Lifescapes

Flowerings

After a disastrous 30-month drought, it's a joy to see a green spring. This tiny (1") anemone is just one of the thousands that are popping up in the lush grass in our upper meadow, where the bluebonnets will be putting on a show in a couple of weeks. Ancient and medieval herbalists used anemones to treat a variety of ills. Nicholas Culpeper (died 1649) writes:

The body being bathed with the decoction of the leaves cures the leprosy: the leaves being stamped and the juice snuffed up the nose purgeth the head mightily; so doth the root, being chewed in the mouth, for it procureth much spitting and bringeth away many watery and phlegmatic humours, and is therefore excellent for the lethargy.... Being made into an ointment and the eyelids annointed with it, it helps inflammation of the eyes. (This interesting paragraph is quoted in Mrs. Grieve's MODERN HERBAL.)

Personally, I think the anemone is good for the eyes just as it is: a very pretty thing to look at on a bright spring morning.

Writing notes. I've been working hard on MOURNING GLORIA (China's 2011 adventure). The book has seriously suffered from interruptions: the winter trip to New Mexico, the SCN conference, a couple of galleys and copyedits, and the usual life stuff. I'm at 76,000 words right now, about 6,000-8,000 words shy of a full book. But there's more story work to do. Translation: China hasn't told me how this mystery is going to be resolved. I know whodunnit, but getting to that resolution is going to be a bit of a trick. I have faith in China, however. She's pulled it out before, she'll do it again. (See the Nabokov quote below: sums up my feeling exactly.)

Book notes. Somebody asked which books are coming when, this year. That's a good question, because there are four. HOLLY BLUES on April 6; THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE CUCUMBER TREE on July 6; AN EXTRAORDINARY YEAR OF ORDINARY DAYS (a memoir of the year 2008, published by the University of Texas Press) at the end of August; and THE TALE OF OAT CAKE CRAG (#7 in the 8-book series, The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter) on Sept. 7.  Whew. I think I have more creative urgency than I have good sense. I should space these projects out better. But please do let your libraries know about these titles so they can order. And I promise that next year will not be so crowded.

Gardening notes. The potatoes are up, a few tomato plants are in--both these tender nightshades will have to be covered against frost on Saturday and Sunday nights, if the weather gurus are correct. The first planting of peas is up, looking good; the second planting is just emerging. Five rows of snap beans went in yesterday. Pole beans will go in today. Don't think I'll bother with sweet corn this year, but I'm eating carrots, spinach, and kale from last fall's plantings. I love being able to build supper around what comes out of the garden.

Fiber stuff. Knitting socks, mostly, in the late evenings, when my fingers will still function without a brain attached. Thought I had a photo to share of my "Olympic socks" (knitted during the you-know-what) but I can't find it at the moment. Later.

Reading note. The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.--Vladimir Nabokov

Creatures

Domestic animals. A few years ago, we brought a family of Barbados blackbelly sheep to live with us. We enjoyed them and were devastated when we lost almost all to a dog or coyote attack--we never knew which--that took place one weekend when we were up in Tulsa, doing a book program. This is the the survivor, a gelding named Mutton, who lives a companionable life with our two cows, Texas and Blossom, and a large white gander, the surviving member of a pair. In the spring, when the gander's testosterone level runs high (or the equivalent hormone in geese), he develops a crush on Mutton and stays as close to him as he can get. Funny sight: Mutton and his gander, grazing together in the pasture--although there's not much left to graze on here. We're supplementing their pasture grass with pellets. Cow candy, we call it, although it's not candy at all. It's a survival food to carry them through until the spring rains and warmer temperatures bring up the grass.

Wild things in our woods. A couple of nights ago, the dogs woke me up with wild barking and I got up to see what had roused them. In the moonlight, I saw a coyote ambling across our front yard, heading toward the creek; the next morning, I saw its fresh scat, thick with rabbit fur. He had dined well, and recently. Another night, an armadillo blundered noisily out of the woods when the dogs and I were out for their before-bedtime business. The dogs gave exuberant chase but the armadillo got away. Raccoons and possums and squirrels live here, too--the squirrels are an annoying competition at the bird feeders. Deer follow the trail along the creek. And yesterday morning, out just at dawn with the dogs, I heard a couple of wild tom turkeys gobbling, unmistakable evidence of spring. Can green grass and bluebonnets be far behind?

I'm driving to Austin today for a book group at Barnes & Noble, to talk about the memoir. Tomorrow, too, for SCN's regular reading circle. Then I hope to spend the rest of March working on MOURNING GLORIA. Writing through and around interruptions is hard--especially when I'm writing a mystery, where the plots all have to work and all the little bits have to fit together. I don't know how other authors do it, but I function best when I have a long stretch of unbroken hermit-time.

Reading note. Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task--such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping--I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something. This enables me to store up enough strength to endure the next interruption.--Isaac Asimov

Chilly spring

With below-average temperatures on 24 out of 28 days, February tied the record for the coldest spring ever in the Texas Hill Country, according to the National Weather Service. And the second wettest September-October period on record, too. That's El Nino for you. All the rain that normally comes to Venezuela ended up here. But the daffodils are loving it. This pretty clump is surrounded by artemisia seedlings. The cypress trees along the creek (running full now, bank to bank) must be loving it, too, but until they start leafing out (another few weeks) we won't be able to see what kind of damage the long drought did to them. One disappointment: the creek is full and I've seen turtles (sliders and a snapping turtle) but no fish.

Heard this morning: the lovely gabble of a turkey tom in the meadow to the south of us, then a little later, another, off to the east. And a redtail hawk couple is beginning the reconstruction of the old hawk nest in the woods. Spring is definitely on the way.

Garden and animal friends report. Seeded more lettuce, spinach, kale, and put in about 50 green onion sets. Didn't plant as many green onions as last year because the perennial onions had a good winter, and I'm pulling them already. The soil's still damp from the weekend rain, but hope to plant more peas (English and snow peas) when it dries out. Last night for supper, I had fresh carrots cooked with ginger and a spoonful of orange marmalade. Yum!

Also: moved the cows this week, to another pasture, where there's a little more grass for them. Which meant draining/cleaning/moving/setting up a water tank, as well. Last year, with the drought, the grass was very thin, so the livestock needs supplemental feeding. You can see photos of our animals here, taken over several years and during greener seasons.

Book report: The last couple of weeks have been dizzying. The electronic file of the copyedited manuscript of THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE CUCUMBER TREE came late Thursday, to be done in track changes (didn't like that at first, now am an ardent fan). The copyeditor did something very nice with this book: created a bible--at least, the beginnings of one. I expanded it as I work on the text, and now have something solid to work from when I begin the second book in the series. The book is about six weeks behind schedule, so there's not time to include a map of Darling. But the artist (the same gal who does the maps/art for the Cottage Tales) has agreed to create one--in color!--for the Darling Dahlias website. With the book fresh in my mind, I finished the preliminary sketch yesterday. Now that's done, I can go back to MOURNING GLORIA. Whew. Feels like I've been playing catch-up for months.

 Fiber stuff. But there's always time for knitting in the evenings. These blue socks for instance, went to Peggy, webmistress and friend extraordinaire, for her birthday. (Happy birthday, Peggy! And yes, those are Peggy's feet inside those socks.) I've had the yarn (merino superwash) for a while, but I think it's KnitPicks. Very soft and the colorway makes it fun to work with. (Click on the photo for a larger view.) I finished a pair of brown socks during the Olympics--I'll post that photo in a few days.

Did you know that China bayles has her own fan page over at Facebook? I'm there too. If you're on Facebook, let's connect. I usually post several microblogs a day there, and use Lifescapes for longer bits of story about this place.

Reading note. There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.--Linda Hogan