The Real Thing -- Our Mountain Mentors

In 1975 we moved to our farm. We had purchased the upper sixty acres of the land that Clifford and Louise Freeman had tended most of their lives -- and Louise's family before that. The Freemans kept the lower forty acres for another year, during which they taught us some of the many things we needed to know.

In this picture Clifford and Louise and their 34 year-old mule Nell are climbing up the road that runs by the barn we were camping out in, on their way up to salt the cattle. Clifford would begin hollering "Soo cow, soo cow, hey calfie, hoooo-eee!" and the cattle would begin to bawl in reply and come from wherever they were on the mountain to the salt rock -- the big rock just below the old cabin (the Ben/Little Sylvie cabin.)

"Why don't you just put out a salt block?" we asked, thinking that would save them the weekly climb. But Clifford kindly and gently explained, "Well, now, we could do that. And that would be a sight easier.But this-a-way, don't you see, we can count them and make sure none of 'em ain't sick or hurt and, what's more, this-a-way, they come when I holler. And that's worth a lot, everwhen I need to move 'em down the mountain."

We were so very ignorant in the ways of country living -- in spite of having kept chickens and raised a garden when we lived in Florida and in spite of our well-thumbed stacks of Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening. Our mentors tried gently to lead us in the ways we should go -- and I suspect our misadventures formed the subject of many a humorous conversation around their kitchen table.

Clifford and Louise were, of course, the inspiration for Sam and Elizabeth's mentors, Odus and Dessie, "the old woman who, some twenty years ago, had welcomed her and Sam to Ridley Branch, here in the mountains of North Carolina. Dessie had been in her mid-sixties then, sturdy and vigorous. She could hoe tobacco for hours on end or dart up the steep mountain trails after a wandering milk cow. Dessie and her husband Odus had taken Sam and Elizabeth under their wing, helping the newcomers adapt to country life and teaching then how to do the myriad tasks that were part of life on a small mountain farm." (from Signs in the Blood)

Eventually Clifford and Louise moved to a neighboring county -- to a new house near their sons and an easier way of life. Now, of course, they're gone and we find ourselves passing on the lessons they taught us to the next generation. We were fortunate to have known these folks -- some of the last of the real old timers.

Heartfelt Thanks to the Guy in the Kitchen

For the first forty-odd years of our married life my husband John mostly stayed out of the kitchen except for making really good biscuits from scratch on the occasional Sunday morning. He was always in charge of outdoor grilling but that was pretty much it as far a cooking went. Some years back, when I was incapacitated with a ruptured disk and had to have back surgery, to my surprise he casually began to turn out meal after delicious meal as if he'd been doing it forever. But eventually my back healed and John laid down his spatula and sauce pans.

Then, when I began teaching a series of writing classes that took me into Asheville one night a week, John began to make pizza -- from scratch, in the oven on a baking stone, with an ever-changing array of toppings. He's gotten really, really good at it. The crust is thin and crispy -- tonight's toppings included spinach, grilled chicken, mushrooms, peppers, gorgonzola, havarti, smoked mozzarella -- oh boy, this is gourmet stuff!

On Mother's Day John surprised me with a delectable Full English breakfast of the sort we enjoyed on our walking tour in the Cotswolds --sausage, poached egg (beautifully poached -- something I've never been able to manage; mine always look all raggedy), grilled tomato and mushrooms, toast, potatoes, strawberries -- and there was champagne.





There's been a discussion recently on one of the mystery writers' lists I follow -- the topic How Supportive is your Spouse ? There seem to be a number of ways in which different husbands or wives express support for the writer in the family, from organizing newsletters to accosting strangers at the door in bookstores and handing out business cards to acting as driver to various events.

I'll take the cooking!

Apocalypse? Not Yet

Don't believe everything you read waiting in line at the grocery store check out.

We're not dead yet. I think I'll go for a walk. And take pictures of flowers. You come too. Just click on the flower below.

May Flowers

Mothers' Gifts

Mothers -- where would we be without them?


Sending thanks into the Great Beyond to the strong women of my family for some of the many gifts they gave me -- to my mother Virginia for teaching me to value books and culture and the New Yorker, for giving me an eye for the proper arrangement of objects, and for insisting that I learn to cook; to my grandmother Ruby for her unconditional love and for reading Freckles to me when I had the measles; to my grandmother Ida for passing along her green thumb. To great grandmother Alice and great great aunt Georgia for the quilts that taught me about color and design; to Aunt Mildred who taught me to sew; to great aunts Tellie and Marion who taught me embroidery; to Aunt Mamie who inspired me with her homemade mayonnaise, chickens, and cellar full of jars of her canning.

And to all the mothers everywhere, who are doing the best they can for their children, Happy Mother's Day!

Invasive Species

Multiflora rose -- brought in, so I'm told by government experts who touted its use as a living fence. It's out of control -- taking over fields and pastures. Like kudzu, another introduced plant, it simply does too well in our climate. And as for invasive -- the bittersweet vines that make such attractive fall decorations are choking whole forests. The pretty little orange berries from one wreath can produce hundreds of vines. No wonder some place are making it illegal to grow or sell.

Canada geese and pigeons and English sparrows and starlings and coyotes are just a few of the invasive birds and animals that are beginning to be a nuisance around here.

And then there's mankind. Every day, more wooded mountains are carved up to accommodate a crowd of McMansions. Our part of the world is in danger of being loved to death. As a newcomer, relatively speaking, to the mountains, I'm part of the problem. And I don't know what the answer is.

To quote the philosophizing possum known as Pogo -- "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Rock Album

We're rich in rocks on our farm. Having grown up rock-deprived in sandy central Florida, I treasure the beautiful rocks that adorn our landscape. They're less welcome in the garden, of course, and we are the latest in a long line of tenants of the land to clear the fields of the yearly crop of rocks that work their way to the surface. The smaller stones and bigger pebbles get flung into the road -- larger rocks are earmarked by my son Justin for inclusion in another stone wall. And really pretty ones get brought to the house.

But our own rocks aren't enough. In my collection (a dignified word for what is more of an accumulation) are small river rocks a friend brought me from a river in the Dominican Republic, a beautiful round, pink, door knob-sized rock that I picked up on a beach in Scotland, a rock from Maine, used as a doorstop, that looks just like a big baking potato, rocks from the Carolina beaches, and a rock from nearby Tennessee that looks like a Napolean pastry.

Rocks on shelves, rocks on the porch railing, rocks on window sills, rocks in the pots with the house plants. Once, visiting near Lake Erie, I was captivated by the gorgeous smooth glacier-ground rocks to be found and filled every cranny of my suitcase with them. They were so different from our North Carolina rocks!On the flight home, the woman who checked my bag asked if I had rocks in there. I just smiled

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The Feline Mystique

Our two cats, Eddie and Miss Susie Hutchins, have a somewhat adversarial relationship. She, who was our only cat for the first year of her life, sees no reason that this hulking black monster of an ex-tom should even exist, much less live with us. So she attempts to ignore him as much as possible. He, on the other hand, is compelled by some inner need to leap on her whenever he sees her and bite the back of her neck.

Fortunately for Hutchins, she is lighter and more agile than her pursuer and can usually find a lofty perch Eddie has no hope of reaching.

This is as close as he can get. So he sharpens his claws, just to show he doesn't care.

A number of folks have asked why Elizabeth doesn't have any cats. My original reason for excluding them was that I didn't want the pets taking over. And cats, particularly, have a way of dominating some mysteries -- talking, solving crimes, etc. Also I was trying to avoid any more "cozy" connotations in my books -- there are already gardens and quilts and herbs and food -- enough for some people to assume the books are cozies (though you and I know they're not.)

But somehow cats have crept into the upcoming In a Dark Season. There are not one but two 'cat people' (by which I mean they have lots of cats) in the story -- plus a mama cat and new-born kittens. I don't know . . . Elizabeth may be tempted . . .

(If you want more cats in your reading, check out my friend Clea Simon's website http://cleasimon.com/ Clea writes the Theda Krakow mysteries -- fun reads with a serious take on cat related issues. The cats don't talk, beyond a mew now and then, nor do they solve crimes. And thanks to Clea for the title of this post -- she used it for a non-fiction look at the relationship between women and their cats.)

Home Grown Tomatoes

In our county, they're mostly called 'maters.' They grow well in this climate -- so well that they were at one time touted as a cash crop that would eventually replace tobacco. A few people made good money at first, then more and more people began to grow commercial tomatoes and there came a year when there was such a glut that it wasn't worth picking the crop, the prices were so low.



We never grew tomatoes commercially but I usually put in several rows so as to have plenty for canning and/or freezing. Homemade tomato sauce, with herbs from the garden is a wonderful convenience food -- lending itself to pasta dishes, chili, soup, or stews and
bringing the fresh taste of summer to many a winter meal.

For tomato sauce, I usually plant plum tomatoes -- Romas or San Marzanos -- but today I'm putting in eleven sturdy Cherokee Purple plants -- the tomato that my family has decided is the tastiest. We've been babying these starts in pots through the capricious late April/early May weather, carrying then inside if frost threatened, bringing them back out to bask in the sun during the day. Now they've got strong root systems and a few are trying to bloom. Our usual "frost-free" date is May 10 but I'm jumping the gun by a few days to get these beauties in the ground. The plum tomatoes are still small -- I'll plant them next week.

I wrote about tomatoes In Art's Blood: “ Elizabeth began to fill her plastic milk crate with the long, firm San Marzanos and Romas that would form the basis of herb-rich sauces to be stored in the freezer, as well as providing leathery oven-dried tomatoes bursting with the concentrated flavor of summer. There was a small basket for the tiny grape tomatoes whose seeds a cousin had brought from France – first choice for a tossed salad or eating out of hand. Finally, there were the enormous slicing tomatoes – the aristocracy of the garden – deep crimson Brandywine, dark Cherokee, Black Krim, and a bright yellow nameless beauty whose seeds had come from Miss Birdie, a little bland in taste, perhaps, but so gorgeous in company with the others. Elizabeth laid these giants carefully in her big willow basket, envisioning a cobalt blue platter heaped with rounds of red and yellow interposed with slices of creamy fresh mozzarella, the whole glistening with generous amounts of olive oil, a prudent sprinkling of balsamic vinegar, shining crystals of sea salt, and fragrant ribbons of fresh green basil.”

Grow, you maters, grow!

On a Day in May

This just may be my favorite month. I hope you're out enjoying it, wherever you are. There are more pictures in my newest web album -- just click on the link to follow. And as always, a left click on this picture will enlarge it till you can almost fall in!


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

Yes, We Have Telephoto!

And yes, I'm still playing with my new camera. On my way to the recycling center and grocery store this morning, I stopped by the side of the road and took pictures of Canada geese and their goslings (above is only one of many family groups) in a pasture by the river.

The heron was nowhere to be seen as I crossed the bridge but across the river I got a shot of the upper porch of the old house that was the inspiration for the house in the opening of In a Dark Season.

"The brown skeletons of the kudzu that draped the walls and chimneys rustled in a dry undertone, the once lush vines shrivelled to a delicate netting that meshed the peeling clapboards and spider-webbed the cracked and cloudy windowpanes."

Now imagine a black-clad figure holding to one of those posts -- imagine it's winter and an icy wind is whipping her black hair across her face and she's getting ready to jump . . .

But I digress -- back to here and now and the telephoto. A little ways on, far across a field, deer were browsing. I stopped the car and took this one's picture from the window.

I do know that for lots of folks, deer and Canada geese are just a step or two removed from rats, as far as being pests. But I still get a thrill at seeing them. (Re rats, I personally think of them as bare-tailed squirrels -- though, like squirrels, I prefer that they stay outside.)

Old Dog Learning New Tricks

My brain hurts!

Recently I bought a new digital camera -- one with increased zoom so that I can, with any luck, get better bird pictures (especially that heron at the river.) The camera's been sitting in the box it came in for almost a week now, so today I have been forcing myself to slog through the directions and try to figure out all the New and Improved functions available in this amazing little silver rectangle. Though embarassingly resistant to change, as well as being pretty backward with technology, I've been assured by Cory, my photographer friend, that this device is suited to my limited abilities.

It takes a nice closeup of an unfolding amaryllis bloom.

A standard shot of our front porch -- no problem. Now I have to go in search of a subject for my zoom. Ah, yes, I feel my brain muscles flexing!

May you never be without something new to learn!

Through a Glass Darkly

My younger son called me to come see this big fella -- a huge blacksnake, probably a six-footer or more -- just about ready to shed his skin. His old skin is dusty brown and the lenses that cover his eyes are clouded, rendering him almost blind and therefore, vulnerable. Blacksnakes are reportedly irritable at this stage of their existence, like some grouchy old folks. But this one seems torpid in the May sun and ignores me as I get closer and closer.

Unlike old folks though, soon the blacksnake will rouse himself and, twining and writhing through the crevices of the stump he's on, will slide out of his dead skin to emerge -- a beautiful shining ebony stream. Renewed, vision restored, he'll get on with his snaky life. And he'll repeat the cycle, over and over.

I'm a bit envious.

May Day

A hurried May Day post to remind you to be sure to get wet in the first rain of May -- whenever that may be -- to ensure (results may vary) good health all year.

May is such a beautiful, flower-full month that it's no hardship to be out in its varying weathers, enjoying the new growth and blooms.

Long ago, I've read, it was the custom in parts of England to slip over to a friend's house on May first and leave a little basket of flowers at their door. Please accept these -- yellow trillium, Spanish bluebells, and white violets -- as my May offering to you!