The Only Place To Be When It's 100F.

This delightful young family enjoyed Fathers Day Weekend with a low key mini-break at the Dancing Bean Ranch for Wild West Show weekend. As befits the start of a holiday weekend, they stopped by Click's in Pawnee for a fantastic steak dinner and pie with "the highest meringue I've ever seen," according to them.

Because the little girl's hair is wet, you can't see the ringlets that give her a natural-born angelic look.

This business may not make me rich, but meeting people like this is half the fun.

PS: Families welcome, also singles, couples, partners, life partners, friends or anyone else looking for a peaceful retreat. Or a noisy splash in the pool on a hot day.

A Park Too Far

These Victorian flowers are violets, from my smallest garden. I'm interested in all things Nineteenth Century but, since Bill and I watched Ken Burns' "Civil War" the first time it aired, we hadn't intended to watch it again. Yet the minute David McCullough's voice began the narration, we were hooked all over again.

Civil War buffs are famously devoted students of our nation's great war. One of my most delightful vacation memories is about just such a young man.

Years ago, my daughter and I were returning from a holiday in Eureka Springs, Arkansas (my rates are a half or less of what you'll pay there for comparable accommodations--just sayin') and on the way home stopped at Pea Ridge Civil War Military Park. We pulled into a parking spot at one of the outlook points where markers describe the action that took place in the valley below.

At the same time, a very attractive young couple pulled a car with Arizona plates alongside us. The man behind the wheel parked, grabbed a camera and started racing from point to point, stopping only long enough to get a photo. Why the hurry, I wondered. Especially since the day was hot. Then I saw his partner, slumped in her seat, arms folded tightly over her chest and a big, angry frown on her face.

I have a hunch that wasn't their first Civil War park.

While we have no military parks or natural springs nor mountains, we do have a colorful cowboy mansion and museum to offer, a Wild West Show in the summer and a big swimming pool that makes summer heat a joy.

Just How Real Can It Get?

That's me and our Norwegian Forest cat, Sally, spending a snowy winter day enjoying the first draft of Jeri Westerson's new series, Oswald The Thief. If you've read my previous posts, you'll recognize Jeri as my guest blogger in the piece on crime in the Middle Ages. She's a terrific writer, and her new book is no exception. Having reinvented medieval mysteries by writing the first medieval noir series, she's doing it again by creating the first caper mystery set in the period.

Why do I get to read the first draft? Because I write mysteries, as well, (No, not published; I'll let you know) and we are two of four parts of the online critique group we've fondly named the Vicious Circle.

My story is a cozy mystery set in a small Oklahoma community. The protagonist is a middle aged, beekeeping, B&B owning widow. Write what you know, amirite? Except here on the Dancing Bean Ranch, the Top Hand (my husband, Bill) is alive and well and kept busier than he would like with my many projects. Pippa McMaster, my amateur sleuth, isn't so lucky and has to manage the fictional Dancing Bee Farm all on her own.

But back to Write what you know. How far can that old chestnut be taken? In a county where the Grand Jury just handed out indictments to various county officials, it's tempting to turn the situation into something more spectacular than it is. And with a little scandal brewing in an upcoming election for a local office, the temptation only grows worse. I don't write true crime, so I'll leave the details to the justice system. For local color, however, the allure of our little crime wave is irresistible.

And how about this one: a set of identical twins, two women in their eighties, who still dress exactly like each other. (At least in public, where I see them). Seriously. Not only do their respective clothes and shoes match, so do their eyeglasses, hair styles, jewelry and even shade of lipstick. Replace the smiles on those identical faces with a vacant stare , and you're looking at Children of the Corn: The Adult Years.

When the inspiration for colorful characters is as abundant as it is here in Pawnee County, it leaves only one question: how real can it get?

Guest Blogger: The Romance of Lawlessness

From Bobbie:

As a teenager, I became a fan of Oklahoma history after I discovered author Glenn Shirley's Law West of Fort Smith. Few lawmen-lots of territory for them to cover. It made the Indian Nation a haven for outlaws like Belle Starr and Bill Doolin's Wild Bunch.

Maybe because I spend my days thinking about fictional murder, I remembered Shirley's book and began to wonder how other societies in earlier ages dealt with outlaws and lawmen. And I knew just the person to ask, my friend Jeri Westerson, (that's her picture) author of the one and only medieval noir series featuring disgraced (but noble, in his own way) knight, Crispin Guest. Jeri graciously agreed to do a blog post for us. She's a terrific writer and a whiz at the history of the Middle Ages. By the way--you'll find copies of her books in your room at the Dancing Bean.

And now, my guest blogger, the clever and creative, Jeri Westerson.

Lawlessness in the Oklahoma Territory and the Middle Ages

by Jeri Westerson

It's a romantic period in American history. The old west, the wild west, with its own cowboy justice meted out in the lawless territories. Lynchings, barroom brawls, gunfights on the streets. Everyone getting medieval on each other.

Whoa, hold on there partner. Are we saying that the wild and woolly west had a counterpart in Europe's Middle Ages, where torture was common, subversion of the law was the norm, and the Big Bad Church oppressed one and all?

Well, not so much, really.

I'm certain there is just as much exaggeration about the wildness of the west as there might be about the Middle Ages. For one, there was very little in what you might call lawlessness in the medieval period. In fact, there were a slew of laws, from imprisoning those who slandered others, to rampant lawsuits filed by rich against poor, poor against rich, and everyone in between. And there were rules to follow, hearings, lawyers, and a jury. In fact, we get much of our legal terminology and proceedings from medieval English law. It was pursued practically and, for the most part, as fairly as was culturally possible for the time. For instance, in those days, a jury was chosen not because they didn't know the defendant but because they specifically did, a true jury of their peers. Who better to judge you than people who already knew you?

And what about torture as a judicial device? Again, just a bit of exaggeration brought down to us from our Victorian ancestors who liked a bit of gothic ghoulishness to tickle their corsets. In fact, one of the more notorious torture devices, the iron maiden, wasn't medieval at all, and in fact, never really existed except in the minds of prurient Victorians. These iron maidens were wooden cabinets with iron spikes inside. They were shaped rather like large bowling pins with the image of the Virgin's face on the head part. Closing the hapless victim inside would pierce him in inuumerable holes all over the body. Blood loss, possible asphyxiation, and the horror of it, could cause death.

Except that it didn't. It doesn't appear to have been invented until the late 18th century, and even then it was all in the mind. The earliest account of this device can be found in 1793, but even that was a hoax! It was possibly confused with a "cloak of shame," something that was used in the Middle Ages. But this was more of a portable stocks, a barrel that one was forced to wear, humiliating oneself by walking around town, letting everyone know that you had been naughty, where citizens could hurl ridicule as well as rotten vegetables at you (where were folks keeping all those rotten vegetables they are always throwing at people?). The Victorians read an account of this and then the account of the hoax and sort of glommed them together because medieval people, they thought, were uncivilized barbarians just waiting around to be enlightened by the Renaissance...where there was a lot more use of those torture devices.

And believe it or not, even the Big Bad Church wasn't as big and as bad as one might think. Oh there was the Spanish Inquisition, and according to Monty Python, no one expects that! But there wasn't the resistance to science as there was later in the Renaissance. In fact, in the Middle Ages, seeking the Truth was a much beloved trope, because Truth brings you closer to holiness. Even homosexuality, though little understood, did not result in the Church "getting medieval" on sodomites. More often than not, punishments came in the form of ecclesiastical penance rather than jail time. According to historian John Boswell in his book, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, the penalty for homosexual behavior "is given no greater attention than other sins and, viewed comparatively, appears to have been thought less grave than such common activities as hunting." Still, between the law courts and the Church, it was best to keep a low profile.

So is it possible that the Middle Ages was more civilized than the wild west? A startling thought. Makes you want to reread some history, doesn't it?
----

Jeri does nothing else but reread lots of history for her medieval noir series. Her tough guy ex-knight turned detctive, Crispin Guest, is back in the third installment, THE DEMON'S PARCHMENT. You can read an excerpt on her website http://www.jeriwesterson.com/.

Don't Blame the Goldenrod

I've been in the house all day, hiding from the wind and the ragweed pollen. Whenever I see fluffy golden flowers, I know what's coming--hay fever. Imagine my surprise when Sue, a fellow NEOBA (Northeastern Oklahoma Beekeepers Association) member, told me that those golden plumes aren't ragweed. It's goldenrod, not a serious allergen. Among it, however, grow ragweed plants with their inconspicuous blooms producing nuclear weapons grade pollen. Foraging bees love it. I don't.

A common theory about seasonal allergy treatment is that local honey, created from neighborhood pollen, helps the immune system fight hay fever. I'm not sure it works, but I'm willing to try anything right now. My recipe is a big dollop of honey in nice cup of tea doctored with the juice of half a lemon. Effective or not, this medicine is deeply comforting.

White Peaches and Possums

I picked most of the white peaches remaining on the tree with my five year old granddaughter, Emma. We picked as many as we could using the three step ladder (and took a small tumble together and lived to tell the tale). Then I moved the land defenses and left several at the top of the tree. This morning, only two were left.

The possums love them, so why not share a few? Here on the Dancing Bean, we try to co-exist with nature.

Possums and Peaches

The China Pearl peaches, a white variety, are the biggest, sweetest and the last to ripen of the stone fruits in the orchard. It's August 31, and the Game is On, as Sherlock Holmes would say. Who'll get the white peaches this year?

To date, the score is: Late Freeze: 4, Possums: 3 Green June Beetles: 1 and Me: 0.

This is my year. I can feel it. I've kept a daily watch for the beetles, designed and constructed my own cruelty free, chemical-free ground defense against the possums, and monitored the fruit daily for degree of ripeness. (A test that has required a bit of eating, I will confess).

At a half pound apiece, these beauties are worth the work. If you're in the neighborhood, come share.