Iris

The irises are coming into their own just now. Wonderfully hardy and easy to grow, they multiply every year. Nothing seems to bother them other than an occasional slug.

Iris are named for the Greek goddess of the rainbow -- presumably because they come in so many colors. Purples, yellows, white, pinks, blues, even almost black. A true red has yet to be achieved but breeders are working on it!















They grow wild on the slopes of our woods -- modest little lavender beauties.



But I've planted lots more 'tame' varieties. I'm not sure what this one below is -- it was a gift from a neighbor who called it an 'old-timey' iris. It's smaller than the modern bearded iris that seems to be the favorite of breeders and the coloring is subtle on those upright parts called the standards.

This next ruffled beauty starts out almost black, fading to purple after a few days of sun. See the fuzzy white 'beard' on the fall?

Two more bearded ladies.












































This smaller purple one is, I believe, a Siberian iris. Its leaves are narrower and the flowers smaller but they bloom profusely and multiply like nobody's business.

Commonly known as yellow flag, the iris below grows wild around here in boggy places. I transplanted some to the edge of our pond where they thrive.

It's impossible for me to pick a favorite iris -- and the Louisiana and the Japanese irises aren't even open yet!

News Flash - No Joke!

It was a week ago -- over a week -- that the email fell into my in box late at night -- a quiet little bombshell..

Dear Vicki,

Congratulations! You have been nominated for a 2009 Anthony Award. Your book, In a Dark Season, has been nominated in the category for Best Paperback Original. . .

At first I was elated -- a kind of nunc dimittis moment. This is something I've hardly dared to dream of . . . but then, somehow I felt suspicious. Immediately I replied to the email, asking if this was true.

No response.

I emailed my agent and my editor, asking them if they know about this nomination (generally my editor is the one to tell me if something noteworthy has happened.)

No answer -- not a surprise -- it was late at night, as I said. John was out of town and there I sat, wanting desperately to tell someone this good news -- if it was good news and not a cruel joke.

Neither the dogs nor the cats were the least bit interested when I explained to them that the Anthony is one of the mystery genre's most prestigious awards. Even if you don't win, just the nomination is the kind of thing authors have on their book covers or after their name -- as in Vicki Lane - Anthony Nominee.

This fan-based award is tied to Bouchercon -- the mystery convention in the US -- and the nominations come from attendees of the past years as well as those registered for this year. Final voting is done at Bouchercon by those present and the awards are presented on the next-to-last day.

It's a really big deal. And I really wasn't sure . . .

I passed a fretful night.

The next morning I had a cautious email from my editor saying maybe it was true but she was surprised she hadn't heard something and she would check with Publicity.

Then there was a phone call from my agent, delighted and ready to celebrate -- until I told her that the editor and I weren't entirely sure . . .

Poor Ann! By the time we hung up, I had managed to convince her that I just might be the victim of a scam or a practical joker.

Time passed. Slowly. No word from anyone.

Finally, about mid-morning, I decided to email Jim Huang, one of the co-chairs of this year's Bouchercon, and ask if this was for real. I met Jim last year in Baltimore and he was friendly and approachable so I figured that an email from a semi-demented author might not bother him too much. Besides, did I mention I was desperate to know the truth?

And then he answered.

Yes, Vicki, it's true. You are a nominee.

Oh, rapture! Oh, joy!

But, he cautioned, this news isn't to be made public till we release the entire list . . . the following Monday, he said. Which turned out to be Tuesday afternoon.

So I've been writing about chickens and flowers and asparagus instead of shouting this good news from the virtual rooftops of the blogosphere.

But now I can!

WHOOPEE!!!

Talk about gathering rosebuds -- this feels like the whole garden!

Rosebuds

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

. . . from "To the Virgins, to make much of Time" by Robert Herrick 1591-1674

I won't go on -- the poem is actually pretty depressing, especially for one such as myself, well past middle age unless I expect to live to the overripe old age of 132.

But I love the way the roses that Nancy brought on Mothers Day are so gracefully giving up the ghost and those lines of Herrick's keep echoing in my mind.

And, though neither young nor a virgin, I'm still busily gathering all the rosebuds I can -- every day. There is so much to treasure all around me and so much more out there in the world. . .

Including these lovely pictures by John William Waterhouse, a British Pre-Raphaelite who painted them in the early 1900's. I adore the Pre-Raphaelites though modern taste probably dismisses them as overly sentimental -- and so they are.

I like a lot of corny things -- raindrops on roses and all the rest of it. "The Little Drummer Boy," the Cotswolds, kids hunting Easter eggs and parents taking pictures of them, I Can Has Cheezburger . . .

Are there things you like -- even though you suspect that a lot of people think those things are sentimental/silly/ dumb . . . or corny?

Soup of the Evening

We awoke yesterday morning to rainy, chilly weather which carried on all day. A nice hot soup seemed like just the thing for supper -- cream of asparagus soup.

Our asparagus is growing apace -- plagued by beetles but it grows so fast that I can snap off the lovely green and purple spears before too much damage is done.

The first step in making the soup is to break up the spears and simmer them in chicken broth (about two cups) till just tender.

Next, whir up the asparagus and the broth in a blender or food processor. I save out the tips to put into the finished soup.
























Saute chopped onion and some minced garlic in butter. This could get whirred up with the asparagus but I like a bit of texture in my soup. I also like a bit of hot curry powder.)

Remove the onion once it has become translucent. Use the melted butter that remains (adding more if necessary) to make a white (cream) sauce ( I used about 3 tablespoons of butter, 3 tablespoons flour, and a can of evaporated milk.)

Combine the cream sauce, the pureed asparagus, the tips, and more chicken broth if needed. (This works well with broccoli too. If I had mushrooms, I would have added them as well.) Add salt and pepper to taste; dust with paprika for looks.

"Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!"

(from Chapter X, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Rock On!

Give me some men who like to lift heavy rocks!

Yesterday Justin and Bob (Justin's mentor and compatriot in rock work) began the task of re-laying the rock walk that leads to our front porch. The old walk (much of which I laid myself about 25 years ago) had grown increasingly uneven and sunken, not to mention hazardous.

They began by prying up the old stepping stones and digging out a deeper and flatter bed into which they put gravel for a base.


In order to make a really high class pathway, some giant flat rocks were purchased at a nearby stone yard. Fortunately two of Justin's friends were at the farm for the weekend -- Cory from Asheville and Timba, who had driven with his wife and baby all the way from Indianapolis only to find himself put to work.




It took all four guys and a hand truck to get this baby to its appointed place at the foot of the steps.



















The pictures speak for themselves -- lots of gravel hauling, rock lifting, digging, eye-balling and figuring ...































. . . but at least half of the path is done -- and it is magnificent!



The really nice thing is that these friends work for food and drink -- that's my contribution to the rock party -- steak and Italian sausage sub sandwiches for lunch -- beer can chicken, potato salad, green beans sauteed with cherry tomatoes, green salad, and fresh-baked pound cake for supper.

And the rain that had been predicted held off, for the most part, till the work day was over and the party half of the rock party had begun.

It was a very fine day!

A Broody Hen

One of the Wyandottes has, for some weeks now, been broody -- no, not depressed, but caught up with the desire to hatch out some eggs and become a mother. She's been camping out in one of the nest boxes and swelling up and pecking at our hands when we attempt to see if there are eggs under her.

The nest boxes are for laying eggs -- not for hatching chicks. These boxes are high off the ground but vulnerable to snakes -- and John saw a big blacksnake in the hen house recently. Plus this would-be mama couldn't settle on which nest she wanted. Something needed to be done.

So John built a snug little brooder -- one nest, a panel that shuts with the tug of a string to keep the hen in or out as need be, and a pocket-handkerchief front yard. He used very strong wire with a small mesh in order to exclude snakes. There is even wire on the bottom to prevent any creature tunneling in. (The peeping of baby chicks is like a dinner bell to predators.)

Wynona, as I've decided to name her, seems to have taken the move in stride -- and we've put seven banty eggs under her. Three weeks is the incubation period -- we'll see what happens. I have had hens sit faithfully for 18 or 19 days and suddenly abandon the idea of motherhood -- and the eggs as well. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

A room with a view -- Wynona can keep an eye on what's up back in the chicken yard.

Should you want to know more about the process of letting a hen raise a gang of chicks, you can go HERE.

Idyll

Not so many words . . .

Just pictures of this beautiful May . . .

The big poplar standing guard at the graveyard on the hill . . .



















Flame azalea -- a store bought plant, though we still have some of its wild cousins in the woods.









White bearded iris at the basement door. . .

Marigold and her pasture mate Evanda with Evanda's new calf.

Eddie poses . . .




Hutchins and Eddie in a stand off . . .






Yellow flag iris at the pond . . .

And another blue bench . . .

Come set a spell!

Blood Done Sign My Name

"... one of the most powerful meditations on race in America that I have ever read"
(Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Lots of folks have praised Timothy B. Tyson's Blood Done Sign My Name and rightly so.

An autobiographic account of a time many of us would rather forget, it begins in May of 1970, in the little town of Oxford, NC, when a playmate whispers to ten-year-old Tim Tyson, "Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger."

As I read, my thoughts kept going back to my childhood in the Fifties -- and all the things that I was blind to -- separate drinking fountains, schools, hospitals, taxis, waiting rooms, rest rooms for black and white; the black woman who worked long hours for little money, cleaning my grandparents' house, cooking many of their meals, but never eating off the china the white people used -- no, my grandmother had a special shelf with Annie Davis's plate and glass and flatware.

It's how things were.

And the man who came on Saturdays to mow the lawn -- Fred Gardner had a Masters degree (from a black college, of course) and was a schoolteacher (at a black school, of course.) He mowed lawns on Saturday and gave the proceeds to his church. And every Saturday morning, my grandfather (who had an eighth grade education) would go to the garage and start the lawn mower for Fred, feeling that it was too complicated a process for him to understand.

I was fortunate never to have seen the ugliest side of racism. But the benevolent side was bad enough.

This picture, taken at the time the schools in Little Rock were being integrated, shows so clearly how racism's evils affect both sides. Caught up in mob hatred, the white people are a portrait of evil and ignorance at work.

A few years ago, I saw an article in which the screaming young woman in the center, older and finally wiser, had sought out the calm girl who had been the object of her anger and apologized.

Though my sins were of omission, rather than commission, I wish I could apologize to Fred Gardner and Annie Davis.

Flora

Fresh fragile blossoms --

Azaleas don pink and white
Ruffled dancing skirts.

Afternoon sun gilds
Green tree tops; a blue bench calls
The weary weeder.

Black stripes . . . orange . . . and white . . .
Is that a tiger lurking
In the purple shade?