APPLES

A bit late with this rumination, but – apples!

Stopped at Z’s Country Market today on my way back from Lebanon. It's a grocery owned by Mennonites, with bonneted girls in their homemade dresses and gym shoes working the registers. Local produce here, from local fruits and veggies to backyard honey and stone ground, non-GMO flours. 

Happiness—for me, anyhow—can be found hanging over a big wooden bin of apples. Different kinds, different bins, from the newish Crispin, Macoun  and Cameo, to the elder apple statesmen, Cortlands, Macintosh, Staymans, Ida Red, and Winesaps. (You will notice that I haven’t mentioned “Delicious.” Poor things, they’ve been bred to be perfect for shipping, which has made them bland and dry. They  have a bin, too, but I don’t bother.)

The fact that I’m leaning over the side and searching means that these apples have been off the trees for a few weeks now. Still, they are local, and haven’t traveled across the universe.  I’m trying hand to nose and gentle touch to discover how long they’ve been store-bound, and hoping I can find the tastiest ones.   

Every season I attempt to eat as many varieties of local apples as I can, hoping to refresh my personal sensory image of each kind. I’ve noticed that year to year, the taste changes a little. I’ll find some, miss others, depending on bloom time or if there was a killing late frost. This year, a freeze got the apricots and most peaches in our area, much to everyone’s sorrow.

I wish someone would plant Goldrush in this area, for this is my latest favorite. I’m told they are not new, but a recently revived heritage breed, one which doesn’t need a lot of pesticide to fight off the various plagues. I find I can keep Goldrush into March. Yes, they do wither, but they can still sock it to your taste buds and to their last moment make a spicy, tangy sauce.

~~Juliet Waldron

All historicals. All the time.

http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi    Books by JW at Amazon

Sisters Series:

http://amzn.to/1Nn8iOw  Hand-me-Down Bride    B00G8OYFG

http://amzn.to/2gvXVxl  Butterfly Bride   B01MEENIRA

~~~

Books We Love Authors for more Sunday Snippets:

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com/ (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines

Butterfly Bride~~excerpt

Longing for excitement, Elfie is discovered by those reckless night rovers, Dina and Ripley, sitting in the porch swing after everyone else is asleep...

Coming this week to Books We Love

Elfie sat alone in the porch swing, rocking gently and enjoying the cool night air and the distant hiss of the millrace. She was tired too, certainly. Everything here was still so strange. There was so much work to do each every day. And every day started so early!

Still, she couldn’t get to sleep early like the rest of them, no matter what she did. She was grateful beyond measure that she wasn’t going to the wheat harvest as Sophie had had to last year.. Half awake and yawning, she’d stand at the sink and do dishes with Celeste’s help, and this allowed Ruby and Olive to get a head-start on dinner preparations. Then, in the brief lull which followed, listening to the sound of vegetables being chopped, she’d sit on the porch and, after rubbing some salve into her dry hands, drink a cup of bitter, strong coffee with a lot of milk and sugar, and nibble on whatever was leftover. It didn’t take her long to eat, as she’d never been much for a big breakfast, either, and then she could go down to the garden and weed or pick, or sit and sew, or—oh ghastly!—iron on the sweltering porch until the mill hands arrived for their dinner.

And the clean-up would begin all over again….

Sisters Series: Book One
Hand-me-Down Bride
Sophie's story

http://amzn.to/1Nn8iOw

Upstairs, the baby woke with a long snuffling cry. She heard the sound of movement and some muffled words, as Sophie arose. They must have just barely gone to sleep, Elfie thought, and almost at once were awakened again.

What a great deal of trouble babies were! She didn’t think she was ready for all of these things which came along with getting married. It seemed that there was enough work to do every day on a farm without adding a baby.

When she’d said that to Sophie, her sister had smiled with amusement and replied, “Well, then, little sister, we will just have to find you a city gentleman.”

Sometimes Elfie heard horses coming and going from the big house on the hill late in the evening. She’d learned it was Ripley King and his college friends. Not often that they drove down this street, though. Usually the sound faded away toward Grace Church Hill. Just over that, she’d learned, was a long straight road between cornfields on which the local wild boys raced their horses on moonlit nights. Karl admitted to having indulged himself in this when he’d first come home after the war. Apparently, his fine horse, Buck, had won quite a few races that summer, a thing he was both a little proud of and also, nowadays, a little embarrassed.

Tonight, as Elfie listened, she heard the distant clop-clop-clop of a trotting horse. And sure enough, it was, for down the road below the house came the rattle of a trap, and the rhythmic sound of hooves on the summer-hard dirt.

Well, this was something different!

The horse slowed. Then, at a walk, she heard the carriage turn into the lane that led to the house. Elfie stood and picked up the lantern turned low which she’d set on the side table. Holding it, she illuminated the steps sufficiently to go down.

Geese began a jittering squawking noise in the barn as the trap approached. “Whoa,” someone said softly, and it drew to a stop.

“Miss Elfie Neiman!” A feminine voice pitched low called. “Is that you?”

Elfie, intrigued, walked closer and lifted her lantern to reveal a shiny trap drawn by a big chestnut horse with a white mane and tail, one she’d seen before. The horse tossed his head and snorted, not much liking to stop. Looking down at her from the seat was a blonde girl in a spoon bonnet about her age. Driving, which she’d known as soon as she’d had a good look at the horse, was that very same fellow from the train station wearing a straw Nattie hat at a rakish angle. His white teeth flashed as he smiled down at her.

The young woman extended a gloved hand. Elfie, using the one which was free, reached up for a clasp.

“This is terribly improper, I know, but I wanted so much to meet you! I’m Miss Dina Wildbach, niece to your brother-in-law, Mr. Karl. As soon as Mr. King told me you were living here, I’ve wanted so much to meet you. I’ve just come out from Columbia to stay for the summer with my grandfather, Judge Markham...”



~~Juliet Waldron

And, please, if you've got a moment, check out these talented

Books We Love Authors:

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com/ (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines

Roan Rose~~Tragedy at Bosworth Field

http://amzn.to/231vzHe

On August 22, 1485, England would be conquered for the last time by a foreign invader. 

The final battle of the Wars of Roses, the moment when the long-lived Plantagenet dynasty came to a bitter end, was fought by a small number of soldiers compared to the earlier bloodbaths that had taken place at Towton, Wakefield, and Mortimer's Cross--just to name just a few.

Henry Tudor styled himself a Welshman and flew the ancient  banner of the Pendragons. His army was comprised mostly of French mercenaries. Although an anointed King of England would die in battle on this day, if truth be told, Henry did not win by force of arms. The Battle of Bosworth Field was, for Henry, the culmination of long  years of intrigue.

Treason! said to be King Richard's final cry as he "fought bravely in the midst of his enemies" was the true reason for Henry's victory.

Here, Rose tells what she saw :

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the gray which proceeds dawn we came upon the king’s pickets at the rear guard. Here, my soldier friends went in and I stayed among a little group of women of the army waiting in an orchard. In the camp, the lords were arming. There were gay banners and the flash of metal on the hill above.

From that distance I heard canons begin to boom and heard the distant thud of gun stones. Into the summer dawn rose a black smoke, as if hell had opened a gate. There came next the battle roar. At last, in the valley behind the hill, I began to hear the terrible cries of the wounded.

Some of the women simply stayed under the trees. Myself and a few others, pale and full of fear at what we knew in our hearts—we went forward—to help, to look for our men. In dread we skirted the hill which had been the king’s camp.

A mob of ravens had already gathered, a murderous racket in the trees. Hearing them, the hair on my neck prickled.

There were three ravens sat on a tree . . .

 The grim old song! Crossing myself, I began to walk. If they gathered so eagerly, there were none left to do me harm...

Down, down in yonder green field

There lies a knight, slain ‘neath his shield...

 

        The dead lay everywhere. I stepped among them and then over them. Of the first lords I saw was one who lay belly down, arms extended, hands still gripping his battered, emblazoned shield. A trail of gore marked his progress through the crushed grass. He had been crawling, stubbornly refusing to release his arms. The shield was dented and crushed, the corners actually hammered out of shape. One heraldic quartering had been obliterated, but the other was still identifiable. It was my Lord Duke of Norfolk, ever true to the house of York.

As I approached, the ravens flew up with a chorus of caws and a funereal clatter of black wings. They did not go far, just rose, circled, and then landed again in the nearest tree, confident of their feast. It took my breath way to round the hill and come upon this rare work of men—strong bodies now broken and dead horses, the fallen, trampled standards, the greasy sheen of blood upon long August grass.

A haze hung in the air and the wind was rank with dust, black powder from the hellish guns, and that slaughterhouse stink. I crouched to see if any still breathed, but stiffening death was all I saw. On every side lay Richard’s men, men I knew, tabards emblazoned with the boar, now soaked with their own entrails...

~~Juliet Waldron

See all my historical novels:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004HIX4GS

And, please, if you've got a moment, check out these talented

Books We Love Authors:

 

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com/ (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines

A LITTLE RED MAGIC

 
Take a little RED MAGIC to keep out the cold:

Red Magic at Amazon

 

"Why are you doing this?  I don't need a tutor; I need time to ride the manor.  I know how farm things should be.  And," she ended, meeting his eyes, "haven't I‑‑done my duty?"     

          "Splendidly." His arms crossed around her waist and touched his lips to her shoulder.  "But tutoring is not punishment.  Learning should not be confined to childhood."    

          He was so close, a bit whiskery and dusty from the road, but the smell of him, the touch of his hand, rekindled all kinds of memories, not only of the mountain, but of the tenderness between them on the morning he'd gone away.  When he came to a kiss, she let him and promptly felt a thrill at the touch of his mouth.

          "There, there, my cat woman, please stop scratching.  I was thinking about your sweet backside every other minute I was away."         

          "You must excuse me, Herr Graf," Cat muttered, head close against his great chest, "but I'm really getting cold and my arm hurts."

          "My poor Caterina," he said, shifting to a warm rubbing of her long back.  "Damn Heidelburg.  Is it deep?"       

          "Herr Goran says I'll live."      

          "Well, then, you will.  He kept telling me that last year when I thought I was dying, swelled up and covered with pus and leeches and attacked every other hour by surgeons with sharp knives." He pushed back the sleeve of the morning gown to look at her bandage again.  "We'll undo his bandage before you go to bed and I'll look at it again. I've grown to be a pretty fair surgeon myself."

          With as much dignity as she could muster, Cat started to rise. 
         
          "I would like another kiss before you go," Christoph said.      

          "You shouldn't have got the first!  You did--what you did--before you left and then you come back and treat me like a child !  Why do you want to waste my days so that I won't be able to ride and watch over your land as I should?"  Frustration built with every word until she shouted:  "I hate this dreary snow pile and I hate you."  

          He did not let go.  Because the hand he held was attached to her throbbing arm, she couldn't bring herself to jerk that away, either.

              "I think I'm right about bringing Stocke here and I hope that in time you will understand why.  Come on, dear little Cat.  Just for a minute pull in those claws."              

          She found herself against his chest again, cradled in his arms, her mouth repeatedly and softly kissed. 

          "I've been on fire for more of those sweets I stole on the mountain.  Why can’t you believe I'm in love with you?"      

          "Because you say it too easily." Nevertheless in the next instant she was kissing him back with answering warmth. 

          Not only did it feel good, but Cat was beginning to understand that his wanting bestowed upon her a kind of power...         

          "Our marriage is in its seventh month.  Must we go into the New Year quarreling?"   

          "Yes."  In spite of his words, in spite of the warm excitement she experienced in his arms, she still felt cross with him.          

          "By God," he chuckled softly, "the next time we see your Papa I'm going to tell him this is no red filly he's married me to, but a tough little red mule."   

         

~~ Juliet Waldron

 

 RED MAGIC

 

Book #1 of The Magic Colours Series

~~~~

Red Magic

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And please do check out these great Books We Love Writers at Sunday Snippets:

 

 

 

 

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/

http://mizging.blogspot.com (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines