Spotted on My Walks through Nature's Garden

There are always flowers for those who want to see them. (Henri Matisse)

I usually take a walk every day if at all possible. My dog, Oscar, would be disappointed if we didn't, although on some of the hotter days in summer, he sometimes looks at me as if he thinks I might have lost my mind wanting to walk when it's 90 degrees in the shade. Actually I try not to walk when it's that hot unless I can keep to the shade. Not for me, but for him. His black fur coat is hot.

But I love spotting gifts of nature when I walk. A couple of days ago, I found this beautiful pink flower. One stalk with all these blooms. No others anywhere around. I've never seen one like it before. It looks like a flower that belongs in a cultivated flower bed, but there it was on the edge of the hayfield in nature's big, wild garden. I haven't tried to look it up. Maybe one of you will recognize it and give it a name. 

I enjoy walking in Nature's garden. There are weeds too and sticktights or what some of you call beggar lice. You hear the whine of a mosquito now and again and flies can be worrisome when you get around the cows. But always there are sights to see and things to spot when I take a walk. 

I like sharing some of the things I spot on my Facebook page. It's like taking my friends for a walk with me. So tonight I'm asking you to walk along and see what we can spot. 

 

I always keep an eye out for flowers. The daisies are a favorite. They bloom with such determination and so cheerfully. It doesn't matter if I pick a few to pluck the petals. Another will pop up in its place. Tiny, more delicate looking flowers scatter color through the grasses.

 

 

 

Sometimes the blooms are small but so plentiful they carpet the whole field 

 

 

Then Kentucky's state flower, the goldenrod lights up the summer with color.

And among all the flowers are the butterflies. Beauty on wing.


Hope you enjoyed walking with me and spotting a few of the things along the way.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. (Dale Carnegie)

Life is Better with a Dog Named Oscar

Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them, filling an emptiness we don't even know we have. ~Thorn Jones

Some of you have been asking about how my dog, Oscar, is doing. About a month ago, one of the men working on a room remodel here at the house ran over Oscar. He was parked beside the house in the field and we don't know if Oscar was under his truck or just running along beside him. At any rate, one of the wheels must have run over his leg and broke both bones. 

That was a bad day for me. I was sitting with Mom who was having one of her more unsettled days when I got the call from my husband reporting Oscar had been hurt. My husband was getting his eyes examined and couldn't go home right away. I couldn't leave Mom alone and so couldn't go home to see about my dog friend. A couple of hours passed before my husband finally got home and reported Oscar's leg was broken. I still couldn't leave Mom's, but a neighbor came over to help load Oscar in the van for a trip to the vet. They kept him in the doggie hospital and did surgery on his leg the next day. 

Dog surgery is not cheap, but Oscar is my dog. Dog lovers will understand what I mean when I say he's my dog. He's been my dog since my husband brought him home about four years ago. I had another dog at the time. A chocolate lab that was my dog too, but he was also an independent character who although he'd been neutered had not lost all his romantic desires. Female dogs from around the neighborhood loved Dub and came to get him from time to time to take him off to get in trouble. (Honest, it was never Dub's fault! Or so he would have me believe.) I had to bail him out of doggie jail once and did so gladly. 

For some reason, my husband decided I needed another dog. I resisted. He went shopping on the internet for dogs. Free dogs. He would find one and then have me come look at the dog's picture. I resisted. I had my dog, Dub. I was happy with that. But then he pulled up Oscar's picture. Someone had dropped Oscar in Lexington near a horse farm and a young couple had given him a home. They loved him, but when spring came they were going to have to travel around in their job of training horses. So they advertised for a new home for Oscar. That was the name they gave him. For some reason his sweet face and that name broke down my resistance. A phone call or two later and my husband went to get Oscar and bring him to his new home. From the very first day, he was my dog. Sometimes it just works that way. We thought he was grown. He weighed about sixty pounds. We were very wrong. He kept growing. Now he's over one hundred pounds - bigger even than my old dog, Dub, was. 

Dub passed on one sad summer day a little while after we got Oscar. So it turned out to be a good thing that I stopped resisting and let Oscar join our family. He's a very good dog. He doesn't roll in cow piles or want to drag various dead animal parts home to the yard. Dub was very good at that, but not enjoying the special aroma of those two things is an important good dog attribute out here on the farm. Just ask my neighbors, whose St. Bernard loves to decorate her neck ruff with aromatic cow piles.

Oscar is not a swimmer in spite of obviously having lab in his mix. He will wade a bit when it's very hot. He looks ferocious when he's barking at strangers, but if they will notice, he's usually wagging his tail at the same time. I used to have a dog in the house, a sweet cockerspaniel. I decided Oscar with his good dog manners, would make a wonderful house dog and invited him in. He refused. He did not want to cross the threshold. In fact, he did not want to so determinedly that he sat down like a mule and wouldn't budge. I gave up after a few tries although I continued to hold the door open now and again to invite him in. He always ran the other direction. 

But after his surgery, he was ordered kept in confinement with leash walking only for six weeks. I bought him a bed and we gently pushed him into the house when we brought him home from the doggie hospital. I had to put a trail of scatter rugs across my hardwood floor to get him to walk to the front door to go out. He still won't venture out of the back hallway into the kitchen or living room. He does come down the hallway into my office now to keep me company when I'm working. 

For two weeks I only took him on short walks, but for the last couple of weeks, he's been going on the full walks with me. On leash. He's never tried to run away from me. He's been a model dog. So what if bone shards decorate my office floor and his panting drips all over the rug after we walk. There is also Oscar, inside keeping me company. Sometimes good things come from bad. I'm not sure what will happen after he is released to run free again, but I hope he will still be willing to come inside and keep me company. A dog makes a wonderful writing friend. Especially a good dog like Oscar.

One of the most enduring friendships in history - dogs and their people, people and their dogs. ~Terry Kay

Have you had a good dog in your life?

Spring Blooming All Over

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!  ~Mark Twain
  
Spring was late in coming this year, but it came in a hurry this week with record warm temperatures after a week of record cold temperatures. That's spring weather for you. But the temperatures rising into the 60s, then the 70s, and today the 80s was enough to convince the flowers to bloom. Forsythia bushes are exploding with yellow blooms in yards along the road. I have a struggling forsythia that's trying to get re-established after being dug up when we built on to the house. We dumped it over on the side of the yard without proper planting, but those bushes are tough. It's putting up shoots and blooming this year. My japonica bush is going red. My peonies have pushed through the ground and are almost visibly growing. All three of those are from sprouts or bulbs I dug up out of my grandparents' yard. A heritage of beauty to be passed from one yard to another, so that not only do I enjoy the blooms, the sight of the flowers also stirs memories of the hands that planted them. 
 
Yesterday on my walk, I saw my first butterflies. Today I ran my face into my first spiderweb. That's spring for you. A constant entertainment to someone like me who enjoys walking on the farm. I've seen it all before but every spring, I'm ready to see it all again. A joy to behold. And maybe this year the pictures will be even better than last year. This bluebell picture isn't. But you've got to understand that I was taking the picture with one hand while holding Oscar's leash with the other. He still has two and half more weeks of captivity. That's how he's feeling about being in the house. A meek and compliant prisoner, but it's obvious he's far from comfortable. I was hoping to make a house dog out of him, but it's not looking like he wants that. He has become a nice companion here in my office. So maybe he can be an office dog.  
 
The front door to springtime is a photographer's best friend. ~Terri Guillemets 

What brings you joy in the springtime?

P.S. I sent the prize packages out today. Sharma, Rita, and Tawnya, you should get them before the end of the week. Congratulations and thanks to all of you who made this giveaway such fun for me, even though your number didn't get drawn this time. Maybe in June. Got to figure out a prize. 

Diane K., I sent you a Facebook message, but if I don't hear from you by Monday, I'll draw a new number for one of the 2nd place prizes - a couple of books.

When Things Go Wrong

Some days are harder than other days. Some days we get up and whatever can go wrong seems to be in a hurry to head down that road. I had one of those afternoons last week. A day when everything seemed to pile on. I had a lot to do. Words for the new story weren't exactly spilling out. The new room was sounding good, but promising extra work. Other extra chores showing up.

Time seemed to be in very short supply even though I knew the days all still had the same amount of hours and minutes. But how was I going to fit everything into those hours and minutes? Especially with the hours I was going to be spending at Mom's. And then my dog, Oscar, didn't get out of the way of one of the workers building our new room. The truck ran over his leg and broke it. I was sitting with Mom when the call came, but I couldn't leave to see about him. Mom can't be alone. So I had to wait until my husband could go home to check on him a couple of hours later. Then he was off to the vet's where Oscar has been ever since in the doggie hospital after surgery on his back leg.

It was frustrating to not be able to go see if Oscar was all right. I know he's only a dog, but he's my dog and a very good dog at that. But then the afternoon just got worse with a call that a dear friend of my sister's had died suddenly. Amelia was a beautiful lady that we will all miss. Perhaps Mom sensed my upset because she became agitated and determined to go home to her childhood home because "her mother expected her." She didn't know who I was and said I was definitely "not her daughter." She had to be married to have daughters. Meanwhile my daughter was on the way home for a visit for the first time since Christmas, and I was anxious to be at home to see her. Things went from bad to worse on my stress meter when Mom's night sitter didn't show up due to a mix-up. And I didn't have her telephone number.

A bad afternoon. But you know, everybody has those kinds of days. And when I stopped having my "pity party" I knew I had plenty of blessings to count, among them that Oscar most likely will be okay, although perhaps with a bum leg. Mom settled down and remembered I was her daughter the next day. My daughter made it home safely. I have more weeks to try to find the right words for my story. My grandchildren are beautiful and healthy. I have friends who love me enough to pray for my mother, for my sister's friend's family, and even for my sweet dog. Prayer makes a difference when you're having a bad day and makes good days better.

 

And Mom had a birthday yesterday that turned into a pretty good day for her. She was 93. Sometimes she even realizes that, but most of the time she isn't happy to hear that number. She used to tell us all the time that she wanted to live to be 100, but she never imagined having dementia that was going to steal the joy out of those 100 years. But she did have some joy on her birthday. She got roses from a dear friend. She got hugs from some of her great grandchildren. She got flowers and presents and cards from us. I fixed her an Angel food cake with strawberries and she gave all the strawberries off her plate to the littlest great granddaughter who loves strawberries. We also had chocolate pie that my daughter and I made from my mother's recipe. It was okay, but it wasn't as good as Mom's used to be.

 

But some of her family was able to come and share a little time with her. While they were here, she was almost like her old self. Loving the kids. Laughing when somebody was talking to her. Blowing out the two candles on her cake. Looking at her presents and cards that were new over and over since she didn't remember looking at them before. A good afternoon for her and an answer to prayer.

 

So thank you for reading about my bad day and my good day. Please remember Amelia's family in your prayers. Their bad day is ongoing for they will be missing their mother and grandmother and wife for a long time as many of you are still missing your grandmothers. I do have a few more grandmother stories I'm going to share in the days to come. And I'd still love to hear yours if you want to share a story. The contest for the Grandmother's Bible is still open, so pitch your name in my hat for the drawing if you haven't already. Just leave a comment on this blog or on Jocie's blog or send me an e-mail from my website.  

Snowglobes and Stories

When I was a child, I had a great uncle that seemed ancient to me. When we went to visit him he was always sitting in a chair in a room with bookshelves loaded with books and snowglobes. I was amazed by all the books and fascinated by the snowglobes, but of course, not allowed to play with them. Occasionally the uncle would show me one and let me turn it over and then right side up again so that the snow would fall down on the scene inside the globe. I was an extremely shy child and a bit afraid of my gruff uncle but I would have sat right there by his feet and studied those snowglobe if I had been allowed to do so.

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Fast forward a lot of years and get to this winter of the snows in Kentucky. Other places too, but we've had more snows this year than I can ever remember. Not deep snows. We've had snows that piled up more inches in one storm, but this winter the snows just keep coming. An inch here, two inches there until they say we've gotten over 25 inches altogether. I know that doesn't seem like much to you folks up north, but our average snowfall up to this time of the year is 10 inches. I'm getting used to the snow. I just go out and get in my car like I'm driving a 4-wheel drive truck and take off. So far I've stayed out of the ditch. So far.

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The snow we had the other day was a beautiful snow. One of those where the snowflakes gather in clumps in the air and drift down to cover everything. No wind much. Just thick snowflakes falling. So I told my Facebook friends that it looked like we were in a snowglobe. My dog, Oscar is looking out at you from the globe in the picture above. Anyway that got me to thinking about snowglobes and then that got me thinking about stories. All right, there's no logical bridge between those thoughts, but sometimes a person has to make her own bridge.

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Once I threw down that bridge, I got to thinking how stories can be so much like the scenes in those snowglobes. A creation of places and events by the writer. The writer comes up with an idea. He or she gathers the characters and designs the setting. Then she sprinkles in a liberal amount of snow (problems or challenges) and turns that snow/story globe upside down to get everything started. Perhaps that's why I'm a storyteller because I want to watch the snow drift down on my imaginary world. I want to be as fascinated with my created world as I used to be with those glass-enclosed worlds from my childhood days.

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I have to admit that it's a little disappointing to shake a snowglobe that doesn't have enough snow inside the globe. You feel cheated somehow. The same can be true with stories. Without enough story then you don't have the snow to keep the reader turning pages. That's why I'm struggling a little with my work in progress. I don't think I've given my heroine enough challenges. We love cheering for characters or maybe hoping they get their just deserts. (Google it - it's deserts - not desserts. It uses a meaning of desert - to get what is deserved.) So I'm shaking my story globe, trying to stir up the words so I can make a new story. A good story. A story that will captivate readers as they let the words fall down into their imaginations.

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If you live in my area, you can come meet me and Virginia Smith, a fellow Kentucky author, at Corinth Christian Book Store in Frankfort, KY this Friday, Feb. 11th at 7 p.m. I'll be talking about how I put the story of Angel Sister in a story globe book. Ginny will be talking about her new book, A Deadly Game. Then we'll be ready to field questions. One of us will be sure to have an answer - right or wrong. We'll have fun and no doubt do some laughing too.

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You still have plenty of time to enter my new giveaway described on my website's Event page. If some of you would rather win a couple of books than a gift card, that can be arranged if you turn out to be the winner. I've gotten some sister stories, but I'd love to hear more.

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Thanks for reading and I'm hoping we'll have some sunshine on our scenes in the next few days. Oh, yeah, and for the rest of the story, my uncle's house burned down and he lost all those wonderful snow globes to the fire.

A Dog Named Oscar

I forgot to let you know if I was April fooling you about my new dog. I wasn't. I do have a new dog named Oscar. He's a very nice dog. Part lab and who knows what else. He was a stray who found a loving home at a horse barn, but the people who welcomed him there weren't able to keep him since they follow the horses during racing season. So Darrell, who had been hunting a dog for me ever since I didn't get the pup at Christmas, came across him on the internet and for some reason this time I said why not? I think it was his name that got me. Plus he reminded me of Max, a black lab I had several years ago. Max has gone on to doggie heaven, but he was one of the nicest dogs I've owned. Oscar promises to be the same. I've had so many good dogs. Most of them I got when they were puppies. But not Dub, my chocolate lab. He was about a year old when we got him. And now not Oscar who is about ten months old.

As I've shared with you before, I'm a dog lover. I remember when I was about ten or eleven I told everybody I was going to be a recluse who had a dozen dogs. Well, that didn't happen! Thank goodness. I don't think I'd do the recluse thing well. And a dozen dogs might be a few too many to have to take to the vet and keep in dog food. But back when I was a very shy little girl I could imagine living in a cabin on a mountain somewhere spending all my time writing. Oh yeah, and feeding and walking all those dogs, I suppose.

While some little girls yearn for a pony, I wanted a dog. My own dog. Wilson Rawls gave words to the feeling I had in his wonderful book Where the Red Fern Grows when he wrote about his character having the dog hunger. That really rang a chord with me even though I didn't read the book until I was an adult. Still, I knew exactly what he meant about his young character having the hunger to have a dog because that was the very feeling that had eaten at my insides when I was a kid.

I just went out on the net trying to find the publication date for that book and came across some interesting information about Rawls. His story was first published in 1961 as a three part series in The Saturday Evening Post. I never did find out when it was first published in book form. The re-issued book from Yearling still has a number one Amazon ranking for books for kids about dogs. But the really interesting or perhaps sad information I came across was that Rawls had always dreamed of being a writer but after he wrote something he would lock it up in a trunk so no one else could see it. Then when he was in his forties he got married for the first time, thought he needed to be more responsible and burned all his stories. His wife disagreed with what he'd done and encouraged him to keep writing. Out of that encouragement we got a story that still touches hearts today. But you have to wonder about those stories he burned.

Well, I went off chasing rabbits tonight for sure. But back to Oscar, I think he's going to be my next very good dog. And he'll help keep that dog hunger of mine satisfied.