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I just happened upon a quote from one of my FAVORITE authors that best sums up the experience when you are writing a novel:

"One day I was speeding along at the typewriter, and my daughter - who was a child at the time - asked me, 'Daddy, why are you writing so fast?' And I replied, "Because I want to see how the story turns out!"
. . . Louis L'Amour

So very true. My novel...it's like writing itself. I can't beleive it. Perhaps this isn't me writing - it's the ghost of Louis L'Amour possessing my body...

I just cannot believe it - the thing is pouring out of my like Niagara Falls. I can't stop it! I told my dear, and very understanding husband, that you only get stuff done in life if you DO IT. I'll never get a book written if I poke away here and there. I have to sit down and pound this puppy out. Even if i try and get it published and they say, "THIS IS RUBBISH!" at least I did it, ya know? That's what it boils down to. If you have a dream don't be afraid of trying it out - I mean, how many times are our failures splashed across the sky for all to see? And when is a failure truly a failure anyway? So, we try to live a dream or do something and it doesn't work out. Why is that failure? I think that it is more along the lines of, "never meant to be and now you know", ya'll ken? I've done so many things that ended up a dead end and getting nowhere. SO WHAT! Do I hang my head all day and play the pity fiddle? Yeah! For about ten minutes, I'll admit. And then - I go after the next dream on the list...

That's what life is all about: living it. When we are old and crotchety in some nursing home gumming luke-warm tapiocca pudding at least we can say: "Listen ya little whipper snapper! When I was your age I wrote a book and danced ballet and raced horses through the Arabian Desert... So stop yer wet-behind-the-ears moaning, get out there and LIVE LIFE! (and take me with you - I think I can fit in your shoulder bag there long enough to get past the guards...)"

I always use that quote from, The Sound of Music: "Whenever God closes a door, He opens a window.." When I basically lost my entire life up in Alaska (and my mother) I was like...oh my GOD what is going to happen to me now? WHO AM I?? I've lost myself! Arrrrg!! (Ya'll got the expanded version not long ago...)

Now I see that in my consternation I walked past the wide-open window. Here I am with a busted ankle "a stranger in a really strange and cool, unique, interesting land..." with the window to my art WIDE OPEN and letting in the wind. I've never been able to focus heavily on art, music or writing because of either my 16-hour-a-day job or my University studies... well, now I'm sitting here living one of my oldest dreams: I'm writing a book!

But eh...God, literally, only knows if this bad boy will get published.

If it does, will ya'll come to the farm for a celebration bar-b-que in the rain?!

Brodgar helps me with my spelling and grammer...

My 400th page!! Wooohoooo! Man, my eyeballs burn, fingers hurt, my wrists ache and my rear is numb. This book better get published...

Have a good day, ya'll! I need to get back to writing...

I have two steer calves that I'm training to be future riding and driving oxen but right now I can't work with the older calf. I have the younger one here at this farm though. He's two months old and as bold as brass!

Hopefully my friend SheWhoKnowsAlot will be able to help me to teach the calf to jump and do basic dressage - as per cattle confirmation of course hehe!

This is going to be an interesting winter!


He's a bold little thing! Yesterday was the first time I was in the field with him and as I sat on a bucket he crept over and had a sniff.


I like his nice straight back.


He's a good chunky lad out of our stout bull, "Prince Chan." I was really surprised that he let me come up behind him like this. You can see that he's keeping an eye (and ear) on me...


Mum Moo is quite tame which is good because she's teaching the calf to come up to me. When she gets her treat of grain from the bucket I stand near her and scratch her shoulders while the calf sneaks a sniff of my leg. I'm going to start halter (head collar) breaking him soon.

We all live in a Tattie Submarine... (Beatles, eat your heart out!)

Ok then! This is an...odd tattie Erlend dug up from the tattie patch. (By the way, blight consumed our Sharps Express arrrg!!)

Do any of ya'll have strange plant life photos to share?! I'm always interested in seeing what Mother Nature comes up with...

Holy cow...(no pun intended.) I just pounded out my 500th page. I need to print them all out because it's HARD trying to find something while scrolling through hundreds of pages.

Do any of you ken if there's a publishing type word processor out there that would let me break my books up into chapters for easier access?! I'm using Microsoft Works and my books are in two big several-hundred-page-long chunks. Egads!

Hoo boy! I just put the halter on the calf...well, not alone: Erlend helped because I couldn't get near calf for all the kicking he did. Before we captured him I let him smell the halter and then I rubbed it over his shoulders and back while he flinched and cringed. Eventually he stopped being super-terrified of the strange object.

While my brave Erlend walked through several Bruce Lee kicks he captured the calf and held the bucking beastie in the corner of his pen with his backside aiming away from me. I said, "Be careful or you'll get kicked!" and Erlend laughed and informed me that he's been kicked by cattle "more times then you've had hot dinners..." He's brave. I'm a wimp - I'm even afraid of the calf!! (For a good reason because at all sizes these beasts pack a punch!)

I tried my best to put the halter on calf's fuzzy little head in a gentle manner so he wouldn't be terrorized - complete with lots of shoulder-scratches and praise. And I said, "Halter." while I was putting it over his nose and behind his ears. It took a couple of tries because I didn't want to put him in a head lock and grind the halter onto his face. We didn't rush it and calf did surprisingly well! He didn't like it but he didn't go ballistic with panic either.

(Do bovines respond to praise? Does anyone know? I've NEVER trained a hooved animal before, let alone an independent critter like a bovine!)

Now calf is playing a losing game tug-o-war as we step back and let him duke it out with the halter. Like the sheep we were going to show last month, he'll eventually figure out that he can't beat the halter and he'll learn to stand quietly by default. Our ram lamb "Magnus Magnusson" is fantastic when we tie him! He just stands there all patient and cute. But I have a bone to pick with whomever came up with the, "Gentle as a lamb" saying. WHAT A LIE! Lambs are not gentle. You have to endure kicks and butts and bites before you can get a lamb to stand still and be nice hahaha! Boy oh boy, whomever coined that phrase has never wrestled a lamb. I still have scars. My huge coffee table of a Texel yow lamb "Inga" still whips my hide whenever I tie her. She REFUSES to stand quiet. Uh uh, ain't gonna happen! She'll run up to me for scratches like a loyal dog. But stand for a halter? Nope!

I don't know if this calf will ever be tame enough because this is my first time ever training an ox. Who knows how many mistakes I'm making? To help cure his fear I've taken to closing a gate around on him and this lets me stand right by his side without getting my knees blown out with his flying hooves of fury. My guess is that gentle desensatization (sp??) with lots of shoulder scratches is the key.

Today my stot calf received his first scolding and he listened! I can't believe that the critter actually responded to my voice - I figured I was so far out of his loop that he'd never listen to me. I'm not a cow. I'm not his mother. I'm just some scary thing that shuts him in a pen and scratches his shoulders.


Mummy Moo tied in her stall so she can't come beat me up. (She's acctually a very sweet cow. But a mum moo is a mum moo regardless!!)

Anyway, yesterday my friend, who is a horsewoman, came by and gave me some pointers as I've never trained anything. She told me it was vital that I teach the stot calf that he is not allowed to kick at me or shake his head at me. She asked, "What do cows do when their calves misbehave?" and I told her, "They shove them with their heads." Unlike horses, cattled don't kick and bite - they use their heads on each other. Obviously I am not going to butt my calf with my weak human head haha! So Friend thought for a minute and said that when the calf so much as lifted a leg at me or twitched his head at me I was to give him a shove and say, "No!" in a firm voice.


My calf, "He's Gettin' Jiggy With It", in his pen. I put him in here so I can handle him without having to chase him around the barn.

So, this morning when I held out my hand for him to sniff at he gave his head a good threatening shake and I gave him a firm shove and said, "No!" in a deep voice. WOW! You would have thought I was his mom cow the way he acted! And after that I let him sniff my hand three times in a row and each time he sniffed and then turned his head to the front in a very pointed manner and I would give him scratches and say, "Good boy." His body language was so obvious - he had understood that shaking his head at me was naughty! Or whatever the cattle interpretation would be. I'm so surprised that he picked that up so fast.

Well, I stopped the lesson then so as not to over tax the poor calf. I have him a nice dose of scratches and then let him out of the pen to go have a sook and be with his mum. (I try to use the sook as a reward at the end of a training session since cattle don't seem to take food treats very easily.)

Something I've noticed in the past day: the calf looks right at me when I speak. He seems to pay much more attention to me whereas before I was just one of many objects to look at. I'm assuming this is a good sign!

Now, on to the artist stuff: I've joined a community class at Orkney College called, "Drawing and Painting." It's a 20 week class so I'll learn a lot! One of many things that really impresses me about Orkney is how active the community is in the arts and music and writing. This place...you don't have to sit around moping all winter!! It's just like Fairbanks, Alaska in so many respects - except I can't hardly understand folk...

Anyhoo, I'm determined to be an artist by golly! And this class is perfect for total beginners like me. I'm such a beginner I showed up without so much as a pencil because I had no idea what to bring! And then I was like, "What's a drawing board?!" Thankfully our instructor remembers what it's ilke to be a total novice and he showed us all of the materials we needed to buy. And then he started us off with line drawing. "Does everyone understand what I mean by 'line drawing'?" he asked and while everyone else nodded I said, "Er...no." hehehe! So he gave an excellent demonstration that showed me things I had never even heard of before! Then he had us chose still life objects to draw.

I chose this curly piece of birch bark and some dried twig things with weensy flowers on the end. OH BOY! I couldn't draw the bark to save my life. But then the instructor came over and he showed me how to draw the general shape and "the space" that the object took up before I drew the details. It was like he opened a door in my brain and WOW it made so much sense! I struggled for about twenty really hard brain-cell-smoking minutes and wouldn't you know it - everything started to fall together. I've NEVER experienced that when drawing! It was so cool!!

Anyhoo, I'm not saying I did fantastic at the drawing. But suffice it to say, I'm a professional rookie/novice by now and I know you don't gain a skill unless you work hard and practice, practice, practice. Here's my first line drawing of the season:

Ok then, back to writing the books...