Frost and Flowers

 My chickens spent the better part of March scratching the heavy layers of leaves off my flower beds, which means I spent the better part of March piling the leaves back on, trying desperately to keep my delicate spring flowers covered up until the right time.

Every time I donned my long sleeves and started covering up those pale greenish yellow shoots, this verse came to me.

“Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.” Song of Solomon 2:7

A string of warm days could force the spring flowers up early, and without any cover, a frost could easily damage them. I’ve definitely had years where the blooms died prematurely or the plants never even bloomed at all.

This verse in particular is about love. It’s about letting it “rest” and not forcing it until the right time. But as I was thinking about this verse and protecting my precious flowers, I thought about the things I’m yearning for right now. Fresh veggies straight from the garden, market season, and most of all, for the chance to get published. I’ve spent the winter working hard towards these things, and I’m yearning and dreaming to see the fruit of my labor come to life.

Every time I covered those flowers, it was a reminder to be patient and know there is a time and season for everything.

The New Year and Small Changes

With New Year’s comes resolutions, and often these are big changes we want to accomplish in our lives. It’s easy to want to jump right in, hoping for huge changes with quick results, and then they pitter out before the month of January even comes to an end.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across this photo I took last January. At the beginning of 2020, I had pulled out an old nanowrimo manuscript and decided to start the editing process, hoping to have it ready to send to agents in a few months.

Like any first draft, I slogged through the first edits, wondering how it was possible that I could string so many bad sentences together! I used the bright sticky notes in an attempt to untangle the messy plot, and at times wondered if it would ever turn into something enjoyable to read.

Trying to get the plot figured out!

The next thing I knew, I was adjusting to our crazy lives during covid with the kids at home 24-7, and simultaneously running our busy market garden season while my husband put in a lot of hours at work. Progress on my novel came to an instant halt, but after we settled into our “new normal”, I came back to it a little at a time.

I wasn’t until I saw the picture with the sticky notes that I realized how far that novel has come and how much it has changed! What a difference all the small changes made over the course of a year! It went from a mess to a manuscript, from something painful to read to something fun to read.

Binders with the seven rewrites of the book!

It made me realize that small changes can make a difference, a really big difference. If you can’t do it all at once, try something small, because it might really surprise you where you are and how far you have come a year from now!

The Year Without Football

This Saturday, August 8^th, the quiet town of Pine Village should have been bursting with people. There would have been town wide garage sales, kids selling lemonade, families lining the streets with blankets and chairs waiting for the parade to start, and the smell of burgers wafting through the air. All of these leading to the main event, local boys decked out in vintage black and orange jerseys, ready to take on the away team in a historical vintage football game.

Last year, over a thousand people gathered around the football field, located behind Pine Village Elementary School, to watch the old fashioned game and cheer on the locals! It was a sight to behold in the sleepy town of three hundred!

This year, planning for the second annual game got off to great start, but sadly all festivities were cancelled about a month ago due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The cancellation of sports and festivities in rural communities across the nation seems like such a crazy unreal thing to happen, but it happened back in 1918 to the original Villagers too. In 1918, Pine Village football came to a grinding halt as the players fought in World War I and all of America suffered from the Spanish Influenza, a byproduct of the war that killed thousands of Americans. That year, not one game was played, the field was left barren, and everyone wondered whether the Villagers would ever take the field again.

Now, over one hundred years later, we are all wondering the same thing that those Warren County people were wondering back then. Will things get back to normal? When will we be able to resume our festivals and small town traditions? Will the vintage football game be a thing of the past, or will we revive it again in the coming year?

I leave you with this excerpt from Robert Carr, the nephew of Pine Village football player, John Carr, who says of a parade revived again in 1918, “Such visiting there was, with friends they hadn’t seen in months and months… The two town doctors were very much on view… They all floated about, inquiring into the health of all.”

They went on to have their celebration and parade, and a year later, the Villagers took the field again! The hope and prayer of the Pine Village Football Committee is that this time next year, those of us who have social distanced for months, those of us who have missed out on opportunities, sports, and fun events, will be back together visiting, celebrating, and socializing once again! God bless!

Honoring Mudlavia with “Magical Mudlavia” Celebration

On February 29, 1920, smoke billowed out of peaceful valley. The smoke belonged to a fire that broke out at the world-renowned Mudlavia hotel. With a strong southeast wind whipping through the valley, the fire blazed at an alarming rate, destroying the entire hotel, the out buildings, and even the well house, which was several hundred yards to the south.

Mudlavia would never be rebuilt with the same grandeur again.

The site today gives little clue to the magnificent hotel that once resided there, and the only way to keep Mudlavia’s history alive is to celebrate it, talk about it, and share our knowledge about it.

On Saturday, February 29, 2020, one hundred years after Mudlavia burned down (twenty-five, if you are looking at it in leap years), I am partnering with Aubrey Dietrich, owner of Heart and Soul Farm, to honor and celebrate the history of Mudlavia, and we invite you to come and celebrate with us!

Our “Magical Mudlavia” evening will begin at 6:00PM at Heart and Soul Farm, where we will kick off the celebration with bitesize refreshments inspired by Mudlavia’s historic menus. During this time, there will also be a few Mudlavia pictures and postcards to view.

At 6:30PM, Aubrey will introduce herself and talk about the connection she sees between Mudlavia and yoga today. Aubrey started hear yoga studio, Heart and Soul Farm, a little over a year ago. Since then, she has used her yoga practice for outreach events in the community through the 4-H program, at Prophetstown State Park, and at the local elementary school. She also provides various yoga series throughout the year at her farm, as well as providing other fun community events, like our Magical Mudlavia celebration.

At 7:00PM, I will be doing a question and answer session about Mudlavia, as well as answering any questions about the writing process. I have been writing since I was a little girl, and encourage the next generation of writers by hosting a youth writing club at our local elementary school. I began researching Mudlavia five years ago to write a novel about Mudlavia in honor of my grandpa, Bill Ringer. I entered my novel in the MMWW contest three years ago, and won. I am currently in the process of trying to get my work published.

At 7:30PM, we will wrap up the evening with a reading of the first chapter of my novel.

All events at Heart and Soul Farm are free to the public, however, donations are welcome and appreciated. Any donations will be split between us.  Aubrey will use them to continue to put on events at Heart and Soul Farm, and I will use them to put towards publishing my work.

We hope you will come and celebrate the history of Mudlavia with us!

Giving credit where credit is due-
Special thanks for my girls, Dessie and Dara Austin, for taking our picture
Special thanks for Gayle Breymeyer for inviting me last fall to come out to the Mudlavia property anytime and take pictures

Mudlavia: Where Gatsby Meets Griffith

One of the most interesting things about Mudlavia is the dynamic of bringing the luxurious city life to the rural setting of Warren County, Indiana. I like to call it a place where Gatsby meets Griffith.

When I think of The Great Gatsby, I think of millionaire Jay Gatsby and the lavish parties he hosted in his mansion. Gatsby brings to life the roaring twenties, and any Gatsby themed party would include the things of the wealthy social circles of the time; prohibition style cocktails, jazz music, flapper dresses, tuxes, lavish food, and fancy cars.

When I think of Andy Griffith, I think of a kindhearted sheriff helping people in iconic Mayberry. Andy can be found doing small town activities from breaking up family feuds, to teaching his boy Opie moral lessons, to going to town picnics, and playing the guitar on his front porch.

You would think that these two very different lifestyles could never mesh. If Gatsby came to Mayberry, Andy would greet him with, “Well hooooowdy, golly that’s a fancy car if I ever saw one, isn’t it Barn?”

Yet, Mudlavia brings these two different dynamics together.

Mudlavia was built in what Henry Kramer coined as “peaceful valley” Indiana. The hotel was made with the most luxurious materials; mahogany, marble, onyx, Tiffany glass, and oriental tapestries. It had the best modern conveniences of the nineteenth century and was famous for its Mudlavia treatment, which included healing mud baths and lithium water.

There were definite differences between the great Mudlavia Hotel and the surrounding area. Mudlavia hosted dances and balls where quartets would play waltzes, marches, and minuets. In the small town of Kramer, where the married Mudlavia employees lived, the townspeople would host country dances with fiddlers playing “The Virginia Reel” or “Fishers Hornpipe”. While the automobile became popular in the city and Mudlavia was called “autolavia” in 1910 due to the sheer amount of automobiles being driven there, they were not a mainstay in Warren County until the 1930’s.

Nowadays, some people joke that Warren County is about ten years behind the times, and I imagine that when city folk came to visit in the early 1900’s, they might have said the same thing too. It must have been a wonder that such a fancy place existed among the sycamore trees and rolling hills of the Indiana countryside.

I would have thought there would have been a definitive line between the fancy hotel and the rural surroundings, of the wealthy visitors and country workers, but I found that Mudlavia blended the two seamlessly.

I was reading a book about the Titanic and there was a quote from Edith Rosenbaum Russel who said, “There was something about the Titanic, it was so very formal, it was so very stiff. The atmosphere was stiff. The coziness- well you know, that kind of ‘get-together feeling,’ it didn’t exist.”

The cozy “get-together” feeling existed at Mudlavia. I imagine the stiffness and stuffiness that would have existed at other luxury hotels would have been undone by this special place, a place with the same warmth and friendliness as Mayberry.

When visitors first arrived and signed the hotel ledger, they were immediately welcomed as part of the Mudlavia family. A copy of Mudlavia News, a newspaper printed at the hotel, mentions a baseball game played out on the lawn with the employees and the guests. It also mentions the annual field day held on the front lawns. It says the field was "...crowded with guests and employees. Many persons from the little town of Kramer were in evidence and rooted with a good will for their respective candidates. The meet was held to decide a question of long standing as to the supremacy of the office employees and the chef and his lieutenants in the kitchen."

Even wealthy Mr. Kramer had that small town Indiana warmth. He was one of the first people to get an automobile in this part of the state and he would bring it to Attica to give anyone who wanted to a ride around the block!

There were plenty of other fancy hotels and Mudlavia was in the middle of nowhere. I believe what really made it special was the blur of lines between the social classes and the warmth of the people of “peaceful valley”.

Busy Mom Read- The Dirty Life

When someone comes up to me at market and says they don’t like tomatoes, I like to think they just haven’t found the right tomato yet. Some shoppers have never had a tomato outside of the grocery store (those rock hard, sort of red things from the grocery definitely don’t count) or they’ve never tried anything except a red tomato. Tomatoes come in all different colors, from almost white to orange to green to black, and in all sorts of flavors. We grow ones that are so sweet they’re almost like eating candy, tart tomatoes with a nice bite, and tomatoes so rich and complex, they’re like a fine wine.

I always thought I didn’t like memoirs. During my college years, I was introduced to some pretty boring ones and few that were so wordy and over-the-top that the stories became unbelievable. A couple years ago the memoir The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball came across my path. Guess what? I loved it! Turns out I just hadn’t found the right memoir yet.

I’ve been rereading The Dirty Life this September as my “busy mom read”. It’s tucked in my purse to read during the quiet moments between the craziness of life. I’m also rereading it because this October Kimball’s second memoir, Good Husbandry, comes out and tells the story of their next five years on the farm. I am counting down the days until it comes out, which is something I never thought I would say about a memoir!

In The Dirty Life, Kimball shares about her experience falling head over heels for a farmer during an interview for an article. She abandons her city life to marry him and start a farm and CSA in upstate New York. Her story is hilarious as she is thrown into the world of country living, and pulls at your heart as she describes the struggles they face throughout the first year. Most of all, I’m drawn to the way that she describes food. Reading her words makes me want to run out to the garden and grab everything I need to replicate the delicious dishes they create from the food they grow and raise on their farm. It also makes me want to get a dairy cow in the worst way!

If you love food or farming or both, then I highly recommend this book!

Mudlavia: The End

Ask any third grade teacher or one of their students in the county, and they’ll be able to tell you exactly how Mudlavia ends!

It’s a tragic end to a $250,000 hotel (that’s $250,000 back in the early 1900’s- an extravagant amount for that time) with a state-of-the-art steam whistle alarm and sprinkler system that was supposed to make the hotel unburnable… just like the Titanic was unsinkable….

Mudlavia ended with flames and fire and smoke.

Mudlavia’s glory days were cutoff right before the roaring 20’s hit, on leap day, February 29^th, 1920. Newspapers say the fire started in a linen closet on third floor of the hotel, but interestingly enough, don’t say how it started. Local lore passed down over time can only guess at how the fire started and why the perfectly tested fire system didn’t work that terrible day. The stories range from the mundane to the eccentric, and leave a lot of playroom for anyone with an imagination!

I’ve been spending a lot of time concentrating on the last few chapters of Mudlavia. One of the biggest letdowns in the world is a fantastic book with a disappointing ending. I really want mine to be perfect!

Unlike all of the other novels I have written, I know the ending. History has handed it to me, and yet, it’s been one of the trickiest for me to finish.

The thing about the timeframe is that there was a lot going on in the United States leading up to that moment. There was the end of WWI, the Spanish Influenza, women’s suffrage, the beginning of prohibition, and red summer, which had to do with a huge migration of African Americans from the southern states to the northern states due to the gruesome violence they were facing in the South. Our country was facing some pretty difficult issues and they all weave their way into my novel. Somehow I have to take all of these, combine them with the character’s lives and the burning of the hotel, and tie them all together nicely to bring it to a satisfying end.

It’s felt nearly impossible. My hubby told me to look at the last line of the 7^th Harry Potter book for inspiration. Not joking, it ends with, “All is well.” Not going to work with my book! Better turn to some tragic Shakespeare or Edgar Allen Poe for inspiration!

Seriously though, inspiration can come from anywhere. I was reading a popular magazine and came across an article about the devastation caused by California wildfires. Bingo. Then of all things, the next day I put down some toast in the kitchen while I was editing my novel. I started to smell something odd, but I was so engrossed with the words on the page, that I ignored the smell until it occurred to me that something was burning. My toaster caught on fire, with smoke billowing across the kitchen and through the living room. The combination of the heart wrenching article and the smoke lingering through my house played a large part in my story coming together.

I’ve gone over and over the ending, knowing it wasn’t quite right, and now when I read it, it leaves me emotionally worked up, but in the right kind of way!