And Then It Rained

(I am in love with pagoda dogwood!)

Reminder: This Thursday, June 11, at 4 p.m. at Dog Ears Books, author Robert Downes will give his presentation on Native American history prior to European exploration. This is a free event and one you can take in before your dinner hour!

Seasonal thoughts and projects

Reading one of Jean-Luc Bannalec’s murder mysteries the other evening at bedtime, I ran across a phrase—and here I have to paraphrase what would be a translation, anyway—about summer always arriving on a certain day. That is, there is a day when you feel, at last, Yes, this is summer. I felt that way last Friday. It wasn’t the first day I’d been able to have the bookshop door open, nor the first day warm enough to go about in sandals and without a jacket, but it felt different. Not just a temperate spring day, but summer. 

That being the case, my two “days off,” Sunday and Monday, were busy ones at home. Accomplishments included getting my lawn mower working again (it had gone on strike, and I was able to persuade it back to work again all by myself!), mowing grass, running out to a couple of nearby garden centers for more plants (both flowers and vegetables), getting all the new arrivals in soil (either in the ground or in planters), along with catching up on laundry, hanging the heavy items out on the line and later bringing them indoors to fold, wrapping up the day by watering everything, even though rain was in the forecast for after midnight.

The garden is coming together.

Did it rain overnight? If so, I slept through it. Morning was misty and calm, my world jungly green, only a sweet, slight breeze through the open window. No need to water on Tuesday, so, after her morning sortie, Sunny and I had a leisurely porch breakfast. Later in the day, it rained for sure. 

Poppy after rain

All three cuttings I took from my cranberrybush viburnum survived the winter well, one of them even flowering its very first solo season, which encourages me to try more of this manner of propagation. For 2026, the experiment I have in mind is pagoda dogwood, Cornus alternifolia, which I am delighted to discover blooming very close to my house as a volunteer, not far from the legion of volunteer black raspberries I depend on harvesting every summer for my signature ‘blackstraw’ jam, a combination of black strawberries and good local strawberries. Yum!

Dogwood again...

...and raspberry-to-be!

Again, reading

Besides the Bannalec mystery, I’ve been reading, a few pages at a time and in English translation, Voltaire’s Gargantua and Pantagruel but don’t know if I’ll get through the whole fat paperback volume. It is entertaining, I admit, but entertaining in the way of “Saturday Night Live” rather than as a movie with a strong narrative from beginning to end. Lots of smart-aleck nicknames and jokes. Lots to do with controversies of Voltaire’s time and his opinions. A few pages at a time, I can do. The whole thing? In my mother’s deadly phrase, We’ll see!

Thoughts on “being an author”

An author is the originator of a written work. Some authors are writers by profession, while others are not. 

Being a professional writer, like being a professional musician or fine artist, involves long-term commitment, sometimes lifetime commitment. Other people come late in life to writing, often as a second (or even third) career in retirement. 

Not all professional writers are book authors; they may author (the word here functions as a verb) articles or short magazine stories. Some are journalists or columnists or grant writers. Also, not all authors of published books consider themselves—or even aspire to be—career writers.

I’ve been sorting through my thoughts on this because a couple of women visited my bookshop recently with a new book written by one of them. “I’m not really an author,” Jennifer Sager said, modestly introducing her book. “She keeps saying that!” her friend protested. After the three of us conversed for a while, and I took a careful look at the book they had brought in to show me, I said to Sager insistently, “You are the author of this book!” And she is, whether or not she ever writes another. 

Steph’s Story, published by a relatively new small press in Bloomington, Indiana, Filibuster Press, is a story Jennifer Sager felt “compelled” to write. Jennifer is a middle daughter who grew up with an older and a younger sister. The oldest, Stephanie, was born with Down syndrome. In telling of her sister’s life, the author of Steph’s Story also tells her own journey from sheltered childhood to dawning realization of handicaps faced by many different groups of people for various reasons. Because her parents did not heed doctors’ advice to put Stephanie in an institution (and “try again” for a “normal” child), Jennifer’s growing up introduced her to a range of other young people with disabilities, from those in wheelchairs to those with high-functioning autism. Only as she grew older and had experience outside her immediate neighborhood did she realize that poverty and skin color, like disability, could trigger discrimination. 

All of the author's factual information, history, and advocacy, however, is woven into a very personal, engaging story. I started reading on Monday evening and had soon eagerly devoured over 100 pages.

Three sisters! For me, as the oldest of a trio of sisters, that idea alone sparked my interest, but it was Jennifer’s love for Steph and her joy in their bond that is holding me page after page. Who wouldn’t enjoy this book? I’m sure the affirmative messages will be especially important for anyone with a child or grandchild who diverges from the “norm,” but I’m also sure that anyone at all interested in families—and who of us is not?—will enjoy reading Steph’s Story. 

From where I stand

Is this section a rant? Call it what you will.

Let me first note, briefly, that a request for evidence is not satisfied by insults, name-calling, or the sheer repetition of an unsupported claim. However loudly you may yell, however nasty you get with the person who asked for evidence, if yelling and name-calling and hurling insults is all you can do, that just tells me is that you have no evidence, no ground for your claim. You know who and what I'm talking about here. 

Day after day, it remains astonishing to me how many Americans are willing to accept not only patently false claims but outrageously bad public behavior from someone elected to serve our country. Serve, not harm, not injure, certainly not destroy. What are they, those sticking with him, getting from supporting loss of dignity and destruction of hope for others? Anything other than the satisfaction of seeing their opposition’s misery and frustration? 

Now, something else: Less than 1% of the American population identifies as transgender. One percent. Of this one percent, only 0.002% (ten out of 500,000) are college athletes. How and why did transgender people come to be such a huge political issue? 

Two words: smoke screen. 

Just say the word ’transgender,’ and certain groups of people completely freak out. They are filled with fear, their fear fuels their rage, and they forget everything else. Jobs are vanishing while wars are not. The rich get richer as the poor get poorer and sicker and more and more disenfranchised. 

Someone must be blamed for the woes that afflict us! Where do we look for a scapegoat? Let’s find a very small, vulnerable population and focus fear and anger on them!

I am so tired of that cruel strategy and sick of watching people fall for it!

On the other hand--a life well lived!

Leelanau Township lost a priceless citizen recently. At 99 years of age, however, Julia Brabanec was ready to go. “I don’t know why I’m still here,” she had confided to me in one of our visits in her last year. 

Julia's contributions to the northern Michigan food landscape were featured in Emita Brady Hill’s 2020 nonfiction book, Northern Harvest: Twenty Michigan Women in Food and Farming.  In fact, the first chapter in the book is “Julia Brabanec,” in the opening section, “Two Orchards and a CSA: Becoming Organic.”

Julia and her late husband John first came to Leelanau County on their honeymoon in 1948. Later they bought land here and on it developed an organic orchard. The Brabanecs lived simply, pumping water from their well and lighting their house with kerosene lamps until a home wind generator enabled them to electrify. They did almost everything themselves, too, so although they built the foundation for their new (second) home on the property in 1985, the house was finished only in 2005 with the help of their children. Julia and John were always too busy farming to build a house. One thousand, one hundred trees—apples and peaches—“mom & pop” doing it all, from planting to delivery.

If you haven’t read Northern Harvest yet, you really should, to learn the rest of Julia’s story, as well as that of other women in food and farming in Northern Michigan. 

My late husband always referred to John and Julia as “the Helen and Scott Nearing of Leelanau County.” John died 16 years ago, and I remember his funeral well. Julia wanted to go out more quietly, and she got her wish. 

It’s easy sometimes to say and think, as we witness the passing of the old guard, that the future will never again know such good people, and yet I see men and women in younger generations already coming up with solid values such as Julia and John lived by: love of the land; belief in organic methods; a strong work ethic; and dedication to the future. That last is what it all comes down to, isn’t it? Care for the future and all who live on the land, urban and rural. Respect for life and the dignity of all.

I am honored to have a beautiful portrait of Julia Brabanec, a photograph by author Emita Brady Hill, behind my bookstore desk, as I am honored to have known Julia Brabanec and to have counted her as a friend.

Julia Brabanec: A good life, well lived!