Vernal Equinox - The Wheel Turns Again

Alas, I'm  on the road today -- not at home to salute the sun at the vernal equinox.

This shot from our house is from a previous year. 

Colonel Laurence Allen's House - repost

January, 1863.

Fifty armed and desperate men from the community of Shelton Laurel enter the town of Marshall in search of the essential salt which they, as suspected Unionists, had not been allowed to buy. They ransack stores and plunder homes -- even pounding up the stairs of Col. Allen's house to rip blankets from the beds of his sick children.

Retaliation is swift; a few days later a troop of Confederate soldiers makes its way to Shelton Laurel in search of the raiders. The result is the Shelton Laurel Massacre, in which 13 men and boys (some as young as 13 and 14; most, if not all, non-participants in the raid) are rounded up and executed. Women, some elderly, are tied to trees and whipped when they will not say where their men are; an infant is laid in the snow in an attempt to force the wretched mother to name the raiders and their hiding places.

Civil war -- brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor. The families of the victims of the massacre knew the killers. And for years, bitter resentment simmered, breaking out now and then in private vengeance. Over a hundred years after the Civil War and the Shelton Laurel Massacre, our county still was known to many as "Bloody Madison."

Do the old feuds and hatreds remain? Probably not -- though I wouldn't presume to say for sure. But the old house endures, new furbished and landscaped, a private home adorning our little town and inflaming the imagination of at least one novelist.

Charlottesville Slide Show

 A few pictures from Thursday -- click on slide show to biggify and read captions.


 

Down the Road

I'm heading out early this morning for Charlottesville, Virginia and the VABook! Festival. I'll be at the Charlottesville Barnes and Noble at 4, attend some of the festival events on Friday, and then go spend some time with  my sister-in-law Fay and her family.

I'll put up a couple of re-posts  and get back to business as usual as soon as possible...

Hendersonville for Beginners

Last Saturday I visited the charming The Fountainhead Bookstore in Hendersonville, NC and had the pleasure of meeting some lovely readers including, to my surprise, a lady who had a copy of the French translation of Art's Blood (Le Secret des Appalaches.) Her mother in Belgium had bought it and given it to her.

Later I took a few pictures around the town and found myself, as always, thinking of Merisi's  Vienna for Beginners.

Domes and spires and people scurrying here and there...

We can't compete with Vienna in terms of architecture or fashion, I'm afraid, but our Carolina blue skies are second to none.

FAQ-Research

Q: What kind of research do you do for your books?

A:  Various kinds and a lot more than actually gets written into the book. I like to have a good background of what I'm writing about but I only use enough to make my stories seem plausible.

First, I visit the places I'm writing about. For the most part, everything I write about takes place in my neck of the woods  -- even on our farm. (Why, oh why didn't I think to set my series in some exotic locale? Then travel to said locale could be a tax write-off.)

But my travels are local -- to a tent revival (but not to a snake-handling church,) to the River Art District in Asheville, the casino in Cherokee, a Civil War era house in nearby Marshall, one of the few remaining drover's stands in Fairview, the Vance birthplace for a look at the clothing and house furnishings of times past. . .

For the forthcoming Under the Skin I took a thirty minute drive to Hot Springs and the Mountain Magnolia Inn, as well as the Hot Springs Spa. It really helps me to be in a place and get the feel of it before I write about it.

For Old Wounds and for The Day of Small Things, I spent some time in Cherokee, at the Museum and at a Southeastern tribes dance festival, talking to folks and buying some useful books for research. 

I also occasionally have helpful readers who share pictures and diaries -- like Inez and Odessa's diaries that really gave me a picture of life around here in the Thirties and Forties. 

There are also a number of helpful friends and acquaintances who will answer my questions -- several physicians and psychologists,  a pharmacist, our local dentist (a good friend and the original of Doc Adams in Signs in the Blood and in Old Wounds)  and my friend Kathy, the realtor who inspired Sallie Kate. Mechanics, lawyers, journalists, farm agents, law men -- I've got a little list.


I've found that folks are incredibly generous with their time and expertise when you say the magic words, "I'm working on a book and need to know..."

And there are folks around I can talk to and hear their memories. I have. too, my own memories of the old folks I knew thirty years ago and the things they told me about growing up in the mountains.

Really, most of my thirty-some years here in the mountains amounts to research. I just didn't know at the time that I'd eventually be writing about it.  I've used my experience on jury duty, things I overheard in the laundromat, the time I got a concealed carry permit, and lots more that I'll use eventually.

One thing I do at the beginning of each novel is to visit our county library (and sometimes the much larger library in Asheville) and skim through the newspapers of the time period I'll be writing about. The advertisements, as much as anything, give me a feel for the time, whether it's Little Sylvie's 1901 trip to Ransom where she talks about the things she sees in the store windows, or Red Bird's favorite nail polish or her trip to the S and S Cafeteria with Luther in the Thirties.

I've also accumulated a nice little library of Appalachian related books and I list the ones that have been most helpful in the acknowledgment pages of each book.  Sometimes just the pictures are enough to give me a feel for the period.

And there's Mr. Google -- almost anything I might want to know is there, including primary sources.

 

Between the world outside my door and the world of the Internet, plus a pretty lively imagination, I can set the scene fairly well. Because I'm not writing history, and since I made Marshall County a fictional place (albeit based on a real one,) I have a little leeway. I'm not aiming for infallible accuracy -- just a reasonable verisimilitude.

 

A Little Walk

Of course the devastation that has hit Japan has been on my mind  -  Japan, Haiti, Chile, New Zealand - the names are like a tolling bell, a reminder that, in an instant, everything one loves can be swept away. A reminder to cherish what one has.

So yesterday I took a cautious little walk. 

A week ago I slipped on the basement stairs and twisted my knee (already in rather poor shape) so that I've been hobbling about like an even older lady than I already am.

At last -- many ibuprofen later -- the knee is more flexible and the weather is warmer and the ground hardly squishes at all and it's time to take a little walk and be thankful for the undisturbed beauty all around.

Click on the picture below to biggify and to see the captions.

 

Strange and Silly Sunday

Every once in a while I receive a puzzling piece of spam that is, nonetheless, somehow poetic -- in a James Joycean sort of way.   This piece below is one such -- with a hint of T.S. Eliot.

I removed the URLS and changed the line breaks but otherwise, it's as received -- a piece of found poetry.

THE NOTHING OF THE PLACE

Of the baseball from replica, speaking.

 Until designer to conceal replica, raferty went

come to stand one - to - three women into an visit,

and he didn't oiled accessory four breeches from the winder animal but windows.

 There thought four among i, 

five of the bridal, and three as a jewelry.

Relic was the clean brand from in their watches doorway and made i to rich.

And roughly, who were shading of?
A new ladies whispered with you.

Svend angered of very through he has.

Try he tightly name then?
Down company it posed

 we were. 

In the japan replica came out his giddy rolex, 

but into her lab won't all new unit all an night.

Debilitating the replica as no designer, he leaves i to help

 i lose in this gown. I was breitling. Bulgari was up that black then. 

Tourneau hi the uneasy corner - observed watches.

 Fake could be the very watches. 

The several motion, wishing on that shop of the davosa watches,

could be the nothing of the place of the quiet hand of winder's

Replica but world had of to ride arriving to the sights

 now when cru labored his men.

My donney of the most short bourke through watches answer? 

The rotary watches in a snow.

The English major that I once was looks for meaning in these phrases -- who is Raferty and why one to three women? And what was the accessory he didn't oil?

And what about Svend?

For me, this piece conjures up elegant and mysterious women in designer gowns wearing expensive watches while a raffish Irishman and a dour Swede exchange enigmatic quips about the nothing of the place,

But I have to say that the donney of the most short bourke has me baffled.

What the ---?

This strange sight across the road from our chicken house caught my eye Thursday and for a minute, I was bumfuzzled  -- it looked metallic but where had it come from and who put it there and what in the world was it?

All at once I remembered a long ago episode (Amok Time) of Star Trek in which the non-emotional Mr. Spock is suddenly ... umm ... in a state of rut and must return to his home planet to find a Vulcan mate. 

Anyway, as I recall it (and this was a very long time ago,) there was a big ceremony when Spock came home and everyone carried  staffs with jingly things on them. Which is what the mystery thing reminded me of.


You all probably knew what it was at once or, at least before I got to the third paragraph.

Back last spring, it had pretty purple flowers . . .

And by summer it was covered with round seed pods . . .

 When the seed pods dry, you can peel off the outer coat to find the seeds and the shiny interior membrane. 

Lunaria, Money Plant, and Honesty are some of its names.  But, at least in its final stages, I'm going to think of it as a Vulcan Jingly Thing Plant.

(This last photo isn't mine.)
 

The Branches Are Roarin'

 

After several days of rain, the water in the branches (streams) is running high  . . .

Our own little Wool Branch is burbling and gurgling its way down the mountain . . .

Overflowing the waterfall's spillway, it finds a way around . . .

 Splashing and dashing in its eagerness to make its way to the French Broad River and be on its long  journey to the sea. 

This Table Was Not Made in a Factory

This table is one of my friend Josie's many pieces of folk art that I got a picture of before it was whisked away to California.  I find it completely adorable, especially those legs.

The top lifts off and on the inside of the apron, its maker has told its story.

THIS TABLE WAS NOT MADE IN A FACTORY ~ IT WAS MADE BY FREDERICK A HEUSER IN ROCK HILL SC (?) FROM SECOND USE PINE  TEXTILE MACHINE CRATES ??? THAT HOLD IT TOGETHER ARE ??? BLACK GLASS ??  WALNUT PEGS ???

I couldn't make out the entire description -- the wood is rough and the writing is hard to read. There is a date - 1994.

The little table makes me think of the quilts of Gee's Bend -- making something marvelous out of leftovers. 

Sunrise and Beef Piquant

It was an ominous pre-dawn sky yesterday morning -- suitable for the day I'd marked down to get our tax information together.

We're approaching the equinox -- the sun's almost in the middle of our due east view.

But that's not what I'm here to blog about. I want to tell you about a recipe that has stood the test of time. 

It's from The Gasparilla Cookbook -- produced by the Tampa Junior League back in 1961 and still in print.  It's the food of my childhood -- Southern, Spanish, Cuban, Italian, Greek. 

I got my first copy in 1962, the year before we got married, and it was my go-to cook book for a very long time. I wore that first copy out and got a replacement in '89 -- it's fairly stained and battered now. And the thing is, all these years later and the recipes are still terrific.

 

Bef Piquant is a good thing to do with a cheap cut of meat -- add in the potatoes and carrots and you've got a meal.  I also served some buttered broccoli and a salad.

After this was well underway, I realized, with something of a shock, there's no garlic in it. Another time, I may add a bit but honestly, it's awfully good just this way. 

The smell filled  the house for hours and when it was time to eat, I totally forgot to take a picture of the finished product. Oh, my, it was good.  The meat falls off the bone and is a big mouthful of flavor. 

Try it -- you'll see.

 Beef Piquant - in preparation

2 to 3 pounds chuck or round steak, at least 2 inches thick

1 lemon

2 tablespoons prepared yellow mustard

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

2 teaspoons brown sugar

3 generous dashes Tabasco sauce ( I used quite a lot (2 tablespoons, maybe) of Sriracha hot sauce instead for more heat)

2 medium onions, sliced and sauteed in 2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon capers

Optional -- potatoes and carrots

Place steak in center of a large piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil  in a shallow pan. Rub both sides of steak with cut lemon. Spread both sides of steak with mustard.  Place under broiler and brown both sides. Remove from oven, salt and pepper, squeeze lemon juice over the steak. Sprinkle with Worcestershire, brown sugar, and Tabasco. Add capers and onions, which have been sauteed. You can add in  potatoes and carrots, if desired. Bring foil up to seal in an airtight package. Bake at 300 for 3 hours.