Up next to entertain and stimulate us this weekend is Miz Kathleen Y’Barbo.

Romance fills Miz Kathleen’s thoughts. She dearly loves spinning a good tale about a man and woman in the throes of an unexpected love.

Shoot, ah like reading those stories! Sets my blood to pumping and my thoughts whirling.

So get the kinks out of your get-along and come join us.

We’ll save you a seat!

 A few weeks ago I blogged about loading up the “pod” and our upcoming move to Lexington, Kentucky. The Pod is long gone, which means my husband and I are camping in our own home.  My youngest son is here, so he’s camping too. The only things we have in the house are things that will fit in my car and my husband’s pick-up truck, or stuff we plan to give to the Salvation Army. 

It’s amazing to discover just how little we need to live. We have a couple of beds, a love seat, an old chair that belongs to the dog, one television, a coffee table, and few other pieces of flotsam and jetsam.

My kitchen is empty except for one cabinet that has a couple of plates, cereal bowls, one fork and too many spoons. I’m not sure how that happened. Somehow I kept out all the spoons and only one fork. I’ve got one mixing bowl, one cooking pot and my favorite microwavable bowl.

Compared to what was in the cabinets three weeks ago, we’re down to bare essentials.

You know what?  I’m enjoying the simplicity.  No clutter. No mess.  With my life stripped down to basics, I’ve thought often about that Conestoga wagon and how people took care of themselves.

When it’s dinner time around here, I put a frozen pizza in the oven or head to Subway for sandwiches.  Pioneers traveling by covered wagon cooked over campfires. That meant gathering fuel for the fire, either wood or buffalo chips.  I hit “start” on the microwave, or turn a knob and hear the clicking of the electronic starter on the stove. The women traveling west struck a match and tended the fire as they made meals from what they’d brought and what was available.  

Local plants and animals supplied much of their food, but they had to haul along flour, sugar, coffee, beans and other essentials. They could make some purchases from forts and trading posts along the way, but you know how prices go.  When things are in short supply, prices go sky high.  And there were no guarantees supplies would be available.  Me?  Lately I’ve been heading to the local market (Giant or Safeway in this area) and picking out pre-packaged cold cuts, frozen dinners, potato chips for my husband and Mighty Dog for Hartley (our beagle / Jack Russell mix).

The men and women traveling by covered wagon packed bacon in 100 lb. sacks with bran to preserve it in the heat. They carried 100 lb. sacks of flour, double bagged and carefully stitched. Vegetables were desiccated before the trip. They were cut thin, pressed, dried and as hard as rocks until cooked in water. Canned vegetables could be taken on the trip, but they were heavy and took up space. Me? I can buy fresh, frozen or canned vegetables ranging from corn to jalapenos and I don’t think twice about it. It’s all so easy, and I take it totally for granted.  

Some early travelers took things for granted as well, and they learned a hard lesson. As I was researching this blog, I came across a story in A Hand-Book for Overland Expeditions by Randolph B. Marcy, Captain U.S. Army.  He wrote: “I once traveled with a party of New Yorkers en route for California . . . They soon learned that Champagne, East India sweetmeats, olives, etc., etc., were not the most useful articles for a prairie tour.”

Can you imagine being hungry for a real meal and finding only olives and champagne? That’s the kind of snack that makes you appreciate home-cooking. So does frozen pizza!  My goal for this move is to be settled by Thanksgiving so I can make a big turkey dinner.

What about you?  Have you ever lived a stripped-down life?  If you were moving and had to reduce your kitchen to bare essentials, what would you have in your fridge?

And one last thing . . . Next week the Fillies are doing a Western Recipe Week.  Check in for some great meal ideas that don’t come with microwave instructions!

Stories of the vast size of the buffalo herds in the American west have always left me with doubts. Could the herds have been this big?

The talk of buffalo herds miles across, the whole land alive and moving as they migrated, walking along grazing.

Because of that I found some supposedly reliable first person accounts of the size of the massive herds.

In 1832, after skirting the north fork of the Platte River, Captain Benjamin Bonneville climbed a high bluff that gave him a wide view of the surrounding plains. “As far as the eye could see,” he reported. “The country seemed absolutely blackened by innumerable herds.” (The CAPTAIN at the beginning of his name gives him credibility…right? I will urge you here to discount Captain Crunch and Captain Kangaroo.)

John K. Townsend, while crossing the Platte Valley, stopped on the rise of a hill to view a similar scene. The whole region, he wrote, “was covered by one enormous mass of buffaloes. Our vision, at the least computation, would certainly extend ten miles; and in the whole of this vast space, including about eight miles in width from the bluffs to the river bank, there apparently was no vista in the incalculable multitude.” (I like this story. He inserts his own limitations…Our vision, at the least computation, would certainly extend ten miles….this is a guy who is trying to give details)

One Texas pioneer described a herd which he said covered fifty square miles. (How could he estimate that-see this is when my ‘doubts’ begin)

Another reported that he saw between two and three million buffaloes at one time. (Impossible to estimate that. But then I’m someone who says, there were four hundred people in that crowd…and it ends up being 150. I’m a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad estimator…maybe this buffalo counter wasn’t)

A third told of herds that he estimated held four million head. (Again, hello? What hill was he standing on that he could see, count, estimate, whatever)

On the Missouri River in the summer of 1867, the steamer Stockdale, in charge of Captain Grant Marsh, was held up while a herd of snorting and bellowing buffalo crossed the stream. The buffaloes became so thick that the boat could not move, and the captain had to stop its engines. Many of the animals became entangled with the wheel, while others beat against the sides and stern, blowing and pawing. It was hours before the whole herd had crossed and the boat could continue its voyage. (Now here is a very specific, cool, lengthy DETAILED story. With multiple witnesses. Also we boat on the Missouri River. Yikes.)

In 1869 there are reports of buffalo in western Kansas in a herd so immense it held up a Kansas Pacific train for nine hours while it crossed the track. (Lots of witnesses here. A whole Train Load!)

In the early 1870’s, Texas drovers taking longhorn cattle up the Chisholm Trail had to stop in the Indian Territory to let buffalo herds cross their path. The cowmen feared that the buffaloes would cause the cattle to stampede and that some of the longhorns would join the buffalo. (I wonder if any ever did?)

And then came the buffalo hunters.

As the story goes, in the winter of 1871-72, J. Wright Mooar learned from another hunter, Charlie Rath, that there was an order from a company in England for 500 buffalo hides, to experiment with leather. After Mooar had provided tis order, he had 57 hides left. He shipped the surplus hides to his brother in New York, asking him to see if he could interest tanners in them.

The tanners were so interested they ordered all the hides he could deliver. The demand became so great that a whole army of hunters surged into the buffalo ranges.

The buffalo harvest lasted for only seven years from 1871 to 1878. Five to six million beasts were marketed during that period. The herds were wiped out, leaving only a few thousand buffalo living out of the millions that roamed the west.

Except for a remnant in the north, the whole slaughter was completed in little more than a decade. The slaughter ended, not because anyone stepped in to put a stop to it, but because the herds were gone.

The picture at the beginning of this blog I took at a buffalo herd near me. I’ve written about that before in a post called BUFFALO~I lived to tell the tale. 

This herd is on the Winnebago Indian Reservation.

Click on the covers to purchase on Amazon

I’M DOING A BOOKSIGNING IN NORFOLK, NE THIS SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26. DETAILS HERE

 http://www.maryconnealy.com/

Good Morning!

In the tradition of some of  my recent posts, I thought I’d shower you with some traditional American Indian recipes — specifically Plains Indians.  Now, before I get started, let me reference the cook book that I’ll be using.  The info I’m giving you comes directly from the book Cooking With Spirit by Darcy Williamson and Lisa Railsback.  Grandfather George just gave this cookbook to me, so as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to share it with you.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Cooking+With+Spirit+–+North+American+Indian+Food+and+Fact&x=8&y=22

This is the url that will take you directly to Amazon and the book — there are no pictures available for the book cover at Amazon.  Sorry.  It’s a beautiful cover that I was hoping to share with you also. 

Have you ever wondered how to make pemmican, Indian Plains Corn Bread, Sioux Jerky — or maybe Sioux Prairie Turnip Pudding?

You will find these recipes and many more in this book.  But what I love about his book is that it not only gives you the recipe, but it tells you a bit of history of the recipe.  It also gives you foods that you can use and pick and eat in times of trouble — survival foods that are okay to eat when you don’t know what else to do.  Good info to have — just in case.

Okay, let’s take up Sioux Jerky — again this is from the book, Cooking With Spirit.  In cutting up the meat, don’t cut across the grain, and cut the meat into very thin slices.  One then hangs the meat on poles and makes sure that pieces of meat don’t touch one another.   Let them dry in the air naturally and cover at night.  It’s “done” when it’s hard and dry.  By the way, when I make  jerky, I usually marinade the meat in red wine and/or soy sauce and then I usually dry the meat in a dehydrator.

A friend of mine, who is Blackfeet, smokes the meat first, then dries it in the sun, or in a smoking house specially made for making jerky.   The above, by the way, is a Traditional recipe from the book.  Okay, here’s another recipe from this book:  Pemmican:  I’m quoting here:  “Dry long, thin strips of buffalo meat.  Pound meat to a coarse powder.  Cut raw fat into walnut-sized pieces and melt over the slow fire. Pour fat over pounded meat and mix in some dried serviceberries.  Mix it well and pack in parfletches.”  By the way, it was said that a few handfuls of this pemmican could nourish and keep a man going all day long.

And here’s another traditional recipe:  Coal Roasted Buffalo:

Ensure meat is at room temperature.  Rub the meat all over with garlic and place the meat directly on the coals (wood coals).  If one wished a rare roast, one roasted it about 15 minutes per pound, or if medium, about 20-25 minutes per pound.  Actually this sounds delicious.    There’s also A Wind River Reservation recipe for Lena’s Water Crackers, as well as Roasted Antelope, Pawnee Prairie Chicken and popped wild rice.

But most of all I thought I’d leave you with this quote from the book, which I found fascinating:  “Many of the plants are healers and grow in families or tribes. They can be sun plants or moon plants, their sap or “blood” moving with the rising and setting of the sun(male) or waxing and waning of the moon (female).  There is a chief (sun) or mother (moon) plant that is the guardian of the family and it is to them an offering is made (usually tobacco or corn pollen) in exchange and recognition of their healing powers…

“When any leaf or stem, flower or root is taken, consideration is given as to where the sap’s power is most prevalent. ..

“When medicine is sought for healing, one must bear in mind that plants taken with consideration and reverence, that medicine will have far superior curing power because of the care and knowledge that went into its harest.  One cannot harm one living being and then expect to use it to cure another.  For example, taking a plant without consideration created an imbalance.  Therefore, the purpose of hearling is thwarted or defeated, as a balance of health is what is sought in the first place…”

I loved this.  There is much, much more wisdom that has been passed down from generation to generation, and it’s not simply the Plains Tribes recipes that figure in the book.  There is music, songs, poems and much, much wisdom in this book.  I recommend it highly.

I hope you’ll bear with me a moment as I thank Grandfather George for giving me this wonderful book.  If you like to cook, if you like unusal and traditional recipes, you’ll love this book.

I also hope that if you haven’t already done so, please pick up a copy of my latest book, Black Eagle, either here online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders or at your local bookstore.

What are your favorite recipes?  Did your elders teach you traditional ways of cooking or of preparing foods?  Come on in and let’s talk.

I was doing some research the other day… 

Hmmm – it seems that most of my posts open this way.  I hope you all don’t mind that I use my research efforts as fodder for this blog.  Anyway, to continue, I wanted to insert an ‘armadillo incident’ in my current work in progress, which is set in northeast Texas in 1894.  Today armadillos can be found throughout much of the state (the exception being the Trans-Pecos region).   But what kind of range did they have in 1894?.  So I started digging around for information, and along the way I discovered some interesting facts about the strange looking critters and their migration into the US. 

First off, I assume most of you know what an armadillo looks like (see the pictures included here if you don’t) but for those of you who have never actually encountered a real life armadillo face-to-face, here are some statistics:  The common name for the armadillo found in the United States is the Nine-banded Armadillo.  The adult animal is about the size of a terrier, its upper body is encased in a bony carapace with large shields on its shoulders and rump, with nine bands in between (thus the name).  Average size is 2.5 feet in length and about 13.5 lbs in weight.  They have 30-32 peg-like teeth and strong claws that aid in their burrowing.

What my research uncovered was that the armadillo didn’t make an appearance in the US until after 1850.  After that date, however, the armadillo incursion took place with amazing rapidity.  In fact, the magnitude of their annual range expansion is almost ten times faster than the average rate expected for mammals.

Learning this tidbit, I immediately began to wonder what changed at about the 1850 mark.  Digging deeper I discovered that there were three major roadblocks that initially held the armadillos back. 

• The first of these was the Rio Grande River.  Even though armadillos are good swimmers, the Rio Grande is a formidable waterway and very few armadillos would attempt such a crossing, and few of those who did survived the conditions on the other side.  Which leads to the second factor, which was
• Predators.  Not only would the  wolves and panthers of Northern Mexico and South Texas have kept the population at bay, but man hunted them as well since armadillos were highly prized for their meat. (Still are – hubby informs me that he has eaten armadillo and found it quite tasty).  
• And lastly there was the matter of habitat.  While armadillos can and do survive in a number of different settings and environments, their dwelling of preference is brushy or forested terrain.  Prior to 1850, south Texas experienced annual fires (both natural and man made) that left the area covered in large part by prairie grass.

All of these factors changed when American settlers began colonizing Texas in the later half of the nineteenth century. Armadillos were able to take advantage of the increase in human traffic across the Rio Grande, to find opportunities for safer travel themselves.  In fact, it’s likely that many were deliberately brought across as a potential food source.  And the presence of humans also served to decrease the population of the natural predators such as the above mentioned wolves and panthers.  And the halting of the yearly burn-offs allowed mesquite brush to gain a foothold in the open grasslands, providing a more armadillo-friendly habitat.  The subsequent development of this territory for pasture and crop use gave the armadillo population an additional leg up as it made the land an even more suitable environment for their habitation.

So that explains how they came to immigrate to this country.  But what factors played into their rapid expansion once they made it to the US?  By nature, armadillos normally don’t stray far from the area of their birth – unless the population is high.  It seems armadillos have a high reproductive rate, with females regularly producing their young in sets of identical quadruplets.   As favorable conditions allowed their numbers to increase, they began to range farther from home.  And with life spans up to twenty years, it only took a small number of the animals to establish stable populations in new territories.

Of course, man helped speed things up along the way.  Armadillos managed to stow away on railcars that were used to transport of cattle from Texas to other states.   They were also carried to other locations as curiosities and then later escaped or were released in the wild.  For example, the Florida population had its genesis in 1924 when armadillos were set loose from a small zoo during a storm, and their foothold was further strengthened when several more escaped from a traveling circus in 1936.

Another interesting fact I learned about armadillos is how they cross a body of water .  Not surprisingly, because of their heavy shell, they tend to sink.  When crossing a very narrow body of water, like a ditch or small stream, the armadillo will simply walk across the bottom underwater – in fact it can hold its breath for up to six minutes.  When faced with a wider body of water, however, the armadillo has the ability to ingest air, enough, in fact, to inflate its stomach and intestines to twice their normal size.  This increases the animal’s buoyancy, allowing it to swim across.  Once it reaches land again, it will usually take several hours for the animal to release all of this extra air from its body.  The mechanism armadillos employ to accomplish this is still something of a mystery to scientists, but it appears to be a voluntary rather than autonomic response.

Oh, and as for my story, I did discover that armadillos became common in east Texas at around the 1900 mark.  Which means, it is probably safe to assume that a few of them had reached that area by 1894.  Or at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it…

Woo-Hoo! We have a winner for Pamela Nowak’s CHOICES.

And the winner is……….

KAITLIN

Congratulations! Now all you have to do is send your mailing info to Pamela at pamelanowak@pamelanowak.com and she’ll get the book to you before you can turn around.

Thanks to all who stopped by to chat. You really helped us show Miss Pamela why the Junction is the place to be when you’re looking for western romance!

I want to thank Petticoats and Pistols for inviting me and giving me the opportunity to share with all of you. This is a favorite site of mine and blogging with you here is beyond exciting!

This week, my second novel, Choices, was released. Set at Fort Randall, Dakota Territory in 1876, it tells the story of a rebellious officer’s daughter, an honorable enlisted man, and a forbidden relationship.  

Twenty odd years ago, when my late husband, Tim, and I were first married, we shared an avid interest in living history. He was an archaeologist, I was a history teacher, and we were both passionate about the American West. He created the persona of a soldier-a private-and I was a governess. Both of us spent scores of hours researching the period:  the army, etiquette and social rules, nineteenth century dress; and how our characters fit within it. At the same time, Tim was also the project manager of the Fort Randall Archaeological Project. We lived and breathed Fort Randall for over two years. 

Choices flowed out of that. The facts were swimming around in my head, mingling constantly into different storylines (that happens a lot with facts in my head). They begged for characters to play them out and for the words to be written down. 

The nineteenth century army had rigid sets of rules for being a soldier and complex social codes for how officers, enlisted men, and their women were permitted (or not permitted) to interact. I was amazed at how stratified society was at these western outposts and at how thoroughly officer’s wives observed those social norms. Memoirs, scholarly studies, and the notations left by army personnel all speak to the separation of classes—as defined by rank. 

But even more amazing were the exceptions. Though officers’ wives were socially superior to enlisted men’s wives, they were not officially recognized by the army. In fact, they were considered camp followers, in the same category as prostitutes who might do business just off the military reservation (their places of business were nicknamed “hog ranches”) and were allowed only at the sufferance of the commanding officer. Laundresses, who were often wives of enlisted men, were official civilian contractors with corresponding army regulations detailing their rights to be there.  

On most posts, lifestyles of the enlisted and officer classes were narrowly defined and very separate. A few diaries and memoirs offer glimpses into occasional relaxation of those barriers, most often for an all-post holiday celebration or when there was an unusual crisis. 

I wanted to share all this but also to present a story about choices, about how we all choose who we are going to be in terms of relationships with others. Miriam, my heroine, confronts rules and regulations head-on and resists them every step of the way while she seeks ways to cross the lines. I introduced her rigid and domineering mother, Harriet, to bring pressure on her to toe the line and to personify the exclusionary nature of society. Lt. Wood is representative of expectations. Mixed in is the culture of the army, Harriet’s addiction to laudanum, Jake’s honor, the laundress’s common-sense outlook on life, and Major Longstreet’s predicament of his own making. 

I hope you will find the story and fun to read as I found it to write and that my characters reveal the subtleties involved in the choices that face us all. 

I’ve enjoyed our time together. Please visit me on my website at www.pamelanowak.com.

To celebrate the release of Choices, Pam will be giving a copy to one of today’s blog participants. 

Sometimes research can turn up a gem of information that can send your story in a different direction. When writing my second novel, Touched by Love, I needed a place for the heroine’s kidnapped brother to be taken. I knew the general area where I needed him to be held, just not a specific location. And of course, it had to be historically accurate for the time period in which my story was set.

I began searching the internet for prisons used by the Mexican Army in the 1800s and found Perote Prison. The location was ideal, 600 miles into Mexico, and several hundred Texans had been incarcerated within its walls.

The Castle of San Carlos (photo to the left *) was built by the Viceroy of Mexico in the late 16^th century, 7000 feet up the mountains overlooking the port of Veracruz. It was designed as an ammunition storage facility and a military training school, and as a second line of defense for Veracruz. Both the Spanish and Mexican armies used the immense fortress as a prison. Texans captured during three disastrous expeditions against Mexico were imprisoned and died here.

The Aztecs called the place pinahuizapan, or “something-to-be-buried-in.” Situated high in the mountains, at an altitude of 7000 feet, the castle made an ideal prison. The stone and masonry walls were twelve feet high and six feet thick. The entire structure was surrounded by a wide, deep moat spanned by a single drawbridge. Add to that the weather in this high desert, and it must have seemed like the most inhospitable place on earth to those unfortunate enough to be there.

When I discovered Perote Prison, I knew it had to make an appearance in the book. I ended up writing a prologue that forced the hero to ride to this remote prison to correct a terrible mistake and save a man’s life at the possible cost of his own. The added scenes demonstrated the hero’s sense of honor and responsibility, adding depth to his character and making him more redeemable in the eyes of the reader.

Interesting, isn’t it, how a gem of information can send you off in a different direction and make your characters—and your story—better?

* J. J. McGrath & Walace Hawkins, “Perote Fort- Where Texans Were Imprisoned”, Volume 48, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online

www.tracygarrett.com

Hello Darlings,

This weekend Miss Pamela Nowak comes calling! Yee-haw!

The Fillies need your help in giving Miss Pamela a big ol’ Wildflower Junction welcome. We hope you all turn out to visit with her.

Miss Pamela has in mind to discuss the military on the frontier and how rules and regulations affected their wives. Ah know you’ll want to hear all about it.

And of particular interest, Miss Pamela will part with one copy of her new book called CHOICES. You’ll want to get your name in the hat for that.

So shake your bustles and hitch up the wagon. We’re gonna have a good time!

I got lucky last night. Every so often in anticipation of a new release I google the title in hopes of seeing the cover. Last night I found Her Colorado Man on amazon. I’m in love. Again. I didn’t think they could match Her Montana Man for favorite covers of all time, but this is right up there.

When I was asked to title this book, marketing wanted a title that screamed western. Now this cover doesn’t scream western to me, but that’s okay, because it so perfectly captures the story. This shows an evening scene during the National Mining and Industrial Exposition of 1882 in Denver, Colorado. My heroine, Mariah Spangler fills a man’s shoes at her family’s brewery, and this is her first experience dressing up and presenting herself as a lady. This is also the night Wes Burrows proposes they make their marriage real.

Thank you God, he has a face! I am not fond of the covers that cut off heads. I spend all my time looking at it, wondering what in the world the person looks like. I’ve probably had about an equal number of heroine-only or hero-only covers, less hats and flowers, and a bigger share of couples. This couple is perfect. Does he look as though he came all the way from the Yukon to be her make-believe husband?

The story itself was a couple of years in the making. When I get an idea, it’s a snippet. A glimmer of something that excites me. Here my idea was that a man in Alaska would get letters from a young boy and come to the states, pretending to be the father the boy yearned for. Making this idea believable took several tries and many versions of the plot before I finally had all characters motivated enough to pull it off. Mariah has allowed her entire family and the town of Ruby Creek to believe she has a husband off in the gold fields, so when this husband shows up, she is trapped into going along with the charade. 

The rest was magic. I love it when that happens. I always figure the more impossible a plot sounds while I’m planning it, the more beautifully it will work once I make it possible. I’m working on another one like that right now.

Her Colorado Man will be a Rhapsody book club release in hardcover at the end of November, the same time it’s released in paperback. Can’t wait to have one of those in my hands!

So, what do you think?