Lifescapes

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!

 

 

Well, well!

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you've been hearing (maybe more than you want) about our water issues here in Central Texas.

You know that we've been updating our water systems for several years. We installed this 1500-gallon emergency tank last spring (the photo was taken in April, when the grass was still green):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If it ever starts to rain again, we'll hook the tank up to the gutters. In the meantime, we've filled it from our well. It's mostly meant for emergency use: Bill has rigged a pump that will enable us to use it for firefighting, if that's ever necessary. But we have several producing pecan trees within easy hose distance of this tank, and we can use it for irrigating them. Previously, Bill irrigated the pecans from the creek, but that's been dry for nearly a year.

We've known for a couple of years that our current wells (there are three of them at Meadow Knoll, all drilled in the early-mid 1980s) are in trouble. The Trinity Aquifer that serves our area is depleting, which means that the older wells are too shallow to reach the new lower levels. Well drillers in our county have a long queue of replacement wells to drill--and they're all going to be between 50-100 feet deeper. We've been on the list for months, and finally TODAY! it's our turn. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The team got to work early this morning, expecting to drill to depth (not sure yet just what that will be) by the end of the day, then case the well tomorrow.

The county hydrologist is on the site, too. He's logging the well: that is, using an electronic sensor dropped down through the pipe string to make a record of the strata through which it's been drilled.These well logs (which weren't systematically kept for the earlier wells) add to the understanding of the geology and water resources of the area.

The images are read on a computer in the trailer the hydrologist towed onto the site. Please bear in mind that all this is happening in Texas while I'm sitting at my computer in New Mexico, posting the photos that Bill is emailing me. (I'm old enough to remember pasting a 3-cent stamp on my high school graduation announcement. I may never stop being thrilled by this instant communication.)

And here is the first water strike. Bill titled this photo "Looks Like We're Getting Somewhere." Of course, we're not there yet--that is, "there," at the right point in the aquifer, where we can count on good-tasting water, produced at a sustainable rate of over 10 gallons a minute. Well-drilling is still an art as well as a science, although probably less of an art than it used to be in the days of the dowsers.

Our current wells produce very slowly, just a few gallons a mnute. We're hoping this new, deeper well will give us more water for the vegetable garden and our trees. But that doesn't mean we'll waste it: we do conserve and recycle as much as possible. My main use: the vegetable garden. The only decorative plants I have left are herbs and natives that tolerate heat and drought--although even they struggled last summer, with months of 100+ temperatures.

Our situation is only one small example of the problems in this region. The drought may be only beginning, and there are no quick fixes or silver bullets. Rural folks who manage their own water supplies and live surrounded by the drought's visible impacts (dying trees, ranchers and farmers going out of business, recreational supplies drying up) are far more conscious of the issue. Urban residents will only catch on when they discover that their grassy lawns and swimming pools are no longer sustainable. Water availability will limit how much fracking can be done in some areas, such as the Eagle Ford Shale, where residents, farmers, and ranchers compete with the oil companies for what little water there is. And policy planners will have to stop playing political games and start making long-term plans for this endangered resource.

Meanwhile, we're happy that our well finally got to the top of the list, and that the drillers are finding water at the bottom. Believe me, we will treasure every drop of water it produces.

UPDATE: Sat Jan 7. Looks like we may get 8 gal/min tops from this well--a little hard to say yet, because the pump hasn't been installed. It's not going to be a gusher, but it will certainly be better than the current well, and good enough for the irrigation we need to do.

If you'd like to read more about the importance of our water resources, here are two very good books: When the Rivers Run Dry: Water: The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century, by Fred Pearce (2007); and Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, by Mark Reisner (1993).

Reading note. If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey, 1957