Some Angels Don't Have Wings

When we go out on our daily walk, our happy rescue dog, Sienna, has to be kept on a relatively short leash because she eats everything, and I do mean everything. She is sneaky about this. Unless we keep our eyes on her at all times, she snarfs up doggy delicacies. Her favorite is small cones from the pine trees which grow around here. Second on her list are grass clumps that fall off lawn mowers and dry in the sun.

But there are sometimes other things, unknown things, and therein lies the problem.

Most of the treasures she eats don't harm her overall digestive health, but, alas, sometimes they do. On one occasion recently, she began - how can I say this delicately - running at both ends. She obviously didn't feel well; she wasn't hungry even for her dinner and was drinking a lot of water. She at least knew not to get dehydrated.

We waited one day to see if the situation wouldn't get better on its own. It didn't. In fact, she seemed to be worse. So Ed made an appointment with our vet, a great, tall bear of a guy with a heart to match.

He heard the symptoms, listened to her heart, looked in her ears, and did all the other things that an examination of the sick might require, all while squatting down at her level and finally said, "Sienna, did you eat a bad lizard?"  (Well, that definitely was a possibility, as our island is overrun with what are called "a-NO-lees." And these are known to make cats sick. Dogs, I'd never heard. We didn't see Sienna eat such a thing, but I suppose she could have, when we weren't looking.)

After checking a stool sample and finding no parasites, the vet prescribed a medication for each end of Sienna and an antibiotic, just in case. Then he squatted down at her level again, and she wagged her tail and nuzzled up close so he could pet her and love her and tell her everything was going to be okay. Then, in a soft voice, he asked her, "Will you forgive me for taking your temperature?"

It's wrenching when your baby gets sick, and thank heavens there are angels to help.

Not Your Mother's Fruitcake

I have just made eight fruitcakes to give as holiday gifts, and I wanted to share the recipe, which is different, probably, from anything you've ever tasted and so delicious. No marinating the cakes in booze for weeks. No heavy molasses taste.

A friend, who always writes a newsy run-down of her family's activities for the year, included the recipe, which I read and immediately said, "Wow, that's for me."

(So much easier than the cookies I used to make.)

Here goes:

2 cups sugar                                        1 tsp. soda

1 cup butter, softened                         1 tsp. vanilla

4 eggs                                                  2 cups chopped dates

3 1/2 cups flour                                   2 cups chopped nuts (I used walnuts.)

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 tsp.baking powder

14 oz. pkg. flaked coconut

1# candy orange slices (chopped)

1 cup red and green candied cherries (chopped)

Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs and mix well. Add remaining ingredients and blend. (I blended the "wet" ingredients with a mixer, then added the fruits and nuts and continued mixing with my hands.) Spoon the thick batter into greased and floured loaf pans Aluminum throw-aways are good. Alternatively, you could use one bundt pan. Bake at 250 degrees for 2-3 hours - less time if using loaf pans, more for a single bundt pan. The cakes are done when a toothpick comes out clean and the top is brown. My oven took 2 hours 20 minutes for four loaf pans.

Where in the World is Montserrat?

Right now, I'm reading page proofs for my book Goat Water Is Not What You Think: The Montserrat Island Life of Two Hoosiers and the Volcano That Ended It. The publication date will be sometime in the early spring of 2014! 

Several people have asked me where the island of Montserrat is located. Although it is relatively unknown as a vacation destination and sometimes is omitted altogether from maps of the Caribbean, Montserrat lies 27 miles southwest of Antigua, which is a well-known cruise ship stop-off. St. Kitts is about the same distance to the northwest. On a clear day, both can be seen from Montserrat.

All three of the above-mentioned islands are part of a long chain extending from Puerto Rico in the north and continuing south to the coast of Venezuela. A lot of these islands are ports of call for winter-weary North Americans.

Most Caribbean islands were formed by volcanic activity, either long since ended or at least quiet for now. A volcano on Montserrat, unfortunately, came to life in 1995 and over the intervening years has destroyed the southern two-thirds of the island. That substantial chunk of Montserrat remains a "no go zone."

Montserrat's volcano

How long will it remain so? Will it never be inhabited again? You can never say never, I suppose. This past summer, we visited Pompeii, which is in southern Italy near Naples and Sorrento. Over the years, people have moved back into the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius, which erupted and destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD. Its last eruption was in 1944, but another "Big One" is expected.     

An October-November Surprise

It is fall in southwest Florida, which means that a few trees, like the bald cypress and the frangipani, are losing their needles/leaves and will remain naked all winter. They are in the minority, however, and most gardens remain green, which is one reason snowbirds like to congregate here. It isn't only the warm breezes and the blue skies that attract them.

We have another deciduous plant that also loses its leaves, but follows that phase almost immediately with extravagant blooms, all the better to ward off our version of winter. These flowers, in various shades of pink, will stay on the trees almost until it's time to leaf out again. Called the silk floss tree, this fall stunner is a relative of the kapok.

Next spring, the silk floss tree will sport, along with its new leaves, avocado-size pods containing silky threads, but they are not as good as kapok for stuffing. The silk floss tree has a couple of other strange characteristics. The trunk is bulbous at the bottom and is covered with nasty-looking thorns.

A similar, but unrelated, tree on St. John in the Virgin Islands is called the "monkey no climb tree."

After a Long Summer

I know I've not been blogging for a long time, and here is the reason: I have spent the last five months completely rewriting a book I've written - with the working title of Goat Water Is Not What You Think: The Montserrat life of two Hoosiers and the volcano that ended it.

The book will be out in the first half of 1914! I finished the fifth run-through of the manuscript Saturday and sent it off to the publisher. Next, I will help select what photos will be included, help with the cover design, go through the manuscript for errors, and help plan how the book will be marketed. I'll have a lot of work to do between now and publication day.

As you can imagine, this is a very exciting time for me.

Back in the early 1960s, I wrote a novel, which was turned down by about 25 publishers before I shelved it. I haven't looked at it since, but I can imagine it is really terrible -although I received several hopeful rejection letters. Later in the 1960s, I wrote a short book about our experiences in the U.S. Army; it too failed to find a publisher.

But I am not one to quit; I thought our lives on the island of Montserrat - including the build-up to the volcano - were so interesting I wanted to share what happened to us. From time to time between now and the Spring, I'll share some snippets of the Montserrat years with you.

I hope you are all well and happy!

Carol

No Palm Trees

In Indiana, we got no palm trees. We got no alligators. We got no "no see'ums." We got no osprey. We got no hibiscus. Well, then, what do we got?

Mustard or Catsup?

We got the "wienermobile." The famous vehicle travels around the country advertising the Oscar Mayer wiener, which is part of a line of meats that originated in Chicago more than 100 years ago. The yellow and orange wienermobile was in Indianapolis for festivities before and during the 500-mile race, which was last Sunday. In fact, the wienermobile's driver was staying in the same extended-stay motel we are.

What else do we got? We got this bunny, which has been living in the daylily patch just outside a nearby door. As it rained all day today - a bummer - the cotton tail hid herself away to stay dry. But at dinner time, she came out of hiding for a photo op.

Visiting friends in the area where Ed and I were born and grew up makes up for all the rain we've been having. Sienna, our rescue dog, is having a wonderful time, too. She especially loves the green grass and the chance to watch Canada Geese flying over and honking at each other.

Indiana is different from our home in Florida, that's for sure. But we have fun either place.

  

From There to Here

I haven't posted here for quite a while because we've been on the road. Let me explain: Every May we pack up our car with necessities, to include the dog crate, a stapler, scissors, file folders, laptop computers and, oh yes, some clothes, and drive 1,200 miles from our home in Florida to our temporary home in Indiana. That's where we were born, and that's where many of our friends still live.

We spend two months in Indiana, mostly visiting some of those friends. On many days, we meet somebody for lunch and somebody else for dinner. In addition, my husband plays clarinet in an "Old Geezers" band and takes private clarinet lessons. He's trying to unlearn some of the bad habits he learned back when he was in college!

As for me, I am editing a memoir I've written about our four-year experience living on a Caribbean island. The last year we spent the winter there, we watched as a volcano worked up to an eruption, or, I should say, a series of eruptions, which continue even today. In 1997, our house was incinerated by a pyroclastic flow of hot rocks and gases, and that was the end of that.

In Indianapolis, we stay in a little suite in an extended-stay motel. This is our fourth year here, and members of the staff call us by name when we walk in the door. The staff, including the women who clean and replenish the towels, the desk clerks and the maintenance engineers, have almost all stayed the same, attesting to the caliber of management.

Just like home 

The bromeliad in this picture - so reminiscent of our home in Florida - was given to us by the staff as a welcome gift.