Grandfather Tree

Willow's dreamy voice rose above the talk. "At noon I took some fruit and a flask of the crystal water from your spring. I was led to follow the path at the top of the pasture into the woods. There I sat beneath a great-great grandfather tree. Grandfather Tree and I shared secrets."

She embraced them all with a knowing smile. "He spoke from his wisdom, telling me that this turmoil we are passing through is but a healing crisis -- all shall be well and all shall be well and all shall be exceeding well."

The above is from Art's Blood. Willow's a bit of an airhead -- or so she seems -- but a tree like the one in the picture is, to me, full of a kind of power. I love the way that you can lay your hand on the trunk of a living tree and feel the coolness of the sap beneath the bark as it sucks up nourishment from the earth.

Maybe I'll take this awful cold in the head that has come upon me and go sit beneath Grandfather Tree in hopes he'll tell me the same thing he told Willow -- I'm ready for this healing crisis to pass.

First Fire

They were givin' cold weather for last night, as my older neighbors say, and the temperatures were dropping. In the garden, I picked the last of my tomatoes, peppers, chard, and lettuce, then harvested a few more mushrooms. That done, I hauled my bounty to the house and lit the first fire of the season.

We always hold off as long as possible, shutting the windows a grudging one at a time and adding another layer of clothes rather than admit that the house is pretty chilly. The dogs and cats let us know it's time by curling up on pillows or, in the case of the cats, under a lamp.

There's a kerosene heater but with the price of fuel and the fact that we have lots of trees on the place, we are making an effort to heat mostly with wood as we did for years. It's more trouble and it makes a mess -- but people with six dogs and two cats are already used to that.

And the pleasure of watching the flames touches some core of primal delight. During this season as the hours of dark lengthen, and the air outside grows cold, the pleasure of a warm place by the fire is a pleasure we share with our earliest ancestors.

What a miracle it must have seemed to those early folk who learned how to capture and keep fire! And what a joy it still is!

As is the sight of a nice wood pile with its promise of warmth to come.

And while we're on the subject of heat -- Miss Susie Hutchins, the black and white kitty, was in search of warmth last night and when I left my laptop open and running while I attended to my printer, she curled up on the keyboard.

I returned and shooed her away to find that she had somehow activated Google desktop and now I had a little window that gave the high and low temperatures for the day -- in San Francisco.

I wonder what she's planning?

The HDCCS

Last month over on my Amazon blog, I wrote about my Writer's Toolkit. Just recently, necessity being the mother of invention, I've added another tool.

I'm at that point in Birdie's book where the different plot lines (past and present) must begin to come together. I love doing this layered sort of story -- but it can quickly go out of balance if one character wants to talk too much. And as the pages grow in number, scrolling up and down the computer screen to see who said what when becomes tedious. and I forget what I was looking for anyway.

Hence, the Handy Dandy Colorized Chapter Sequencer. (It's all my own invention, as the White Knight told Alice.)

This is my map of the first 200 + pages of Day of Small Things. It allows me to see at a glance that different elements are reasonably balanced. Or at least, not horribly unbalanced.

Each post-it represents a chapter (except for the purple ones but I'll get to that.)

Like this:

Mustard - historical secondary plot (you know, the part in italics, for example the Little Sylvie story)

Pale yellow - present day, Miss Birdie's point of view (hereafter called POV)

Pink - present day, Calven's POV

Green - present day, Louisa's POV (Miss Birdie's niece from Detroit)

Purple - I'm calling these 'Artifacts' and they are single pages that I think of as written illustrations. Could be a newspaper clipping, a page from a diary, an advertisement. Odds and ends that illuminate and add depth to the story.

I'm always trying to match the historical plot to the present day and sometimes as I write, things change. Thus, I've had to reshuffle my sequences several times. The HDCCS (suited to the meanest intelligence) allows me to see it all at a glance and provides me with the comforting illusion that I'm in control of this unwieldy cast of characters.

As if.

Random Friday

It's a beautiful misty day with clouds hanging low over the mountains. I took a lunch break from Miss Birdie (who really is turning out to be a handful) and went down to feed the chickens and get the mail.

Gregory Peck, the rooster, is moulting -- as are most of the older birds -- and that gorgeous proud tail of curving greeny-black feathers is no more. Sorry, Ann.

But check out the young hen behind him, with her classic Ameraucana beard and earmuffs. It's quite a look, don't you think?

This is the inside of the chicken house -- hardly a thing of beauty as the girls are messy in their habits. But this is what Elizabeth's chicken house looks like and, if you recall, it has its part to play in Old Wounds. Those nest boxes . . .

Here's a little web album with a few more fall pictures . . .

Ladybug, Ladybug!

Ladybug, Ladybug,
Fly away home;
Your house is on fire
And your children will burn.

Unfortunately, ladybugs from all over seem to be treating our house as a refugee center. It happens every fall -- they come crawling out of the insulation and nooks and crannies everywhere. They swarm to light and heat -- making cooking hazardous, to say the least. (They taste really awful, so you learn to keep cook pots covered.)

Out of the walls they emerge
Drawn by an autumnal urge;
A buggy battalion appears
And, just as in previous years --

They're on your screens!
They're in your jeans!
They're on the floor!
Look out! There're more!

They're in your food--
How very rude!
They're in your glass . . .
This, too, shall pass.

Thanks to Liz for this link to more info about these critters. Note that they are beneficial and eat aphids.

Biltmore Bodark

Our farm has a ways to go before it can compare with the world famous Biltmore Estate. But we both have an Osage Orange.

It was probably fifteen years ago that I was visiting the Estate with a friend and, while wandering through the extensive gardens, picked up a strange orange fruit from beneath a thorny shrub-like tree. Or tree-like shrub. The sign said Osage Orange and, as there were plenty of these fruits rotting on the ground and Mr. Vanderbilt was nowhere in sight, I put the sweet-smelling thing into my pocket.

Some days later, I remembered it and laid it on the bench in the greenhouse to let it ripen. When it became rather mushy, I extracted some seeds, put them in a pot of dirt and pretty much ignored it. The pot got watered when everything else did but for half a year or longer, nothing happened.

When finally a green shoot emerged, I was thrilled. A free plant! From the Biltmore Estate yet!

The Osage Orange lived in a series of ever larger pots for about five years till it became obvious it needed room to expand. When I planted it among other shrubs and trees down near our pond, it was maybe a yard high.

Now it towers above me -- twenty feet tall and almost as wide. Its wicked thorns prevent us from doing much pruning. But I like it. This spring it was covered with sweet-smelling white blossoms and now! now it's awash in golden fruit.

Somewhere between the size of a tennis ball and a golf ball, the fruits feel velvety and are oddly fragrant. They're not edible, except for the seeds, according to one source, but they may repel fleas.

The plant has a fascinating history, including the fact that its wood was used by the Osage Indians for bows -- hence the name given it by French explorers -- bois d'arc -- bow wood. Or bodark as it's known where it grows wild.

My particular plant has its own claim to fame -- my daughter-in-law Aileen, who is an art director at White Wolf Games Studio, used a picture of its thorny branches as the background for the cover of the award-winning Changeling: The Lost. Immortality!

Around the Road

The road around the mountain is unpaved, narrow, winding, and beautiful. I traveled it this morning to have lunch with a neighbor and her friend from Chicago -- both Elizabeth fans.

It's always a pleasure to find out what people like about Elizabeth . . . and to hear their opinions on where they think the series should go. We discussed the use of bad language, the presentation of violence -- how much is too much -- and whether the reader is 'owed' a happy ending.

It was a nice break and a pleasure to be out, looking at our mountain instead of out from it.

But now I'm back at the laptop, wrangling with Miss Birdie. And the truth is, she's going to do and say pretty much what she wants to. As are Calven and Myrna Lou, Pook and Prin, Dorothy and Belvy and the rest of the cast of characters I'm trying to direct to a resolution.

These folks are just plain unruly -- with minds of their own, even though they're figments of my imagination. Sometimes I have no more control over them than I do over a dream. I can begin writing a scene, but if it doesn't suit the characters, they'll just sit there and refuse to come to life.

But if they're happy with the scene, it's as if I were taking dictation -- my fingers can hardly move fast enough.

'shrooms!!!

We have mushrooms! Remember those logs John inoculated back in late March? They're beginning to produce!! Here (above) we have six shitake and two oyster mushrooms, ready to go into a stir fry this evening.

Below, a flush of tiny oysters break through the paraffin that coated the plug of spawn and sawdust. We have regular oysters and blue oysters (so that's where the band Blue Oyster Cult got its name!) -- not sure which these are.

They have a strange beauty -- like tiny alien life forms bubbling out of the logs.

Below are the minute yellow crescents ( not much larger than a fingernail clipping -- I'm really asking too much of my poor camera) of Chicken of the Woods. I've never tasted this mushroom and look forward to seeing these reach eating size.

All these mushroom pictures made me think of the books about Mr. Thallo and the Mushroom Planet. The first one, published in 1954, was my introduction to science fiction. Charming, innocent fantasy about children from Earth visiting a planet where all life is fungoid.

No, it wasn't creepy at all -- it was, rather, a good way to introduce a child to the notion that a being very different from oneself isn't necessarily scary.

. . . And Home Again

We left the motel in Virginia early this morning and were on our way in time to see sunrise along the eastern rim of the Shenandoah Valley. This wide valley has some of the most beautiful, well-tended farms imaginable, as well as some wonderful old farmhouses. Alas -- not easy to take pictures -- emergency stopping only.

But when we got into North Carolina, we stopped at the Sams Gap welcome center on I-26 and I sampled the autumn color.

Those distant mountains are the Blue Ridge -- some of the same ones we see from our house but at a slightly different angle.

And now I have to get to work. I've unpacked and the washer is churning. All those receipts have to be put with my tax stuff -- a lot of this trip was mercifully deductible. And there are some thank yous and follow ups to conversations begun this weekend to write . Maybe tomorrow I 'll post a little web album of some more pictures from Baltimore.

And, of course, number one priority in the coming weeks is Miss Birdie.

But I don't have to fix dinner! Justin and Claui, who've been looking after the house and the critters, left a delicious looking Spanish stew in the refrigerator for us, as well as a big chunk of cake -- are those great kids, or what?

Bye, Bye Baltimore

The picture, taken by John, is the Pride of Baltimore -- a modern re-creation of the famous Baltimore clipper, aka topsail schooner. These speedy ships were used to run blockades during the Revolutionary War, as well as during the Late Unpleasantness (aka the Civil War.)

John and I had hoped to visit Baltimore's Aquarium today, but on hearing that the crowds would be major on this holiday weekend, we decided to head home a day early. So I put in my hour as 'hostess' in the Bouchercon Hospitality Room, setting out granola bars , yoghurt, bottled water, and juice. The food was free (part of the Bcon package) and Sisters in Crime volunteers were the organizers and helpers for this much-appreciated amenity

We're somewhere in Virginia tonight and will be home tomorrow. I'm ready.

One more thing. Tonight we ate at a Chinese restaurant in some anonymous mall. I spent most of my time watching a little scene going on at a two nearby tables

At a little table at the back, two Chinese boys -- one around six, the other maybe ten -- were playing with some electronic game. Next to them was a Caucasian family -- Mom, Dad, blond baby girl in a highchair, and a very chubby boy -- probably also around ten. This boy was struggling to eat with chopsticks.

As the rest of his family chowed down with the aid of forks and fingers, the chubby boy struggled to make the fiendish Oriental implements do his bidding. I held my breath when, after several fumbled attempts, the boy actually brought a piece of what looked like General Tso's chicken almost to his lips. Victory in reach, he opened his mouth and the food fell. Undaunted, he tried again and again.

By now, the two Chinese youngsters were stealing covert glances at this little drama and exchanging quiet looks of self-satisfaction.

Pretty quickly the older boy lost interest and went back to his game but the younger one was fascinated and openly staring. The baby girl noticed him and started waving. And then the younger Chinese boy began to make silly faces that made her laugh and wave all the more.

Meanwhile, Mom was on her cell phone, talking as she ate; Dad was eating steadily; and the chubby boy was still using the chopsticks. He had discovered that he could stab the bits of chicken and was doing so, a chopstick in each hand.

I would have loved to take pictures of all this . . .

Bouchercon 2008 ~ Friday

At 8:30 this morning I joined Cris Roerden, Mary Saums, Cathy Pickens, and J.D. Rhoades on a panel of Southern writers. Lots of nice folks, including Molly Weston who took this picture) turned out at this early hour and I have some pictures of them but as I said yesterday, Blogger limits me to four per post. (Here's a very modest web album.)

I spent an hour at the Mystery News table with Lynn Kaczmarek and Chris Aldrich. Jim Huang, one of the organizers of next year's Bouchercon in Indianapolis was there and I heard a little about the monumental work that goes into one of these conferences. I'll be telling you more about next year's Bcon sooner or later.

And there was my lunch with Herself, my editor. It's always a delight to spend time with Kate and get a glimpse into the world of publishing. And I made bold to tell Herself that we had a donkey named Kate -- she was entranced and immediately had to see Kate the Donkey's picture on her Blackberry.

At the end of our very pleasant lunch, when I asked if I could take her picture for this blog, Kate, the editor, kindly but firmly declined to be photographed.

So we'll make do with the other Kate.

Bouchercon '08 ~ Thursday

And, of course, just about the first person I ran into in the book room was KAYE BARLEY of Boone, NC. Kaye is a perennial presence on DorothyL- a list serve for readers and writers of mystery -- and she has been a big supporter of Elizabeth Goodweather from the beginning. We'd never met in person but we've exchanged so many emails that I feel I know her.

Then I met up with Sheila Connolly -- author of two mystery series and another email friend -- and we took advantage of sighting Lee Child -- author of the wildly successful Jack Reacher series -- so I could get the two of them in one shot.

Margaret Maron, who was kind enough to blurb IN A DARK SEASON, calling it a 'tale of love and lust,' was hanging out with Barry Zeman, author and authority on the history of the mystery and Bonnie of The Black Orchid Bookstore in NYC.

And there were and will be lots more -- Blogger only lets me put four pictures per post. But when the weekend's over, I'll make a web album

I did make it to an excellent panel called IT'S ONLY MAKE BELIEVE: Telling Lies for a Living (Laurie R. King , whose work I have praised far and wide was one of the panelists).

When it was time for supper, John and I walked down to the Inner Harbor where we had sangria and tapas, sitting outside with a fine view of the USS Constellation (ca. 1854).

It's an early evening for me though -- the panel I'm on is at 8:30 AM tomorrow morning.

A Little Autumn Color

I almost never like to leave the farm for any length of time for fear of missing something wonderful in the ever changing cycle of the seasons. In spring I want to be here for the first crocus, the daffodils, the tulips. In summer it's the first tomatoes, the new green beans, the corn. There's always something about to bloom or ripen -- and now it's the leaves, edging toward their fall glory.

The Virginia creeper has gone red, as have the dogwoods, and the maples are just beginning to turn.

We'll be back on Monday -- surely I won't miss too much.

I hope to be able to access the Internet from our hotel room. If so, you'll hear from me tomorrow. If not -- till Monday!