Hm, a blog? Do I have time for a blog?

I do love to write, but I spend far more time on paperwork, and far less time writing, than I’d like. And I’ve received somewhere around a thousand—I don’t know how many, but at least that—emails, and some are quite interesting!

An acorn bird feeder I received from The Eclectics Book Club

One email came to me out of the blue came from Kia, Greece, a few years ago. The sender was Marcie Mayer, a transplanted American married to a Greek and now the owner of Red Tractor Farm. Marcie had found my website because acorns are one of her passions. Marcie is a cancer survivor who believes in all her being that acorns are an overlooked crop. Yes, knowing what I know now, I agree.

Now, I never thought acorns and I were going to have such a close relationship. Honestly, I never did. I had that day—a very real day in October 2005—when I was writing my first novel, Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky, and had that “aha!” moment. The ground was covered in acorns—literally a rolling blanket. And I was out walking in my neighborhood and thinking, as I always did, about those poor women at Jamestown thrown into the Starving Time.

John Smith had said the sixty emaciated survivors of that brutal winter of 1609 to 1610 “were preserved for the most part, by roots, herbes, acornes, walnuts, berries, now and then a little fish.” Until that moment, I had planned to give each food source equal credit for the survival of the real heroines in my story. (No one knows precisely how some few did survive—only about ten percent—while so many others perished.) Joan Peirce and Temperance Yeardley had survived and lived for many years in situations both desperate and severe.

That fall day, I picked up an acorn lying at my neighbor’s yard, and said, “What do I really know about acorns, anyway?”

I arrived home with a few tucked in my pocket, and then sat looking at them. I really knew very little. But research showed acorns to be high in protein, B vitamins, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. In other words, those who had eaten acorns were receiving vital nutrients in a starvation situation. And so from there, acorns became an important part of the first novel. I wrote about the women, living at Jamestown without their husbands, realizing in the fall that their situation was deteriorating.

Now about once a month or so, I’ll hear from someone that they can’t see acorns without thinking of me! I often receive acorn gifts, like an acorn-shaped bird feeder. Acorns and I? Who knew?

Connie, last year our Holly Hills book club was honored to host your presence to review your book about Jamestown…..we still discuss our thrill at hearing wonderful stories from you….  Five ladies have gone to Jamestown Island to celebrate the miracle of ACORNS!  We often place acorns in each other’s mail boxes in honor of the brave women.

~ Debbie G.
Williamsburg, VA

While walking these last few days I have been thinking about Joan and how she struggled with her roots and acorns. I have seen native trees with fruit and seeds and wondered what she might have done with  them. You have made her come alive. Maybe she knows it. Do you think? In addition to your research I have really been moved by your rich literary quotations and your spiritual depth. Amazing. Blessings.

 ~ Warren H.
Columbia, SC