Lifescapes

Mountain Time

We're spending some time at our cabin in the mountains of New Mexico, on the eastern slope of the Southern Rockies. The bluebirds are nesting on our deck, the hummingbirds flock to the feeders, and the magpies dodge and dart like thieves through the pines. This morning, we could hear the male turkeys gobbling to the females and the ravens calling to one another--watch me watch me!--as they ride the winds down the steep slope and over the green valley below. All, all lovely.

It's cool here, too. Yesterday, the temperature was a reasonable 80, with a sweet, pine-scented breeze. Back home in Texas, it topped 100, with highs of 105 predicted for the Hill Country. 

This is a working vacation for me, and this is the corner of the loft where I spend part of the day. The current work-in-progress, A Plain Vanilla Murder, is China's next mystery (May or June, 2019). Great fun for me: digging into the life history of vanilla, a spice that most of us know only in those little brown bottles we buy at the supermarket.

A spice? Really? Yes. From Wikipedia: "A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring, coloring or preserving food." The extract we buy in those brown bottles is derived from vanilla's whole seedpod. Now you know.

I'm also working on an email interview with Laura Rogers, who plays Kay Summersby in Pressure, running this summer in London. (Kay is one of the protagonists of The General's Women, my novel about her relationship with General Eisenhower during WW2.) The play is about the run-up to the Normandy landings and the critical weather forecast that created enormously tense discussions among the invasion's planners. Watch for the interview, coming soon to this blog and to the book's website. 

Also on the calendar: a few days with family (Bill's and mine) in Colorado Springs, and more quiet time here in the mountains.

Reading note. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.― John Muir, Our National Parks

 

Telegraph Cottage: Ike's Hideaway

For me, the setting of a book is always one of its most important elements. Setting--particularly real, historic setting--embodies characters. It shows us how characters like to live, the furnishings and things they surround themselves with, the odd bits and pieces of life.

When I was writing The General's Women, I was especially fascinated by Telegraph Cottage, Eisenhower's countryside retreat during the wartime months he spent in England. Here are some of the things I learned about this lovely place.

In September, 1942, when Ike was planning the North African campaign, he got tired of living in the Dorchester Hotel in London and asked Kay Summersby (his driver) and Harry Butcher (his aide) to find a cottage where he and his staff could get some R&R. Kay (an Irishwoman) had lived in England for 15+ years and knew the lay of the land. With the help of the British billeting office, she found a cottage she thought Ike would like.

A century before, Telegraph Cottage had been a station on the telegraph line that linked London and Portsmouth. (The telegraph succeeded the semaphore chain that allowed Whitehall to communicate with the naval base on the south coast.) Not far from Ike's war offices in London and later, in Bushy Park, the cottage was a small Tudor-style slate-roofed house at the end of a winding drive, with plenty of privacy. A path at the back led to the thirteenth green of the Little Coombe golf course—ideal for Ike, who liked to hit a few golf balls. He liked to ride, too, and he and Kay would often go riding at nearby Richmond Park. Ike thought the cottage was ideal, although he said the rent ($32 a week) was “pretty damned steep.” The British generals, accustomed to their own grand estates, were appalled that the Allied Commander in Chief was going to ground in a “rabbit hole,” as General Sir Alan Brooke put it. Winston Churchill liked the place, but insisted on having a bomb shelter dug in the garden.

The house itself was comfortable, cozy, and about as warm as an English cottage heated only by one fireplace is likely to be. Ike's Irish orderly, Mickey McKeogh and a couple of black privates, managed the place. Ike, no gourmet, occasionally did the cooking: beef stew was his specialty. In the dining room, a round oak table seated six for a comfortable meal (ten if they were chummy), and a sideboard doubled as a regularly-frequented bar. French doors opened out onto a flagstone terrace and the rose garden, and a steep, narrow stair led up to five tiny bedrooms. The only telephone, a direct line to headquarters, was installed in Ike's bedroom by the Signal Corps. The place was definitely off-limits and out of reach.

The cottage quickly became home to Ike's full staff, and they spent nights and weekends there whenever they could, both during the 1942 run-up to Operation Torch and Overlord (1943-44, the Normandy invasion). Evenings were spent playing bridge or listening to records: "Beer Barrel Polka" was a favorite of Ike, who also liked to read Westerns. According to Harry Butcher,  the staff code-named the place Dah-di-dah, Morse code for the letter K, in recognition of Kay's "special relationship" to Ike. Also at home in the cottage was Telek, a birthday present from his staff in October, 1942. He is said to have named his much-loved Scotty for two things close to his heart: Telegraph Cottage and Kay. Later, Telek was joined by Shaef the cat (named for Ike's European command, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force). Shaef did something Telek couldn't. She cleared the cottage of mice.

When Ike took up painting at the encouragement of Winston Churchill, he painted the cottage, perhaps as a reminder of the happy months he had spent there. (No offense, but he was a better general than an artist.)



Eisenhower's occupation of Telegraph Cottage ended in the summer of 1945, a few months after V-E Day. Sadly, it burned in 1987. Ike's painting, along with his leather jacket and other memorabilia, was recently sold at auction. It was expected to bring around $160,000--50 times more than the $3200 the Army spent to billet him there during the war.

 

A Plain Vanilla Murder

There's nothing I love better than a new writing project. For the past few weeks, I've been working on China Bayles' 27th adventure, titled A Plain Vanilla Murder, coming in May or June 2019. Of course, I enjoy connecting with China, Ruby, and the Pecan Springs gang. But I dearly love digging up information about plants--this time, the vanilla orchid, Vanilla planifolia--and folding it into the mystery.

I know you've tasted and loved vanilla. If you're a cook, you use it often. But did you know that vanilla comes from a tropical orchid? Each lovely yellow flower produces a long, slender green bean.

After the beans are harvested, they are cured and dried, a process that takes several months and ends with a fragrant brown pod filled with tiny dark seeds:

The pod and its seeds are turned into vanilla extract--something you can do yourself. Bell'alimento shows you how.

And if you're wondering why the price of real vanilla (not the artificial taste-alike) has soared into the stratosphere, you can blame the weather. The island of Madagascar, which produces most of our vanilla, was hit by Cyclone Enawo in 2017. The island was devastated and the vanilla plantations were wiped out. It will take 4-5 years to recover, so in the meantime, expect high prices for the real thing, or use the substitute.

It's odd, really, that we associate vanilla with all things plain, boring, blah. But as I'm discovering as I work on this book, there's more to vanilla than we imagine. It's simple but sophisticated, familiar yet mysterious. Its history is full of intrigue. And (of course) murder. Believe me, there's nothing plain about vanilla. 

Reading note. 

The vanilla vine grew out of a murder—two murders, in fact. That’s the story, anyway.

The Totonacs, the first people to cultivate vanilla, lived on the eastern coast of Mexico in what is now the state of Veracruz. Their king had a daughter who (naturally) was so beautiful that she was consecrated to the goddess of fertility. The royal princess made the unfortunate and very human mistake of falling in love with a handsome commoner. Forbidden to marry (naturally), the lovers fled to the forest, where the priests caught up with them and killed them.

From the blood of the murdered lovers grew a tall, strong tree, entwined by a beautiful orchid vine. When the orchid flowered, the air was filled with an intoxicating aroma. Nine months later, the fruit was ripe. Observant Totonacs drew the natural conclusion.--China Bayles. “Vanilla: The Ice Cream Herb," Pecan Springs Enterprise

Yellow Flags: Dangerous Beauty

 

Along the creek and under the bridge, the yellow flags are blooming. When I planted these several decades ago, I was attracted by their beauty--a dangerous seduction. I didn't know how invasive they are, and I'm sorry now that I've given them a home. The cattails are perhaps more problematic, when it comes to multiplying and choking our little creek--but the cattails are native to this place. They were here before I came, so I don't feel as responsible. Yellow flag, in contrast, is native to Europe, Asia, and North Africa and was imported to North America in the 1700s. You can find it (unfortunately) at your local nursery, where it is sold as an ornamental.

Last week, Bill put on his cutoffs and rubber boots, waded into the creek, and spent a couple of hours pulling out both yellow flags and cattails. The flags are beautiful, but unless you can contain them, don't buy them. Better yet, don't buy them at all. Because they're so mobile (they multiply not just by rhizomes but by seed and broken parts of the plant), they can become a challenge to control. Look here for a scary demonstration of their threat and here for a discussion of their biology.

These days, we're becoming more aware of the dangers posed by invasive species. Dan Egan's frightening book, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, gives us a very clear picture of the ecological catastrophe that's occurring in the Lakes. But it's not just there. It's everywhere. We need to pay attention and remind ourselves that we can manage this, if we will.

Reading note. A supposedly daring insight came up, disguised as a question: Dr. Cole, aren't humans the most invasive species of all? She'd fielded that one many times before, during public lectures and even in her days as a teaching assistant. 'I'm not unsympathetic to that line of thinking,' she answered, 'but even if it's true, we're also the only species in any position to do anything about it.--Joe Pitkin, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2012