Writers on Martin Luther King Day

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I mean no disrespect to this great peace-maker, or to Lincoln or Washington, but celebrating their days right in the middle of winter is not an amusing time for a writer! We wait for mail everyday, even though it often brings heart-tearing rejections. To know there will be no postal delivery makes the day even longer in winter. While never easy to face a day with no mail, it is easier to bear national holidays in the months when sun shines, grass grows, flowers bloom.

Writers are cooped up inside, hammering away on keyboards while the snow flies and the cold bites. We stay up late creating and reading; we stretch our brains for every scrap of creativity lurking, capture it, and send it out in submissions to dance on the desks of editors. We drink numerous pots of hot tea and make vegetable soup while taking refuge from the weather inside with our words. Even when the snow and ice melt, sand and cinders hang around for weeks reminding us (and our carpets and hardwood floors) that winter is still parked on our front porch. We don’t dare look at gardening catalogs yet, knowing April tilling is far away!


So a day without mail is like a day without air. We are sure that this day could be the one for a great acceptance letter or a bountiful contract. It might be sleeping down at the post office in the bottom of a canvas bag right now! We can face a trip to the mailbox in torrential rain or knee deep snow if the post office will just run mail routes. We are willing to pull on snowshoes, raincoats, even a clean nightgown under our writing robes if there will just be a visit from the mailman! But alas, today is a national holiday, right in the middle of January. Think anyone else wants to move Rev. King’s day--to the end of March maybe?

Winter Breakfast, Plain and Simple

Writers have always been intrigued with the lifestyle of the Amish, and the Plain and Simple people have often been characters in popular mysteries and romances. The group’s avoidance of electricity, minimal schooling, traveling by horse and buggy, and living rustic and simple lifestyles entices authors to choose Amish areas as a setting for unfolding their plots.



In the early autumn of last year, DH and I went looking for a country-styled furniture store we had heard about that was about 25 miles north of us. Once we turned off the main highway and began to travel a side road deep in to rich farmland, we began to notice the yellow horse and buggy signs. Veering off on a graveled lane and crossing a low-water bridge, we ended up smack dab on an Amish farm. Sitting along side a perfectly manicured garden was a metal building housing an Amish business that sold Amish furniture from Ohio and bulk foods. The woman clerking sold me some tapioca, bulk oat bran, and some unrefined salt. She said we had just missed the community breakfast and invited us to come to the next one.

Last week we came home to a message on our phone (they do have a phone in a small building outside the home built just for a business phone) that said this Saturday was the community breakfast; one is held about twice a year as a social and a money maker for the community. They only ask for a donation in a jar by the door. There are 31 Amish family that have settled in this gently sloping farmland raising row crops, cattle, truck gardens, and doing carpentry and baking. Despite dark low hanging clouds and a serious fog warning, we headed out this morning to check out the Amish breakfast. We had to go early because they start serving at 7:00 a.m.


The temperature had crawled up to the high thirties, making the land look like a spring thaw. There was a marriage of mud and leftover snow on the road shoulders. Once off the main road, the country side road was softer than Play Dough; a slide off in the ditch could have been axle deep mud. Three quarters of a mile down this narrow road, a right turn took you onto an Amish farm. Continuing on, passing the assembly of horses and buggies, we found the breakfast being held in a huge structure used for constructing smaller farm buildings. We parked, waded across thick, oozing mud and met earlier eaters leaving while carrying an armload of baked goods. “The doughnuts are extra good this morning,” said the man in farm clothing and cap, a satisfied smile on his lips.


Just inside the door, a sea of shades in black, ecru, purple and aqua unfolded. It looked like room wrapped in the rich colors of a velvet quilt. The bearded faces of men in bowl hair cuts helped the women with heads all covered in the same white cap, strings tied under their chins. Three rows of workers were set up at stations cracking eggs and stirring biscuits, flipping pancakes or frying on gas ranges, or serving from a long buffet table. Eaters got their own plates and sat at benches family style. The sausage was obviously Amish made and delicious. The biscuits were flaky, and pancakes were perfect. On all the bench tables were plates of warm, freshly fried doughnuts that were outstanding. The men and young boys were helping to cook, serve, and wipe tables along side the women. Dishes were being washed in another corner of the cement floored building. I had a nice visit with a young Amish girl who was eating her own breakfast before taking a turn at working at the food tables. After a wonderful breakfast with these gentle people, we peeked at the baked goods for sale and brought home some bread and a pumpkin roll. It was hard to leave the pies, fried pies and doughnuts that were left!

After breakfast a short detour took us by Prairie State Park, a favorite place that we have not visited much recently. Again we maneuvered on roads of mud and slush. This is a small state park that is maintaining a piece of what is left of the tall grass prairie that used to exist here. The rolling grasslands host many forms of wildlife including herds of elk and buffalo. The elk were fenced away from the public right now, but the buffalo were free ranging the park. Beautiful and majestic, two buffalo bulls were eating close to the road. We pulled up beside them and they never missed a bite. We could hear the tearing sounds of grass as the buffalo had their own breakfast. They looked well fed wearing thick dark coats with humps and shoulders the same flaxen shade as the faded winter grasses. Geese were honking wildly overhead as they flew from one pond to another. Easing the truck down the muddied roads, we scared up two white tail deer that bounced off as if on springs, heading from ditch to woods close by. In less than a quarter mile, a huge flock of wild turkey scuttled across the grass heading for a ravine. We were intruders on their world today.


The buffalo and wildlife, like the Amish farmers, were spending a winter day eating, resting, and socializing before spring weather and work returned. Neither was bothered by the ankle deep mud and misty air, as there was more winter yet to come.

National Hot Tea Month

Every month seems to be National Something Month anymore, but I was surprised to learn that January was National Hot Tea Month. Although never a coffee drinker, I have gradually become an aficionado of tea, almost any kind. Growing up I never thought of tea as a hot drink. My mother made ice tea in the summer, but not the Southern kind with a bag of sugar. She set her Lipton tea bags from the grocery store in a quart fruit jar, added boiling water, and covered the jar mouth with an upside down saucer until the brew was the right color for drinking. Then when “sun tea” became popular, she set a clear gallon jug out on our porch to bask in sunlight. Sun tea was never as good as that brewed in the fruit jar, however.

I was introduced to a cup of hot tea when I met my in-laws. They drank coffee but also consumed hot tea brewed in a green enamelware tea pot. I found I liked hot tea, and when DH and I married, Lipton’s tea was a staple in our kitchen. While on a business trip to Canada, the wife of a salesman invited us to her home where she served Red Rose. This was delicious tea and awakened me to the fact there were other brands besides Lipton. I began to experiment, read, and learn. I found I liked loose teas even better than bagged. I was intrigued by the “agony of the leaves”, the swirling in the body of the pot as boiling water made them unfurl like tiny flags.


Once I began to brew up so many hot teas, I thought I needed more tea pots…then tea cups. Pots and cups sprang up over the house like dandelions on a spring lawn. I like them colorful and useful. Friends often gave me cute pots or decorated pots, but I did not want to only look at pots. A tea pot had to be useful. I do have tea pots for the seasons and change them often so taking tea is a visual treat as well as a tasty one. The same is true for cups. I don’t use ones that match a set of dishes, but choose to use an assortment of cups varied in size and color. I do have a few mugs for taking to the deck in summer or for the hearty drinks of deep winter, but I favor a nice English bone china that tinkles a wee bit when a spoons stirs.

I have found some green teas I like, but I favor a hearty black tea especially first thing in the morning. I like some dessert teas, but I don’t like to drink them alone: chocolate and sweet dessert teas need friends to share the pot with around the table. Recent studies show that tea is not just tasty but healthy. Supposedly tea drinkers have fewer colds and flu sieges, fight cancer better, and maybe even loose weight more easily. I can not vouch for any of the claims, but I do feed my tea leaves to my plants, both indoors and out, and they respond well to the tea.

One thing I have not done is learn to read tea leaves in the bottom of a cup. I have always been too busy getting to the pot for the next cup of tea! Maybe I will take a look at tea leaf reading during this National Month of Hot Tea. Then again, maybe I will just go brew another pot of Tippy Yunnan and search out some short bread for tea time!

Heart and Home Tea Room

"Perhaps that is the true gift of a teatime celebration: It fills our cups with joy and warmth and friendship. May the echo of the teacups' message be heard not only at Christmas, not only on special occasions, but anytime friends come together."

                                                                                                           Emilie Barnes

Although we feasted through the holidays, munched through the blizzard, and gorged through the frigid cold, we haven’t stopped eating yet. I looked in the winter-stocked freezer and found plenty of food still there. After copious cups of warming tea, the cabinet even now holds numerous tins of blacks, greens, and herbals, enough to open a tea shop. But when the sun threw warming rays our way today and the occasion to have lunch out with friends popped up, we never hesitated for a minute to leave the house for some lunch out.



After days of wind chills and icy temps, traveling down Highway 71 with sunshine streaming in the car windows was a delight. Sharing the ride with friends made it even better. We headed down to Heart and Home, an aging Ozark stone cottage sitting at the crossroads of two minor Missouri highways. The cottage had been a gift shop for several years when Linda the owner was convinced by an elderly lady to mingle a tea room in her business space. Linda is a darling person, and she admits she knows nothing about tea or coffee since she drinks neither. But she was eager for a new adventure and four months ago added Tea Room to her Heart and Home sign. She has been busy cooking, serving— and learning ever since.

The décor is minimal, leaning towards shabby chic. The teas are well known brands to some like Boston Teas, Tea for Life and Tea Forte. She does serve hot tea in bags, but brings everyone their own china tea pot with hot water and checks often to keep it satisfactorily filled. Prices are inexpensive. It is the food and personality that are the blue ribbon features of Heart and Home.


Each table has a loaded plate of banana or pumpkin bread; when diners are seated, a bowl of butter is added. They have a special of the day that might be something hearty like a meatloaf. The menu has a few varied salads, sandwiches, and soups or a combination. Heart and Home serves all sandwiches on homemade bread; soups are served in generous portions. Desserts are homemade, look and taste like something from the “good ole days” and cinnamon rolls are the specialty.

Heart and Home is not a place to go if you are looking for French cuisine, fancy desserts decorated with spiraling trims, or swanky label wines. But if you are looking for good food served with a smiling face and place to share “joy and warmth” over a cuppa with friends, seek out Heart and Home near Neosho.

Moon of Popping Trees

"The days are short,
   the sun is a spark               
 Hung thin between
 the dark and dark."       
JohnUpdike


               

Native Americans called January the Month of Popping Trees. I call it the Month of Wiping Out. In the kitchen it is a month of wiping out withered potatoes from the pantry, wrinkled celery from the crisper, and using up those half packages of cream cheese left from Christmas. From some deep shelf in the freezer, we consume the last loaf of pumpkin bread made from this year’s Halloween pumpkins.

Ragged clothes are sorted and cut into shop rags. Run over and leather-worn shoes are used up in the wet snow for a couple of weeks and then pitched into the trash can with no laments. January sales might bring in new towels and sheets, but old ones are tossed out for sure.


The last of those half-squeezed tubes of lotions, failed nail colors, and dated medicines are flung to the waste basket with no feeling of waste. Notebooks with only a handful of unmarked pages are lobbed in File 13. Any poinsettias that look more like a naked winter branch than thriving plant are chucked to the dumpster.


Normally, I have a writing and reading list to conquer, to wipe out, but this year’s the extreme cold has made me lethargic. I don’t feel very creative; my mind wanders like a snow plow roaring down the street pushing new ideas to the gutter. Even reading, my attention span rambles more than normal, thinking more about cold toes and fingers than the story in my hands. Last night’s wind chill here was -15, the coldest record in the last 25 years.


A final wiping out the last bits of loose tea in all the nearly empty tins takes place this month. The late mornings, the loitering in jammies and heavy flannel robes, lingering over whopping breakfasts with the copious amounts of hot tea make for leisurely use of many tea pots. With no hurry to the day, the procedure of choosing, warming, and brewing in varied pots is a treat. I use the Christmas reds a few extra times before they are put away, or I pull out the Blue Willows and other blue and whites. A large Brown Betty under a tea cozy means tea for breakfast and some still warm for a later cup. After several days of a snow blanket and frigid temps, when we think we can stand it no longer, I pop out a lively pastel or floral tea pot to remind us that the spring will come.


As we wipe out the food supplies here, face the extra hard cold spell, and tolerate the long confinement with little exercise but plenty of comfort food, the Month of Popping Trees might become the Month of Popping Buttons this year.

Making Pretty...

"...a picture shoud be soemthing pleasant, cheerful, and pretty...There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more..." Renior


My mother-in-law, now in her nineties, has painted or delved into art related things since she was a young girl working at the Wichita Art Museum. I have a few of her pictures on my walls, and I appreciate them because they are scenes of places I know, express moods I like, or are painted in colors I enjoy. One I have in a hallway is a water color that she was throwing away because she didn’t like it, and the painting had a damaged corner. I salvaged it, framed it, and hung it.



I couldn’t say whether these art works are grand or not, but I like them. Like Renoir, I think there are enough ugly things in the world and any picture that is pleasing to someone is splendid. Unlike writing, a picture can be enjoyed if it doesn’t sell. It can hang in the artist’s home or be given as a gift. But what does one do if her canvas is paper and the paints are words? Once a story or poem is written, it can not decorate a wall or stand on a table easel. If no editor or publisher finds it worthy of printing, then the work goes into a box under the bed or file cabinet in an office. It, too, might be pleasant, cheerful and pretty, but without that stamp of approval from the critics, it is hard to share, hard to enjoy.


I love any old barn. Barns are like country dowagers that stand in the wings waiting for someone to appreciate their worth. Even as they crumble across the rural landscapes, the old barns radiate a beauty. This picture of a local barn and cows rests in a barn wood frame DH made for me. I finally got it together and placed on a wall between two doorways. It hangs where I see it immediately when I leave my office; I can view it from my desk. I love the blue shades and appreciate the promise of spring my mother-in-law painted into the scene. By Renoir’s definition, my mother-in-law’s work is a success because it gives me pleasure and cheer with each glance I make during the day.

Changes Are Made

"Out with the old and in with the new"; the old saying is right for the entire month of January.

Change is never easy for us anal retentive types, and the older I get, the less I want to make the changes the world leaves on my doorstep. Abandoning the landline phone was not much of a challenge, but letting go of my irreplaceable Mrs. Tea when she wore out was like saying goodbye to an old friend. When faced with changes like cleaning a closet or a file cabinet, I flounder at what to toss and what to save. I will admit to having eliminated things occasionally that I later wish I had back. However, over all, I never miss most of the cluttering minutia I have tossed out.


Seeing the magazines and newspapers I known forever reduce in size, change format, or even cease publication is a distressing change. But I am part of the problem when I have to cancel my own subscriptions due to budget changes in my own life. The last year’s economy and forced retirement at this house felt like strangulation at times. The changes it brought on were many, and like stinging shots whizzing from a Gatling gun, they came fast and furiously. I have to make tighter choices now on what publications I keep coming to my mailbox for the next year and which ones were not necessary to my reading and writing life.


I have always paid the price for an up to date Writer’s Market, a fat tome on my bookshelf. It was always worth the pricey cost, but the last few years that price just got too steep for me. Today I decided to subscribe to Hope Clark’s TOTAL FundsforWriter’s, www.fundsforwriters.com/total.htm, a paid subscription for markets. She is running a special during the month of January at $9 for the year of biweekly markets delivered to your email box. I figured $9 was a bargain for the year and will give it a shot. I don’t remember how I found Hope, but I do subscribe to her free weekly newsletter now, which also includes a few markets each week. Her motivational essays and writing tips help inspire writers. Her newsletters are a bright spot and welcome sight when they appear, especially on a stark winter’s day.


I never meant for anything online to replace any book in my life, but this is one of the changes I am forced to make. I read more and more online, getting tangled in the wonderful world of blogs and websites. Each one introduces me to another, and if I am not careful, I follow each one like a strand of fiber into a snarled knot of yarn. I have met interesting people and outstanding ideas online; it is a temptation to spend too much time there. So I remind myself to accept the change of reading online, but not to squander too much time there. Today my order for Hope’s markets is made, and now back to my own work of laundry, writing, cooking, writing, cleaning, writing…..


Happily, some things never change!