Sunday At Random

The chicks are at that awkward teenage stage -- not exactly cute anymore and full of attitude. If they could, they would probably have pimples and play loud music. They fly up and perch on top of the waterer and feeder, which, because of the poop problem, we have had to thwart by topping the tanks with cut-off milk jug tops. They pounce on bits of grass and dirt, scratching vigorously in search of bugs. When one finds a treasure, the others pursue her around the brooder, trying to steal it.

The two HUGE white chicks are Rock Cornish -- they're going to the person who ordered them next week when we get together for a chick swap. It's amazing how they have grown -- but that's what they're meant to do, being intended for the table.

I'm still enjoying my clothesline --so much so that it inspired a little memory for Miss Birdie to talk about in the work in progress. I posted it on my monthly blog on Amazon, if you're interested.

A word about Amazon: I hope all of you know that I am a strong advocate for local independent bookstores -- always my first choice when telling folks where to buy my books. But my books are available on Amazon -- and I began a monthly blog there over two years ago and have met some nice folks through it. No pictures, and the posts are more formal, more like essays.

A Day's Delight

Daylilies are one of the most forgiving flowers a gardener can plant. They don't ask much -- sun for most of the day and a bit of water -- they'll grow in most soils, will survive through too much or too little rain, and can be transplanted all through the growing season. Once established, they multiply, so you'll have plenty to spread around and share with friends.

The common orange daylily (not pictured here) grows wild all along our roadsides and it's a cheerful and welcome sight but now . . . now there are hybrids in purples, yellows, pinks, corals,, reds -- almost everything but blue.

Some are fragrant; some bloom early and some late; some have long thin spider petals; others go in for ruffles. There's always another gorgeous specimen to arouse the lust of the daylily lover.

A bloom lasts only a day, hence the name, but each stem carries many buds -- around here the daylily season goes on for almost two months.

But wait! -- There's more! The unopened buds can be added to stir fries and for a fancy treat the open flowers can be dipped in tempura batter and fried in deep oil in a wok to produce a lovely, lacy, slightly onion-flavored addition to a meal.

Delightful daylilies!

Perimeter Shopping

Maybe true wealth is measured, not by what you can buy, but by what you don't want or need to buy.

A trip to Sam's yesterday inspired that thought -- I go there for olive and canola oil, cleaning and paper products, vitamins, and the occasional bag of nuts or dried fruit. It thrills me that there are entire aisles and sections of the store I never need to consider.

It's the same at the grocery store -- more and more I shop the perimeter of the store -- produce, meat, dairy, wine -- and give the aisles of snacks and prepared stuff a miss. Of course there are exceptions to this perimeter thing - flour, pasta, pet food, coffee. (And I've already admitted to potato chips with chicken salad.)

I haven't yet read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in which she and her family spend a year eating only (or mostly) locally grown, seasonal food. To attempt this discipline would be a worthy goal; and, for folks like us with a farm, should certainly be achievable. Clifford and Louise who lived here before us, ate mostly local seasonal fare -- but they ate beans and corn and potatoes, day after day with only small seasonal variations. ( They were fond of bananas for banana pudding but I could give the bananas a miss if I could still have olive oil and coffee.)

We've been spoiled by relatively cheap, out of season food -- asparagus from Chile, strawberries year round from all over, shrimp from Thailand. But the cheap part of the equation is rapidly disappearing and we're beginning to think about changes.

My husband recommends two books by Michael Pollan -- The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. I haven't read either yet but am charmed by Pollan's simple suggestion:

EAT FOOD, NOT TOO MUCH, MOSTLY PLANTS.

Sounds like a plan.

In Appreciation of Summer Rain

Cloudburst, cascade, cataract . . . it rained.

Drenching deluge, downpour . . . it rained.

It ran, meandered, gushed and poured.
It spouted and splashed and spurted,
dropped, dripped, and dribbled,
streamed and surged and
~~~ f l o w e d ~~~~

and then,
it stopped.
Rising mists wreathed the mountains,
readying for another day . . .
another rain.

Rose of Sharon

Its botanical name is Althea, which is a pretty name from Greek mythology, but I always knew it as Rose of Sharon. When we moved to the mountains, we brought with us three small Rose of Sharons from my grandparents' yard, descendants of others that had made the trip from Troy, Alabama to Florida. We planted our three by the barn where we were living and today, they tower above us and their descendants are all over the place. It's a hardy plant that produces lots of seeds -- too many, some would say.

I'm partial to our shrubs, just because of the sentimental tie, but they're common in yards around here. And when I heard a neighbor describe them as "Rosasharn," I remembered the young girl from Grapes of Wrath who bore that name.

Local pronunciation had me baffled for quite a while. Once a neighbor gave me an apple, bragging on how good it tasted and what a long keeper it was. After a bite, I asked for the name, thinking we would plant a tree of this fine apple. He told me the name and I carefully wrote it down -- Yarkin Pearl. I wondered where or who Yarkin was but didn't find out till I began to peruse a catalogue of antique apple varieties.

Try I never so hard, I couldn't find the Yarkin Pearl. I did, however, find what I was looking for -- the York Imperial.

A Lovesome Thing

The garden is starting to 'come in,' as we say around here. The squash are already getting away from me and I've consigned several lunkers to the chickens -- I mean, there's only so much zucchini bread up with which my family will put. But some of these young ones appeared tonight, stuffed with breadcrumbs and onions and topped with bacon (for extra flavor, as we prefer it.)

The first almost-ripe tomato has me dreaming of fresh mozzarella and basil -- or BLTs. (There's that bacon again.)





In spite of clear evidence that deer have eaten the tops off many bean plants, there was a nice mess of thin young Blue Lakes for dinner (Miss Birdie would be appalled at how young I pick them -- no 'bean' to them a-tall!)

And there was lettuce, a few asparagi (time to quit cutting these and let them build their strength for next year,) a green pepper, basil, and three beautiful, long cucumbers to complete my morning harvest.

"A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot" said Thomas Edward Brown, in his poem "My Garden" and so it is -- especially in this early stage.

I was checking this quote in my Bartlett's when, just above it I found a small series of garden-related lines from Charles Dudley Warner's My Summer in a Garden (1870).

The progression of his sentiments is revealing.

Preliminary -before starting his garden, CDW wrote:

"To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds and watch the renewal of life -- this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.

By the third week, he had made a discovery:

"What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it."

And by the sixteenth week:

"The thing generally raised on city land is taxes."

I think I detect a growing sense of disillusionment -- I know, from my own experience, that there will come a time in late summer when, though the garden is still offering a few stunted tomatoes and the peppers are thriving, for the most part it's bug-eaten, weedy and blighted. That's when I'll begin to think fondly of a killing frost

Finding the Pattern

My friend Peggy had ten pink and green Log Cabin blocks pieced by her late mother. She wanted to use these blocks as the foundation for a quilt but there was no more of the material her mother had used -- and besides, pink and green weren't really the right colors for what she had in mind. So Peggy made several more sets of blocks in the fabrics she wanted to use -- picking up the pinks and greens but pushing the overall scheme toward golds and burgundies.

Some time back I had promised Peggy I would help her find a layout pattern for these diverse elements, so yesterday afternoon we pushed back the living room furniture and tried to make some sense of what she had.



Peggy wanted the blocks from her mother to be an important element in the quilt -- to be together rather than scattered around -- so we decided to use them as a center medallion. It will mean picking out a few strips and replacing them with dark green but Peggy is nothing if not game. Next a set of blocks with burgundy strips was called into play to make the center of the medallion -- a few more strips to replace in order to get the pattern.

We sit and study the blocks. There are three yet to piece and those strips to replace but it begins to look like a plan. We climb the stairs and look down on the pattern. Not bad at all considering there wasn't a real plan to begin with. The center medallion shows up; the sides actually make a pattern; only the top and bottom rows are a little weak. It would have been nice it there were more of those gold and aqua blocks. But, with luck, a little rearrangement will bring things together.

Not for the first time, I am struck by how writing a novel is like planning a quilt --all those different elements to be reconciled into a harmonious whole. If I have (as I do) a chapter from Calven's point of view in the first part of the book, I'd better have several more at equal intervals throughout. The same with Myrna Louise. But it's Birdie's book and her parts, like the central medallion, have to be the most important.
And what about that ending? Is it a part of the pattern?

I cut and paste paragraphs and scenes and chapters, moving them about till the pattern makes sense.

Friends and Family and the Fourth

I had to laugh when I saw this bottle sitting on our porch railing yesterday as we were preparing for the evening get together. Without my glasses on, "Repel family" was what I read. And some folks probably wish they had a handy spray deterrent when faced with a big family gathering.

Not us -- it's always a pleasure to get as many of the gang as possible under our roof to enjoy good food and each other's company. Check out my web album for a look at our weekend.

http://picasaweb.google.com/vickilanemysteries/FamilyFriendsAndTheFourth

And now back to Birdie and her family.

By the Rockets' Red Glare

At the Fourth of July celebration there were friends and food . . .

Of course there were fireworks . . .

And we all said "Ooooooooo' as they burst overhead, showering us with stars . . . .

But the very best gift from the sky was the inch of rain in our rain gauge that we found after the long ride home.

I'll post a web album tomorrow of our weekend doings, including a picture of raspberry-peach buckle that will make you drool. But now I have to go make potato salad.

A Wish

Would it be unpatriotic to wish for peace on the Fourth of July?

The Lull Before the Storm

We hit the ground running this morning -- company's coming and there was vacuuming and mopping and waxing and any amount of spiffification to accomplish before our cousins from Florida arrive. Of course, they don't care whether everything is just so but we'd put off cleaning for a while so it feels good to have the house shiny and nice-smelling for a moment.

Now John has taken the dogs for the walk they missed earlier and I'm just sitting in the lovely cool, quiet, briefly tidy living room. They'll all be here within the hour -- three adults, one child, and a dog. Belongings will clutter the waxed surfaces, seven dogs will replenish the dust and hair that just got removed, laughter and talk and music will replace the silence, and we'll settle into a holiday weekend of catching up, exploring, and generally enjoying each other's company.

But for one brief shining moment, what a pleasure to see cleanliness and order in every room! The downstairs guest room with its white bedspread (always a temptation to Bear) is ready, as is the upstairs bedroom. Dinner is already prepared -- the old standby chicken salad and I've got raspberries and white nectarines to make that buckle I've been promising myself. One small task remains -- make some mayonnaise.

Not yet, though. A few more minutes of dolce far niente. And maybe then a brief nap.

Flying Time

". . . But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near . . ."

Andrew Marvell said that "To His Coy Mistress," back in the 17 th century. He was trying to get her to go to bed with him -- kind of a male biological clock thing. But at this time of year, with garden, and book promotion, and company, and garden, and book writing, and all the other bits of living, the days, though long, don't seem to have enough hours, and I too hear the urgent rumble of that vehicle.

Time is racing now -- on every hand I see reminders of how quickly the summer is speeding by. The chicks, those little puffballs, all thriving, are a week old now and have wing feathers.

The arum dracunculus have had their moment of odiferous glory. The proud spadix and magnificent spathe are gone, leaving a bundle of green seeds that will soon ripen to cayenne red, while the deep-lobed leaves are twisting and shriveling like dead hands.

And the wrens are still with us, sleeping and growing fat while their harried parents scour our garden for bugs and caterpillars. Between the coming and going of the wrens and the warring humming birds, we have to be careful on the front porch to stay out of nature's flight paths as we rush about on our busy-ness of the day.

I think wistfully of the seemingly endless summers when I was young -- time to read to my heart's content, to ride my bike for miles along the tree-shaded sidewalks of suburban Tampa, to play kick-the-can in the fading twilight till our mothers called and we trundled home, surprised to find that it was black dark and denying it all the while.

And the Winner Is . . .

July 1!!! Ring the bell to call folks in from the fields and stand by for an announcement of the winner -- the lucky one who gets to name a character in my work in process -- Miss Birdie's book The Day of Small Things!

First, maybe a cup of coffee to warm up my hands and loosen up my fingers -- it was marvelously cool last night and this morning. "Sleeping under blankets" as Florida vacationers used to write home in smug postcards to sweaty friends left behind, back in the pre-air conditioning days.

In a carefully and scientifically controlled environment, I reach into the bag, amazingly full of folded post-its. The contents have been thoroughly and blindly mixed about and the moment has come.

I pull out the winning post-it and toss the rest into my paper recycling basket. All those names! I wish I could put all of you in the book. Thanks so much for stopping by the blog and now that you know the way, don't be a stranger, as they say!

What? Oh, yes --- the winner is Susan Bell!!!! (Susan has been a very constant commenter.)

Susan, let me know what name and a few attributes of the character. We'll discuss possibilities.