Why Would Anyone Care About Sara Lemmon?

I confess. I’m smitten.

People who know me well are (all too) aware that for the past several years I’ve been obsessively plugging away at a research project.

Photos by Wynne Brown; originals at the University and Jepson Herbaria Archives, University of California, Berkeley

I’m now going public with my obsession.

I’m so smitten that the voice of this plucky woman has pulled me — not once or twice, but three times — all the way from Tucson to Berkeley. That’s where her letters are stored, in the University of California and Jepson Herbaria archives. And that’s where I’ve photographed her century-old correspondence, all 1,200 pages of it. With my iPhone.

I’m now (slowly) transcribing those pages.

But there’s more to this story than just words…

Sara Plummer Lemmon wasn’t only an observant, prolific, and engaging correspondent: According to one source at the time, her gift for drawing in the field combined with her thirst for scientific knowledge made her “one of the most accurate painters of nature in the State.”

Tragically, most of her illustrations were lost, possibly in one of the fires that accompanied the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Fortunately, two boxes of her artwork had been stored in Hawaii and were donated recently to the Berkeley archives. Times being what they are, the university lacked the funds to examine and evaluate the extremely fragile works, which are all on paper.

So, with the help of generous donors (thank you, again!), I hired a local conservator whose efforts revealed 276 watercolors and field sketches. Which of course I also photographed.

Here are two of them – both signed and dated, and painted by Sara in the field, in Southern Arizona’s Huachuaca Mountains in the fall of 1882.

 

More details on her artwork (those brown spots are called “foxing” and have a fascinating story all of their own) to come in a future post.

Most recently, I’ve submitted a nonfiction book proposal to various agents, along with three publishers. Here’s how I’ve described the book:

“LIKE DEATH TO BE IDLE: Sara Plummer Lemmon, 19th-Century Artist, Scientist, and Explorer, blends popular science, history, and biography. It uses Sara’s exquisite artwork and lively correspondence to bring another female ‘Hidden Figure’ of science to general readers. Her story is one of tenacity and grit, of Western exploration, pioneer women, Apache warfare, the Civil War—and romance.”

Who IS this woman? and why would anyone in 2017 care about her?

Sara Plummer was born in Maine in 1836 and educated in Massachusetts. She then taught art and “calisthenics” (known to us as gym) in New York City. In 1870 her story becomes that of the early American West: At 33, driven by poor health in the East Coast climate, she relocated—all alone—to Santa Barbara. There she taught herself botany and established the community’s first library in the back room of a stationery store. In 1880, she married John Lemmon, a Civil War veteran and renowned botanist, and moved to Oakland; the couple spent the rest of their lives collecting and describing hundreds of new trees and flowers, all illustrated by Sara. Her letters document their often-harrowing trips through the unsettled West, including the Arizona Territory and northern Mexico. By then she was an acknowledged botanical expert in her own right: She was the second woman allowed in the California Academy of Sciences—and the first to be invited to speak to the group.

In addition to being an artist, scientist, and writer, Sara somehow also contributed her time to journalism, women’s suffrage, and forest conservation.

I believe Sara’s story is a universal one of determination, resilience, and courage—and is as relevant to our nation today as it was in the 1880s.

And I believe it deserves to be heard.

Stay tuned …

My New Hero: Harry

Today got off to a slow start, but I eventually drove across town to the Douglas Spring trail, hoping to run off some of the election gloom I’ve been wallowing in all week. The morning was glorious: sapphire sky, breezy, but still warm enough (in November?!) for T-shirt and shorts.

The crunch of dirt underfoot, a lucky glimpse of a javelina scampering off among the sentinel saguaros, a lizard rustling under a leafless fairy duster, ocotillo branches waving gently, the backlit thorns of prickly pear paddles amid pillows of winter-dry grasses—it was all as cathartic as I’d hoped.

The Douglas Spring trail, in Saguaro National Park, east of Tucson

But still I brooded about how politics can fracture friendships, about the fragility of a warming planet, about the value of wearing safety pins.

After an hour, lighter-hearted but still not quite ready to face the world—or Saturday chores—, I turned around.  A hiker was working his way up the trail slowly toward me, an older man using two hiking poles and wearing a hat, white polo shirt, khaki shorts, sturdy boots. As he came closer, I could see an old-fashioned cell phone, the kind with a stubby antenna, in his shirt pocket and two water bottles hanging off his hip belt.

I stepped aside to give him room to pass, and we both paused to say “Good morning” and to comment on the beauty of the day and our surroundings.

Somehow, the conversation continued—about the steepness of the trail, about the route we’d each chosen today, other Tucson trails we like, recent rattlesnakes we’d seen and where they were, other places we’d hiked: Glacier in Montana for me, Loon Lake in Idaho for him. He told me about the triumph of walking 200 miles of the John Muir trail many years ago—today he’d be doing about an 8-mile loop.

I was curious about his age. I told him I ran the Flagstaff trail half-marathon last month and about accomplishing my goal of being the first female finisher—on Medicare.

Honesty then compelled me to admit that I was also the only female finisher on Medicare. Every other woman at the run was under 65.

He laughed, then looked thoughtful for a moment as he did the arithmetic. “I’m 23 years older than you,” he said. “I’m 89.”

We chatted another couple of minutes, introduced ourselves—”My name’s Harry,” he said—, shook hands, wished one another many more steps on the trail, and said good-bye.

As I headed back down the mountain, I thought about how much I’d enjoyed meeting Harry.

And that I like him.

No matter who he voted for.

Canvassing the Neighborhood – Musings

Yesterday was two days before the 2016 election, and Dave and I chose to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon volunteering for the Get Out the Vote effort. By nature, we are both Shy Persons who detest and avoid cold-calling and accosting strangers.

But we decided that desperate times call for crawling out of our comfort zone.

Image courtesy of http://www.gograph.com

We were assigned to make the second pass through a South Tucson neighborhood that’s close to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Our trainer told us that each household included at least one potential voter who’s registered as a Democrat in the past, if not currently. She then offered snacks and water before handing us a binder containing data sheets, a map, and a script with friendly non-threatening language that stresses the importance of voting in general—and adds hopefully, “Can the Arizona Democratic Party count on your vote?”

Our data sheets listed individuals by name, age, address, gender, political party, and if they’re on the Pima County Early Voter list. Most were male and female Democrats, but some were listed as (O) for Other party or Other gender.

Our job was to indicate on the sheet if the person was “In Support,” “Against,” “Voted Already,” or “Not Home.” There’s room on the form to add comments like “This person has moved—,” “Person refused to talk to us—,” or “Large fierce dog prevented access.”

We spent three hours and knocked on about 30 doors. At around half the addresses, no one responded: Sometimes we concluded no one was home; other times, we were pretty sure someone was home but chose to not come to the door.

Here’s what else we noticed:

• The process wasn’t nearly as scary as two Shy Persons thought it would be, and it was actually kind of fun.

• Tucson has a remarkable number of small yappy dogs who take their jobs as four-legged doorbells very seriously.

• Many people have their televisions on in the middle of Sunday afternoon—whether they’re there or not.

• The voter rolls need to be updated: We were surprised by how many people had moved away.

• The friendliest, kindest, most courteous people were either Hispanic or Vietnamese (his wife was making egg rolls that smelled scrumptious): They all shook our hands, thanked us for what we were doing, and one even offered us water.

• We were particularly impressed by the woman who explained that her daughter-in-law, the potential voter, had just given birth that day—and could we come back another time? (We all agreed the voter might have more important things on her mind.)

• The crabbiest person was a twenty-something mom who said, “I don’t want to talk politics—“ and quickly closed the door. (Well, really, this year? Who could blame her?) Oh, and the man we could hear but didn’t see whose young niece told us: “He says to tell you ‘I don’t vote!’”

• All the kids who answered the doorbell—they ranged from about 3 to a young man who just turned 18 in September (and hadn’t registered to vote)—were unfailingly friendly and polite.

• One woman, age 43, said she hadn’t voted in a while and wondered when Election Day was …

• And then there was the potential voter’s teenage son who said: “My mom voted already. I know she didn’t vote for, umm, that guy—what’s his name? She voted for, umm, the other person …”

Name recognition, gender, age, nationality of origin, crabby or shy—all that aside … .

Whatever happens Tuesday, may ALL people be safe—and may civility, kindness, and respect for the law prevail.

The Not-So-Romantic Tumbleweed

Yesterday I yanked out a pickup load of Prickly Russian Thistle from a a 6′ x 8′ area around the water trough. Most of the green vegetation behind the truck is the same plant. All the area shown was burned in the 2011 Horseshoe II fire.

You know the scene—the one from the old Western where a sole tumbleweed rolls across the desert vista, representing the wide open spaces of the American West … or comes to rest at the abandoned ranch as a symbol of desolation …

Some of us aren’t so fond of this iconic but spiny and invasive film star. But it does have an interesting story. And perhaps, in the narrative of the New West, this irritating character isn’t all bad?

The name “tumbleweed” refers to a strategy rather than a particular botanical species. Plants in this group grow into massive flower clusters, sometimes 6 feet across. In fall, the big round bundles die, dry out, and break off at the base, leaving a living root behind. Then they’re blown across the landscape by the wind, shedding seeds as they bounce across roads, pastures, and neighborhoods.

Since one plant can produce as many as 250,000 seeds, it’s been a highly effective dispersal method. Native to Eurasia, the plant was imported to South Dakota from Russia in the late 1800s in a shipment of flax seed. It now grows throughout the West from sea level to above 8,000′.

To make the plant even more unpopular in wildfire-prone areas, the airy spherical shape that allows the seed balls to roll, also turns them into efficient fire spreaders.

And as if drought wasn’t already a challenge here in Arizona? According to this source, one Russian thistle used 44 gallons of water when out-competing a wheat plant.

Here’s something disturbing I’ve noticed this year: Our local tumbleweed, the Prickly Russian Thistle, was rare here before the 2011 Horseshoe II fire ripped through the Chiricahuas, burning 230,000 acres, including most of my land.

Now, on much of my property, it’s the dominant plant.

So, are Russian thistles totally evil? At first stab (they’re spiny enough to flatten a tire), it sure seems like it.

Yet, according the US Forest Service studies, these plants are a valuable first step in Nature’s repair system. Russian Thistle is an “initial colonizer in primary and secondary succession”—which simply means it’s the first species hardy and determined enough to move into nutrient-deficient burned areas. They dominate for two or three years. Then, starting in Year 4, they become stunted and are slowly replaced by members of the mustard family. Gradually, these pioneer plants produce enough organic material for—we hope—the re-establishment of native grasses and, eventually, shrubs and perhaps even trees.

So, maybe, as annoying as it is, the Prickly Russian Thistle doesn’t wear as black a hat as I thought.

But I’ll still be glad to see the next character in the ongoing story.

If It’d Been a Snake …

I’d walked through this door 30 seconds earlier and never saw the snake.

Well, it was a snake. But, thank heavens, not a rattler.

I cleaned the cat box just now and carried the goody-bag out the back door to the garbage can, which lives about 10 feet away. I turned to come back in—and got my adrenaline jolt for the day.

There, in front of the door I’d walked through seconds earlier, was a large snake.

Our monsoon season has started, which at my Arizona mountain elevation, also means the start of rattlesnake season. This time of year I’m on high alert for rattlers around the house, flower beds, and barn. Usually, they’re just moving through, and I simply wish them well with a “Vaya con Dios” and let them go on their way.

Once, I had a mating pair on my door step.

But that’s another story.

This one’s about this morning’s gopher snake. Also known as bull snakes, Pituophis sp. are non-poisonous constrictors and common throughout the country. They have a particularly fascinating feature: Unlike other snakes, their epiglottis is divided, which amplifies the noise of their hiss. It’s not just louder—it’s also a very convincing imitation of a rattlesnake’s warning, aided by their behavior of flattening their neck and shaking their tail. Ironically, their defense strategy is so convincing that gopher snakes are often killed by people who mistakenly identify them as rattlesnakes.

Check out the sound here—along with more information, and a photo of one of these stunningly handsome snakes here.

They eat rodents, lizards, birds, eggs—and other snakes. Which may explain why I haven’t seen any pack rats or rattlesnakes around my house this year.

Welcome, friend.

California Condors – Up Close!

California Condor #379 soars above Hualapai Hilltop trailhead near Seligman, AZ. Photo by Wynne Brown

Recently I was lucky enough to spend five days in the Grand Canyon with nine good friends, all of whom share a Portal, AZ, connection.

More specifically, we were in Havasu Canyon, where we camped, hiked, waded, ate hugely, talked, took hundreds of photos, laughed, clambered nervously down (and back up) a 196-foot cliff, explored a mine, leapt through waterfalls, and swam in clear turquoise pools.

The canyon is on the Havasupai reservation, and the campground, 10 miles below the trailhead, is accessible only by foot, by horse, or by helicopter. We chose to hike, and — because most of us are in our 60s or 70s — we also chose to go with a topnotch outfitter, Arizona Outback Adventures.

What a fabulous experience!  More details of the trip will wait until another time — because of what we encountered the last day in the final mile, as we slogged back up the hot, dusty trail to the Hualapai Hilltop trailhead.

Condors!

Not just tiny distant specks that left us wondering if they were actually California Condors — or were they just common Turkey Vultures? — or maybe Golden Eagles?

No, these were gigantic, spectacular, dramatic prehistoric-looking birds, “skymasters” that soared above and below and around us, so close we could read the numbered tags on their 9-foot wingspan — as we stood in awe and admiration, our hot, tired feet forgotten.

The condor recovery story’s been well-documented, but it’s a story that bears repeating, along with updated information.

According to both the National Park Service and the Peregrine Fund, in 1982, the total world California Condor population was down to 22 birds, and none existed outside California. (The only other condor is the Andean Condor, found, not surprisingly, in the Andes.) Three years later, after heated debate, every remaining California Condor was moved from the wild to a captive breeding program.

Now, three decades of intense multi-agency effort later, the California Condor population has grown to 404 individuals.

As of March 31, 2013, 234 are living in the wild. Seventy-three birds now call Arizona/Utah home, and twenty-nine live in Baja California, Mexico.

And what about this particular bird I photographed as it wheeled and sailed through the sky and past a dark salmon backdrop of Coconino Sandstone?

If you’re lucky enough to spot a condor and can read its wing tag, you can identify it at the Condor Tag Chart. The tag number is usually the last two digits of the Studbook number, and you can find the bird’s age, sex, the most recent release/fledge year — and any researcher comments that may have been recorded.

So this bird, Tag No. 79 (Studbook #379) is a 9-year-old male who was most recently released in 2012. Combing through the Peregrine Fund’s Notes from the Field reveals that the first time #379 was released was 11 a.m., March 7, 2009, at the Vermilion Cliffs release site high up on the Paria Plateau.

Then why list a 2012 release date for a 9-year-old bird? The condors need routine vaccinations, blood work, and occasional veterinary care, along with tune-ups for their satellite GPS transmitters. In addition, most of the 73 Arizona birds have been caught, tested, and treated for lead poisoning before being re-released. Lead poisoning has been responsible for about 50 percent of the mortality of California Condors.

But that’s another story.

For now — Welcome back, Skymasters!

Dream Deferred

1999 Boston Marathon (Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, Creative Commons license)

Recently, I ran across a poem by Langston Hughes:

Harlem

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up 
like a raisin in the sun? 
Or fester like a sore– 
And then run? 
Does it stink like rotten meat? 
Or crust and sugar over– 
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags 
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

According to Delores Moore, Hughes was describing the deep frustration of the American blacks to racial prejudice in 1951 — and predicting the explosive future.

Six decades later, Langston Hughes’ poem is still relevant in a world where so many of us defer our dreams until later in life, thinking we’ll have more time, or more money, or more opportunity.

But for some, “later” never happens.

• A blast in the local fertilizer plant flattens half the town …

• A stroke fells the lover we once had …

• A garment factory collapses in Bangladesh, killing hundreds …

• Or celebrating a loved one’s marathon effort on a shining April afternoon explodes into a mass of shrapnel, blood, and shattered limbs…

For those of watching on the sidelines, can anything good emerge from such grief and pain? Can distant tragedies have the power to change the way we live our lives at home?

Maybe.

Maybe, either in honor or defiance, we can choose to give our dreams a chance — and not let them dry up, or fester, or stink.

What’s my dream? Writing the longform journalism stories that have been tugging at my sleeve for years — deferred because they’re unlikely to pay the bills.

I have no direct ties to Boston, nor do I know any of the dead or injured beyond the intimate and gruesome details we all saw. Yet, three weeks ago the Tsarnaev brothers changed the way I view my work.

I no longer send my creative time to the bottom of the list, to evenings and late nights, when my energy level has sagged.

Now writing comes first, re-assigned to my personal prime time, to those golden morning hours. It may seem like a trivial adjustment, a mere tweaking of the time clock. After all, I won’t be turning down paying assignments. But, to me, by giving these untold stories precedence over billable hours, I’m giving my writing dream a chance.

So. What about you? What dreams have you deferred?

And what event has changed the way you choose to live and work?

“No Project Too Weird”

What serious writer doesn’t have William Zinsser on his or her bookshelf? On Writing Well and Writing to Learn are both books I return to often.

This morning’s New York Times has a piece by Dan Barry about Zinsser’s transition from writing coach to one who still teaches — by listening. Zinsser, now 90, has glaucoma and can no longer see.

But he’s still teaching and, according to the article, is available “for help with writing problems and stalled editorial projects and memoirs and family history; for singalongs and piano lessons and vocal coaching; for readings and salons and whatever pastimes you may devise that will keep both of us interested and amused.

“I’m eager to hear from you. No project too weird.”

Thank you, Mr. Zinsser, for still being willing to help.

Copyright — Gone Wrong?

Whether you’re a reader, writer, author, or publisher — this New York Times Op-Ed piece by Scott Turow matters. And if you’re an author, it matters whether your books are bestsellers or self-published e-books.

In fact, it matters even more if you’re the author of e-books.

In the NYT piece, Turow writes:

Last month, the Supreme Court decided to allow the importation and resale of foreign editions of American works, which are often cheaper than domestic editions. Until now, courts have forbidden such activity as a violation of copyright. Not only does this ruling open the gates to a surge in cheap imports, but since they will be sold in a secondary market, authors won’t get royalties.

This may sound like a minor problem; authors already contend with an enormous domestic market for secondhand books. But it is the latest example of how the global electronic marketplace is rapidly depleting authors’ income streams. It seems almost every player — publishers, search engines, libraries, pirates and even some scholars — is vying for position at authors’ expense.

Turow is president of the Authors Guild. In December 2012, he gave a speech at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC., in which he said:

New technology often brings conflict over copyright issues, but there is more money at stake than ever before. Google and others have made free use of copyrighted works under the increasingly expansive rubric of fair use—a use in which the corporate entity makes a profit while authors make nothing. 

To read more about it, see this article on the Authors Guild site.

Copyright is one of those topics that can make eyes glaze over. But, to all of us who care about books, copyright — and the wrongs it prevents — matters.

Enough even to bring this blog out of inactivity.

A Lesson in Writing — and in Making Bread

I’ve been struggling for several weeks with a piece of writing that exploded onto the page – OK, so it was five, single-spaced, pages. This particularly piece shouldn’t be more than three pages, and even that’s too much to inflict on its intended audience.

After wrestling with it again early this morning, I contemplated throwing the whole damned thing out and starting all over again.

Groan.

Muttering crossly about wasted time and effort, I went outside to feed the horses and came back inside to make bread. The recipe (which follows) uses a mixture of boiling water, shredded wheat, butter, molasses, and salt. Mentally, I was still focused on writing — and inadvertently used 3 tablespoons of salt, not 3 teaspoons.

When I tasted the mixture, it was almost inedible.

Briefly, I considered persevering. Maybe adding the flour would make the bread sort of OK, if just barely? But one of these loaves is a guest offering for a dinner party this evening…

The parallel between writing and making bread wasn’t lost on me. Salt is vital to this recipe, just as details are what bring life and emotion to that piece of writing. But even though all those details are important to me – apparently, I needed the release of writing them — including all of them in this piece will choke my readers.

Fortunately, given that I live in a remote corner of Arizona and the nearest grocery store is a 2.5-hour round trip away, I still had enough ingredients to start a new batch of bread.

The dough, made with the correct shredded wheat mixture, is rising in the sunny east window. I’ve saved the too-salty mixture and will dilute it with a NO-salt version – after next week’s trip for groceries – for later baking.

And I’ve saved the piece of writing for later as well and started a brand-new version – this time with 3 teaspoons of details, not 3 tablespoons.

Here’s the recipe, based roughly on Judith and Evan Jones’  The Book of Bread. (I’ve converted all my bread recipes to three loaves: one to give away, one for the freezer, and one to start the moment it comes out of the oven, hot and delicious…

 Shredded Wheat Bread

(modified from from Judith and Evan Jones’ The Book of Bread)

Makes three 9-inch loaves

• 3 C           boiling water
• 2 1/4 C    bite-size shredded wheat biscuits, or 3 of the big biscuits
• 3 T           yeast
• 3/4 C       warm water to dissolve the yeast
• 1/3 C       molasses
• 3 tsp       coarse salt (or 1.5 tsp table salt) – that’s TEASPOONS! 🙂
• 4 1/2 T       butter
• 7-8 C  white flour, preferably unbleached

In a large bowl dissolve the yeast in the 3/4 C of the warm water.

In a separate bowl, add the boiling water to the shredded wheat. Add the salt, molasses, and butter. Stir until the butter’s melted and the ingredients well mixed.

Add the shredded wheat mixture to the yeast, then add the white flour, cup by cup, until the dough gets stiff.

Turn the dough out onto a floured working surface, and let it rest while you clean out the bowl and grease it. Knead the dough, adding more flour as necessary, for about 10 minutes until it’s no longer sticky and feels resilient and smooth.

Place it in the greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rise in a warm place until double in volume—about an hour.

Turn the dough out, punch it down, form into three loaves. Place in greased loaf pans, cover lightly with a towel, let rise again until almost double in volume—about 45-60 minutes.

Bake in pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for about an hour, maybe a little more, depending on your oven. Let loaves cool on racks.

To freeze: Put each loaf in a brown paper lunch bag, then in a plastic bag (produce bags work great). The loaves will keep this way perfectly in the refrigerator as well — for two or more weeks — unless eaten sooner!