Lifescapes

BITTERSWEET Giveaway this week

We're having a giveaway this week, over at Goodreads. I'll be mailing three autographed ARCs (advance reading copies) of the upcoming China Bayles mystery, Bittersweet, to three lucky winners. You can't win unless you enter, and now is a really good time to do that, before you forget.

Garden/weather report. Gosh, what a winter. It was so unseasonably warm through January that I put the potatoes (Yukon Gold, Reddale) out early and planted spinach, kale, and a couple of rows of peas. The veggies are up now and looking pretty, but late February has brought us stretches of freezing weather, so I've had to cover almost everything. The spinach is hardy, though, and we've been enjoying salad and spinach chips. The cabbage plants I started under the grow lights are ready to go into the garden as soon as we get a decent stretch of weather, and a tray of tomato seeds has taken the place of the cabbage under the lights, on a heat mat.

 There are signs of spring all around. The daffodils are blooming in a wide swath of white and gold and sunshine yellow along the edge of the woods and in the garden border. The Mexican plum is in bloom (despite the ice and sleet!) beside the creek. In the woods, I can hear the lovely song of the redwing blackbirds, and the shrill piping of the tufted titmouse. So I know that spring is on the way.

Book report. Lots of book stuff going on. Bittersweet got a starred review from Booklist and strong reviews from Kirkus and PW. If you're a Mystery Guild member, watch for it as a featured alternate in your March catalog. 

The Lake Union reprint edition of A Wilder Rose comes out this month, along with the Brilliance production of the audio book, read by Mary Robinette Kowal. Hick and Eleanor is out for editorial review; I'll have more information about that in a few weeks. My current work-in-progress, Blood Orange (China's 24th mystery) will be finished by the end of the month.

Story Circle. Many of you know that I'm the founder of the Story Circle Network, a nonprofit organization of women writers. One of my favorite activities in that organization is the Sarton Literary Award. We've just announced the winner and finalists in the 2014 competition and have opened the 2015 competition. This year, we're expanding the program to women's fiction (contemporary and historical) as well. For details, go here. I'm honored to be asked to serve as president of Story Circle in 2016-2017, for the 20th anniversary of this important organization.

Looking at the weather map, I can see that it's not spring for many of you. But it will be, before long. And always in the spring, there are new ideas, new thoughts, and new hopes and dreams. Just hold onto that while you wait for the snow to melt.

Reading note. Spring is the time of plans and projects.--Leo Tolstoy 

 

 

In Bloom This Week: Zepherine Druhin

My favorite antique rose, Zepherine Druhin, goes back to 1868. Like other Bourbons, it is delightfully fragrant, and this one blooms and blooms, even in the shade. It's one of the few roses that have survived our brutal long-term drought. We've had some relief here this week, with nearly 3" of rain, which brings us up to our average rainfall for the year so far. But the running average is still below normal, and the rain didn't fall in the watershed above the lakes (Travis and Buchanan), so it didn't help Austin's water supply.

I know: same song, second verse, and I'm sure I sound repetitive. But because we live in the country and pay close attention to the land, we're deeply aware of the impacts of the drought. We inhabit this place in ways that many people don't inhabit the places where they live. This morning, we tallied up the trees we've lost to the drought in the past four years: recalling each of them individually, at least three dozen in all, and all 10-30' tall. It's an enormous sadness, like losing three dozen friends. And since a 20' dead cedar is a huge potential fire bomb, each one has to come out, which means an enormous amount of work for Bill.

Book report. I'm at work on the 2014 Darling Dahlias mystery, the DDs and the Silver Dollar Bush. When I was a child, that's what I called Lunaria. It's also called the "money plant." The time setting for the book is March-April 1933, when the banks were closed and towns and cities had to resort to printing their own "money." It's a fascinating time and the research is absorbing. And I'm glad to get back to the Dahlias' characters and find out what is going on with their lives.

I'm also working on getting A Wilder Rose out into the world. As you probably know, I'm publishing this book myself, under my own imprint, Persevero Press. (Earlier, I wrote about my reasons for taking the indie route, rather than publishing it traditionally.) Kerry at Levine Greenberg is helping handle the printing end of things. Last week, I saw the page proofs for the book; this week, I'll have a bound proof copy. By mid-June, I should have review copies to send out. I'll be sending digital galleys, too, and the book will be available through NetGalley.

I'm also working with Jeanette Larson, a library consultant who has some good ideas for getting the word out to librarians. If you're a librarian or a library patron, please tell your library about the book. They can get the latest information about it (and so can you) by adding your name to the mailing list at the bottom of this page.

Garden report. I picked the last of the English peas this morning and will dig a few new potatoes for supper. The beans (Kentucky Wonder and MacCaslan) are flourishing, the cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen, and we still have plenty of chard and kale, which we're sharing with the chickens. They recycle our greens into beautiful large, orange-yolk eggs. Yum!

Reading note. To inhabit a place means literally to have made it a habit, to have made it the custom and ordinary practice of our lives, to have learned how to wear a place like a familiar garment, like the garments of sanctity that nuns once wore. The word habit, in its now-dim original form, meant "to own." We own places not because we possess the deeds to them, but because they have entered the continuum of our lives.--Paul Gruchow, Boundary Waters

In Bloom This Week: CrossVine

The crossvine (it looks like trumpet because they're cousins) is blooming against the house on this beautiful spring day, and the trees and grasses are celebrating the half-inch of rain we got last night, accompanied by a great deal of lightning and thunder. The volume on our weather radio has gone bonkers and we can't turn the darn thing down, so last night's frequent warnings definitely woke us up. I ordered a new radio this morning.

Lots of garden news. Our TX temps are breaking records again this year (listen up, you climate-change deniers). We've already hit 90, twice, while it was still "winter."The peas are up, the potatoes are flourishing, the tomatoes are in--oh, dear, the tomatoes. I transplanted 24 them on Sunday but forgot to water them on Monday, so I lost two. Lost two more to cutworms last night, which leaves 20. I installed cardboard collars are the tomatoes this afternoon, to foil any other cutworms--and caught and squashed the two murderers. Yuck. We've been eating spinach, chard, kale, and onions from the garden.

And eggs from the girls. Five of our six hens are laying regularly, so we're enjoying fresh eggs, with enough to give to friends. While my son Bob was here, he repaired and dog-proofed the chicken coop, so the girls are living in luxury--and security. I've been letting them out in the evening for an hour, keeping an eye out for marauding dogs.

From the writing desk. Ah yes, the writing. Lots of it. Yesterday, I finished Death Come Quickly, China #22 (the 2014 book) and sent it off to New York. Every time I do this, I remember the old days, printing 300+ pages of a book x 2, packaging it up, shipping via Fed Ex (expensive even then!). I'm more than happy to hit "send" and zip the book into my editor's computer. How's that for magic? You don't catch me being nostalgic about the "good old days."

The other project--A Wilder Rose and the Reader's Companion that goes with it--is almost finished. The book itself is being copyedited, and several beta readers are working on it, as well (many thanks to Nancy, Laura, and Susan!). The Companion turned into a bigger job than I imagined and isn't quite done yet. This is a self-published project, so there's a lot of extra learning and work that's going into it, from the publishing end of things. I've been meaning to write a post about that. Now that China's done, I'll have a little more time. For a few days, anyway. I'm expecting the copyedited manuscript of the next Dahlias mystery, The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star, sometime in the next ten days.

So life at Meadow Knoll is busy, and good, with spring in full bloom. Hope spring is coming to your neighborhood very soon!

Reading note. “Whatever you may have heard, self-publishing is not a short cut to anything. Except maybe insanity. Self-publishing, like every other kind of publishing, is hard work. You don’t wake up one morning good at it. You have to work for that.”--Zoe Winters

 

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?"

Monarda: In bloom this week

 

For the past couple of weeks, our native monarda (Monarda citriodora, or lemon mint) has been spreading our meadows with a lovely purple blanket. The genus was named in honor of Nicolas Monardes, a 16th century Spanish botanist who never made it to the New World, but established a botanical garden in Seville where he cultivated specimens and studied the effects of medicinal plants imported from the Americas. Citriodora comes from the Latin citrus, plus odoro--which pretty much describes its sour-lemon odor. It is also called horsemint, not because it has anything to do with horses, but because "horse" was used to describe something larger than expected--as in the word horseradish, an unexpectedly large radish. The monardas belong to the mint family (they have the same square stem) and are larger and taller than most mints: hence horsemint. That's one theory, anyway--makes sense to me.

[Update 6/9/12: Maud Grieve, writing in A Modern Herbal, 1931, says that the prefix "horse" in horseradish comes from the idea of "coarse," and compares it--interestingly--to horsemint: "The popular English name, Horseradish, means a coarse radish, to distinguish it from the edible radish (R. sativus), the prefix 'Horse' being often used thus, comp. Horse-Mint, Horse Chestnut."]

The monardas have many uses. The leaves and stems, brewed, makes a decent tea (although a little resinous for my taste). If you crush the leaves and rub them on you, the bugs will leave you alone. The plant is rich in the antiseptic chemical thymol, and the Plains Indians used it as a wound poultice and a gargle (to treat mouth/throat infections), as well as a tea to treat fever and headaches. I've seen a soap made from it, and I have read that it is used in perfumes.

And monarda is decorative. Dried, in the winter, I always have a bouquet of it on my kitchen windowsill, with dried grasses and pretty dried seed pods. Years ago, when I was making herbal wreaths to sell, I gathered baskets of it, hung it to dry, and used it as a major floral component of each wreath. Right now, though, it's beautiful fresh--and lovely in the meadows, which are purple, purple, purple, perhaps the prettiest color in nature.

Reading Notes. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.--Shug, in The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

Yarrow: In bloom this week

Yarrow is such a modest and unassuming little plant, isn't it? Tiny white flowers in an umbrella-shaped cluster, with ferny, feathery green leaves that have given it its species name, millifolium (a corruption of the French phrase, mille feuille, a thousand leaves). Its genus name, Achillea, is an historical footnote: yarrow is said to be the plant that Achilles, the hero of Greek myth, used to staunch the bleeding of his soldiers and treat pain and inflammation--hence its common names, soldier's woundwort, herbe militaire, nosebleed plant. It's been used as a healing herb for over 2500 years; in China, its Asian cousin was (and still is) used to treat inflammations, bleeding, heavy menstrual flow and cramping, and snake bites. It works by virtue of two major plant chemicals that produce blood coagulation, several chemicals that reduce inflammation and relieve pain, and a chemical that relaxes the smooth muscles of the uterus and digestive tract. The leaves can be applied as a poultice and a tea or a tincture can be made of the aerial parts of the plant. A good medicine-cabinet herb, handy to have around.

But I've also been interested in yarrow's uses as a divining herb. I first met the herb in the medieval manuscripts I studied in graduate school, where the Anglo-Saxons called it gearwe and used it as a powerful force against evil. (Other common names: angel flower, devil's pepper, devil's nettle.) It was hung beside the doorway or strewn on the floor to ward off illness, bad luck, evil fairies. And in cases of demonic possession, yarrow could be used as a cleansing herb. In a tenth-century leechbook, for instance, yarrow was prescribed as a "spew herb" (a vomitory) to treat "a fiend-sick man or demonic, when a devil possesses the man or controls him from within with disease."

Yarrow was also used in foretelling the future. Here's a curious little East Anglian charm that combines both its incantatory and its medicinal qualities: 

Yarroway, yarroway, bear a white blow [blossom]
If my love love me, my nose will bleed now 

And in China, yarrow is an important divining herb. Fifty dried stalks are used to cast hexagrams in the I Ching. The procedure is a more complicated and less convenient than coins, but interesting--if you enjoy the I Ching (as I have), the yarrow stalks will give you some insight into the traditional divining practice. 

These days, yarrow has been hybridized and comes in the soft pastel colors of the rainbow. But I prefer the modest white blossoms that remind me of Achilles, of the old Anglo-saxon gearwe, and of yarrow's ability to foretell the future.

Reading note. A Gaelic woman's yarrow charm, translated by Kenneth Jackson: "I will pick the smooth yarrow that my figure may be sweeter, that my lips may be warmer, that my voice may be gladder...May I be an island in the sea, may I be a hill in the land, may I be a star in the dark time, may I be a staff to the weak one: I shall wound every man, no man shall hurt me." (Quoted in The Englishman's Flora, by Geoffrey Grigson)

Wildflower Season

This is our front yard, a billowing blanket of red, yellow, and orange gaillardia--Indian blanket, or firewheel. A stunning mass of beautiful flowers, the legacy of an unexpectedly rainy La Nina winter.

The past few months have been hugely hectic: books, garden, and couple of major conferences. But the book (Widow's Tears, China Bayles 2013) has been delivered; the garden is doing its green thing; and both conferences are history. The Story Circle conference (which I co-chaired with Peggy) was richly rewarding (and exhausting). And the Herb Society of America conference, where I spoke, was great fun. If you're interested in my talk ("The Secret Life of Herbs"), you'll find the text here. Bill brought his turned wood art and I brought books to sell, and we spent two full days connecting with friends (old and new) from all around the country and right here in Texas.

And there was a wonderful honor: the HSA named me their Honorary President for 2012-2014! China is convinced that this is all her doing, of course, since she is the one who owns the herb shop, does all those herbie things, and is featured in all those herbal mysteries. I've tried to explain the situation to her, but even though she is a remarkably bright and perceptive person, she is being remarkably dense about this. But I'm sure I'll be able to find a way to make her understand--eventually. My term begins July 1 and I'm very much looking forward to working with the HSA board members to acquaint more people with the organization's wonderful work. (Did you know that it was the Herb Society of America that created and sustains the National Herb Garden, in Washington D.C.?)

Garden Report

March was unexpectedly rainy, April was unfortunately dry--but last night brought a wonderful (and entertaining) lightning and thunder show and a lovely half-inch of rain. With luck, there might be a repeat performance tonight or next week, according to our weather guru. As you can see, the beans are doing very well (the trellis is made with cane harvested from along the creek). The potatoes are ready to dig--and I can't leave them in the ground because the soil gets very warm in the afternoon: we might have broiled potatoes! The tomatoes are beginning to set fruit, and I harvested the first tomato hornworm this morning. Squished him dead. But of course there will be more. One year, I harvested a gross of the things. That's right: a dozen dozen hornworms.

Book Report. Widow's Tears is done and on my editor's desk (well, in her computer, anyway). I just finished the copy edit of The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose (the third book in that new series). I'm working on the fourth book now: The Darlng Dahlias and the Texas Star. The manuscript of Wild Rose is still making the rounds of NY editors--I'll update you on that when I have any news.

And in the meantime, I'm enjoying what has turned out to be the most spectacular wildflower season in the quarter-century Bill and I have lived here at Meadow Knoll. Every window offers a joyful view, and when I go outdoors, I scarcely know where to look. Summer looms dry and hot over the southern horizon, but spring has been a great delight.

Reading Note:

’Tis a gift to be simple, ’Tis a gift to be free.
’Tis a gift to come down where you want to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
--traditional Shaker Hymn

 

Lady Banks: In Bloom This Week

Lady Banks: one of our prettiest roses. A Chinese import (yes, truly), one of her ancestors was taken to Europe in the 1820s, and hence to America not long after. This is a splendid year for our Lady, the first in some seasons. 2010 and 2009 were drought years, which reduced her bloom; I pruned her back severely in 2007, which reduced the 2008 bloom. I'm glad to see her in such good health, after a long, hot summer last year. The large shrub behind her is a red-tip photinia, also very pretty this year.

The veggie garden is flourishing this spring, thanks to the unusual wet La Nina winter: a "nice La Nina," for a change. The reasons for this unusual La Nina are complex, meterologically speaking, but the bottom line, for us, has been about 6 inches of rain, more than we usually expect in January-February. The Highland Lakes are still far below normal: only 44% full. But we're looking at more rain in the next few days, so that may change.

In the meantime, the mesquites are leafing out (which signals the beginning of our "official" spring), the redbuds are in bloom, the Texas mountain laurel is splendid, and the grass is a bright emerald green. We'll be moving the cows to their spring pasture next week, after feeding hay for the past couple of months--there's a patch of wonderful grass behind the barn that will bring them great delight.

And I've been working in the garden, where the potatoes are coming along nicely, thank you. This is just the kind of weather they love, so I'm hoping they make a crop. We'll know about the middle of May.

Also flourishing: spinach, chard, and kale; onions (bunch and long-day); carrots and radishes; peas (snaps and pod); tomatoes; cabbage; and brocolli. I neglected to put collars around the tomatoes and lost one of the best ones to cutworms, which are especially nasty this wet spring. I got busy and collared everything that might be susceptible. (2" collars cut from recycled file folders.) Hope that does the trick.

Oh, and I ordered my baby chicks! A couple of dozen meat birds (Cornish Rock Cross)--they'll arrive the middle of April and be in the freezer by mid-June. I did this later last summer, and the heat was a huge problem for them AND for me!

Our local wildlife are also appreciating spring. Our favorites: the wild turkeys. There's quite a flock this year, about a dozen hens and three toms. The toms start gobbling loudly before sunrise every morning (there's nothing like being awakened by a love-lorn turkey tom) and showing off their fine tails to the hens, who pay them no-never-mind. One day last week, all three toms encircled a single hen and were displaying madly while she ate her breakfast out of the grass, oblivious to their charms. The toms don't appear to be competitive, except in the matter of tails and gobbles.

Not so favorite: Black Bart the wild boar, who has been tearing up the south meadow. We saw our neighbor out the other morning, in her camoflauge gear with her pig hunting rifle over her shoulder. Unfortunately, it was about 9 am, long after Black Bart has packed it in for the day. If she wants to shoot that pig, she'll have to get out there at sunrise or hang around at sunset, which is when we usually see him. It's open season on wild pigs here, and he's big enough (and slow enough) to be a good target.

Book Report. I turned in Widow's Tears last week: Ruby's book, with China--the backstory is the Galveston hurricane of 1900. I'm still working on various aspects of the Rose Wilder Lane project, but have also started the next Dahlias mystery: The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star. I also submitted another article to Wildflower Magazine, this one on native medicinal plants. My earlier article, on drought-tolerant wildflowers, is here, with great photos by Steven Schwartzman.

Out and about. I'll be at Blinn College this week, in Brenham TX, and in several different venues during April, launching Cat's Claw out into the world. The full schedule is here.

Reading note. Knowledge in depth about one's home region will not strip away the gleaming surface that has been spread over the continent by mass culture and mass production, but such knowledge may reveal to us how thin that surface is, thin enough to see through, as thin as ice on a spring pond.--Scott Russell Sanders, Writing From the Center