Inspiration for a garden

I have to say my garden is not nearly this tidy. I admire very much the family that keeps this home looking as much as possible like its owner created. As anyone, who has a garden, knows-- gardens head toward chaos if not tended. This garden is lovingly tended. They invited any renters to weed but I didn't see a weed. Back or front garden, each showed balance, sense of humor and a love of nature.

and a back garden

personality and a home.

More than a few times I have probably mentioned how much I enjoy vacations where we rent a home especially through VRBO. It's good because you connect directly to the owners, although sometimes it's a manager of properties. What it feels like, when you get to such a house, is you are living where you are visiting. With my dislike of hotels, stores, businesses, etc., this is a big plus. 

So because it was being remodeled, we lost out on the home we regularly rent at the Oregon Coast. The manager of several properties suggested an alternative. The four of us took one look at the photos and agreed. So last week we were there for three nights and had one of our best rentals ever.

Now the house was not fancy in terms of modern granite drainboards, furniture from Sears, etc. Well it might have had some of that. It was from the outside a rather plain home built many years ago and not much remodeled (other than required by storm damage). It had big windows, large living room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, family room, fully equipped kitchen, and best of all, for one of our group, a cozy art studio (photo below with the guitar). It was well-maintained and depicted the owner of the home so much that even though she had been dead 11 years, the home still had all of her energy, helped along by the family desiring it to be so. It's still called by her name and inside were things she had collected that gave meaning to clearly an eclectic, fun, thoughtful, artistic lady. You cannot buy that kind of a home. You have to create it.

So for all our days there, we were looking at the various corners and niches with this or that and putting together more pieces of her personality. There were two photos that likely were her but no labeling; so cannot be sure. She had though books, and her art as well as what she collected. It was interesting enough that we did some research online to find that in 1978, after being widowed, she had moved to Yachats and the home that looked directly onto the beach. She lived there until her death. She was very involved in her community and left behind a home which shares a legacy that goes beyond money. It depicts a life.

What I loved especially was how so many of the things she had chosen told stories. They went beyond what they were to stoke imaginations. A good example of that is in the first two photos. Was it really from a sea going vessel? Looking at it closely and some research (the house had internet), it was a replica of Britania, which is in England. You can buy one to paint yourself. Perhaps that's what she did. The job, whoever did, made it look very old. It led to imagining a ship going down on the rocks off the surf, perhaps wreckers tricked it or maybe a storm. Did the villagers rush out to retrieve what they could? It's a story in an object. It was how the home felt.
 

Okay, I am running out of space. Next week the gardens which were every bit as fascinating.

Yachats 5

Yachats 4

and one more

Yachats 3

Yachats 2

Yachats 1

Last week, at the beach, north a bit of Yachats, leads this week to a photo a day of the wonderful wave action (photos by Farm Boss or me as we interchange taking them with no record who took which).

Spring and a coming equinox

It's almost here-- yep planting season and longer days. From now until the Solstice, the days up here in my part of the PNW will remind me why I love it so much in this area. It also begins our family's birthdays with one after another for a few months-- a break before we come to fall birthdays. Does anybody else have their family's birthdays fall in blocks?

As long as I don't read the newspapers, all is well with me. I am busy with a new western historical romance which I am totally loving writing. I got the idea for it from a short story anthology where my first idea was actually too long for a short story. What I love about writing is such serendipity-- like wow, from seemingly out of nowhere an idea is born as characters, plot and a new life take off.

At the farm, we got a fantastic sunset last week which just kept giving. Can't go wrong with that.

This week, Tuesday to Saturday, we had a great time in Yachats with our long-time friends where we rented a very cool beach house, cooked, laughed, talked, one of us painted, walked on the beach, and savored the artistic environment of the rental house. Lots more coming on that next Saturday with ocean photos maybe mid-week, but that house was sooooo special, not a lot of time to write about it and do it justice.

Now, check this out-- Facebook Barn Dance

March 15-16th, 15 authors are gathering to discuss, answer questions and give away prizes as a way to promote a new anthology, Rawhide 'n Roses-- 15 short stories about the West and love. Yahooo! The barn dance opens up Saturday with not only the authors but some give aways. Come on down and say howdy even if you're not a Facebook regular. All are welcome. If you come when I have my hour, which will be 4pm PDT, I have be giving either a paperback or eBook to one random commenter-- and if you already had the one I am offering, I'll make it another. Hey, at least come and keep me company for the hour ;).

And next week, more about Yachats, the Oregon Coast and a wonderful house and garden.

When it's raining

 Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Robert Frost

For anyone who writes a blog, I am sure there come those days when you go-- but I have nothing to say. This is one of those for me. I know Saturday is coming up where I like to have something uplifting for this blog. It's not easy some weeks. My life is pretty consistently onward and upward. We are getting the much needed rain but, of course, now the issue is, will flooding follow it? I don't think our creek will go into flood stage but other rivers already are. By the time this blog comes out, the rains should have let up.

It's actually been a delightful rain for me as this is one of our pineapple expresses where it's in the high 50s with heavy rain and some wind but not too much (so far). That means I can have the door open when I am writing. Being a native born Oregonian, I love rain. Sure, I like sunshine too but rain makes my part of Oregon what it is. If I need sunshine, I can head the other side of the Cascades but most of the time I feel about rain as some do about sunshine-- it is sustenance. Misty days are also good, but the drawback with them is no rain is falling-- and our trees and land need rain. Can't hardly write a whole blog though about rain now can I?

We did see a rainbow coming back from town the other day. It was a big one  that stretched across the valley, the kind that is hard to actually photograph (but I didn't have a camera with me anyway). The photo above was a different day when we took it along for a Sunday drive and hoping for a photo of mist and a neighboring valley.

I am doing a lot of writing. Writing three blogs a week for Rain Trueax is generally pretty easy (the current one is on short story writing). Lately it's been about the coming anthology of fifteen western/romance writers and their short stories or my own novellas that I am in the midst of researching and writing. 

There has been a lot more to that anthology coming out than just a simple-- it'll be here. Does anything get born without some birth pains? I have mentioned I did a blog for that, which I will also have a link here when it's live-- likewise two trailers-- one about the western and what it means to us as a culture. Writing one on that for Sunday's Rain Trueax also as I think it has a lot of elements to it that make the western interesting to think about for today.

Once in awhile I write a guest blog for someone else. I have one of those coming in April for a new blog. I'll definitely give a link to it when it goes live as I think readers here would find interesting what I wrote, but can't write about that or I'd give away their blog guest post.

And yes, I do relate to that poem by Frost. I too have taken the road less traveled-- more than once, and have always felt likewise-- it made all the difference.

happiness is...

The other day I was asked for a photo to use in a profile. When I went looking through mine, I realized they all looked so somber. I didn't have time then to do anything about it, sent the least gloomy of the lot, but thought-- I need some smiling photos. It's not like I'm an unhappy person but somehow when it came to photos, I have been most fascinated by taking them without a smile, rather straight faced.

The problem with straight faced is it then appears unhappy. The mad or sad look of a non-smiling face on an older person might be a product of age. Have you noticed how younger people have mouths that naturally turn up. The older people get, the more the natural mouth ends up down. I don't think this is because young people are happier than old people but more likely a result of the aging body-- gravity, dropping muscles, wrinkles, and lines. But it does not look as satisfied-- even if it is.

In my life, I am satisfied. It's not that I go around singing jolly songs all day, but I am doing what I want where I want. The changes I might like are ones I could make if I so chose. I like writing. I like where I live. I like the people in my life, my pets. Currently I have an outdoor reason for feeling good as each day is getting a little longer.

Once in awhile I come across an article or someone asking questions about how to be happy. I don't spend time thinking about whether I am. I don't think about it mostly at all. I am what I am. There are certainly happy moments that make me aware-- yes I am happy about that.

Writing makes me feel good. When I finished the rough draft for the second novella (which is nearly long enough to be a short novel but I want it to stay a novella), I did a fist bump into the air. That feeling when writing does not last particularly long as there is editing waiting, a few rough places to consider-- and then aspects of the next novella are already running around in my imagination.

In researching for it, I wanted to know more about the demonic world. My daughter suggested I try a series of books called the Iron Druid. Kevin Hearne writes them and the first ones are set in Arizona. Well I bought the first.

With my own writing temporarily finished, I started reading the first Iron Druid... Uh oh. One was not enough. I ended up buying the first four. I might be addicted. These books are in a genre called Urban Fantasy; something I haven't ever read-- knowingly anyway. Hearne did a lot of obvious research as he brings to life the world's gods, goddesses, demons, werewolves, vampires and pretty much any sort of mythic monster you can imagine in his stories of a 2000 year old Druid who is always fighting the bad guys. The reads are fun, lightweight, and especially enjoyable for anyone with a little knowledge (too knowledgeable and they might find fault) of world magical systems and mythologies.

His  monsters, etc. aren't the direction I intend for my third novella but they have let me see the benefit of developing personalities for the 'other' side. Since I want it to be a battle of good against evil encompassing the human and spirit world, I am beginning to firm up what mine might be. As to the heroine, that's still undecided, but the hero enters the trilogy in the second book.

Because I am an agnostic, not sure what exists beyond the human plane, I am always cautious how I treat the subject of evil. Yes, I know some think it doesn't exist. I think though in writing fantasy, it must if there is to be a real conflict. I wish there was a category of Urban Fantasy not in Urban areas ;). Rural Fantasy... Ranch Fantasy.. nah it'd sound like erotica. And my  new novellas won't have the sex scenes in them that I have written for my other books.  When you are keeping a book short, you can't afford scenes you don't need. The action has to move fast and derailing it for long ends up writing a novel.

Finally on this subject of what might or might not be-- I've mentioned other places that our new cat, Raven, watches certain types of television. She not only watches but she assimilates what's happening-- at least from a cat perspective. One day it was an old Errol Flynn movie. We saw her intently turned to it, ears reacting to the action until one of the secondary characters let out a cackle like a witch. It wasn't a witch but it might as well have been as Raven went all Halloween cat on us. I mean back up, tail bristly (wish I could get a photo of it; but when she did it, we were laughing too hard-- and the pose doesn't last long). She ran from the room, then came back around from the kitchen and peeked over the edge of the fireplace hearth to look back at the screen. That's when we decided to turn it off. Errol was cute but not worth a Halloween cat in case that cackle returned.

A few days later we thought the totally innocuous, Puss 'n Boots, a kids' animated film, should be safe. At one point the movie's feline heroine let out a yowl at the male and again Raven, who had been intently watching, leaped in the air and ran into the bedroom to hide. She came back after about five minutes. I am thinking she's like a little kid and TV for awhile will have to be monitored for what won't upset her. I've never seen a cat who literally seems to follow the stories. She not only sees it, but she's curious about it. Now we know she also can get scared by it.

Oh yeah and here are some of the photos I took to try and get a genuine smile for the camera ;)

Well it was first attempt...

not there yet...

it's harder than it looks

the dark side

Finally I am back to writing on my next novella. It's been hard to have enough time to sit down at the keyboard what with weather, adjusting to not traveling, no power, etc. etc. and a million things that stand in my way of concentrating on the story I need to develop. 

During the time away from my own writing, I've been working on a blog that will introduce a western short story anthology. That was a lot more complicated than I expected when I volunteered. I had seen it about selling an anthology-- easy. But it really was putting together fifteen authors (me included) and showcasing their work in such a way they would like what they saw. Eek.

So the blog is done and will go live shortly before the anthology is released as an eBook and I think paperback, which will be March 15. I don't know the details as Susan Horsnell, an Australian writer is putting together the actual book. Boy was that a big job with all those writers, their bios and then getting it formatted. Double eek. 

Writing the short story had actually been fun. I am happy to be with this group of authors who I met through the MOA at Amazon. I don't have a lot of places I am part of any group (by choice) but it's one (also by choice).

The new novella will follow When Fates Conspire even though that novella has found very little reader interest. I think it's hard for readers to get their heads around what it's about as it doesn't conveniently fit a genre. The closest would be paranormal romance.

Anyway interested readers or not, some stories you just have to write. I think I have mentioned how the first one came out of a dream. When it was finished, I knew there was another story to be told. I would have loved a dream to help me with the structure for this one but so far no luck. Lots of dreams-- but none relating to this story. Nevertheless, the story is coming together. 

It is taking the dark side of the spiritual world. You know if you create a story about the positive side, there has to be a yang to the yin, a thorn to the rose, balance to what is real and isn't. There will even be a third as each explore an aspect of the human condition-- and spirit. Of course, with romance and adventure as all my stories have that.

The image above is putting together two of our photos as inspiration for the new novella. I had written a story before that dealt with the dark side, Sky Daughter, and felt uneasy with how to address spiritual evil in the plot and as a character. I always am uneasy when I decide to write about monsters or demons because what if my thinking about them draws them to me? How Stephen King stays a normal person and does it is beyond me. Anyway I finally have a grasp on how this evil will work and what it's limitations will be. Not surprisingly, it's a very similar conclusion to what I had in Sky Daughter. I suppose my concern about drawing something, that might not exist, to me is a little superstitious-- although since I have two black cats, probably not too much.

Otherwise life here on the little ranch is doing just fine. Animals are healthy, no more losses although we had more than our share this winter and are still evaluating why the heck that happened. We have had to buy extra hay due to the inordinately cold weather as well as having someone else putting out the hay not necessarily as Farm Boss would have-- but quite competently for the animal's sake.

Anyway, overall we and our animals are back into a routine of being here-- as if there ever is an exact routine on a small ranch where it involves nature and livestock ;)

How wolves change rivers

Ecology is an ongoing question for humans mainly because we have the ability to change life forms dramatically. Do we always know in what way it will be going? Do a lot of people, who live in cities, think that what happens out there, in the back of beyond, it doesn't matter to them? This is a great little video about balance in nature with Yellowstone and the wolves as its example. Oregon will soon be asking if it should support wolf packs. Educating ourselves to the cost and benefit is important-- or should be.

I was in Yellowstone before the wolves returned and have been there many times since. Even I observed how much they changed animal behavior. 

weather and the land

Getting back to the farm left very little time to think about anything beyond what needed to be done. We had not even totally unpacked the trailer when the snowfall began. The weather reports changed by the hour as to what we should expect. Very cold. No snow. Snow. Some snow. A lot of snow. Besides weather we came back to the main lambing time. 

So looking at weather maps more than we have in years, we had feeding, lambing, unpacking, the joy of such a beautiful snowfall, and finally, as happens so often in the aftermath of such a storm, a power outage. 

Photos and memories are all that remain of the storm as the snow has mostly gone into the ground. The power was finally restored. We have a lot of live lambs but lost more than we had in the last three or four years-- never this many in one year. Some is the weather. Some maybe the wrong ram for young ewes. It is part of the nature of raising livestock but not a fun part. It was complicated by no electricity from Saturday afternoon until about midnight Tuesday night--followed by another power outage Friday morning from 3:20am until 7:30am (likely due to a downed tree across a line as a lot of them haven't looked good since the storm).

When you are without power, it's amazing how it changes living. Surprisingly, light was the thing I found myself missing most. Yeah, the internet, but we could get online sporadically with long extension cords attached to either the trailer battery or a generator (original one stopped working one day into the outage). What we couldn't have were electric lights, the refrigerator, stove, water for flushing or drinking (well pumps run from electricity). 

What we had was heat thanks to the fireplace and a good wood-stove. We lit candles, but they provide pools of light. It feels like living in a cave when the only light comes from flames. It was a good reminder, when I get back to writing something historical, although likely people didn't think about it so much as it just was what they experienced.

The power company was the most disappointing it's ever been as they kept giving updates when we would call in and each one was the same-- we're working on it. Be back in 48 hours. Here are the places still without. Who believes anybody when they say it'll be 48 hours? That just means they don't know. These days they operate like so many businesses, you are never allowed to talk to a real person. A computer runs it all including the crews from what we can tell.

Finally Tuesday night when Farm Boss called their recording, it said, all power is restored in the area. that's when he got angry and told them as much. They were on our road later that night, just before midnight with three trucks to restore power. It could have been done Sunday and saved us the cost of a new generator-- if they had listened to their old timers-- like us. We've been through it before. Their computers are clueless as they go by whatever info was typed in!

When you live out and through this kind of storm, you totally appreciate the crews that go out in the worst of it and try to bring it all back to normal. The road crews worked steadily not only removing snow but the trees and branches that went  across the roads from the ice and snow load. 

Of course, I can't be sure what went wrong with our power company, but I am blaming their computerized system that cuts jobs and frequently fails pretty much in an emergency. When the guys out here were the ones deciding what to do, they got the job done. When they are forced to depend on a computer to tell them where to go, the story is not the same. 

Anyway all is well that -- at least temporarily-- ends well (other than the cost to us of that new generator as we didn't have time to get the old one repaired if we wanted to save what was in our freezer as it began to warm up). I am just very glad we were here for the whole experience. It was a snowfall my part of Oregon hasn't seen in probably ten years-- beautiful, intense, filled with opposing emotions, colors and feelings. For someone like me who remembers these kinds of storms when I was a kid, I enjoyed it-- even to some extent the power outage as it does challenge us to bring out the best we have. I am not yet ready to live somewhere that the temps never change and there is no challenge. I'll save that for my 80s... maybe ;).

Anyway it's more or less back to normal, and the snow is gone all but for patches. We are back to rain, which our land badly needs; so we welcome it. Some people kid Oregonians about how so much rain must be depressing. It isn't for most native Oregonians-- especially those who have lived their lives the west side of the Cascades. We do what we want in it. We know it's what makes our land what it is. If the rain goes, so will go a lot of our vegetation. This is a drought year in our area and even this amount of rain hasn't gotten our snow-pack or river levels to normal. It's not as bad as California but we had already been experiencing forest fires. That's not good when it's January and February; so I am glad to see it raining.

In the house there has been a lot of color with the roses earlier, the fires in the fireplace, candles. In the midst of the rest of this, I have been trying to get good photographs of a gift we were given in Arizona. They are carved bookends of two buffalo heads by a talented Bisbee artist Thomas Suby who does phenomenal work as you can see if you look at this link or this one Bisbee sculptor in wood.

The detail and personality in his work is amazing, but the glossy finish has  made them a challenge to photograph on the mantle beside one of our Navajo rugs, some pottery by a local potter, and candles. Because of the shine from the flash, I gave up and moved them to a table where outside light helped to cut down on the glare. You can enjoy the grain of the wood and detail finally this way.

The wood is ironwood which we happen to live near quite a lot of it in Tucson. Ironwood doesn't flourish everywhere as you'd see if you were in Tucson. Our home there is in one of its regions. We have several healthy trees, lost one big old one since we moved there. I tried every which way to keep the biggest and another younger one alive but lost them both. They had reached the biggest size possible for their settings, I guess. That area has caliche in the soil and maybe it was a factor. The big one might have lived its life expectancy but it was a big loss, such a lovely tree.

Ironwood trees are beautiful all year but especially when they bloom. They also have fine little slivery leaves and limbs. Unless you have worked around an ironwood tree, you have no idea how insidious those tiny slivers can be. I wouldn't have one near the pool but in the natural vegetation region of our property there, i love and treasure them. I am though thinking maybe the stump from that big one we lost... maybe just maybe some of it should be carved ;). I used to carve stone but bloodied my hands so much that I gave it up-- not to mention the soapstone dust is bad for lungs. We left the old ironwoods where they were as the hawks, doves and other birds love to perch on them as they survey their world.

 May 2012