The Glass is Always Half Full

Kerry, the heroine of my new novel, The Hopeful Romantic, and I have something in common: we believe that things will always turn out okay.

Sunny optimism is almost a requirement for gardeners (what do you know, Kerry gardens too!). How else can you stick seeds in the ground every spring, and trust that plants will sprout and grow from those seeds and eventually feed you? Living on Berryridge Farm, surrounded by a forest in the middle of the Foothills, takes an even more optimistic spirit. John and I grow plants that we trust will survive, despite the constant onslaught of critters determined to steal, gobble up, or otherwise demolish them: deer, rabbits, birds, mice, voles, slugs and our tiny "friends" the aphids and cabbage worms.

Fencing, nets, raised and screened beds, and row cover only goes so far--so we're always glad when a new predator shows up. (Except for mountain lions.) Last week, John saw an animal we'd never before encountered, some kind of skinny rodent with a bushy tail. He of course Googled it, and discovered it's a kind of weasel. Normally, the thought of any more rodents on our place will put me in a tailspin, but apparently, these weasels eat voles. So it's all good!

Anyway, as I dive into another planting season, looking at the bright side gets me through. I'm just sure that this year, my tomato plants won't get blight, that the robins won't sneak inside the nets and devour our blueberries. or slugs won't mow down my new rows of teensy spinach seedlings. I'm heading outside now, but not before I put on my rose-colored glasses!

Mother's Day Goodreads Giveaway!

What's more appropriate for Mother's Day than mothers and love? Maybe...a story about both? Starting today, you can sign up for a free, autographed copy of my novel Mother Love! The Goodreads giveaway runs from May 5 to May 12.

Mother Love, the second novel of the Village of Ballydara series, is about falling in love...or trying not to. It's also about mothers, traditional and not-so-traditional. Here's more about the story...

In this rollicking tale, meet brash, irreverent Grainne Larkin, a modern Irish heroine juggling family relationships and the man she can’t forget…   

Grainne wants three things: her mother's love, a baby, and Rafe Byrne—not necessarily in that order. On Rafe's wedding day, Grainne is keen for a fresh start—why not settle for the nice guy in the wings who’s successful, and mad about her too? Just as Grainne is poised to get her future on track, her family pressures her to leave Dublin for the quaint little village of Ballydara, to help her mother launch a B&B. Given her turbulent relationship with her mam, the last thing Grainne wants to do is live with her.

But when Rafe, her old flame, turns up in Ballydara a free man, Grainne takes a page from her favorite fictional heroine Scarlett O’Hara: she plunges into a no-holds-barred pursuit of the child she wants so badly. But Grainne soon discovers that opening her heart—to Rafe, to the prospect of motherhood, and to her mother—is the biggest risk of all… 

See more about Mother Love, my new novel The Hopeful Romantic, and the Village of Ballydara series at www.susancolleenbrowne.com! 

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up…Your Homestead

Marie Kondo, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up  has a lot of wisdom. In fact, when it comes to decluttering, she’s nailed it: Keep what makes you happy and brings you joy, and let go of what doesn’t. So simple, so elegant...right?

I only wish it were that easy! Tidying up Berryridge Farm, I mean. The stumbling block to making magic happen is that country life, food gardening, and generally living closer to the land requires a ginormous amount of…stuff.

My wake-up call occurred recently, when we undertook a major muck-out of our shop-garage: spring cleaning, de-cluttering, and generally tidying up the place. Just having finished Kondo's book, I was sure the job would be pretty straightforward, although (embarrassing disclosure here) we'd left the shop to its own devices for a couple of years. Trying to follow her suggestions, I discovered that all the good intentions didn't matter, because the stuff  is in charge:

If you, like us, are running a small country place without benefit of a tractor, rototiller, or any other large, labor-saving equipment, you need a lot of hand tools. A lot. And you will find that you never met a tool of any kind you didn’t like. 

Engaging in all kinds of homesteady activities—cutting and splitting wood, digging garden beds, clearing ground and cutting brush—you will find that you’re always needing this or that tool: a new hatchet or splitting maul, cultivator, shovel (after you’ve worked your previous tools so hard you’ve rendered them unusable) to at least try to keep up with your workload.

If you’re not having enough trouble keeping your place tidy, you always find yourself needing a bit of wire, a length of rope or twine, a chunk of pipe, a piece of lumber oh, how I could go on. And where are you going to put it all? Well, in addition to all your chores, you'll need to keep building more and more sheds to hold your stuff.  

You may ask, how in the world did you get yourself into this mess? Well, the reason you have so much stuff is directly related to the Number 1 Rule of Homesteading: you never, ever toss something out because you might need it…Someday.

Which goes along with the Number 2 Rule of Homesteading: you never, ever toss out a busted tool or broken piece of equipment because you might find the time to fix it…Someday.

If you’re also married to an ardent hobbyist (say, a sportsperson, a woodworker, or keeper of the family media archives) who’s too busy to do these fun, relaxing activities but has many, many plans to take them up when he or she has the time, you discover that on a homestead, Someday is a hotly anticipated date. 

I was a very tidy person before we moved out to the Boonies. My house and yard was in order both literally and figuratively. Now, however, each day I cultivate not the habit of tidying up, but being able to walk past a mess without my tidy gene having a spasm.

And here’s the other thing: there’s a really, really unfortunate result of not finding the time, energy, or fire-in-the-belly to tidy up your country place—but that’s for another day.   

International Day of Happiness!

What a happy coincidence (or not), that this year, the first day of Spring coincides with the third annual International Day of Happiness! I'm celebrating the day by sharing my favorite "happy" quote (which I found after an hour of tearing my office apart but it was worth it!):

"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy." W.B. Yeats

Today, I'm very happy to announce that my 3rd Irish novel, The Hopeful Romantic, is now on Amazon pre-order! I imagine that the angsty fellow Yeats was talking about, whoever he is, probably would not have appreciated today's festival of happiness. But I hope you're having a day full of joy, serendipity, and hopes for a fun Spring ahead!

Broth is the new Red Bull: The latest trend in energy drinks

Traditional bone broth, made with water, bones, meat and vegetables simmered together, is becoming the trendiest new health food since smoothies came along. When I read in a recent TIME article that there’s even a bone-broth boutique in (where else) New York City, it just goes to show: everything old is new again.

Whether the focus on meat is an offshoot of the Paleo diet, or extra cold winter weather has created a fresh appreciation for soup, I think homemade broth is a great cure for the mid-winter blahs. Here at Berryridge Farm, I’ve been on a real soup kick lately. While I’m not a big meat eater, I always make my soups with homemade poultry broth. Lots of recipes start with bones and uncooked meat (the TIME article included a recipe for chicken broth, using both) but for me, it’s easiest to use the carcass of a roasted chicken or turkey.

I roasted a 15-pound turkey for our New Year’s dinner, and did something a bit different this time. While I have long stuffed the bird cavity with onion and sprigs of sage and thyme from the garden, I took a chance and followed the suggestion of my sister Patricia, a splendid cook and baker (you can find her at www.comfortdish.blogspot.com). I rubbed the outside of the bird with olive oil and lots of herbs and spices before roasting as usual.

My homemade rub included not only Betty Crocker-approved salt and pepper, but loads of garlic powder, cumin, chili powder and Italian seasoning. Once I got the bird rubbed down, and set more sage leaves on the skin, I was like, with all these spices this bird is going to taste kinda…funky. But, I figured, no guts, no glory, so I went with it.

The meat turned out to be more flavorful than any turkey I’d ever roasted! Not at all over-seasoned. So I had high hopes for the broth. The next day, after picking the bird nearly clean I stuffed the carcass into my big Dutch oven, and filled the pot with water. After bringing the pot to a gentle boil, I turned the burner down to its lowest setting for a 2 ½ hour simmer.

The broth smelled fabulous. I strained out the solids and as soon as the broth had cooled, I stuck it in the fridge for soup making the next day. While John and I are as health conscious as any other Boomers, I did something entirely unprecedented: I used the broth without skimming off the thin layer of fat that had solidified on top.

My basic recipe: (amounts and prep are up to you)

Saute chopped onion, celery, peeled carrots and parsnips and fresh garlic in lots of olive until they start to get soft. If I have kale I cut it up that too (don’t use the tough center ribs). The soup is extra yummo if you do one additional step: Chop some potatoes (I use Yukon gold taters from the garden) and peeled sweet potatoes and roast them in the oven with a little olive oil until tender.

Next, pour in your homemade broth. Add a good quantity of cut-up turkey and a half cup of French lentils and bring the pot to a simmer for at least another half hour.

If I want a brothy soup, I precook the lentils. For a more stew-like dish, you can do as above. Because the roasted potatoes are likely to fall apart in the soup if you simmer them too long, I wait to add them until the last 10 minutes of cooking.

My fat-rich soup was hands-down, the absolute best soup I have ever made. The extra fat makes the soup far more filling and satisfying than any low-fat broth.  Given the cozy feeling and all-around sense of well-being you get from homemade soup, it seems to me a little turkey fat has to be good for you...especially now that full fat dairy foods have been removed from the “bad foods” list.

How I regret all those years I bought into the “saturated fat will kill you” mindset and ate margarine—margarine!—instead of butter! So in the spirit of being okay with wholesome fats in real food, I hope you’ll use full fat homemade broth in your next soup recipe…and I’d love to know how it turned out!  

Recipe for a Fairy Tale

Take a lifelong fairy fan...

Mix in a treasured photo of a baby girl dressed in a fairy costume, tiny wings on her shoulders. Add a bunch of fairy lore books, a fairy snow globe and other figurines, and make sure to include the ceramic fairy king with the bemused smile sitting on the bookshelf. Blend well and let let simmer for a few months. Then as the holidays approach, with a Eureka! moment, pour all the ingredients onto the page. The dish? Morgan Carey and The Mystery of the Christmas Fairies, a story of a magical woods and family bonding.

This gentle fantasy “novelette” for middle grade readers is set right here in the foothills. Here's more:

In Book 2 of the Morgan Carey series, Seattle fifth-grader Morgan makes a holiday visit to her grandparents’ house in the foothills of the Cascade mountains. While Morgan thinks her grandma and grandpa are great and everything, they live way out in the boonies, with no cable TV or even cell phones! Then on Christmas Eve, she’s stuck looking after the three young step-cousins she hardly knows.

Babysitting the unruly little kids during a jaunt in the woods, Morgan and her cousins are lured into an entrancing, mysterious forest, where they encounter unexpected adventures…and even dangers. Morgan must draw upon all her strength and ingenuity if they are to escape this magical world, and find their way back home for Christmas.

Now on Amazon, this heartwarming, family-friendly tale is for kids, grandparents, and anyone who is young at heart!

I hope you're having a wonderful holiday, and I wish you the best for the New Year!

Susan

Mystical Christmas

Do you enjoy stories that, while not really scary, make your spine tingle a little? I love collecting mystical stories myself, especially Irish ones. 

Here's my favorite: The mother of a creative writing student of mine had an Irish grandmother, whose surname was Quinn. This mother, an American, had recurring dreams all her life of an old castle ruin with crumbling steps. Later in life, she went to Ireland on a tour, and the bus stopped at a castle. She saw those same steps she’d seen in her dreams. The name of the castle? Castle Quinn.

And another one: a friend of mine, an Irish-American author, recently took her first trip to Ireland. Before the aircraft landed, she gazed down at the green hills of Ireland below and was completely overcome by the conviction that she belonged there. The sensation was so powerful, she said, she felt like she could have jumped right out of the plane.

I found another story I loved in the memoir Midlife Irish, by Irish-American journalist Joe Gannon. During his first trip to Ireland, Gannon says he felt this overwhelming sense that heaven, or the life beyond this one, was as close as the next room.

What do these stories have to do with Christmas, you may ask?

They remind me that Christmastime—and the entire holiday season (whatever holiday you may be celebrating)—is brimming with magic and mystery.  How else do you explain the story of St. Nicholas?  

He was a real-life bishop in 4^th century Turkey, who became the patron saint of children. Later, this historical figure became mythical—a benevolent spirit who left treasure and gifts in children’s shoes…or stockings. This mythical presence soon evolved to include Father Christmas, Santa Claus and other magical beings throughout other countries and other cultures—all of whom represent the spirit of love and generosity.

And children around the world believe in this magical spirit as strongly and as fervently as they believe in anything, long after they’re old enough to know the difference between reality and make believe. When I was 7 years old, I was sitting with my grandma in our basement rec room, watching The Laurence Welk show. I heard some thumping upstairs, and soon after, my dad called to us and said Santa had just left gifts for everyone. As I tore up the stairs, I believed…no, I knew it was Santa who’d made that noise and left those presents. There was simply no other explanation.

Which relates to the best holiday quote ever: “Seeing isn’t believing; believing is seeing.” (Judy the Elf, from the movie The Santa Clause).  Why not believe in the angels among us, in the messages from our ancestors, or in the miracles that took place in ancient times?

Charles Dickens wrote, “The dreams of childhood…its airy fables, its graceful, beautiful humane, impossible adornments of the world beyond; so good, to be believed in once, so good to be remembered when outgrown.”

So as long as you believe, believe that all things are possible, everywhere you look you’ll find the magic and mystery of the season…truly the holiday gifts that keep on giving.

Merry Christmas!