Gardening by Abagail Eldan

As we all know by now, we, in the United States, have been told to stay home. For some reason, this sent a panic-buying spree throughout many communities, not just for toilet paper (although we did discover most people consider that item especially essential during a pandemic), but also for groceries. 

I posted on Facebook that most farmers already practice social distancing, work in the fresh air, and do not plan to quit farming. Somehow, that did not resonate with the hoarders. They continued their hoarding. 

I further went on to say that if for reasons I cannot fathom, farmers quit producing our food, we can grow our own. Even city dwellers, if they have a small balcony, can grow at least some of their own food in pots.

Tomatoes we grew in pots. 

And after I canned the tomatoes I grew.

We've been growing some of our food each year, things such as tomatoes, peppers, collards, and turnips, all grown in raised beds near our house. 

Both my parents came from a long line of farmers. Working outside, watching vegetables grow, watching the miracle of food being produced by our own efforts with sun and rain from God brings a unique sense of satisfaction. Today, we think we need special tools, special fertilizers, and the right kind of soil. 

Not so with our ancestors. 

Almost all houses, even those in cities, had kitchen gardens. I remember my grandmother had one in the field across the red clay road from her house. Here, in the Deep South, she grew squash, cucumbers, watermelons, okra, black-eyed peas, and butterbeans plus turnips and collards in the early part of the year. Corn grew in the larger fields, and when it made, a portion of it was dried and taken to the mill where it was ground into meal or used as chicken feed.

The kitchen garden we had when I was a teenager was located in our backyard and was easy to maintain. The rows were short and easy to hoe. Besides the vegetable garden, fruit trees were also planted near the house—apple trees, peach trees, pear trees, and figs are those I remember. Most houses also had a few pecan trees. 

Figs are my favorite and easy to make into preserves.

A Three Sisters garden was popular in pioneer days. Next to the corn, pole beans were planted, and these used the corn stalks as a natural trellis. Squash was planted between the corn and beans. The large leaves of the squash plants kept weeds at bay and helped keep the soil cool in the hot summer months. 

https://www.almanac.com/content/three-sisters-corn-bean-and-squash

I’ve been wanting to try this for a while, and this year might be a perfect time. 

Farming, after all, is in my blood. 

Stay safe, stay home, and stay busy with gardening!

My latest Lockets & Lace release on Amazon.

Grace, Unimagined by Abagail Eldan RELEASE DAY

In a moment of tragedy, Grace Jansen's life changes 

in a way she never imagined. 

This is a story of finding hope and love 

even in our darkest moments.

Authors are often asked where their ideas for books come from. Most of the time I answer that they are in the very air around us, ready to be plucked and put into a book. In the case of Grace, Unimagined, I was channel surfing and came across a documentary on Ruth Bader Ginsburg that revealed her brother was chosen to attend college, and she was not. That became the seed, the inspiration for this story. 

Also, woven into this story is the conclusion of the Three Sisters Series that includes two other Lockets & Lace books, Melly, Unyielding and Joy, Unending, the story that began in Abby and Joshua.

Here's a short synopsis:

Grace Jensen longs to be a doctor, but her dream died long ago when her brother is sent instead. When her brother squanders his opportunity, the responsibility for her family's welfare comes to rest solely upon Grace's shoulders.

Ward is not sure of his true name after he was struck with an ax at a young age. Many cannot bear to see his devastating scar, and he walks alone. He never imagines what awaits when he arrives in River City, Texas.

Grace, Unimagined.

And here's an excerpt:

From the road came a sound of hooves and the creak of a wagon. Grace's horse neighed as the wagon came toward them, and the moon clearly defined two men sat on the seat. She straightened and strained to see if it was Mr. Taron. It was not.

As the wagon drew nearer and swerved around to the side of the house where she stood, her brother’s features grew clearer. Even without the light of the moon, she would have recognized him by the reek of whiskey as the wagon came to a stop.

He jumped down, stumbled before he righted himself, and then raked his fingers through his disheveled, thick, dark hair. The other man set the brake, looped the lines, and quickly climbed down.

He was a stranger and, although he acknowledged her presence with a nod, rudely did not remove his hat. “Miss, we wish to speak to Mrs. Babbitt. It’s urgent,” he said. His gaze did not tarry on her long but went back to the wagon as if he guarded it.

“Mrs. Babbitt? Dr. Robbie, you mean?” His words made fear catch in her throat. She swallowed hard. “Is it about her husband?”

“Go get her, Sis,” her brother said, his words clearly enunciated despite his drunken state. His eyes were serious and held something more, were haunted, if she had not known better.

She swallowed hard, shook her head, and tossed her brother the horse’s reins, and hurried to the side of the wagon. A lantern hung on the back, and the stranger, without speaking, unhooked it and held it so light flooded the wagon bed. Her fingers tightened on the wagon’s side as she recognized Mr. Taron.

Without thought, she clambered into the back and felt for Mr. Babbitt’s pulse, finding none. She lowered her head to listen for a breath, to look for the rise and fall of his chest, no matter how slight, but he was still, and all was silent eerily so.

Then a wolf or large dog howled in the distance. She raised her head to listen, and a sadness intermingled with longing, a longing for something she could not name, could not delineate.

She sat back on her heels. “He’s dead,” she pronounced, dispassionately.

“Are you sure?” her brother asked. He’d come around to stand next to the strange man.

Her brother was slim and tall, over six feet, but the stranger was taller by a good two inches and his shoulders broader. Everything came into sharp focus, the gray wagon, her brother’s forlorn face, the stranger whose hat obscured his face, the horse whose reins her brother still held, and the velvet darkness stretching beyond into infinity. The cool breeze stung her face with a million tiny needles.

She refocused on her brother, looked down at the body that had once held the life of Mr. Taron, and nodded. “I’ve been working for Dr. Robbie long enough to recognize death.”Without speaking, the stranger came to the back of the wagon and raised a hand to help her down. She took it, glad of it, happy to feel the warm grasp, to be brought back from the brink, from the precipice between death and life, and hovered on the edge of the wagon, reorienting herself. She glanced down, to thank the man, when the words caught in her throat. With his free hand, he’d raised the lantern and his face was tilted to her, illuminated, ghostly and pale, with eyes that were neither blue nor green, but a vivid turquoise, as luminous and bright as her mother’s best silk dress bought before her father’s death, an unworldly color, rare and haunting. 

Released today! ~ Abagail

Meet the Lockets & Lace Authors-Week 2

After sharing the covers for the third year of our Lockets and Lace series, we wish to share a bit about our authors who will be bringing you the next seven books in the series. Here are the Week Two authors:

About Caryl McAdoo:

Award-winning Christian author Caryl McAdoo is all about loving the Lord! She prays her story gives God glory which is what she lives to do, and her best-selling novels enjoy a lion’s share of 5-Star ratings from readers around the world.

A dear, but gruff Navy-sergeant-mentor once told her, "Caryl, pick a genre," but she never could and enjoys writing many genres with her husband Ron---yes, though only her name is on the covers, that's how Simon & Schuster wanted it, and it works well for the McAdoos.

Caryl reaches a memorable milestone with her Lockets and Lace book this year. Bitter Honey is Caryl's 50th published books.

She and high school sweetheart Ron, married fifty-plus years, share four children and eighteen grandsugars. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, the seat of Red River County in far Northeast Texas. 

Sign up to follow Caryl on Amazon and BookBub, also her Newsletter.

To read more about Caryl and to find her other author links, please CLICK HERE.

Caryl McAdoo will be publishing Bitter Honey for readers on Monday, March 23rd. To find the book description and preorder purchase link, please CLICK HERE.

About Abagail Eldan:

My father was a career soldier and consequently, I have lived many places including Germany and France. My life changed at the age of eleven when we moved into a house in Toul, France. In the three-story house, rumored to have been occupied by the Nazis during World War II, was a treasure trove of books. From classics to pulp fiction, these books created in me a desire to be an author. Today I live that dream with my husband of forty years on a small farm in south Alabama. In the peaceful surroundings of rural life with cats, dogs, and a horse, I incorporate lessons and stories I learned at my mother’s knee into my books.

I consider myself to be a defender, a servant, a peacemaker, and a writer.

Check out my Amazon Author Page to find more of my books, also BookBub and my Newsletter/blog. 

Abagail Eldan will be publishing Grace, Unimagined for readers on Wednesday, March 25th. To find the book description and preorder purchase link, please CLICK HERE. 

About Zina Abbott:

My name is Robyn Echols. Zina Abbott is the pen name I use for my American historical romance novels. I’m a member of Women Writing the West, Western Writers of America, and American Night Writers Association. I currently live with my husband in California’s central valley near the “Gateway to Yosemite.”

I love to read, quilt, work with digital images on my photo editing program, and work on my own family history.

I would love it if you follow me on Amazon and BookBub. Also, please sign up for my NEWSLETTER and my Zina Abbott Books blog. 

Zina Abbott will be publishing Hannah's Handkerchief for readers on Friday, March 27th. To find the book description and preorder purchase link, please CLICK HERE.

February...A Time to Garden?

Awww... it's February, and spring is in the air, as cold as that air might be. Here in the Deep South where I live, I have seen the first bluebirds and a robin or two. And that means time to pull out seed catalogs and begin planning the garden.

Gardening is one of my favorite hobbies, and by gardening, I mean the growing of vegetables and fruits. We have fig trees, apple trees, peach trees, pecan trees, and a few other fruit trees. We grow turnips, collards, tomatoes, okra, peas, butterbeans, peppers, and my favorite, squash. It's too early for many of those, although around the middle of the month, we will be planting our turnip seeds. My collard plants look as if they have survived the winter, and I don't anticipate having to buy more.

Another activity my husband and I will engage in this month, if the Lord and we are willing, is to prune our fruit trees, and perhaps invest in a few more. What does this have to do with historical life? Not so long ago, most families had their own kitchen garden. We forget that fruits and vegetables were not always so abundant in the stores, even if you were lucky enough to live near one that sold perishable goods. Most goods in the general stores were staples, such as flour, and cornmeal, perhaps meat that had been cured, salt, and perhaps a few more common spices.

And thus the need for a kitchen garden and the need to take the month of February to prepare the soil and prune the trees.

Most planted fruit trees near their cabin for convenience.

In my last Lockets & Lace book, Joy, Unending Joy finds a job as an apple picker in Lonely Grove, Texas. She goes on to learn to can apple jams and jellies and is the best apple pie maker in Lonely Grove. So good is she that the local restaurant asks her to supply them with desserts, mostly made with those delicious apples from the Lonely Grove Orchard.

Apple pie is my favorite!

So, in February, what would the Lonely Grove Orchard workers be doing? Pruning the apple trees, of course. Pruning opens up the canopy to sunlight and proper air circulation. The very first rule of pruning is to remove any dead or damaged branches. The second rule is to prune so that branches are not crossing. If the branches rub against each other because of the crossing, it can lead to damaged branches and may introduce diseases into the tree. The apple tree should only have one leader branch, otherwise the tree will become weak. Any competing leader branches should also be pruned. And that's a few basics of pruning.

An apple tree, ready to be pruned.

The apple tree was and still is the most popular fruit tree grown in gardens.  Much of the popularity of the apple tree is due to John Chapman (September 26, 1774 – March 18, 1845) who traveled to several states and helped farmers establish nurseries for the propagation of apple trees, contrary to the image we usually have of him of throwing seeds wherever he went. Yes, his nickname was Johnny Appleseed.

Perhaps due to Johnny Appleseed's influence, apple orchards became common across America, such as Lonely Grove Orchard. I am in the process of creating a new series set near that very orchard.  In Joy, Unending, the story ends with Tristan planning to build a school. Joy will continue creating her jellies and jams and her apple desserts for the school children. I can't wait to share some upcoming news with you about that soon. Stay tuned!

If you garden, please tell us about it in the comments. In the meantime, happy reading!

Victorian Hair Care by Abagail Eldan

As I previously mentioned in "Coming Clean," people in the 1800s took this Bible verse seriously: But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering (I Corinthians 11:15). Thus, most women never cut their hair. Some had hair over six feet in length. 

Hair down to there...

Or even to the floor! (Pics from Pinterest)

Even today, with our modern conveniences, caring for such long hair is difficult. Imagine what it must have been like in the 1800s. So, again, washing hair was not something done lightly. Brushing was the way hair was cleaned. Thus, hairbrushes were important to the ladies of the Victorian era.

Here are a few examples (again, from Pinterest):

The comb and brush are […] agents of the toilet by which the hair is kept clean, vigorous, and healthy.’ (Scientific American Supplement Volumes, 1883) ‘Much washing of the hair with water is bad […] it is possible by much brushing to avoid any excessive use of water.’ (Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia, 1910-2) 

A brush consists ‘of a collection of hairs or bristles, fastened in a frame of wood, bone, or ivory; with, or without a handle’ (Domestic Encyclopedia Or A Dictionary Of Facts, And Useful Knowledge, 1802)

Hairbrushes in the Victorian and Edwardian era were often made of ivory, ebony, silver, or alpacca (German silver). Usually horsehair bristles were used for softer, and boar bristles for stiffer brushes. White and yellow boar bristles were imported from Russia and Siberia, whereas dark grey and black were imported from India and China (The Brushmaker, And The Secrets Of His Craft And Romance, 1870s). Hairbrushes were handmade: A wooden brush-back was drilled, bristles ‘drawn’ through each hole with thin wire and secured with a knot.

Interestingly enough, today many hair experts now agree that excessive washing strips hair of its natural oils and can be damaging. Many women brushed their hair for 100 strokes in the morning and before retiring at night. This helped distribute the natural oils to the ends of the hair. All that brushing dirtied the brushes. Some women washed brushes daily while others washed them at least once a week. And yes, there was a correct way to do so.

‘Never use soap. Take a piece of soda, dissolve it in warm water, stand the brush in it, taking care that the water only covers the bristles; it will almost immediately become white and clean; stand it to dry in the open air with the bristles downwards, and it will be found to be as firm as a new brush.’ (The Corner Cupboard; Or, Facts For Everybody, 1859)

‘The best mode is to use soda, dissolved in cold water, instead of soap and hot water; the latter very soon softens the hairs of the brush, and the rubbing completes their destruction. Soda having an affinity for grease, cleans the brush with very little friction.’ (The Workwoman’s Guide, 1840)

Caring for such long hair was a long, tiring business and yet a glorious one.

Darlin', give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair

Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair, shoulder length or longer

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair

Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it. 

(Lyric to the song, Hair)

Abagail Eldan received a B.S. in Education from Troy University, with a major in biology and a minor in psychology. She continued her graduate work at Columbus State University, Troy University, and Auburn University, becoming certified to teach English, all mathematics, and all sciences. After teaching for nineteen years, she retired and lives in south Alabama with her husband. Look for her next book, Brokken Promises, coming soon.