One of the nicknames for the poisonous datura plant is Devil’s Trumpet. Convenient for me as I have the beginnings of a cozy mystery story where someone kills off an obnoxious jazz trumpet player with the seeds of this beautiful but deadly plant.

The story exists in a zero draft that dropped itself onto my computer keyboard last time I took the NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month) challenge. I call it a zero draft because it exists in a form probably undecipherable to anyone else. For me, it was the gift of the story about a confused poet-turned-sleuth who bumbles upon this mystery by accident and then feels compelled to solve it. It was fun to watch the plot reveal itself to me during that November writing marathon.

Next step–an outline. Yes, I previously considered myself a confirmed Pantser. I am now a convert to the Doctrine of the Outliners.

Stay tuned.

In New Mexico, September is Green Chile Time. We prepare for the coming cold months by packing our freezers with bags of the roasted green chiles. The smell of the roasting chiles is almost as good as eating them. I think it is the reason I will never move away from this state. I need that aroma in September.

The best way to get your supply of green chiles is to find a farm that has picked and roasted them that day. According to all that is holy to chile lovers, this is the only way to get the most authentic flavor when you thaw and eat the bounty of freezer, one bag at a time, after growing season.

This past year we moved away from the farms we used to drive out to every fall. I searched, sampled, sought advice and we finally bought our bushel of roasted greens from Fred of Socorro, just off St. Michael’s Drive in Santa Fe. Fred swore the chile was picked just the day before and he looked like he knew how to roast it. We came home with our bag of hot, just roasted chiles and went to work on dividing them up into quart baggies for the freezer.

Our car still smells like chile, and the ice frozen in close proximity to it will have that slight tinge of chile flavor for the next week or so. We are ready for winter.

Last month, we took a long drive across the American Great Plains for my Holmsten family reunion. It was a few days of Midwestern family food and storytelling that refreshed my well of happy memories of growing up in a large, extended Swedish-American family based in Minnesota. We met at cousin Carolyn’s in Iowa, coming in from Minnesota Illinois, Florida, Montana, Texas, and New Mexico.

Sitting out in Carolyn and Dave’s backyard as the sun went down on that Friday evening, we were treated to a light show. Fireflies!  They were an important part of my childhood summer evenings. I hadn’t seen them for decades. And there they were, lighting up as they flew in and around the thick bushes and trees out beyond the patio.

We would chase fireflies down on summer evenings, and capture them in our cupped hands. They tickled me as they crawled around in the circle of my palms. Then—into the jar we had prepared ahead of time in anticipation of the Firefly Hunt.

We used a nail to puncture air holes in the lid of glass jar so we wouldn’t smother our captured magical lightning bugs. We brought the jar inside to watch the light show continue as our captives flew around inside the glass and continued their project of making light.

In the morning, I was always surprised to find the jar empty. Where had they gone? Were they hiding in dark corners of the house and would they reappear during the darkness of the next night when I least expected them? They never did.

The light from these small creatures never ceased to fascinate me. And there they were again, bringing the magic back into my life for one lovely summer evening.