Random Things

Yikes. I have been a bad blogger. Woefully neglecting my blog! :-(

So here, in apology, are several random things:

Wild Lilac (Ceanothus integerrimus) growing on the bank above us. It's blooming everywhere right now!

Our cat, Fred, is a total goofball, and loves to perch in the craziest places. Here he is on top of a medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

These are lovely wild iris (Iris chrysophylla) growing on our property.

And here is a doe that frequents our meadow every evening. She was camped out in the bushes by the creek this morning, and I think she might drop a fawn soon. How exciting would that be?

I am feeling the urge to write, though, honestly. I've just been too busy enjoying nature and the outdoors. I have the sequel to The Girl Who Remembered Horses to work on, that is about 80% complete, as well as a YA novel in verse that is probably 75% finished. Time to get cracking!

But wait! Is that a baby hummingbird in the pink weigela?

What have you been enjoying this spring??

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??