Susan's Meadow Knoll Journal

May 2. Prickly pear is a pest for the ranchers around here, and they have to be vigilant to keep it out of the pastures. But we enjoy the few plants we have, which are in bloom just now—more flowers than I’ve ever seen on these wonderful herbs (used medicinally in Mexico). The flowers are pastel pink and yellow and rose, with translucent, tissue-y petals. Just stunning. And with so many flowers, we’re bound to have a good harvest of pears for jelly in September. I’ve been doing research into plant dyes for Indigo Dying and ran across some fascinating information about cochineal—the tiny beetles that often infest these plants. Turns out that they are used to make a beautiful red dye. The local Indians also used it for red ink. I’m always amazed at the information I turn up when I’m writing.

May 5. More rain. The back yard is ankle-high because it’s too wet to mow, but I’m not complaining. Last year, during the drought, most of the grass died. I don’t care how tall it gets now, as long as it stays green! The lamb’s ear is putting up tall bloom stalks, rising like silver lances above the velvety gray leaves. I love grays and silvers in the garden, even more than color. We have so little rain in the summer that I’ve nearly given up on annuals, except in hanging pots. I use potting soil and water-retaining granules in the pots, and that helps to keep the plants moist enough for good bloom. So we have color in the trees and not much in the garden.

May 7. Another big storm last night, this one a little scary. Living at the southern end of Tornado Alley, we’re wary of storms. But we have a NOAA weather radio, and I keep an eye on the radar (on the Internet) and the local TV station, so I felt confident that the worst of it was going to miss us by about 6 miles. I could actually relax and enjoy the churning clouds, the remarkable colors, the greens and grays of sky and landscape, the wind, the rain, the lightning—all from the safety of the front porch, of course. But we’ve decided that we’re going to install a concrete tornado shelter. The man is coming this afternoon to do the site inspection, and we’re hoping he can put it in later this week.

May 9. The "worm" (see April 26 entry) now has a name. It’s the Uresiphita reversalis caterpillar, and it’s widely known to have a grudge against Texas mountain laurels, although I still haven’t been able to discover what kind of moth or butterfly it grows up to be. Unfortunately, when the caterpillars finished with my mountain laurel, they started in on the bluebonnets. Lots of bluebonnet seeds have been partially eaten by the critters. It’s interesting that this plague of caterpillars coincides with the biggest bluebonnet crop in decades. I've been gathering buckets of seedpods and scattering them where I'd love to see bluebonnets next year.

May 12. Speaking of caterpillars, here is a picture of one of my favorites. Somewhere inside this fat green creature is a black swallowtail butterfly, anxious to get out and see the world. It’s munching a stalk of bronze fennel, which, as far as the caterpillar is concerned, was grown especially for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. True. I don't cook with fennel much. Mostly I grow it for these guys, who must appreciate its tender, feathery leaves and delicious licorice taste.

May 16. Today was the big day—the installation of our storm shelter, which we have named (are you ready for this?) Archie Bunker. It is an 8 x 8 x 6 foot steel-reinforced concrete box with a metal door, set into a six-foot deep hole. It’s supposed to keep us safe from all but the worst of tornadoes (an F5), but I don’t see how even an F5 could suck this baby out of the ground. We’re left with a big mound of dirt, so now I’ve got to get busy and think about landscaping a berm. Maybe I’ll just plant honeysuckle all over it!

May 18. Bill took this stunning picture of a female tiger swallowtail today. She’s a rare sight in this part of Texas—I don’t remember ever seeing one before, and Bill says he's seen only two or three in his lifetime! The wind was blowing very hard and she was clinging to a cedar branch that whipped like a flag in the breeze. It made me think how fragile these lovely things are, and how much a creature of the wind. If she’d let go of the branch, she would have been in San Antonio in an hour—that’s how hard the wind was blowing. When we checked the butterfly book, we discovered that this is the very southern edge of its range. Perhaps she was carried down from Oklahoma on the strong north wind.

May 20. I took a two-day break from writing to go into Austin for the Writing From Life workshop. I’ve done quite a few writing workshops, but this one is always special, because we encourage women to explore their lives, not just polish up their writing techniques! We also showed the Midwife’s Tale, a film about a Maine midwife who lived just after the American Revolution and documented her work and her life with a diary—dismissed by most historians, until Laurel Ulhrich found and published it. A moving and lovely experience that inspired a fascinating discussion.

May 21. A couple of months ago, we saw what we thought must be the tracks and sign of a mountain lion, in the meadow to the east of our house. Last week, a male mountain lion was hit and killed by a vehicle on Route 29, not far from here—confirmation of our suspicions, especially when we saw the photo of the dead animal. A big cat, something like five feet long, with a three-foot tail. There was another cat with this one, according to the report, probably a female. I’m ambivalent. Maybe our white cat, which disappeared last winter, became mountain lion lunch, and if that’s true, I’m sorry. But I also welcome the wilderness, which is symbolized for me by this wild creature, which evokes in me both fear and desire. Fear of its stealthy nightwalking; desire to see it, to know it, to greet it. For me, this beautiful, powerful, tawny creature is a testimony to the strength of wilderness, and mostly, I welcome it. But I’ll be a little more careful about letting Zach wander out at night. And I’ll be more vigilant too.

May 26. We had a particularly pretty mesquite tree just outside the kitchen window, but the big limb went down in a windstorm last week, and the rest of it went in another storm last night. Bill showed me the rot that was exposed by the break and says it’s a wonder that it lived as long as it did. I’m sorry, because the tree had hosted so many birds over the past few years—I hung a feeder from one branch and fed bird pudding from another. And the light, lacy foliage cast a lovely dappled shade over the deck. With the tree gone, the light coming through the kitchen window seems harsh and glaring, and I’ve had to move some of the shade-loving plants on the deck. I’m reminded of how quickly things change (who would have thought that that beautiful tree wasn’t healthy?). And as I’m doing dishes at the sink, I pause to reflect that sometimes it is only the absence that reminds us of how powerful the presence has been.

May 28. The garden is beautiful now, and the red beebalm that I brought from Indiana is especially pretty—such a bright lipstick red! I’ve been amazed by how easily this beebalm spreads, and by the butterflies that are attracted to its clear color. There’s a lavender variety next to it, but it’s in the wrong place, because the pale bluish-lavender seems muddied by the bright red. I’ve marked that one to move. It’s a pretty plant. It needs to find a place where it can show off, and not be upstaged by its flamboyant cousin!

May 29. The wildflowers are a riot of color along the road, and every morning there is something new to look at. The basketflowers are blooming now. I’d never seen one of these beauties before we moved to Meadow Knoll. I’ve cut a few and tucked them into a pretty vase, and in a few weeks, I’ll collect some seed for the garden. It looks like a pretty thistle, but the lavender petals are soft. It would be lovely paired with the lavender bee balm.

May 30. Another blooming beauty just now is the brown-eyed Susan, a wilder cousin of the domesticated Rudbeckia that is featured in so many seed catalogs. This striking plant is also an herb, as are so many native wildflowers. The Cherokee Indians used the juice from the roots to treat earache, and they made a tonic tea from the dried leaves and flowers. This is also a dye plant, yielding a pretty olive green and yellow, depending on the mordant you use.

May 31. Yellow dock is one of my favorite wild herbs, not because I use it medicinally (it is an alterative, and was traditionally used to promote digestion, improve liver function, and as a laxative), but because I like to pick the dried seed-stalk for use in large bouquets of dried grasses. Its graceful, rich brown seeds are a lovely, dark accent, and I often hang the stalks upside down to dry in the shed, for use in autumn wreaths. Yellow dock holds another memory for me: when my cousin and I were young girls, visiting our Missouri grandmother during the hot days of July, we used to gather the brown seeds in the meadow and pretend-brew them as coffee in the playhouse we built down at the creek. I don’t think we actually drank any of the brew, but I’m glad to know now that it wouldn’t have hurt us if we had. Here, yellow dock ripens at the end of May. The fields are full of it just now.