Lifescapes

Bald Cypress on Pecan Creek

Pecan Creek is running full this winter, so we're hoping for a full recovery for the six bald cypress trees we planted in 1988. You can see one of them on the right in the photo. Her roots stretch out under the creek and when there's water, she thrives. We call this one Freya, for the Norwegian goddess of fertility. And yes, she has knees. They look like this:

Five years of drought and record-hot summers have been very hard on all our cypress and we feared we might lose some of them.  Bald cypress live a very long time: there's one in South Carolina that's well over 1620 years old--perhaps as old as 3000 years. I often look at ours and wonder what our world will be like when they have lived out their lifespan. These days, it's not an altogether pleasant thought. 

Book report. I finished Queen Anne's Lace, China's 26th adventure. This book is the last in a three-book contract with Berkley Prime Crime, so I've written a proposal for three more books. Here's a sneak peek at their titles: Devil's Trumpet, Passion Flower, and Dragon's Blood. A friend asked if I could look ahead and see the end of the series: the answer is no, not as long as there are interesting ideas to explore and interested readers. I'm glad I didn't choose a series with a definite end, like the alphabet. The mystery done, I'm back to work on the Gertrude project.

Garden report. One planting of potatoes is in, another ready to go.The spinach and onions are thriving, but the kale--for some unknown reason--didn't come up well and had to be replanted. I'll be planting snap peas next week, likely. It's another record-breaking high-temperature winter, pushing up the gardening calendar.

February events. I'll be in Granbury TX and in Dripping Springs TX in late February. If you're in the area, join me! 

Reading note. Global warming, along with the cutting and burning of forests and other critical habitats, is causing the loss of living species at a level comparable to the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That event was believed to have been caused by a giant asteroid. This time it is not an asteroid colliding with the Earth and wreaking havoc: it is us.--Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth

 

Goodreads Giveaway!

We're having the first Goodread giveaway for this upcoming release now through 1/25 (but don’t put it off or you’ll forget). I enjoyed digging into the research for this biographical novel, which explores the hidden relationship between Eisenhower and his Irish driver, Kay Summersby, during WW2. I learned that when the war ended, Ike was fully prepared to divorce Mamie and marry Kay but was persuaded by both duty and ambition to take the path that led him to the White House. I also dug into Kay’s postwar life as an American citizen, following her trail in the letters she exchanged with Ike (held at the Eisenhower Library) and in the newspapers. The print edition of the novel contains the notes that document my findings; if you read the ebook, you’ll find the documentation on the book's website.

If you missed my interview with the novel’s cover artist, you can find it here and here.

Book report. I finished Queen Anne’s Lace (China’s 26^th adventure!) last week. This book is structured like Wormwood and Widow’s Tears, with a backstory set in the 1880s in Pecan Springs. The signature herb is Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota), aka wild carrot, which (until the mid-19^th century) was chiefly used as a contraceptive. When I started researching the subject, I found many herbs that were used in this way and found myself very grateful to a couple of academic researchers. Here are two of the most important, if this subject interests you: Eve’s Herbs and Sex and Herbs and Birth Control. You’ll have to wait for Queen Anne’s Lace, though. It’s in the production queue at Berkley Prime Crime, scheduled for April, 2018. In the meantime, contain your soul in patience (as a librarian said to me once). The Last Chance Olive Ranch will be released in just a few months.

I’m back at work on the Gertrude Bell project, which is beginning to feel like a trilogy, rather than a single novel. There’s a lot to this story, and to tell it well, I think I have to tell it longer. I’ve always been interested in WW1, but like everyone else, I mostly focused on the war in Europe. I have a lot to learn about the war in the Middle East, with its complicated webs of political intrigue.

On another topic . . . 

Garden report:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If the soil dries out enough to dig the trenches, I’ll be planting seed potatoes this weekend. These are Red La Sodas, I think, They’ve gone through a couple of planting cycles and I’ve lost track. I try to save enough from the spring planting to seed the fall, and so on, on the theory that homegrown seed is better acclimated to the garden’s normal seasons—although like most of us, I’m no longer sure what “normal” is. Except hot and hotter.

Reading note. It may be normal, darling; but I'd rather be natural.--Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

Works In Progress

The current fiberwork WIP is cross stitch--and a very large project (11" x 19"). Love the detail work and the precision, but I have to confess that without my magnifying lamp, I couldn't do this. It's 18-count Aida cloth, so the stitches are very small.

Here's what it will look like when it's finished.

 

The previous WIP--Calico Stars, a needlepoint--is finished! 

If you'd like to see what I've done with it, look here: http://www.storycircle.org/raffle/ 

Book report. Also in progress, the 2018 China Bayles mystery, Queen Anne's Lace--working on Chapter Four. But I need to put it aside this week and work on the copyedited manuscript of The Last Chance Olive Ranch, which flew here from New York yesterday. I'm hoping to wrap that up by Monday. Another WIP that you'll see next April, as a book.

Homestead report. Rain, rain, 7" of rain so far this month. The fire danger is down, and everything is a green jungle. The garden is in its usual summer dormant state, but The Girls are laying nicely and Bill is looking forward to a giant pecan crop. We're keeping an eye on the Gulf of Mexico, which is likely to send us even more rain next week. If it does, that may cool the soil enough to allow me to plant the fall potatoes.

We live in a culture that thrives on thrills, craves crises, and delights in debacles. What goes on here at Meadow Knoll in the summer may, in contrast, seem boring and blah. But for me,these days of quiet, slow, measured life offer opportunities for finding small pleasures. The gleeful cackle of a chicken who's just laid an egg. A silent visit from two does and their four spotted fawns. The sight of a Cooper's hawk on the fence post, of a painted bunting at the feeder, of a spiral of buzzards riding an invisible thermal into an infinite sky. The remarkable, extraordinary variety of very ordinary days. This is my world, a work in progress. I love it.

Reading note. Everything happens in life. Some of what happens is terrible. We know this is true because it has always been true. But there is another truth available, an inexplicable and sometimes crazy truth that is no less compelling. The living of a life, day by day and moment by moment, is also wild with joy.--Reeve Lindbergh, Forward from Here

 

Let there be . . . squash!

The pumpkins and summer squash are blooming in the garden, and the squash bees (Peponapis sp.) are hard at work. This species of native solitary bees specializes in curcubit blossoms: zucchini and butternut squash, pumpkins, and gourds, among others.

I took this photo just after seven one morning, when the zucchini blossoms were busy with bees. Peponapis are early risers, often getting up before dawn to get to the blossoms as soon as they're open for business in the morning. Unlike honeybees, these are ground-nesting insects: the females dig tiny tunnels and deposit their eggs with balls of pollen to feed the emerging bees. The males hang out, flitting around, looking for an unclaimed, unmated female. The job done, they crawl into an open blossom to sleep it off until the next day. Their territories are smaller than those of honeybees, and the chances are good that if you plant squash, they will come--especially if you plant every year. Important: if you want squash bees--or any species of bee, for that matter, lay off the insecticide.

Homestead report. What with one thing and another, the laying flock is now down to two Buffies, who produce an egg every other day. If I want more fresh eggs (I do!) it's time to expand the flock. A trip to the feed store produced 6 Barred Plymouth Rock pullet chicks (that is, girl babies), who grow up to look like this.

But a snake (a six-foot rat snake) had other ideas. I thought I'd snake-proofed the chick cage in the coop, but snakes are tricky characters and almost impossible to keep out, if they're determined to come in. I caught this one in the act and rescued two survivors, but he'd already devoured four. Boo-hoo. It's silly to put in the effort to raise just two chicks, so it was back to the feed store to get four more. They're now in a small stock tank in our dining room, where they'll stay until they're too big for a snake to eat.

I dug the last of the potatoes this week, and now have enough for meals the rest of the year, plus seed potatoes for the fall garden. The sweet potatoes are now in, and doing well. We've had as much rain in the first six months of the year as we normally get in twelve, so the garden is flourishing.

Book report. Working now on the last editing pass through Loving Eleanor, my biographical/historical novel about the relationship of Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt. I'll be publishing it through my Persevero Press in February 2016, available in print (hardcover, trade paper) and ebook formats. 

Story Circle. I'm serving as president of the Story Circle Network through 2017, so you'll be hearing a lot from me about my work with this wonderful community of women writers. If you're interested in journaling, memoir, fiction, and poetry, you'll want to know about us: we offer classes, workshops, conferences, and much more. This week, I've been helping with the 2016 conference planning. Right now, we're recruiting faculty for the conference (April 15-17, 2016, Austin). If you're a writing teacher, coach, go here to learn why you should send us your proposal.

Reading note. Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. —Mary Oliver

Winter in the Texas Hill Country

We're settling in for winter here in the Texas Hill Country. Our four girls (two Red Stars, two Buff Orpingtons) are on their cold-weather egg-laying schedule, an egg every other day. It hasn't been cold enough, long enough yet to set up their heat lamps--I'll do that when the temperature falls into the 20s at night. The potted plants are all indoors, and Bill has stacked plenty of firewood on the porch for our winter fires. And I have enough books on my to-read list to keep me busy for many nights.

Garden report. I know--you've buttoned up your garden for the season. But here in the Hill Country, spring comes early, and climate change has peppered the planting calendar with question marks. We're hoping for an El Nino, too, which usually means a warmer, wetter winter.

The spinach I planted right after Thanksgiving is up and flourishing, and I've put in another row. I'll be planting romaine lettuce today, in a box on the deck, where I can easily move it indoors in case of a hard freeze.

I held over a few seed potatoes from my spring Yukon Gold crop; they're sprouted and ready to go in the ground today. The Reddales and Yukon Gold I ordered from Wood Prairie Farm are ready to sprout--they'll go in the ground in early January. (I like ordering from Wood Prairie: they ship seed potatoes in the fall, when I need them.) Potatoes are nightshades and vulnerable to a freeze, but I'll mulch and put up low tunnels (plastic hoops covered with row cover) over the beds. I garden with raised beds, which makes it easy to cover in case of very cold weather.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book report. There are several projects on the desk right now. I just sent back the proof pages for Bittersweet, the next China Bayles mystery, coming in April 2015, and I'm doing research on the 2016 mystery, Blood Orange. I've done a little more work on A Wilder Rose, which will be out in a reprint edition from Lake Union in March and an audio edition from Brilliance, at the same time. 

And I'm working on Hick and Eleanor: A Love Story, in the final third of the novel, hoping to have enough for an early submission by the first of the year. I've been collecting research photos on Pinterest. You can browse through them here. It's truly a fascinating story: Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt, two strong women whose intimate relationship ripened into a deep friendship that sustained both of them--in different ways--until the end of their lives.

And a few other favorite things. No big plans for Christmas, no visiting or travel. it'll be quiet this year, with just the two of us. I've been doing lots of needlepoint, but right now, I'm working on a couple of knitted shawls--my first Wingspan shawl (a pattern I got from Ravelry), and I'm loving it! And reading, of course, always lots of reading. I love winter: the early dark; the gray, chilly days; the beautiful bones of the leafless trees; and a bright fire in the fireplace with wood that Bill cut from our woodlot last summer. And maybe, in an El Nino winter, we'll get some snow. I can always hope.

Reading note: I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future - the timelessness of the rocks and the hills - all the people who have existed there. I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.--Andrew Wyeth

Green tomato pie

One of my mother's favorite Depression-era recipes was her green tomato pie. Back in Illinois, where I grew up, we ate quite a lot of green tomatoes, usually in the fall, before the first freeze killed the vines. Now, gardening in Texas, I make Mom's green tomato pie in July, because the nighttime temperatures are too warm for the fruit to set.

The pie begins with thin-sliced green tomatoes, peeled and cored (green tomatoes often have a bitter core). Just for the heck of it, I added a couple of sliced zucchini. I sauteed the slices in butter, mixed them with lemon juice, sugar, salt, spices, and flour, and put them into an unbaked crust, topped with pastry. Bill (who generally prefers his tomatoes sauced and won't eat a zucchini unless he doesn't know what it is) thought I had baked him an apple pie. It didn't last long.

Mom's Green Tomato Pie

3 1/2 c. peeled and sliced green tomatoes
3 tbsp. butter or margarine
6 tbsp. lemon juice
1 1/4 c. sugar
3 tbsp. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cloves

Saute the tomatoes in the butter and lemon juice until just tender. Combine tomatoes with sugar, flour, salt and spices. Line 9" pie pan with pastry, pour in filling, dot with butter and cover with top crust. Bake at 450 degrees 10 minutes then reduce to 350 degrees and bake until crust is brown (about 35-40 minutes).

Book Report. I'm moving forward with The Darling Dahlias & the Eleven O'Clock Lady--chapters 13-15 this week. I'm hoping to be finished by the end of this month. (If it seems to you that I've been working on this forever, not so. I began it in mid-May. It just seems like a long time, to you and me both.) I'm also making daily entries for another Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days, which I'm planning to author-publish in 2015, if all goes well. In this, I'm following in the tradition of acclaimed journal writer May Sarton, one of my heroes. 

Reading note: If you want to write, if you want to create, you must . . . write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy head.--Ray Bradbury

 

 

Hill Country Yo-Yo Winter

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On Monday, it was 80. On Thursday night, 18, snowing and sleeting. Today (Sunday), in the 70s. Ahead on Tuesday, another repeat of snow/sleet. I've been ready to put in potatoes for a couple of weeks, but this kind of yo-yo weather means rapid soil warming and chilling, not exactly the kind of conditions you want to submit plants to. And January has been another dry month, with only a trace of precipitation (the sleet didn't amount to a hill of beans) and the lakes down to 38%.

But gardeners live on hope, so I've started cabbages and tomatoes. The cabbages are up and green under the lights, but the tomatoes are still jut a promise. Spring can't be that far away, though--especially here, where summer always seems to hover just over the horizon. 

Book report. Bittersweet is moving along, but it's another research-heavy mystery, so progress is slower than uusual. But that's okay. I'm discovering lots of uniquely Texas stuff I didn't know, and I've lived in the state for 40 years.The book is about deer farming and canned trophy hunts, a large and ugly industry that's built on people's desire to hang monster antlers on their walls. As usual, China is in the thick of things.

I'm also working on a project with my brother, John Webber, a memoir in two voices about our growing-up years in/around Danville IL in the 1950s. We've been sharing photos, names, places, events. It's fascinating to follow the trail of a memory and see how one recollection leads to another and another, rediscovered a past world that has disappeared under the relentless waves of the future. We're planning a research trip in April, to see what else we can rediscover--and from there, I'm planning a brief visit  to the Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park NY, for another project I've have underway for some time. More about that when it's farther along.

Also in April, Story Circle's 7th national memoir conference. If you're considering writing about your life, this is one conference you'll want to attend. All women, wonderful keynoters, great presentations. (I'm on the conference committee, so when I say "wonderful . . . great," believe me.) 

A Wilder Rose continues to grow and flower. Recently, the novel introduced me to Carol Mayfield, a reader in Harlingen TX, where Rose owned a home in the last decade of her life. Carol knew Rose through her parents, who were Rose's neighbors. Carol and I have begun an email friendship, sparked by our mutual interest in Rose. We're working on something together that we'll be sharing right here in the next few weeks. Watch this space. 

Reading note. A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.--Richard Bach

Seeds and Other Growing Things

Not the prettiest things in the world, are they? But deep in the wizened hearts of each of these seed potatoes lurks a pretty green plant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And underneath each green plant lurks a half dozen new potatoes--if I'm lucky. Texas being Texas and what with the usual vagaries of temperature and rainfall (and climate change on top of that), the pretty green plants don't always yield six potatoes. Sometimes only three, maybe even just one. Some seasons the crop is splendid, some seasons not so much.

But whatever the outcome, the magic is always there for me. I come from a long line of gardening women, and planting potatoes, as I did when I was a kid and as my gardening mother did and her mother before her and so on, is a celebration of life and hope and trust in a beneficent universe. All of which is on my mind this morning, as I sort through this year's seed potatoes and get ready to put them in the ground. 

Also on my mind: Bittersweet (China Bayles' 2015 mystery), due at the end of March. Last week, Bill & I took a 2-day research trip down to Uvalde County, where Bittersweet is set. We visited Utopia (we had pie at the Lost Maples Cafe), drove along the southern rim of the Edwards Plateau, and visited a couple of places where Bill used to spend summer vacations when he was a boy. Uvalde County is unique. It straddles two very different ecological regions--the Edwards Plateau and the Coastal Plains--so it offers a rich variety of landscapes, plant communities, and wildlife. I'm about a third of the way through the book, which is taking China into the deer and exotic breeding/hunting business, a burgeoning enterprise across the country. Here in Texas, it's a political hot potato with potentially unfortunate environmental consequences.

Update on A Wilder Rose. Kirkus named Rose to its list of Best Indie Fiction for 2013--quite a compliment to the book! The number of libraries acquiring it has zoomed up to 225 (just in the World Catalog system)--even a library in Australia! It will appear in a large-print edition in March, and it's under consideration for audio. I couldn't ask for a warmer response to the book.

Update from Persevero Press. You may remember that I launched my own imprint last year, Persevero Press. We've recently added the 20th anniversary edition of Work of Her Own: A Woman's Guide to Creating a Right Livelihood to the list, and two other titles will be forthcoming shortly. Some of these books will be available via Kindle and Nook only, some also in print. I'm delighted with the new and exciting publishing technologies that make it possible to get books into the hands of readers. There'll be a lot of junk on the market, but discriminating readers will quickly sort through that stuff and choose the ones they think are worth their reading time.

I finished the needlepoint project (designed by the amazing Laura Perin) that' I'm donating to the silent auction that's held during Story Circle's National Women's Memoir Conference, coming up in April, in Austin. When you come, please plan to spend time out in the Hill Country. It's going to be a banner year for bluebonnets!

Reading Note: I never feel that it's finished, but you have to stop somewhere.--Annie Proulx

 

Spring gardening in the Texas Hill Country

Lest you think that I spend all my time writing, here's a glimpse into another part of my life--the garden.

The potatoes look terrific this year, there in the left foreground. I planted them in January, fended off a couple of hard freezes in March, and look at them now! But bushy green tops are only part of the story. I can only hope they're doing their job at producing tubers--we'll know next month, when we dig them. Three kinds here: Yukon Gold, Caribe, and one of the reds, can't remember which.

Behind the potatoes on the left, the perennial onions. They're topsets and blooming now--I'll have to deadhead them or I'll have way more onions than I want. I use the white part in cooking all year and in the spring, when the green tops are tender, I use them like green onions. By fall, I'll be down to just a few clumps, which I'll separate and grow on for next year.

Beyond the onions, kale, chard, and spinach, with garlic at the end of the bed. We eat the tender new leaves, and the girls (my flock of six layers) get a half-bucket of older leaves every day. I love having chickens to eat the garden produce we can't. And their poop goes into the compost, which comes back into the garden. What goes around comes around, in the loveliest possible way.

Beyond the greens bed, a bed of Roma tomatoes and past that, a new bed of Kentucky Wonders and McCaslan beans, both pole-growers. I planted them last Sunday and the McCaslans, eager to see what it's all about, are already up and growing.

On the right, at the back, a trellis of pole peas. I prefer pole beans and peas--easier picking! Beside that bed, two more beds of tomatoes: Better Boys and Porters (the famous TX heritage tomato, a hot-weather survivor). I'll plant the weedy bed, right front, to zucchini and yellow crookneck squash later today.

But I've also been doing writing-related chores. A Wilder Rose--my upcoming self-published novel--now has its own webpage. It has its own Facebook page, too. And its own Pinterest board. I've been making a list of regular book bloggers who might be interested in reviewing the book. If you have a book blog to which you post regularly and think A Wilder Rose might fit your site, email me at susan at susanalbert dot com with a link to your blog.

Happy, busy days here in the Texas Hill Country (although we're still and always wishing for more rain). Hope they're happy and busy at your place, too--and that you have just the right amount of rain on your garden!

Reading note, from Rose Wilder Lane's 1919 novel, Diverging Roads: “I’m sure of one thing,” [Helen] said earnestly [to her friends]. “It hurts to—to let go of anything beautiful. But something will come to take its place, something different, of course, but better. The future’s always better than we can possibly think it will be. We ought to know that—really know it. We ought to be so sure of it that we’d let go of things more easily, strike out toward the next thing. Like swimming, you know. Confidently. We ought to live confidently. Because whatever’s ahead, it’s going to be better than we’ve had. I tell you, girls, I know it is.”

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