Seedtime Guesses and More

Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower. ~John Harrigan

Loved all your great guesses last week on my seed picture. Some of the guesses were of seeds I recognized - blueberries, huckleberries, gooseberries. But others of you mentioned berries that had me wondering. I'll be looking some of them up on the net. Saskatoon berries, farkleberries, Nantucket berries, Arrow wood berries and more. I definitely have to look up those farkleberries. That name is made to go in a story. But the one thing in common on all the guesses is that they were wrong. :) 

Funny thing is, I was wrong too. Here's a repost of the photo. I decided to make sure I was telling you the right tree, so I did an internet search and came up with a different tree. Well, it's really more of a bush. You know what? Now I know why the berries on that bush are blue while the bush next to it never has blue berries. They might be cousin plants but not sister ones. I thought it was a red twig dogwood, but instead it's a silky dogwood. 
http://plants.usda.gov/factsheet/pdf/fs_coam2.pdf 

But that's okay. The berries are still very pretty and the guesses didn't have to be right for you to get an entry in my book giveaway. Even better, this week I'm giving you an easy picture. I think most all of you will be able to identify these "seeds" without thinking twice. Remember you can guess on each new picture this month and get another entry in a drawing to receive one of my books (winner's choice) and a grab bag book by a different writer. I'll be posting more "seed" photos for you to guess until I draw for a couple of winners on Halloween. So you might up your chances of winning by leaving a guess on each post before then. Doesn't have to be right. Just a guess. 

A NEW STORY ROAD

You have to get up and plant the seed and see if it grows, but you can't just wait around, you have to water it and take care of it.                                                                             ~Bootsy Collins

That's true with most everything in life from planting a garden in the spring to beginning down a new story road the way I am right now. I'm at the "grow the idea in my head a little bit more" stage. In writing, the same as in planting seeds in dirt, you do have to actually plant the seeds. In writing, that means I have to put my fingers on the keyboard and type words that will grow into a story. At least, that will be my hope. 

The initial story idea is sometimes like an odd little tree sprout I might come across. I see the sprout there. The idea. But I need more. I need limbs and branches, leaves and twigs. And everything needs to connect and interact to make a story something like I envisioned when I allowed my idea seed to germinate and begin growing. 

The seed of everything is in everything else. ~Anaxagoras

As always, thanks for reading. 

A Sister Walk Back in Time

"For there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy weather; to cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to life one if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands." ~Christina Rosetti

Took a walk with my sisters this afternoon and we attempted a selfie. Needed an extension on my arm. It wasn't quite long enough, but looks like our smiles are still showing. Sisters are good for smiles. 

In some ways, we took a walk back in time as we went to the farm where we grew up. When I was a young teen, I used to walk back into this wooded area every chance I got, especially in the fall when the trees started changing colors. There were several landmarks that I noted each time and so today I looked for those places. 

This old tree is one of them. It was along the main path and at its base was a rock with a hole in it. I always stopped there to give that rock another look. Now the tree is old, surely in its last days since only a few branches showed leaves. The rock was still at the base of the tree. Well, of course it was. Rocks don't get up and walk away, but the rock was covered with a thick layer of dirt and moss. I could have dug around and uncovered that hole in the rock, but I didn't. I left it undisturbed. It wouldn't have had the same wonder it had when I discovered it as a kid. No where near.

It was interesting to hear the landmarks my sisters had noted and remembered from their young days. A burr oak here. A persimmon tree there. And a creek or two. And what about that pond up on top of the hill? Or where was the hickory nut tree where we used to gather nuts in the fall? 

We walked and walked. We talked and talked. We laughed and wondered why we weren't seeing more deer. Guess we forgot about the talking and laughing. We looked up at the tree tops and down at the late season flowers. We began to wonder if we'd ever see civilization again, but we did see trees. Beautiful hardwood trees that are taking over the property. And we were glad we had shared memories.

My sisters and I are sharing a lot right now as we go through all Mom's things in her house. Mom was the last one standing and in her house, she stored the memories of two extended families. Those memories are being passed down to us and to our children now. So many things with little or no market value but that are invaluable to us because in those things reside memories. 

That's what our walk did too. Rekindled memories of when we were teens and wandered through those trees. The trees weren't the same. They were better since the hardwood trees are beginning to smother out the cedars. A beautiful place to walk and share with my sisters and to remember. 

Do you have special places you can share with your siblings? 

"God said you'll need somebody to drive you crazy, to get you in trouble, to know you as no one else does, to love you when no one else will ...And so He made a sister!"

The Sky is Always There

 Leaves or no leaves, the sky is always there. The firs up on top of the Smoky Mountains are being killed by a very small insect. They say it is so small that it's hard to see, and yet it has destroyed forests of fir trees and denuded the tops of the mountains in places. 


We sometimes think if we can't see something, it doesn't pose much of a threat. And yet... There are many things we can't see. Things not discovered by humankind for centuries. The tiny germs that attack our health. The tiny germs that keep us healthy. Atoms, neutrons, electrons, sound waves, and more. Did you ever think about how the t.v. signal gets to your t.v. set? I mean really. We might know the scientific reason, but when you think about all those pictures and sounds flying through the air to this antenna or that. And now up into space to bounce back again to this or that satellite dish. My mother sometimes says, if it had been up to her, we'd still be living in caves. That goes for me too.

But I do have an imagination for storytelling. Saturday at the Books by the Banks festival in Cincinnati, several people asked how I wrote stories. How do you do it? Where do the stories come from? And I never have a good answer for them. It can seem as mysterious to me as those many t.v. signals flying to televisions all over the world. Maybe even more mysterious because those in the know can explain how the t.v. signals work. 

 All I can say is that the sky is always there and against that sky can be many different pictures. A person's imagination is the same. A sky waiting for the pictures to come - waiting for the story. This one bare and dramatic. The next colorful and adorned with leaves. Perhaps a majestic eagle flying alone or a formation of geese or a cloud of black birds. But the sky is there. And so the imagination is there waiting for images to show up against it.



What do you think about where stories come from? Or do you just think that some people have to stretch things to figure out a way to use the pictures they take? Whichever, imagination surely comes into play. We need stories and we need faith and love. And we need trees against the sky.


Thanks for reading. Hope you have a blessed and happy week.

"  You see things and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'"  (George Bernard Shaw)

Some Trees to Remember

What is your favorite tree? Thanks, Jane, for letting us know some of your favorites. I've been trying to think of my own and of course, couldn't narrow it down to one. I enjoy walking among the trees. Taking a path that leads through some towering oaks or golden maples. Even as a kid, I would pick out this or that tree that was a landmark of beauty. But then I thought trees were for fun too. There was a willow tree in our yard where I grew up that had branches that grew to the ground. It was great fun to go inside the branches of that tree and set up my own little world. Then we had sycamore trees we called "monkey" trees because we could climb them with little difficulty.

More recently there are maple trees in our yard and fields that turn beautiful colors in the fall. One in our front yard used to cast a pink glow through our front window. Unfortunately the wind and ice storms have taken a toll on it, but the last section of it struggles on. We have a swing on it for the grandkids now. Of course the oaks are majestic, and the apple trees generous. And there's one old tree over in the field that could be a Halloween tree. It looks a little spooky, but then getting older can make us a little spooky sometimes. Maybe my favorite trees right now are the tall yellow poplars over in the field. I suppose when I think about it, I can't narrow it down to one or even ten favorites. Each beautiful tree is a gift that can lift my spirits and make me glad to breath the air they so generously provide.

Here are some tree quotes.

• Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come. --Chinese Proverb
• For a tree to become tall it must grow tough roots among the rocks. - Friedrich Nietzche
• The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now. - Proverb
• The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. --Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence. -- Hal Borland, Countryman: A Summary of Belief
• Many people, other than the authors, contribute to the making of a book, from the first person who had the bright idea of alphabetic writing through the inventor of movable type to the lumberjacks who felled the trees that were pulped for its printing. It is not customary to acknowledge the trees themselves, though their commitment is total. -Rada and Forsyth, Machine Learning

Hope you get out and enjoy some trees this fall. Share some of your favorites with us in the comments section if you want. And if you're in the SC area, don't forget to come by and say hello at my booksignings in Greenville and Spartanburg at the Barnes and Noble stores on Thursday and Friday nights. Talk to you Sunday.