The Writing Life (and garlic addendum)

Okay, for those of  you who are wondering, the garlic was a failure. My oven's low temp of 170 farhenheit was too hot. I'm blaming my oven. The chopped-up garlic turned brown, which it mustn't do, brown and hard, yet still gummy on the inside. A dehydrator is a must and I have one somewhere in the cluttered closet of my writer's room, but for now I'm turning my efforts elsewhere: to Old German tomatoes and Italian roasting peppers for salsa, chop chop chop, basil and parsley and....oh, yes, of course garlic! Good thing I have 15 pounds set aside for my October plantings. Then there's my grandma's dark fruitcake to make, no candied fruit, just dates, figs, dried apricots and cherries. Wrapped in brandy-soaked cloth for weeks and week. (Use a low temp for  long baking, not NOT 350 F. my mistake). I have oven issues.

Getting out of the kitchen, I have some writing news. Perseverance pays. My poems (two!) are in the new issue of The Slippery Elm Literary Journal 

And in the new issue of the Midwest Review  (number 9) which will soon be showcased on their site. The Review publishes work from writers in or from the midwest region from where words percolate in obscure places.  

I have more news on the horizon about which I'm excited beyond words, so who needs a dehydrator when Indi publishers and small university journals are flourishing and our libraries are opening to stretch and stir from their pandemic lockdowns. Perseverance is my word of the day. All you writers out there, never never never give up.

Now why on earth is that rooster crowing when there is no tinge of pink in the sky? What is he crowing at? Orion charging across the sky in his new change-of-season finery? I know...he sees the light in my window and thinks I'm about to throw open his door and sow some oats.

Not even close. I have a dehydrator to find and words to write and coffee to brew. 

Over and out

for now.

Thanks

for 

reading

this

impromptu

post.

Garlic!!

My hands smell like garlic. I've chopped and chopped, chopped the house awake. Time to get up! The sun is shinning through the evergreens, cones hanging like coconuts from the top branches. One of our trees lost its top in a straight-line wind two years ago. It's big but no longer the biggest.

Back to garlic. 

Well....I've dried parsley before in the oven, so I know this can be done, this dehydrating process. Thirty minutes at the lowest temp (170 for me) then stir, reset the timer, and repeat.  Repeat until dried and crumbly to the touch, however long that takes. Will it get crumbly? You tell me. Then I'll grind it up (to make my bread)  in my food processor to have my own garlic, um powder? Or just minced dried garlic to put in spaghetti and meatloaf and lasasgna and minestrone and bean soup with pig hocks and all those other things we turn to for comfort when the weather turns to winter.

Check out Poets and Storytellers: "The Season Turns" for seasonal thoughts from Down Under to "Up North". And I'd welcome any suggestions that will improve my chances of success on this Sunday Funday.

Hang The Garlic Over The Drive

Summer is busy but should one not always steal a moment to write? We dug our garlic and hung it in the granary.  Dad said to hang it over the drive, but I didn't know what he meant. Then he told me that Grandpa used to park his car in here-there are two big sliding doors on each side of the structure-a perfect place to park your car. But it hasn't been used as a garage in my lifetime. 

So I hung my garlic "over the drive" from the top railing on the third floor, climbing the steep staircase on your right. The old steamer trunk that sits behind the railing against the back wall is empty. I wonder what happened to the contents. Did I imagine them from my childhood?

The corn that borders my garden towers overhead 

and the winter squash and potatoes flourish.

A story about the granary: When we were children, an unruly cousin took our beloved red wagon to the top of those stairs and pushed it over the edge to the concrete below. The impact made a horrible noise and our wagon was smashed beyond repair. I don't think we ever got another. I don't know what compelled him to do that, but every time I climb those stairs, I remember it.

That's it for now. Off to plant more beets and lettuce. I just wanted to wake up my blog and say hello to all. How has your summer been?