The Fine Art of Manure Landscaping

March 10th, 2010

posted on Wednesday

The Noble One Surveys His DomainI love my new barn.

I especially love my new barn on nights when I’m settling down to sleep and I suddenly think the dreaded thought:

Did I close the hay stall door?

And then I pad through the darkness to the office, flip on the back light, peer through the window, and say, “Why, yes, I did. Go, me!”

This is such and improvement on get dressed, put on shoes, gear up for weather, head out several layers of doors and the yard gate, and walk around to where I can see the front of the barn.

It really is.

It’s actually not a new barn so much as it is a nearly new barn, constructed just over a year ago upon the move from Arizona to New Mexico, and then recently relocated here. And boy, was it painstakingly positioned–exactly so I can look out that window for exactly that reason. Well…and to check on the horsie, too.

So, you ask…what’s this about manure landscaping?

“Run-off from the yard has to drain away from the barn,” I said as the site was under construction. Really. I said it many times. I’m pretty sure a note of desperation entered my voice. Why, I might even have gotten a little…testy. The response was always, “It’s not done yet, it’ll be fine when it’s done.”

Problem is, I guess, I never did stamp my foot. Because then one day it was done, and…well.

Water runs directly at the barn. Laser targeting. Distinct downhill.

El Nino winter? The hay stall floods. The horse stall is mud. The area in front of the stall door is…

One of these days someone is going to come looking for me and find nothing but a feebly waving hand sticking up from the mud.

The stall floor is now lined with double-layered stall mats, and that’s helped a lot. Just outside the stall entry? I’m stumped. And after the snow-rain of the past couple days, I’m desperate! The ground is half frozen, half mud, and I don’t want to disturb the wood shredding-covered ground where it’s still stable. So what do I have to work with?

Right.

Horse poo.

And so I’m trenching; I’m building high ground. I’m directing the water as I can, with the materials at hand.

Yes, it is I.

The Happy Poo Farmer.

*DELETE PICTURE OF INDELICATE POO FARM*

*INSERT PLEASANT PASTORAL VIEW FROM DRYISH DAY*
The Barn and Noble One

Hatchet Writing: It’s Not What You Think It Is

March 8th, 2010

posted on Monday

For some reason I had occasion to think about this today.

(I just cannot imagine why.)

But it’s true.  Using a hatchet is just like writing.

No, no, no–I don’t mean the part where errant CEs get hold of your work or the typesetting process accidentally–well, you don’t even want to know.  That’s more like weedwhacking.

I mean the part where you choose between working or letting it happen.

Okay, you’d think: Pick up the hatchet…aim it…hit something with it.

But no.

It’s: Pick up the hatchet, aim it, and let it hit something.

The hatchet does the work, you see. If you let it.

Okay, mostly. You gotta give it some swing, but it’s not a mighty man-grunt swing. It’s just lining things up to happen and then providing some momentum. And if you try too hard? You get cramps in your forearm, and in your hand, and the blade doesn’t ever bite deep. It skids off the wood, or it takes these bitty little hacky chips. You get in your own way.

So, writing. You try too hard, you over-think it, and your brain starts to steam. The words don’t work well with each other. They don’t bite deep. You get in your own way.

Just gotta line yourself up and let it go.

Is that too profound, or what?

(But where would we be without pictures of the agility yard process?)

At the Start
The Pristine Juniper Nursery

Working on it...
chopchopchop


CHOP CHOP CHOP

O Mighty DuncanHorse

March 5th, 2010

posted on Friday

Mighty DuncanDuncan had a good day today.  For the first time in years…okay, in ever…he and I are casually close to some rugged trails.

Today, thanks to a nearby horsie friend, I had an introduction to same–ditches and intense short steep slopes and rocks and trees and oh the fun!  He started off planting his feet like he owned the place and ended up thoughtful, tired, and very much pleased with himself.

Definitely a good day.

So it also seems like a good day to post his recent Photos of Might, in which he was impressing…okay, I haven’t figured out just who he’s trying to impress when he goes into paddock-rocket mode.  He sees/smells something to the north of us, that’s all I can say.

Also I can add the usual disclaimer, which is…one-handed camera work, longe whip in the other hand to make myself bigger, and yah, very much watching my exit routes with the back of my head.  Because, y’know, I was in the paddock with him…

The snorty
Snorty Snorty Snorty

strut
Strut Strut StrutPutting on the brakes
“Gosh,” you think.  “He looks awfully collected.”  Because…yeah, he’s going full blast, and see that post there?  That’s the CORNER.

The Mighty Butt
The Mighty White Butt

Flying Boy
Horse in Flight.  He must have made that corner…

Here I am!
“Here I AM!”

And Your Little Hatchet, too!

March 3rd, 2010

posted on Wednesday

Yup. Got me my cactus fork.

Got me my little hatchet.

And today, the juniper nursery and I gave each other a nervous hairy eyeball and faced off.

juniper nursery

like my little hatchet.  Buh-bye, little trees!

Of course, I feel guilty.  I always feel guilty, cutting trees.  But in this case, they’re all clustered together so tightly that it’s not healthy anyway–I don’t see that growth pattern anywhere else in this area and I wonder if that land wasn’t disturbed somehow in the past.

And in this case, they’re right in the middle of my agility area, which is a vaguely L-shaped patch of mud and grama grass (now shorn of prickly pear) in the south pasture area, already formed around several large stands of juniper and pinon.

So…yeah.  It’s me, my hatchet, and the juniper nursery.  Besides, I’ll pick out some of the larger ones to stay around–appropriately spaced, too.  I want to leave this gorgeous, fragile high desert land as healthy as possible (which is why DuncanHorse is currently closed in his paddock and not running loose on the wet, erosion-prone soil).  The baby trees are already serving another purpose: dragged to the head of forming gullies, where they’ll slow the run-off.

The Hatchet

When it comes to this sort of project, I tend to over-do it.  For one thing, I’m using tools that mean something to me.  This hatchet was my grandfather’s, and is older than I am.  (And I swear I checked the handle before I started work.  Really I did.)  So working with it means more than just being out on the land, out in the quiet…out in my zen zone.  It means thinking about my grandfather…thinking about the places and spaces in which I’ve used this hatchet over the years.

Besides.  With me, it’s always just one…more…leetle…tree…

So maybe it’s a good thing that the hatchet head came flying off in mid-stroke.  It’s certainly a good thing that I ducked the flying hatchet head.

Anyway, I got plenty done, but I didn’t over do it, and Yes! I still have a reflex or two left!

Anyone here have any favorite old hand-me downs?

(I was going to ask “anyone have any favorite old tools?” but a scared little voice in my head popped up and said, “No!  Don’t do it!” and indeed, that seems wise after the back-scene responses I got to “cactus fork,” to which I can only say OW OW OW OW.  You silly people.)

Cactus Forking

March 1st, 2010

posted on Monday

Not a word combination that comes often to mind.

prickly pear

But the agility area is rife with a low-lying prickly pear and hoo boy, it’s gotta go.  It starts with the hoe:  lift the flat pads of the winter-shrunken cactus with hoe, find that tap root…and then just the right, swift combination of hack-n-slice.  Prickly pear be gone.

Actually,  that’s when the hard part starts.  Because what then?  Can’t leave the things lying around.  For one thing, they’ll just root where they are.  For another, then they’re still…well, lying around!

But by golly, don’t go picking the things up.   The spiny scary parts aren’t even the problem–it’s the horrid little hooked fuzzy spines that you never see until it’s too late.  No matter what.  No, leather gloves are no protection.  Maybe I’ll try kevlar sometime?

So today I discovered a new use for a trusty old tool…my half-size manure fork.  It used to be assigned to yard duty when Duncan grazed in Flagstaff and ABQ’s South Valley (“mowing the lawn” had nothing to do with machinery), but here, it has no such use.

However, the poo fork (because yes, I am too lazy to say “manure fork” more than once) has now found new life!

Behold!  The Mighty Cactus Fork!

harvested prickly pear

I might even be smug and satisfied, if it weren’t for the juniper nursery located behind and to the left of where I stood to take this picture.  I’m kinda getting the feeling that the hoe and the cactus fork aren’t quite gonna do the trick…

juniper nursery

Hmm.

Quick! Don’t look at the Scary! Turn around instead! It’s…

THE MIGHTY CACTUS FORK!

The Mighty Cactus Fork

Much better.

Dear Book Thieves:

February 26th, 2010

posted on Friday

The Reckoners

It’s simple, really.  I know people try to make it complicated, but it’s not.

If you want the books–the high caliber submitted-chosen- edited-professional books–to exist in the first place, you’ve got to contribute to the writers who create them and the publishers who put them out there.

That means buying the books, not taking stolen freebies off the ‘net.

Oh, everyone’s got their reasons for taking.  Some are philosophical, some are tangled with the frustration of the floundering emarket as it tries to find good working business models, some are pure entitlement.  Some have no thought behind them at all, but just want.

The thing is, those reasons don’t matter.

The bottom line for me is the same.  You’re stealing from me.  You’re making it harder for me to buy food while I write the next book.  You’re enjoying (I hope) the fruits of my labor without offering anything in return.

The bottom line for you is the same, too.  You’re making it harder for this business to find its way through a world of changing technologies.  You’re narrowing what the publishers can afford to offer you.  You’re pushing authors out of the business and putting publishers closer to the edge.

Do you think  it doesn’t matter, in these days when publisher/retailer/device provider squabbles are big news?  When new authors/new series have no leeway to build an audience, but must perform out of the blocks?  When established series stutter and die, already tangled in distribution and warehousing issues?  You’re wrong.  It matters.

You matter.

You may not care.  You may say, “Hey, throw the ‘net open to whoever wants to put their work out there!  That’s the way it should be, and then we can read it all!”

But hey…are you paying attention?

Because I am.  And I’m more than just a writer, I’m a reader.  I’m as greedy as any thief, in my way.  I want more than any old book–I want good books!  I want to see my favorite authors survive and thrive and have the chance to write what their heart tells them to write.

Because you see, whether or not my own work is published, I’ll always write.  You can’t take that away from me.  But my opportunity to read the kind of amazing work that’s produced by stable publishers supporting the mature brilliance of a writer so driven that s/he’ll do this work with the discipline it takes to reliably turn out a book worth savoring?  That, you can mess with.  That, you have messed with.

Oh, yes.  You matter.

Please stop stealing my books.

Note to DuncanHorse: It’s Still Winter

February 24th, 2010

posted on Wednesday

Except that yes, the days are getting longer…and DuncanHorse knows it. So what’s he do, as the wet snow continues to roll in and, these past two nights, as the temps flirt with zero F?

Why, yes. He starts to shed. This past weekend, in fact.

His undercoat has taken on that soft quality that means it’s about to turn loose; his guard hairs litter the stall floor when I brush him, and hair pads the bristles of the stiff winter mud brush.

Ohh, he’s got a long way to go, but…I am fairly warned. It’s the warning every horseman heeds come spring, or pays the price:

NO MORE FRESH LIP BALM BEFORE BARN TIME

But here, just to show you that between storm clouds, the sun does come out…

sun storm

Full of Fetch

February 22nd, 2010

The Monday Post

Oh, we are so full of fetch!  So full of happy!  Here goes!

(We are also taking pictures while crouching in the snow, balancing the honkin’ big camera with one hand, and tossing the tennie with the other…so, no promises!)

The Big Dive!

Leap for It!

Graceful Agility Dogs, returning from the chase



Connery would really, REALLY like that tennie ball

Connery WANTS the Tennie

Belle: O the Happy!

O Happy!

Belle:  O the REALLY Happy!

Oh SERIOUS Happy!

Dear PETA: Nice Try, But.

February 19th, 2010

Connery scoldingThis is my soapbox of the week.

Just because PETA says “breeders kill shelter dogs” doesn’t mean they’re right.

Me, I don’t listen to anything touted by a group whose stated end goal is to end pet ownership (and who kill, according to their own records, 95% of the pets they “rescue.”) But they do like to shout, which makes it hard to not-hear them sometimes. And this time, here’s their logic: If breeders didn’t make new purebred dogs, people would get all their dogs at the shelter and thus save those dogs, so the corollary is that breeders are killing dogs.

Okay, let’s leave aside the twisted nature of that corollary.  And let’s leave aside the  fact that not all shelter dogs are adoptable–some are too damaged; some are too ill.

Aside from that. You know what’s true? People want what they want.

I’ve had many a mixed-breed/rescue dog. Most of mine were true rescues, and by that I mean we took them off the mountain where they’d been abandoned. Or from the dump. Or the UPS driver dropped them off because we’d gotten a reputation for helping dogs in that area where there was no shelter or humane society. Obviously, we didn’t keep them all; we padded their bellies, gave them some manners, and rehomed them. Or sometimes we gave them mercy, because sometimes that was the way it was.

So yes, I know the way of the mixed-breed dog. The dog of my heart, of my life, was one of these dogs.

But eventually my life changed, and I was in the position of needing a certain kind of dog. A puppy I knew would grow up to be that certain kind of dog. And now I’m hooked on certain kinds of dogs, and I love them, too. I now know the way of the purebred dog.

And I know this: People want what they want.

Sometimes that’s a wonderful pet from the shelter–a particular dog that will suit the necessary lifestyle. Sometimes it’s purebred–a specific dog bred to do a specific thing or to be a specific way. Either way, it’s good. Either way, people make their own choices for their own reasons, and that’s all good, too. But they don’t want one thing and then go looking for another. No.

They want what they want.

That’s why United States shelters import (yes, you read me correctly) dogs into shelters. (Here’s a great summary of things.) Small dogs are in special demand–perfect little companions, easily fitting into many different lifestyles. Not to mention celebrity purses…

That’s why people created breeds in the first place. Specific characteristics, reliably produced over the generations. A puppy that grows to be of predictable size, temperament, and basic skillset.

That’s why even now, dog folks are redefining certain breeds to fill performance niches–such as in agility, where people are currently finding the perfect combination of size, speed, and obsessiveness to dominate every jump height in every venue. Where they don’t redefine, they create mixed breeds to suit, taking their chances that a particular combination of dogs will result in what they want (because until you actually have the breed established and solidified and demonstrably repeatable, every litter is roulette–and not all breeds combine gracefully or predictably).

That’s why, given a paucity of dogs of a certain predictable and desirable characteristic, it does not follow that people will then go to the shelter and say, “Well, I’ll take this totally different kind of dog instead, because that’s what’s here.” No. They will go out and they will MAKE MORE of what they want.

Or they’ll import them.

(Well, you know. Unless PETA succeeds with that end goal of eliminating pet ownership.)

Good breeders, as it happens, are dedicated to the welfare of dogkind. Genetic testing, careful planning, limited and specific breeding with the distinct goal of producing the better dog. But you won’t find their dogs in shelters, because they welcome back their dogs in need–and if those dogs aren’t good candidates for rehoming, then they stay with the breeder pack.

Beyond that, those wicked breeders (and many other breed lovers) band together to create breed rescue groups for those dogs in need who have fallen through the cracks, and who would otherwise end up at shelters.

BeagleFest!NOT THAT I HAVE ANY FAVORITES.

Do you?


A Proposaling We Go

February 17th, 2010

The ReckonersActually, that had better rhythm in my head than it does on paper. Oh well. Can we pretend I’m clever?

Truth is, all my clever is being sucked up right now by other things. For it is proposal season! Two different series, four different books…the muse is set to Warp 10 (“Cap’n, that’s all she’s got! She’s gonna blow!”)

Unlike some, I don’t talk about my proposals in process–it’s a superstition thing. It’s also a greed thing…the muse likes to keep it all to herself. The more to wallow in, y’know. But it does mean I’m particularly immersed right now. Very absent-minded professor.

Just shy of drooling, however.  Not quite that far gone.

Still, it’s a good time for my current production request–to ponder cover particulars for STORM OF RECKONING, which I think is coming out in December. Maybe. (The author is often the last to know for sure…) And the reason I have to think specially hard about it is that the cover artist who did my beloved RECKONERS cover is already booked.

So to speak. (Don’t hit me!)

That means I’ve got to come up with druthers for a new cover artist. I’ve got some ideas–oh, I do love good cover art!–but want to look around a little more.

So who do you like for cover art these days?