The Story of Ned the Head

When I was 19, I did a summer WLPAN course in Wales (Welsh immersion). It was held in Lampeter at St. David's University, and I was placed in the intermediate group because I'd had a few years of Welsh already. We had students from everywhere, including Japan and New Zealand. Now and then they loaded us on buses and took us on field trips, including Ystrad y Fflur (Strataflorida) to see the grave of Dafydd ap Gwilym and the Eisteddfod in Abergwaun.

One of our trips was to the Dolaucothi Roman gold mine (dating from the late 3rd century, briefly revived in the 1800s, and closed by 1938). I remember there was a large sign in Welsh at the front, and one of the workers seemed skeptical of all these "foreign" kids being able to learn Welsh. I don't know why, but he focused on me (blonde braids, braces, looking terribly American), and he challenged me---in front of the whole group---to read the sign aloud. All eyes were on me. I stuck my chin in the air and confidently read the sign to the best of my ability, and the man backed off, looking a bit humbled. The other students (many of whom were much more fluent than I) gathered and patted me on the shoulders and said I'd done well. But you see, there's a trick to it -- Welsh is a very phonetic language. If you know the sounds the letters make, you can read anything aloud and sound fluent. Meanwhile, I was silently thanking my lucky stars that the man hadn't asked me to actually translate the sign, because I hadn't understood a single word of it!

The tour guide led us through dimly-lit tunnels (I remember one area was called "Fat Man's Misery"). At one point, he told us the story of Ned. My memory may be faulty, because this was forty years ago, but I believe the story went like this: Ned was a miner who broke the cardinal rule of not working in pairs. He sat and ate his lunch one day but somehow his lamp or candle went out. He tried to fumble his way along the passage in the dark and must have fallen down a shaft and thence to the rock crusher, because all they found of him was his boots (the gorier version of the story is that his boots still contained his feet). The ghost of Ned still wanders the mine shafts, looking for his lamp.

Years later, my husband and kids gave me a ceramic head to put in my garden. Of course there was only one name to give a disembodied body part... Ned the Head. He sits on a flower pot set over the electrical outlet for my fountain, to protect it from rain. He needs a coat of paint now, but he reminds me of Wales and my tiny moment of triumph over the grumpy man at the mine.

Lavender Harvest!

Today I started cutting the lavender in the backyard. I have five or six "spots" where lavender has either been panted or has spread itself, and it's a bumper crop this year. I cut it back to the tops of the leaves, to keep it from getting too leggy, when the buds are just opening, and I spread it on cookie sheets all over the dining room table to dry.

Once dry, the flowers are crumbled by hand off the stems and put in mason jars for use in baking or drawer sachets. Did you know that if your lavender sachet has stopped smelling, all you have to do is crush it around a little with your fingers, and the scent will be revived? They can last for years, if kept dry.

I like to add crushed flowers to sugar cookies, a very Victorian kind of flavour, but my husband thinks they taste like soap. That's fine -- all the more for me!

Be sure to leave a lot of the flowers for the bees. I've seen very few bees this year, mostly bumblebees, but hopefully as the lavender blooms, it will attract more to the garden. I planted three whole beds of various flowers, but very little germinated (weird cold spring followed by blistering heat followed by torrential rain followed by cool temps again), and so far all I've gotten is one very tiny pink zinnia. A for effort, little flower.

In the Right Place at the Right Time

Yesterday I got ready for church and had about fifteen minutes before I needed to leave, so I went out and puttered in my garden (yes, in my nice dress). And came inside. And saw the tiny paintbrush I use for assisting with squash pollination. And decided I had just enough time to dash out and pollinate my spaghetti squash. So I slipped on my clogs and went out for just a minute.

And heard the quiet voice of my elderly neighbour calling for help. She didn't sound loud or distressed, but I heard her saying, "Help! I can't get up!" I called over the fence to ask if she was okay, and she called back, "No." I told her to hang on, I was coming.

Ran around the corner to her house (our backyard adjoin) and let myself through her gate, and found her. She'd been sitting on a white plastic chair to do some weeding, and the leg had broken and tipped her into the hedge, and she couldn't get her feet under her to right herself. I got her into a hug and managed to lift her up onto her feet and help her to her back door. She was fine, and I gave her another hug to wish her good morning, chatted about gardening for a moment (her tomatoes are producing already, and mine are just starting to flower), and then ran back home to leave for church. 

Feeling grateful that I followed that urge to go back to the garden, because there's no way I would have heard her from indoors. Grateful she was found right away and not left in the hot sun. Grateful I've been going to the gym and could lift her. Grateful I could be of some small service to someone else.

Hoping the pollination with the paintbrush worked. My spaghetti squash and cucumbers are blooming just fine, but my Delicata squash and zucchini haven't produced a single flower yet.

Update on the Vegetable Garden and My Personal Philosophy Around Gardening

It occurs to me that I usually just blog about the beginning of the gardening season, when I'm planning what to plant, and the end of the season, when I'm bottling tomatoes and drowning in green beans. But there's a very long middle part that deserves some attention too.

I've heard people talk about fertilizing and fussing during the summer, but I tend to take a hands-off simplified approach. If something needs pampering, I don't want it in my garden. If you give your plants treats at the beginning, they're going to keep expecting it, and there's simply no time or room for divas in my yard. They must pull their own weight or perish. I plunk the seedlings in, stab in a tomato cage where they're needed, set up the sprinkler, and wish them all luck. The only special attention anything gets is when the tomatoes and cucumbers start to blossom and I dose them with calcium. If there's a lack of bees, I might hand pollinate things with a tiny paintbrush. Now and then I yank out the worst of the weeds and drop them on the soil to return their nutrients to the earth. And that's it. This year I did add some mulch to several of the beds, to try to retain water, because they're predicting a harsh, hot summer. But so far this year, it's unseasonably cool and rainy and it hasn't been much of an issue.

A vegetable garden can consume all your time if you let it, and weeding is never done. There are strawberries and beans to pick every day all summer, and a glut at harvest time at the end. But I've been consciously trying to set aside time to go on long walks, to swim, to go to the gym, to read and write. To allow myself to slow down and just sit sometimes. The garden, like a pestering puppy, must learn boundaries. It must develop patience and wait its turn. As must we all.

The New Oven has Arrived

Had to rearrange furniture to get the thing through the front door, but the new range is here. As they were hauling the old one out, I reached out and patted it and murmured, "Thank you for 26 years of good service." The delivery guy paused and asked quietly, "Do you want a moment?" 

"No, thank you, I've said my goodbyes."

So now I'm reading the manual for the new range, and it provides helpful tips such as not letting your toddler open the door and crawl in. It also says some models have a Jewish Sabbath mode, so you can preprogram it to function at certain times without having to press a button.

The manual also says the warranty doesn't cover fire, flood, or acts of God. Presuming God might strike the oven dead if you press its buttons on the Sabbath. 

Working on the Next Manuscript

I had all sorts of plans to work in the yard today, but it's raining steadily, so I'm pivoting and having a writing day. I'm working on a sequel to Monk With the Steel-Toed Boots. They're both murder mysteries, the first being set in a Buddhist meditation retreat in the Ontario woods, modelled after the Huong Hai Zen Forest, where I attended a 3-day retreat (the last day done in complete silence. I highly recommend it to anyone!). That book can be found here:

Monk with the Steel-Toed Boots

I enjoyed working with the main character, Gor Manookian, an Armenian-Canadian Detective Inspector, so I'm bringing him back in the sequel, Tiny Little Murder. This one is set in a Tiny House community, and I'm drawing on a friend's experience, since I don't have any direct experience living in a Tiny House. She built her own little house on wheels and has lived in it on a farm with her two kids for 3-4 years, so I turn to her when I have questions. There is something very satisfying about curling up with the laptop (by the fireplace in winter or on the backyard picnic table in summer) and documenting what my imagination comes up with. With coconut cookies on hand, of course.

Once I wrote the same book three times, keeping the same characters but swapping around who was the murderer and who was the victim, with, of course, different motives. It was a great exercise, and I kept the last version as it turned out best. I have heard other writers describe how they outline and plot beforehand, and I should probably try it sometime, but usually I just get a "movie" in my head and just take dictation. I don't know in advance how it will end any more than the reader does! I'll research stuff as it arises during the process, but there isn't much work before the actual writing begins.

Because my writing is indeed kind of like watching a movie in my head, there does tend to be a lot of dialogue. I think sometimes my plots are moved forward too much by dialogue. I am practising advancing the plot through action as much as talk. We'll see how Tiny Little Murder turns out.

I'm Officially a Dinosaur

Our oven/stove has been having trouble after trouble lately (fair enough, it's about 25 years old), so today we decided to bite the bullet and go buy a new one. We went to three different places looking for an electric range. The thing is, we didn't want the glass-top flat-top kind, because we like to use heavy cast iron pots and skillets, and those will scratch up the glass. Also, I do a lot of bottling, which involves boiling a large pot for several hours at a time, and the glass ones just won't hold up to that kind of use.

However, we discovered that each place we visited only had one coil-burner oven on display. Fine, we'll take that one---except every element now has a sensor on it that will turn off the heat if the burner reaches boiling temperature. 

Wait, let me get this straight. You can't boil anything on the stove? No, it's a safety feature, in case Granny is forgetful, so it turns it off for you when it reaches a high heat. So how do you boil an egg or a pot of soup or make mashed potatoes? You don't. No one cooks anymore. Or else you'll have to replace the sensor burners with regular burners. Except those only come in one size, apparently, which don't fit GE ranges (which of course is the only one we could buy). 

Someone (probably a man, let me bet) has designed a range that can't cook. I suppose any self-respecting Italian nonna uses a gas stove, but we are trying to get off of fossil fuels, and it would cost a lot to have natural gas installed into our kitchen anyway. So it has to be electric. So the new range arrives on Tuesday, and I don't know if I can boil anything on it. And I don't know whether my special, expensive canning coil burner will fit it at all. (Canning is so intense it melts regular burners. Canning burners sit higher so air can get under them.)

We also tried to buy muriatic acid for the pool today and were told that they no longer carry it because Health & Safety told them it's too dangerous. So demented Granny can't cook an egg and we can't treat the pool because someone is looking out for our safety. Thanks a lot.

Garden Centre Field Trip

Hubby and I had a spare hour this morning and decided to pay a visit to a favourite garden centre -- Bulow Garden Centre and Landscaping at 2667 Lakeshore Rd W, which is just east of Winston Churchill in Mississauga. This place has been in business for years and has a lot of unusual things I haven't seen for sale anywhere else. On previous trips, we've purchased a bench, a gong, and a garden sculpture from them. I didn't think to take a camera, and we had to dash between rain showers, but it was such a fun, interesting, and uplifting jaunt.

The owner came out to greet us and show us the water plants and bamboo we asked about. A pleasant chat, and then we were free to wander at will through swaths of antique-looking roses, quirky sculptures, lacy Japanese maples, unusual clay pots, banks of colourful angelonia, and lovely older trees. A dog snored gently in a big bed under a circular trellis. There were flowers I've never heard of, a range of succulents to choose from, and a peaceful, shady pergola with such a lush array of bushes and trees that I wanted to sit down on a bench and never leave. This woman is living the life I want to live.

Favourite things seen today: a bronze-coloured Buddha statue unlike any other I've seen, a pale peach climbing rose that made me want to go buy an English cottage just so I could grow it up around the door, a Gothic-shaped metal archway that would look great at the church, and a fantastic pink flowering dogwood that tempted me to rip out my vegetable garden to make room for it. It would be such an amazing addition to my Japanese garden.

Then the rain started pelting down and we ran for the car without buying anything. But it remains my favourite garden centre I've ever been to, and I highly recommend it if you're looking for something unique for your yard. I came away feeling refreshed, as if I'd taken a deep nourishing nap. There's nothing better than getting outdoors, surrounded by beauty, and meeting a person who has a passion for her business. 

The Best Kind of Day

Slept in until 6:00 yesterday, which is practically unheard of

Did my scripture reading and daily catch-up-on-messages

Updated my financial books

Walked down to the gym for a quick workout and a delicious session in the massage chair

Made banana muffins

Had breakfast

Worked in the garden and pruned bushes

Went grocery shopping for just a few items

Had lunch

Wrote for 3-4 hours

Mowed the lawn

Made supper

Worked on a puzzle

Met son's new friend and had Korean barbecue, then did puzzles and yacked all together

No one ate the supper I made, so it's ready for tomorrow instead -- no cooking on Tuesday!

Went to bed with a novel

Pretty much a perfect day.

Georgetown Highland Games

We're into piping competition season once again, preparing to make the rounds of Highland Games throughout Ontario. I made the rounds myself for 30+ years, hauling kids and dogs and cases and water jugs and tents and... well, let's just say it's a major undertaking. And the thrill of it is standing in front of a judge, trying to remember what tune you're supposed to be playing and worrying that the beating sun will shut off your drones or make the sticky tape on your chanter slide around.

I gave up piping six or seven years ago, partly due to health reasons and partly because I'd finally gotten fed up with dealing with 8 yards of wool in a port-o-potty. Now when I go to the games, I can park myself in the shade under a tree and only venture out when I want to hear a particular person or band play, or to browse through the vendors' booths.

I do have to say, the vendors' booths can be quite fun. People sell everything from certificates printed with clan heraldry, handcrafted knives, intricate Celtic-themed pottery, British candy and baked goods, t-shirts, and...well...yesterday someone had a booth displaying rain gutter systems. There are also Clan booths set up to teach about their heritage, and there was a weaving and spinning demonstration. There are also piping and drumming supply houses, where you can grab last-minute bits of uniform you may have forgotten, explore the latest water traps for your pipes, or get new reeds. 

I spent a lot of the day hiding from the heat, even sitting and reading a Pilcher novel while eating Edinburgh Rock (for the uninitiated, it's a candy that most resembles sidewalk chalk). But I did venture out to watch friends and hubby compete and to buy peameal bacon on a bun. The highlight of the day, though, had to be the sheep dog show. The same woman is there every year, showcasing her amazing and highly-trained border collies driving a small group of sheep around the field. She explains what her commands and whistles mean, and it's always a fun event. Yesterday, though, it became quite exciting, as the sheep panicked and leaped over the fence like deer and bounded off into the street outside the venue. But the woman sent her most experienced dog after them, and within a few breathless minutes, the sheep were brought back to the field and duly put in their pen.

It's been fun to watch my husband's students mature and develop in their musical and leadership skills over the years. Two have gone on to become pipe majors themselves. I've seen their confidence grow. One of them always greets everyone with a huge hug, as if he's just so amazed to discover you're still alive and he couldn't be happier to see you. Even though I'm kind of an adjunct and wasn't directly involved in his instruction, my husband was, and this student always bounds over like a joyful puppy to greet me when he sees me. At one point, his father leaned over to me and whispered, "He's everyone's son." And you know what? He feels like mine sometimes. Just because I've seen him grow up in the piping world over the past 15 or so years, and know that my husband was a big part of his journey.

World Food Program

While I'm still figuring out how to add a donation button to my blog page, things are dire in Somalia, and the UN World Food Program can use some urgent help. Please consider contributing if you're able. Thank you!

Donation page:

UN World Food Programme (WFP) | Donate now

Hearing Aid Miracle

My husband got hearing aids not long ago. It took a while to learn how to drive them, but they've made a huge difference in both our lives.

Yesterday, he went out to cut some volunteer maple trees out of our privet hedge, and I went out to assist. As often happens when my husband gets stuck into something, it turned into a five-hour project. It was extremely hot, I could feel the sun baking my skin, and the work involved a lot of scratches and punctures as we tried to remove an astonishing amount of weed trees and dead wood out of this massive hedge. Also a couple of spider bites. A lot of the job involved lying on my back, shoulder deep, trying to reach shoots right at the back. My husband got out a stool so he could attack from the top, reaching down into the hedge with an assortment of clippers and secaturs and pruning snips.

Anyway, we finally finished, cleaned up, set the bins at the side of the house, and went inside two hours past lunchtime, exhausted. All I could think about was jumping into the cold pool and having something to eat. And then my husband realized, to his horror, that one of his hearing aids was missing.

A) These things are not cheap. B) He had a bagpipe competition the next morning (this morning, as I write this), which required he be able to hear. C) He had no idea when he lost it, so it could be anywhere in the house or yard or in one of the many tall bins crammed with yard waste.

We called the cavalry (sons) out of the basement, went back out into the furnace, and started crawling and poking gingerly around the yard, hoping not to step on the hearing aid, wondering if we had any hope, and then my husband remembered his phone had an app to help locate lost hearing aids. It proved to be a difficult thing to use, giving very vague readouts. It was a bit like playing that game we played as children, where one kid tries to find a hidden object while his friends shout "You're getting colder!" "You're getting warmer!" It would have been more helpful if the app worked like Marco Polo, with the hearing aid giving feedback, but no. It gave us a general location, though, at least enough to let us know we didn't have to dig through all the bins.

An hour later, after raking under the hedge, gingerly sifting through everything, standing on the stool and peering down into the foliage, Son #3 had the idea of sticking his head under the hedge and looking up instead of in or down. And there it was! This tiny little comma-shaped electronic device, spluttering and annoyed, hanging from a twig deep inside the hedge.

You have to understand, my yard is big, the hedge is a monster, and my husband had been all over it for five hours. That thing could have been anywhere. It was literally like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. And we found it. We're bitten and bleeding and burnt red, our backs may never be the same, I ripped my best pants, but we found it. I hugged my son and told him he was a hero.

Prayer works, folks.

Where to Find My Books

I've consolidated all of my new releases in one "bookstore" page on Lulu.com. Here you can find my latest novels (more on the way!), my gardening e-book, and the workbook that accompanies the workshops I offer on simple living. Please give it a look, and if you've enjoyed any of my books, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads. Thanks!

Kristen's Bookstore on Lulu

For my older novels:

Deseret Book offers the audio or ebooks. In the near future, Desperate Measures, The Governess, and The Song of Copper Creek will be available in paperback on their website as print-on-demand. You can also find secondhand copies of all my books online. 

For my novel All My Loved Ones, please see Cedar Fort.

Enjoy!

Just Some Pretty Things Seen on My Morning Walk

Raising Money for Charity

I'm looking at how many people are reading this blog each month, and people have told me I should monetize it or add a "Buy Me a Coffee" kind of button. But I'd feel much better about raising money for a charity instead. Readers would be given the option of voluntarily supporting the chosen cause through a link, and I'd never know who donated or how much money was being raised. The donations would be handled entirely by the charity. 

The question is, which charity? There are so many good organizations, and so many people in need. I thought I'd ask for some feedback from you. My personal inclination is to address food insecurity (after all, I'm a vegetable gardener). With all the mess going on in the Middle East, on top of weather and climatic conditions, they're predicting a global famine. While that may not impact Canada as much as many other places, it will still mean raised prices, and over a million people in Ontario alone already access the food bank. Humans can get along without a lot of things, but food isn't one of them.

I don't want to choose an organization so local that readers from around the world will feel less attached to it and therefore less inclined to donate. At the same time, I don't want to choose an organization so vast that it feels like our small contributions won't make a difference.

So...any suggestions?