago that there's not much point in gardening here in Central Texas in the summer, so I'm investing my gardening energies in the coming fall garden, and next spring. I have a new raised bed, and am planning four more.

Those are my compost bins you see in the background (one slightly leaning) and a few straggly squash that won't amount to anything in this heat. Compost is my major summer crop, and I'm glad to report that it's cookin' up a storm, thanks to major contributions from the ladies up the road, Texas and Blossom, our two cows.

Since this photo was taken, we've added a chicken-wire fence (recycled wire from my chicken pens of a decade ago) and mulch over the top of this bed to keep the weeds down until planting time (early September). I've been inspired by Pam Price's "National Victory Garden Revival" website and blog: read it and think about it. And by Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which is near the top of my all-time favorite reads. I find myself agreeing with Kingsolver, Price, and the others who are saying that it is time to get serious about growing as much of our own food as we can, to reduce the food miles. At our house, we're already veggie-once-a-week and all-but-veggie three or four days a week, but we want to do more. The closest farmers' market is a 60-mile round trip, and trucking back and forth every week just doesn't make sense for us. So it's back to the garden, in a serious way. You'll hear more from me about this.

Book Report. I logged almost 10,000 words this week on The Tale of Applebeck Farm, the holiday and a visit to the dentist notwithstanding. I have to start paying attention to rounding up all the vagrant plots in this very busy book. Next week, jury duty. (Our county is so small (population-wise) that almost everybody gets a summons once a year, or at least, I do.) Good news for all you Robin Paige fans (and for us, too): all the books will shortly be available on Kindle and on Sony's reader. So if you can't find them on the bookstore shelves, you can easily download them.

Reading note. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.--Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food