Is This Cheating?

During the last few years, I've been a reading machine. Taking advantage of a great library system with loads of new releases (not to mention a state-of-the-art drive-up window) I became one of their best customers. I proudly signed up for the Goodreads Challenge for 2011 and 2012, and challenged myself to read 111 and 112 books for those years. Done!

     

   

Living in a rainy climate, I gobbled up books like crazy - usually averaging about two novels a week.

But wait! Something happened. After I signed up for the 2013 Goodreads challenge, and marked myself at 113 books for the year, I noticed I was getting more and more behind. The challenge told me so, with snide little comments like: At this rate, you are 2 books behind schedule. (No problem, I thought. Just read a little faster.) Then the messages got more serious: you are 3 books behind, then 4, then, *gasp* five!

Yes, we moved further south at the beginning of the year. Yes, we moved to a somewhat warmer climate, where I am outside more, fixing up our house, planting, weeding, rekindling my interest in native plants, falling into bed at night too tired to read. But soon I had several unfinished novels with bookmarks stuck in various places. More gardening books than I can possibly digest! Library books stacking up on my coffee table! E-books stacking up on my Nook, and I was too darned busy to read! How would I ever complete my challenge?

I know. I'd read picture books! Those count, right? So here I am, perusing the children's section at the library, gathering picture books by the armload, reading them (they only take a couple of minutes each) and then marking them on my Goodreads challenge. But I still can't catch up!

Now I am, gasp, seven books behind! Should I drop out? What if I don't make it?
(I really HATE to make a challenge for myself and then FAIL!) EEEKK!

2013 Reading Challenge

You have read 33 books toward your goal of 113 books.

33 of 113 (29%)

At your current pace, you're 7 books (7%) behind schedule.

 

 

But I've figured it out - whereas before I did most of my reading in the LOONNGG rainy winter, when it was too cold/miserable to go outside - now I might read a lot more in the summer, when it's too HOT to go outside.

I hope so. Otherwise, (although I do love novels) you might find me permanently camped out in the children's section of the library next December, reading picture book after picture book, until I finally meet my goal of 113.

That wouldn't really be cheating, would it?

P.S. If you are completing a Goodreads challenge, or if you just plain enjoy reading for fun, remember that Six Degrees of Lost is still on sale over at Amazon for only .99!

Hope you are enjoying whatever you are reading!

Six Degrees of Lost - On Sale - .99

Happy May, everyone! Start your e-readers . . .

I've got a great promotion on one of my books to tell you about!

Six Degrees of Lost is only .99 from May 1-15.

 

A Lost Dog, A First Love, A Journey

Olive’s mother is headed to jail and her brother to join the Army, so thirteen-year-old Olive is uprooted from sunny California and dumped in Washington State like a stray. That's exactly what she feels like surrounded by her aunt’s collection of homeless dogs, cats, and horses.

Fourteen-year-old David’s future is already carved in stone. From a military family with two brothers serving overseas, he’s been pointed towards the Air Force Academy his entire life - but a rafting trip gone awry might ruin his chances.


When a runaway dog is almost hit by a car, the search for its owner leads Olive and David, two teens from entirely different backgrounds, to an unlikely bond. Will their growing attraction to each other be enough to keep Olive from a foolhardy journey to find her mother? Will David risk his family’s plans to save her?

Have you read this one yet? I hope you'll take advantage of this awesome price to buy a copy for yourself, or give it to someone else. Here is a short excerpt:

“So what’s with all those dogs barking in the back yard?”

“They’re foster dogs. My aunt takes them in when they get too crowded at the animal shelter. Some of them aren’t adoptable, and would be put to sleep otherwise.”

“Really?” I gulp.

“We’ve also got six cats in the house, plus the horses out back. Come on, I’ll show you.” The yellow dog jumps up and down, begging for the stick. Olive flings it down the driveway. I see a small shelter out back, with sagging fences. Olive is already headed that way, taking short barefoot steps on the gravel, so I follow.

A sway-backed pinto horse with a mouth full of hay sticks his head out from the shelter and then turns and goes back to his breakfast. It looks kind of bony.

“Wow,” I say. “Skinny.”

“Yeah, that’s Paintball.” She grins. “Well, that’s what I call him. He was found wandering loose up in the National Forest. Aunt Trudy says somebody just dumped him there.”

“Why would anybody do that?”

Olive shrugs. “I know. Hard to believe, huh? I guess they couldn’t afford to feed him, but still, that’s just mean.”

A huge brown horse wanders over to the fence. “Who’s this one?” I reach between the strands of wire and pat his head. He’s just as skinny as the first one.

“My aunt says he’s ancient, and we’ll probably never get his weight back on. They found him tied to a tree in front of the animal shelter, but they don’t really have any facilities for horses there, so he came here instead. He’s sweet, huh?”

“Yeah, he seems nice.” The old horse pushes his head underneath my hand, clearly enjoying the attention.

“I call him Shakespeare. ‘Cause he looks so noble and elegant.”

Elegant? I think. That’s a stretch. “Can you ride them?”

“I don’t know. Aunt Trudy says we don’t really know that much about them. Anyway, it’s been too hot, and she’s always busy. She’s a clerk at the animal shelter thrift shop, and she takes turns working down at the shelter, besides feeding all these animals here at home.”

Olive talks so fast she makes my head swim. She barely takes a breath, and rattles on. “So besides the ones she takes in from the shelter, my aunt is always finding animals, too. She says there must be an invisible sign at the bottom of the driveway that says: Lost Animals Stop Here.”

“Is that how you found this dog?” I stroke the big lab’s ears, and he presses against me.

“He was standing in the middle of the road,” she says, “and almost got hit by a car.” She smiles. “Maybe he was reading the sign.”

---

So, go! Snatch up your copy while the price is right. It's up on Amazon now, and should be on sale at some other sites soon. Here's the link:

Amazon

 

Thanks so much, everyone. Really appreciate your support!!

Connections

I've taken on a new challenge which is turning out to be so rewarding.

I have begun tutoring an ESL (English as a Second Language) student. We've been working on reading, writing, speaking, and reading comprehension.

She is so bright and willing to learn, that it feels like a privilege and an honor to help her.

We have several things in common - we are both mothers, we both have wonderful husbands and families, but today I found out that she also loves horses!

My student used to ride horses when she was a girl, in Mexico, the country where she grew up.

Of course, horse people always get excited when they find out that someone else is also a horse lover, because you know that you'll have plenty to talk about and it is a bond that you share. In this case however, the connection goes deeper.

One of my very first books, published by an educational publisher - Mondo Publishing - is called THE HORSE JAR. It's about a girl named Annie, who saves every nickel, dime, and dollar that she earns in a special jar, in order to buy a horse of her own.

This book has also been translated into Spanish, with the title LA ALCANCIA DE LOS SUENOS (which loosely means The Piggybank of Dreams.)

I am so excited about this shared love of horses that I've found with my student, and next time we meet, I'll be taking her a copy of THE HORSE JAR to read. Maybe she can even help me learn to read the Spanish version of it!

Nature - the Pause that Refreshes

What have I been up to lately? Enjoying Nature. I've been outside, taking a short hiatus from writing and refreshing the soul by immersing myself in nature.

I've found the nest of a pair of red-shouldered hawks, across the creek and 2/3 of the way up a Ponderosa Pine tree. I believe Mama Hawk is setting, so I'll be watching for babies soon.

Enjoying the ever-changing landscape of wildflowers blooming on our property, and delighting in their beauty.

Shooting Stars, Ponderosa Pine, and Incense Cedar

Found a new friend and a great wildflower hiking trail.

Spent days tackling a thicket of over-grown blackberries with a pair of pruning shears, and uncovered three kinds of native ferns, wild iris, wild rose, and native spiraea growing along a water-filled swale.

Wild Ginger and Deer Fern

Visited several nurseries in town and bought native shrubs to fill in my large collection of wild plants already growing here.

Have visions of creating a native botanical garden here on our property, but for now, will be content with planting a little at a time.

Wild Lilac (ceonothus) and Kinnikkinnick

 

Here are all the native plants found growing on our property so far (and many are just leafing out, popping up, or beginning to bloom, so I'm sure this list will grow):

 

Trees

Douglas Fir                         Pseudotsuga menziesii

Incense Cedar                   Calocedrus decurrens

Pacific Madrone               Arbutus menziesii

Ponderosa Pine                 Pinus ponderosa

California Black Oak        Quercus kelloggii

Oregon White Oak           Quercus garryana

Black Cottonwood           Populus trichocarpa

Coast Redwood                Sequoia sempervirens     

Red Alder                            Alnus Rubra

 

Shrubs

Hairy Manzanita               Arctostaphylos columbiana

Buckbrush                          Ceanothus cuneatus

Wild Lilac, Deerbrush       Cenothus integerrimus   

Snowberry                          Symphoricarpos albus

Ocean Spray                      Holodiscus discolor          

Pacific Ninebark                Physocarpus capitatus   

Clustered Wild Rose         Rosa Pisocarpa

Evergreen Huckleberry    Vaccinium ovatum           

Douglas Spiraea                Spiraea douglasii              

Wildflowers

Camas Lily           Camassia quamash

Pink Fawn Lily, Henderson’s Fawn Lily       Erythronium hendersonii

Shooting Star, Henderson’s Shooting Star               Dodecatheon hendersonii

Woodland Star   Lithophragum parviflora or affine

Oregon Saxifrage             Saxifraga oregano

Buttercups          Ranunculus

Western Spring Beauty    Claytonia lanceolata

Pacific Bleeding Heart     Dicentra Formosa

Yellow Violet

Wild Ginger         Asarum caudatum

Ferns

Lady Fern             Athyrium filix-femina

Sword Fern          Polystichum munitum

Wood Fern          Dryopteris expansa

Deer Fern            Blechnum spicant             

 

Will I get back to writing again? Yes, probably soon. But right now, I'm enjoying a refreshing break. Besides - Benson Botanical Gardens has kind of a nice ring to it, don't you think?

 

 

What refreshes your soul? Is it being out in the open, or something else?

 



Hunting Fawn Lilies

One of the things that has brought me much joy lately is watching the variety of wildflowers popping up on our new property. We have a mixed woodland of Madrone, Incense Cedar, Black Oak, Ponderosa Pine, and Douglas Fir, and underneath on the forest floor, almost everywhere you step, native flowers are beginning to bloom.

Buttercups

 

Shooting Stars

So I've been busy rekindling an old passion - one quite dear to my heart. Some years ago I started and ran a native plant nursery, where I grew and sold plants, trees, and flowers native to this region of the west. On the cover of my catalog was a line drawing of a favorite wildflower - a fawn lily, which sports a precious bloom sprouting up between two spotted leaves.

So imagine my delight when I noticed tiny spotted leaves popping up beneath our trees. I've been busy marking the ones in this lawn area with little orange flags, so that someone else in this family *cough* does not mistake them for a weed, and "accidentally" mow or spray them.

I've been patiently waiting for these fawn lilies to bloom. The ones that I've seen before are white - a common variety. And some, called glacier lilies, are yellow. But oh, my goodness, the ones we have on our property are - PINK!

They are Henderson's Fawn Lily - Erythronium Hendersonii - and while not exactly rare, only grow in a rather small geographical area. Pink Fawn Lilies! Right here in my yard! Honestly, I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I noticed this bloom.

So if you don't see me much, it's because I'm out communing with wildflowers. I have rekindled an old love of mine - for native plants of every kind.

Tell me - are wildflowers popping up where you live?

Have any favorites?

Two Questions

Yesterday I had an interesting discussion with a good friend about the difference between Paint and Pinto horses. Basically, there is no distinction between the two colors, but there are two separate breed registries in the US, with different requirements.

Then we talked about color in horses in general and what exactly, constitutes a breed? And because my brain moves in funny ways (hey, I'm a writer) I started thinking about two questions I was recently requested to answer on a form to see a new medical doctor. Two questions that really, really irk me.

You've probably seen them before, on all kinds of forms. They are:

Race: ____________________________

Ethnicity: _________________________

As an amateur genealogist who has studied my family's roots back several generations, I've discovered that I am German, Danish, English, Dutch, maybe Irish, and quite possibly Cherokee Indian. And who knows what else?

Lots and lots of us are many, many things. So why do we have to be categorized at all? For what earthly reason?

(Which leads me to another things that upsets me - not being a "person of color." Is white not a color? (Oh, right, white is the absence of color. But wait, I get really, really tan in the summer. Like, brown. So then would I be considered a person of color?) Okay, I'll stop now.

But in general, I really hate being pigeon-holed in any way, especially on a stupid form. Which is why I do not answer the second question - ethnicity - at all. And as the the first question, I always answer it like this:

Race: ___Human_________


I mean, aren't we all??

Moving with Cats

Need to move? If you have to take Rover, it's usually not a problem. Woof! Dogs usually like to go anywhere their owners do, and if they are anything like ours, you have to spell the word R-I-D-E around them. So a move usually involves a longer car r-i-d-e, some days of reassurance at the new home, and the immediate need for a new dog tag with Rover's updated identification.

But with cats, it's a little different. Cats do not like changes of any kind - in their surroundings, in their schedule, in their family life. So moving a long ways (or even a little ways) can be highly stressful to both feline and doting owner. Here are a few tips to make it easier - if you have to move with Darling Kitty:

1. First and most important! Invest in a secure cat carrier. Maybe like this one:

A wire crate may work well, too. Do not use a cardboard box, or even those cardboard cat carriers they give you at the humane society or the vet's office. A stressed cat can claw right out of those (ask me how I know) and your freaked-out cat may, too!

2. Prepare ahead of time. Your cat will pick up on the stress and changes happening, especially when you begin putting all of your belongings in boxes, taping them shut, and stacking them all around the house. Sure, it's a fun jungle-gym at first, but when you start selling furniture (including the bed they hide under) and allowing strange people into the house (like movers) your cat will very possibly run out the door and hide, wanting nothing to do with all this upheaval in its life. Don't allow this to happen! Find a spot in the house (bedroom or bathroom) where you can safely shut the cat(s) and their food, litter box, bed, playthings away. Get them used to staying in here at least a day or two ahead of the move. Put the crate inside, so they'll get used to the sight and smell of it, and talk to them and sooth them. Tell them how much fun this will be - (right.)

3. If you use movers - shut the cats in their room with food, water, litter box, hiding spot, and big sign on door that says "Cats. Do Not Enter!" Inform everyone who is helping you that this room is off limits. Make sure there is no chance that your cat will freak out, dart out the door, and run off in a panic, while strangers are hauling furniture out the door.

4. Day of move - when you have a long drive ahead of you - place cats in their cages early. Bed them down, and put a mini litter box inside. If they are super stressed (they will be) they probably won't even eat, so it might be best to withhold food until you arrive at your destination (or at least until you pull over for the night.) When cats are frightened, they want to hide, so a cardboard box or a blanket draped over a wire cage will allow them some comfort and security. Leave them in their cage in the safe room until you are ready to leave. Them load them (cage and all) into the vehicle. Don't try to cradle little Sweetie-Pie as you walk her to the car in your arms. (This is when she might jump and take off.) Have her in the cage first, and then load the cage.

When you stop to check on them (at rest areas, parking lots) they will be super frightened of all the traffic noise, strange smells, etc. Do not take them out of the cage, no matter how much you want to cuddle them! This is a prime danger area for a cat to get lost, run over, or never be found. Leave them where they are safe - in their cage.

5. When you (finally, exhaustedly) arrive at  your new home - the dog will jump out with a smile on his face: "hey guys, cool, where are we?" The cats will huddle at the back of their cage, scared out of their wits, but glad that the rocking and rolling has stopped. Once again, have a "safe room" in the house. A small room where nothing else is happening, if possible. Prepare them food, water, a hiding spot, and a litter box. If it all seems safe, and you can shut the door securely to this room, you may let them out of their cages. Leave them be! You don't want them dashing out the door in this new location, where they will certainly run off and hide, or once again, possibly be hit by a car. Leave them alone, and they will be fine.

6. Introduce them to the new house slowly. They will slink around, checking things out carefully, looking for places to hide in one room at a time. Give them space and time to adapt in their own way. Just like people, cats have their own personalities. Some are brave, and some are not. Kittens will usually start to play quite quickly, while older cats will take longer to make the transition. But if you go slow, and let them do it on their own time, cats will adjust to their new surrounding. They mostly want to feel safe. (I mean, doesn't everyone?)

7. If they will be inside/outside cats, don't let them outside for quite some time. I waited almost two weeks to let ours out, and even then, it was onto a little quiet deck where they sat, smelled the air, and then ran right back inside where they felt it was safe. Leave the door open a crack so they know they can come back to their comfort spot. After almost four weeks at our new home, our brave young cat, Fred, is now running all over the property, and absolutely loves it.

Our old barn cat though, has decided she likes living in the house better than her scary new surroundings outside, and has only ventured out one time. That's okay. She is ten years old, and now lives by the motto: Discretion is the better part of Valor.

But all of our cats made the long move safely and without too much stress. (Oh, there was a little howling from the back of my rig for the first several hours of the drive, but all three of them finally decided to sleep through the move.)

The dog, of course, thinks his new house, his new yard and doghouse, and all the new places to take a walk, are the coolest things ever.

But moving with cats is different, and I hope these tips will allow you and your Feline Sweetie to make the transition as easily as possible, for everyone concerned.

Meow! 

Have you read WALKING THE DOG yet (the newest of my books?) Although there are many dogs in this story, there is also a quite independent orange cat, who has a difficult time making transitions, several times. I hope you'll check it out. It's available as an eBook almost everywhere, including Amazon.

So tell me, have you moved with your cats?
How did it go?
Feel free to add any tips or suggestions that worked for you!