Lifescapes

Works-in-progress: October

The broiler chicks (Cornish Rock X) are growing fast, eating like there's no tomorrow. I just opened the second 50# sack of chick starter. The nights here are beginning to cool off, so I turn on the heat lamp about 10 p.m. and turn it off at 7 a.m. Next week, they'll be big enough to keep themselves warm unless the temp drops below 55. I'll let them out of the coop next week, weather permitting, and into their fenced chicken yard.

The layer chicks (Red Stars and Buff Orpingtons--7 of them) are still in the house, in their bathtub brooder (yes, we do have two bathtubs--one for them, one for us). They grow more slowly--will probably go out to the coop in another 10 days or so, and move in with the broilers. I don't think there'll be a problem integrating them: the Cornish are pretty laid back, as long as there's food available.

 

Needlepoint project: This is "Amber Waves," designed by Laura Perin. (Apologies for the photo: I'm still learning this new camera and not liking it very much.) I started this needlepoint sometime late in August. I usually work on it in the evenings for a couple of hours--not making very fast progress, but that's not the point, is it? I do want to finish this one, though: have a new one waiting and am eager to get started on it.

Book report. The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose is out this month (strong reviews!). I visited Dani Greer's blog, The Blood Red Pencil, blogging about some of the historical background in the book.

Also out this month: the final book in the Cottage Tales: The Tale of Castle Cottage. I posted a page of historical recipes from the book, for those of you who have read your library's copy. All the recipes from all the books are up now--just click on the book cover and you'll go to the page. The link to the printable pdf is at the top.

Writing work currently in progress: Wild Rose (that's the working title: it may change). I'll be focussed on this through Christmas, when I need to start the next China Bayles mystery. I'd like to have a full draft by that time--hoping so, anyway. This is a novel about Rose Wilder Lane (1866-1968), for those of you who have tuned in late. RWL was an enormously complicated woman, and the challenge (in addition to the difficult work of fictionalizing a real person) is doing justice to her rich contradictions and complications. As a basic background text of RWL's life, I'm using William Holtz's splendid biography, The Ghost in the Little House, as well as the collection of articles and books I've put together over the 20+ years of my interest in this topic. For the primary source material, I'm using RWL's diaries and journals for the years 1928-1939, the period covered by the central story of the novel. I'm deeply indebted to the archivists at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library for their help in assembling the primary material. I'm also indebted to Nansie Cleveland for her excellent bibliography of the writings of RWL and her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder. I'll have more about this later, after I've finished the draft. I'm pretty obsessive about the writing just now.

Garden report. Tomatoes blooming, Kentucky Wonder beans climbing the trellis, spinach planted for early spring harvest. I'll be digging sweet potatoes later this month.

Reading note. Somebody commented on Confederate Rose that it was "easy reading." I'm complimented, but it made me think of this: Easy reading is damn hard writing.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Baby Chicks: New Arrivals

 

Here they are, this year's chicken flock, just as they arrived in the mail this week, safe in their cardboard box from McMurray Hatchery. We've gotten our chicks there for years and have never been disappointed. In this batch: 30 Cornish Rock X, meat birds; 5 Red Stars, laying birds; and 1 "extra" (replacement, in case of an early death).

 

The little flock is now safely settled in its bathtub brooder, in our guest bathroom. (Guests, please keep the door shut. The dogs and cat would love to investigate.) I lined the tub with plastic, put down dried grass hay for litter, then (for the first day or two) a layer of newspaper. A couple of 100-watt bulbs keep them warm. The bathroom is next to my writing studio, so it's easy to keep an eye on them. They'll outgrow the tub in a couple of weeks and then go outdoors, to the chicken coop and yard, which is fenced against predators (skunks, raccoons, hawks, snakes).

I'm not crazy about raising the Cornish because they have leg problems if you don't butcher about 9-10 weeks. But the meat is wonderful and they're fairly economical. The Red Stars are great brown egg producers and start early, about 5 months (hoping that we'll have eggs by February!). Starting another laying flock was a big decision: it means that one of us has to be home to feed. We'll see how that goes.

 

Book Report. The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose is out, to great reviews. Publishers Weekly calls it a "superior cozy"--high praise, from that publication. I'm working on Wild Rose (a novel about Rose Wilder Lane, the writer behind the Little House books)--about halfway through a draft and enjoying the writing process very much. As you might guess, the project involves an extraordinary amount of research: transforming a real person into a fictional character is very different from creating a fictional person out of your imagination. And this particular real person presents some large challenges, so the process is even more interesting. I look forward every morning to sitting down to work--a huge blessing, and I'm hugely grateful.

 

Garden Report. Some rain this week (amazing!) so the garden is looking especially good. The potatoes are coming up, the tomatoes look good, there's a new planting of okra to look forward to, and beans have mostly survived the cutworm stage. Hoping for a productive fall garden and a late first frost, but of course you never know.

 

Reading note . If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood.  I'd type a little faster.~Isaac Asimov

In Bloom This Week: Garlic Chives

It's Garlic Chives Week in my garden. These enthusiastic self-sowers have popped up all over, but you won't hear me complain. Their flat, oniony-garlicky leaves have a heftier taste than ordinary chives, and the dark green adds a bright bit of color. They're great with scrambled eggs, in dips for chips, as an ingredient in herb butters, and soups. Asian cooks use them in stir-fries; they go especially well with prawns and scallops. I like to mix a spoonful of chopped garlic chives with feta cheese and some olive oil, spread on crusty bread slices, and pop under the broiler. When I'm feeling lazy, they're a reasonable (but less pungent) substitute for fresh garlic. And their plentiful black seeds, saved and sprouted, are a nice mid-winter salad treat.

For me, one of the best things about garlic chives is the fact that they bloom at the tail end of summer, when the garden looks brown and tired. Their sprightly white blossoms have a delicate beauty. I use them as a border along the path and allow them to come up wherever they please in the garden beds. The bees adore them: the pure white flowers are a late-summer treat for them, too.

And yes, these pretties are good for you, too. They belong (like garlic) to the Allium family, and are used medicinally as a milder form of garlic. In China, where this herb is a regular on the medicine shelf, it's used as a vermifuge, an astringent, as a treatment for bug bites, and to help reduce fatigue. I'll go for that, actually. Just looking at these lovely white blossoms is enough to perk me up.

On another subject: Several weeks ago, our neighbor set a hog trap on his side of our fence, on his posted property. The guy lives in Austin, so he's not around to check it. This morning, there was a doe in the trap. The game warden drove out and released her. She was slightly injured: bloody nose and haunches. The game warden says he's been called several times to release deer from unmonitored hog traps. If I had my way, there'd be a special place in hell for people who set traps and fail to keep an eye on them--as bad as careless hunters who wound game and don't bother to track/kill.

Reading Note, from Rachel Carson: One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?"

Guest Blogging: Blood-Red Pencil

 

I'm guest-blogging at Dani Greer's Blood-Red Pencil. "The Past Holds Many Secrets." Drop in, leave me a note. 

Works In Progress: September 2012

My in-progress needlepoint project is called "Amber Waves." Lots of different stitches--and I'm learning to manipulate the stitches, where I wasn't quite exact with the dividing lines. Love these colors. And this is such relaxing work after a long day at the computer, out in the garden, doing housework. I love sitting down (actually bought myself a new chair this week--fits me perfectly) and picking up a piece of needlework.

Here's the project I told you about in the August WIP report--all finished, framed in a simple black frame. This will hang in our log cabin in New Mexico. Both this one and "Amber Waves" are about 10" X 10". Both are designed by Laura Perin. 

 Book report. I've been working steadily and making good forward progress on Wild Rose, the working title of the Rose Wilder Lane novel. I'm nearly half-way through the book, I think, although I still have some major decisions to make about what to include, what to leave out.

I also have an idea for a series of website posts that will provide some of the historical, factual framework for Wild Rose--something like an online series of expanded fully-documented footnotes that I can later (perhaps) collect into an eBook supplement to the novel. Rose has been so often mischaracterized in print and online by people who have an agenda, sometimes literary, sometimes political: I want to clarify some of these issues, set the record straight on others.

Garden. The fall garden is partly in. I planted Irish potatoes two weeks ago (I saved the seed potatoes from my spring crop) and Kentucky pole beans last week. I planted tomatoes (more Porters) in early August; they'll be ready to go in the ground next weekend, when it's supposed to be cooler. Ditto the sweet bell peppers. Mid-month, I'll plant spinach. Meanwhile, we are eating lots of okra. Eating locally means eating in season, you know.

Reading in progress. I'm reading quite a lot of research material for Wild Rose, as you can imagine. I'll post the full bibliography on the website at some point. Otherwise, I'm reading Willa Cather right now, O Pioneers! (just because I hadn't read it in a while). Just finished The Midwife of Hope River, by Patricia Harman, and will be writing a big-thumbs-up review this week. I'm listening to (on my MP3 player, while I walk the dogs, work in the garden) The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, by Jonathan Alter--also period research. That's just a sample: lots more on the stack!

Books and travels. Next Saturday, it's Murder by the Book in Houston, to celebrate the launch of The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose. I'll be talking about the research I did for the book--for this one, it was an interesting series of accidental discoveries that led to still other accidental discoveries. When the book was finished, I was amazed at all the fascinating things I discovered in the writing process. Join me at Murder By the Book if you can.

Reading note. If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.  ~Toni Morrison