Countdown Begins

1. Sleep in a bit. Don’t get to the grounds until 6:10 a.m.
2. The countdown begins
3. The cinnamon buns come out of the oven in 20 minutes.
4. Reason it is okay to eat one, afterall, it is the last day of the Fair.

Day 6. Almost done. There is a feeling of excitement in the air as we prepare for the last day. As much as we all enjoy doing this, it will good to get home.

Susan Spiropoulos rolled by this morning when I was writing and we had a little visit. She had to bring something heavy from the office down to this part of the Keystone Centre and couldn’t find a dolly. “That way when I want to visit, I have somewhere to sit down.” Susan is great. Not only is she gorgeous, but a ton of fun. I won’t see her now until the next event which is Livestock Expo in early November. (Yes, that is Evil Esther Fyk tempting Susan with her cinnamon bun samples!)

I’ve made a good connection with Jillian Ray from Grunthal. She has been working for both Dairy and for Beef this week. She has show cattle and has offered to bring a cow-calf pair to the Red River Ex. This makes my job easier on two counts – not only do I not have to worry about finding suitable animals but I also have a worker. Jillian is helping me this morning get the pen clean. The cow and calf are getting ready to go home. They are more fidgety than usual – it’s almost as if they can sense it’s the last day too.
Janice and I are almost giddy when the show opens. We remind ourselves not to watch the clock and to just have a fun day. In previous years when things started to get boring we found ways to amuse ourselves. Last year, we counted the number of Crocs that came through. I was hoping to convince Amanda Kopeechuk, who was working with me, that yes these sandals ARE comfortable.
We’ve done an informal analysis on stroller quality but have forgotten the results.
This year we are trying to guess a person’s profession based on their looks. Then I strike up a conversation to find out which one of us is right. I got this idea from Jay Leno’s “Judgemental Bastard.” It’s a real hoot. They take a tv camera onto the street and Steve Schirripa from the Sopranos watches people, guesses a few obscure things about them and then asks them questions on camera. He’s right 98% of the time. Our perceptions are not that accurate, but a few times we’ve been bang on.

This was fun. The family featured on our consumer display came by so I got a shot of them. The Beswithericks are from near MacGregor. They are young, enthusiastic and great spokespeople for our industry.Bob from Dairy is losing his voice. He has only two more milking demonstrations to do. There is a lot of dust in the air from the grains display next to us. My throat is not sore but my voice is as scratchy as everyone else’s. Everyone who comes through loves the milking demonstration. It is a highlight of the show and have of the reason is because Bob is just so darned entertaining.Val comes by in the early afternoon asking how we like our coffee. She gets back a half hour later after making a run to Tim Horton’s. with a box of the good stuff. I'm so excited my shot is out of focus.

Well that’s it for this year. It won’t be long and preparations will begin for “Touch the Farm” at the Red River Ex. That display will open June 13 – 22nd in Winnipeg. See you all there!

Job Security

1. Arrive at the fair grounds early and get some writing done.
2. Reflect on what a good week it has been
3. Push away thoughts of the "to do" list that's in my head - everything that needs to be done when I get home.
4. Eat a cinnamon bun and a hunk of fudge. Tell myself this is okay because I shared the fudge with Janice.
5. Discover that Janice is also going to start her diet on Monday.

Day 5. Three Directors from the Association I work for came by to check out this year’s booth and after about ten minutes of watching kids run in and out, each of them asked: “You stand here all day?”
I confess that mostly I sit.
“All week?”
I said yes – with a smile. I call this Job Security.

Manning a booth at the Fair all week is something most people don’t want to do. For some reason, I really enjoy it. I think I’ve inherited this trait from my Dad who has always said that life can be boring as hell or a ton of fun depending on your attitude. Dad is a retired bus driver who likes people. We can both sit for hours and watch people, talk to people, silently make fun of the goofballs and daydream. I know my dad would think what I’m doing this week is the perfect job. Both of us really like to talk.

People who come to the Fair are here to have fun and I like being a part of that. I get to talk about the cattle, our industry and the Association I work for. Not everyone wants to talk, some just like to look at the cow/calf pair, watch our video and spend quality time with their children. And that’s okay.


I've always wanted to drive a scooter. So when this cattle producer came by and I asked him about it, he let me take it for a spin. There weren't many people around (they were all watching the "Super Dogs") so I took a drive over to the Dairy booth to show off to Bob. We'd discussed earlier how much fun it would be to have one of these gizmos.

Sherry Baumung, our "go-to girl" at the Fair told me today that she and her husband went for supper one night this week at a local restaurant. They overhead people at the table behind them talking about the Fair and they mentioned my booth! They liked the calving video and were commenting on people’s reactions to seeing a calf being born.

And that makes it all worthwhile.



Tomorrow: The countdown begins

Getting Even

1. Eat my first balanced breakfast in a week.
2. Get ready for the board meeting
3. Yes, that is straw stuck to the back of my sweater

Day 4. Today I didn’t have to go to the Fair. The Manitoba Cattle Producers Association is having its monthly board meeting here in Brandon. Since I do the Association’s newspaper, it’s pretty important that I attend these meetings so that I know what’s going on. If you're interested in seeing copies of "Cattle Country" go to the MCPA website: www.mcpa.net and click on the Cattle Country links.

I left the booth in Janice’s capable hands. In this photo she is watching the reaction of our visitors who were drawn in by the video we have of a cow giving birth to a calf. It's a wonderful video and a real attention grabber.

Janice and I became friends when I first started coordinating these events in the summer of 2006. Her name was given to me by one of the Association’s Directors who said she had volunteered to work the booth in the past. We hit it off right away. I started pestering her during the Amazing Ag Adventure last fall that she should accompany me to Brandon for the week. Being that she is the caterer for her local curling rink, she wasn’t sure if the season would be finished and couldn’t commit. I called her a few weeks prior to the Fair to get a final answer. Her husband Glen answered the phone. We had a long talk, joking and laughing and when we finished, he said, “I’m going to tell Janice you’re really mad at her.” Which of course I wasn’t. She called the following day and sounded tentative. Finally she told me that Glen had told her I was angry. We both laughed at him teasing us and I filed this away for later use.

Halfway through the Board Meeting I was called down to the display to do a media interview. Turns out it was a television interview so I quickly tried to do something with my hair which looked like I’d spent the week at the Fair. The interview went well and when it was over, the reporter asked if there was a cattle producer she could talk to. As it turns out, Glen decided to come out to Brandon for the day. He walked into the booth right then and I snagged him. Of course he did a great job, but afterwards shook his head at me.
“Even?” he asked.
“Even.”
But I don’t trust him. I’m already plotting my revenge against what he’s going to do to me next . . .

The Manitoba Equine Association had the most beautiful horses on display in their booth.




Tonight is our annual get-together after the Fair closes. We all gather in the exhibitor’s lounge and eat pizza and chicken while sampling some of my homemade fruit wine, as well as Donna's homemade cranberry liquer. Yum.

It's a Bonding Experience

1. Get to the grounds at 5:45 a.m.
2. Tease the Dairy Guys that I was in first
3. Tease them again
4. Reward myself with a cinnamon bun

Day 3. I’ve informally surveyed the folks I work with here and I think it takes a certain type of person to spend a whole week at the Fair.
Technically we aren’t “carnies” but we do hang around and try to draw people into our booths. Our approach is much quieter, however, we let the animals do the work for us. Kids like anything baby. Baby calves. Baby lambs. Baby chicks. Baby pigs. And eggs. You’d be surprised how fascinated kids are by the fact that eggs come out of a chicken’s bum. Well, I suppose it isn’t actually the bum, but you know what I mean.



Another difference between us and the typical carnival worker is that none of have a snake tattoo that runs from our wrist to our neck. And we don’t rip people off. We give away our prizes. Pig squeaky toys. Cow tattoos. Sheep pencils. Chick zipper pulls. Egg key rings. You’d be surprised how people go for this stuff.

And most of us have respectable day jobs. We are a motley group of commodity professionals who love what we do. I call them my second family. Here we are, and a brief description of what we do:

That's me, back row left. Sarah Lewis is beside me. She and her family raise sheep and pigs near Elkhorn. Marilyn Warkentin is a volunteer with the Manitoba Equine Association. Val Simoens is the Field Services Technician with the Manitoba Chicken Producers. Beside her in the bright yellow vest is Katherine Hebert. She is the Extension Specialist with the Manitoba Egg Producers. The tall fellow in the back is Miles Beaudin, the Swine Program Specialist with Manitoba Pork. The young lady in the red vest is Clare Robinson. She is a dairy farmer from Steinbach and a volunteer at the dairy booth. I'm going to skip over the two men between Katherine and Clare, saving them for last.



Bottom row: Austin Donohoe is a volunteer at the dairy booth. He's a student from Steinbach. Janice Lawrence is my partner in crime. She is a caterer from Argyle who also writes the weekly column about her community for the Stonewall Argus and Teulon Times. Beside her is Hayden Lewis and his sister, Bethany (note the bunny ears - no doubt mom Sarah will be pleased). Beside Bethany is Lisa Wiens, a grade 11 student from Grunthal who volunteers at the dairy display; and Jillian Ray a beef producer from Grunthal who spent time volunteering in the Dairy booth and in the cattle display.

The two men in the back are Leo Leclair and Bob Crowe. Leo is our Fearless Leader. A retired dairy farmer, he coordinates the display for the Dairy Farmers of Manitoba. He is in Program Promotion and Client Services with the Federal Financial Income Development Program. He and his wife, Solange, live at Letellier.
Bob Crowe is the Barn Boss. Explaining everything that Bob has done in his life reads like a grocery list, so I'll try and make it brief. Right now he is a Dairy Rep with Alta Genetics, a guard at the Dauphin Correctional Centre, the bus driver for the Grandview Comets hockey team and for fun, he volunteers as an auctioneer for charity events. Bob and his wife, Marilyn, own and operate Secord-Crowe greenhouses in Dauphin. Both Leo and Bob have been involved with the Fairs since "Thru the Farm Gate" and "Touch the Farm" originated, approximately nine years ago.

So here we are. Oh yeah, and I can't forget Sherry Baumaug. She is the Ag Awareness Chair and a Director with the Fair Board in Brandon. She is our go-to girl. When she's not running around the Fair, she is the owner/operator of Lyons Transmission Centre in Brandon.

Tomorrow: Job Security

I Picked Up a Chick at the Fair

1. Arrive at the Fair at 5:50 a.m.
2. Feeling a bit tired as always on the second day
3. Carry in a cranberry-blueberry bran muffin and coffee from Tim Hortons to stave off a cinnamon bun craving
4. Hoping for a good few hours of writing

Day 2. One thing I really enjoy about the Fair is arriving first thing in the morning. Everything is quiet and nobody is in our area except for Leo and Bob (the dairy guys) and the security personnel. This morning when I came in the heavy horses, Percherons I think, were being led through the empty parking lot by their trainers. All was dark except for the streetlights overhead. I am not a horse person but I could appreciate the beauty of the solitary, peaceful scene. Soon the parking lot will be full of cars and people will be everywhere.

I check our cow. She is chewing her cud and the calf is asleep by her side. Last year I figured out it’s not a good idea to feed her as soon as I get in because if I do, she poops on the floor as soon as we take her out of the pen for her walk to the wash racks. Her name is Sunshine, a heifer that was shown at last fall’s Agribition in Regina and was the Reserve Champion Female at last year’s Winter Fair. Her owner, Andrew Kopeechuk, will be by today to see how she’s doing.

I wave to the dairy guys and then find a quiet spot near the canteen and set up my laptop. I am anxious to work on my novel. The story is set in rural Canada so this is an inspiring atmosphere. So much better than the desk in the hotel room. I can see the miniature horses through the window and hear the sounds of the animals waking up. Trainers are walking the horses by and soon the show cattle will arrive. Sitting here, I am able to write a few scenes and feel myself grow excited about the manuscript. The story is coming together nicely and my characters are as alive to me as the people who walk by and stop to chat.

The parallels are interesting. I am writing about a city girl who gets stuck in a small town. People often ask writers how much of their stories are autobiographical and that is a difficult question to answer. For me, the story and the characters are a mishmash of both real and imagined. The fact I am a transplant gives me an edge, an understanding.

Right around the corner, the cinnamon buns come out of the oven. I can smell them and would be able to resist except Esther Fyk brings by a sample.

A few hours later, I am done writing. Now it’s time to clean out the cow pen and get ready for the day ahead.



People love the baby animals on display. Thru the Farm Gate is pretty interactive, a great opportunity to see animals up close. The Manitoba Chicken Producers have a great display that includes chicks being hatched.



Manitoba Pork has a sow and piglets. This is very popular, especially with the kids.

Horses and Pigs and Cows - oh boy!

1. Arrive at the Fair grounds at 7:00 a.m.
2. Begin set-up.
3. The storm has delayed things so I start to panic.
4. Take a natural source anti-anxiety pill and a fistful of Cold FX
5. Decide it’s okay to have a cinnamon bun as long as I share it with my sister - vow that I will not eat one every day like I did last year.

Day 1. Cold FX works. I know this because I got sick following the first four events that I coordinated. After seeing Don Cherry’s photo on a product for Cold FX I decided to investigate the product’s claims. I read somewhere that the reason why people get sick while traveling is that the air in hotel rooms and planes dries out a person’s mucous membranes making them more susceptible to germs. I believe Don wouldn’t endorse something that didn’t work and decided to give it a try. Voila! I haven’t been sick since.

I remember the first year I started doing this. Let me back up and start again. I first started doing a similar job to this when I worked for the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association back in 1998. It was my job to take our booth to the larger Fairs and Exhibitions in the province (mostly held in Brandon, Manitoba) and handout information about the MCPA. For some weird reason, I really enjoyed this part of the job. In the fall of 1995, I heard that the Association was short-staffed so I approached them with the idea that I would man their booths on a contract basis. I started with the “Touch the Farm” display at the Red River Exhibition in June of 2006. These events were developed to raise awareness about farming practices and give urbanites the chance to learn more about the farm. The best part is that each commodity brings in animals that people can look at. We’ve been told that “Thru the Farm Gate” is one of the most popular exhibits at the Brandon Fair.

Today my sister Nance is volunteering to help for the day. She isn’t really concentrating though because all she can think about is how she is going to smuggle one of the lambs home in her suitcase.



This is Sarah Lewis with one of her lambs. She coordinates and mans the booth for the Manitoba Sheep association.

For me, this week’s challenge isn’t going to be the long hours, stream of people or inhaling dusty air. It’s going to be resisting the temptation to buy and eat a homemade cinnamon bun every day. Prairie Seasons bakery and café in Neepawa, Manitoba set up a kitchen each year at the Fair. All of their products are natural and the cinnamon buns are made from stone ground wheat. What amazes me is how the best cinnamon buns on the planet can come from a small town like Neepawa. If they ever decide to go national, they’ll put Cinabons out of business.

Spring in Manitoba

1. Wake up to a deathly quiet house
2. Realize the power has gone out in the night
3. Get dressed
4. Hear someone’s footsteps creaking across the kitchen floor
5. Investigate to find no one there
6. Light candles

Never a dull moment. I remember when I first moved here, friends from the city thought I was crazy. The wondered outloud how I would be able to stand living way out in the middle of nowhere. They asked if I thought it would be boring. I can honestly say, 25 years later, that there hasn’t been one boring day.

My sister Nance and her husband John arrived on Friday along with their daughter Lace and her boyfriend Ryan. Their middle girl, Kassarah is staying with us for awhile so I have a full house. It was a fun weekend for everyone that included watching the calves being born, eating copious amounts of food and visiting. We told stories and last night the guys watched the Montreal Canadiens lose to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Fortunately there were both Leaf and Canadiens fans in the house which made the game even more interesting.
It started to storm about 5:00 p.m. Lots of wet snow fell so the barn is now full with newborn calves and Mark has just gone outside to feed the cows and spread straw so the older calves and cows have something dry to lay on.

We have no hydro, no phone and the roads are blocked with snow. The only thing in the house that works is my laptop because it has a fully charged battery. Today I’m supposed to leave for Brandon to set up the Cattle Producers booth at the Manitoba Royal Winter Fair.

I hear my company stirring downstairs . . . time to make a fire in the woodstove and cross my fingers the power will be on soon.



LATER: It took an hour and half to get the five miles from our farm to the main highway - the snow is that deep and heavy. Mark had to plough the road using the tractor to get my car out. I was relived that the highways were clear and I arrived in Brandon at 9:00 p.m.

Footsteps in the kitchen: Will elaborate in a future post

The Inner Critic

1. Check site meter. Finally! Visits to my blog!
2. Make coffee
3. Drink lots of it while I obsess over what I've written
4. Panic
5. Can't think of a thing to write

Amateur. Freak. Boring idiot.
Let's just say the "Silence the Inner Critic" CD that I bought isn't working. It is a 15 minute meditation exercise that I'm supposed to do each day. It is supposed to eliminate the negative voices in my head to help me write better. The jacket on the CD says it will help free up my creativity so that the nasty inner voice doesn't sabotage my writing efforts. So far, it isn't working. But then again, I haven't actually listened to it each day. I can't seem to get around the voice in my head that tells me it's a bloody waste of time.

Fifteen minutes isn't very long. Nobody is that busy that they can't take 15 minutes out of their day to meditate and change their lives for the better. That's what the CD jacket says and I believe it. I know meditation works. The problem is that when I try to meditate, I fall asleep. And if the nap lasts more than 30 minutes, I get stuck in a dream world and cannot wake up. Seriously, last week while listening to my new CD, I fell asleep and an innocent little nap turned into a freakin' nightmare. It's not the first time that it has happened. In fact, it happens every time I take an afternoon nap.

My naps are best described as a really bad drug trip. Now of course at this point I can't pretend that I'm Not Boring and that I have actually Taken Drugs, but I DID grow up in the 1970s. I would like to go on record as saying that the made-for-television movies back then were pretty bad. Rainy Saturday afternoons were spent watching confusing psychedelic movies in which dancing women waved their arms as if doing the back stroke to funky music. The predominant colours were pink and orange and they swirled on the walls like the giant lollipops you find in a specialty candy store. Well, that's what my meditation naps are like. Only they are scary. Really, nightmare, bad trip, scary.

During my last Silence the Inner Critic Meditation attempt, I fell asleep right near the end and got trapped in a sleeping hell. Now I know that describing one's dreams is classified as the Nobel Prize of Boring, so I will keep it brief. Suffice it to say that there were a lot of colours, everything was super huge and my body was being dragged across the floor toward a mob of evildoers.
Think Apocalypse Now.
Soilent Green.
Slaughterhouse Five.
To make matters worse, I actually know I am napping. Last time, I could hear Mark in the kitchen making coffee and in my head I was screaming for him to wake me up.

That's why I can't meditate. Or nap.
If someone out there knows of a way to Silence the Inner Critic that doesn't involve closing my eyes, please let me know. If it can be done without the Critic knowing, even better.

A Little Sister

1. Check the temperature to find it's another cold morning here in Manitoba.
2. Check the cows
3. Check to see that the kids got home safe last night
4. Check my site meter
5. Check the calendar

I remember the day my pesky little sister was born. Easter Sunday, 1967. I was 4 years-old, my brother had just turned three. We lived in a little house on Trinity Church Road at the edge of Hamilton, Ontario. We had a black lab named Queenie, a big front yard with a line of trees that separated us from the neighbours. How my parents grew anything in that clay soil I'll never understand, but there were always potatoes, beans and tomatoes in the summertime.

Spring arrives much earlier around the Great Lakes than it does here. I remember our dad putting our coats but we barely needed them, and carrying our Easter candy, my brother and I followed him out to the car. Most of the snow was gone except where it had drifted along the treeline. The sun was shining and while the grass was still brown, we probably could have laid down on it without getting wet.

Dad drove a taupe coloured Ford. We climbed in and stood on the front seat as Dad drove us through the city to the hospital. I don't remember anything about the visit, or my new baby sister for that matter, but I do remember how hot the car was when we came back outside and that my chocolate easter bunny had melted into the dashboard. I think Dad said something along the lines of, "Jesus Christ," but it had nothing to do with Easter.

They named her Nancy. She and I were spaced about the right distance in age that growing up, we argued a lot. She was the little sister who scratched my records, wore my clothes, scribbled on the front of my notebook, peeked in my journal, tattled, and tried to follow me around. In our house the older kids had to share their Halloween candy evenly with the younger ones and when one of us got into trouble, we all got punished to some degree. I tried running a line of tape along the floor to separate the bedroom after seeing it cleverly done on a television show, but it didn't work very well since Nancy had the door on her side. I remember being mad at her most of the time, but I never remember her being mad at me.

When she was a teenager, Nancy changed the spelling of her name to Nance. Why she did it, I still don't know. I was married with a young son and living here on the farm when she got engaged and asked me to be her maid of honour. After that, like my mom, she had her girls one after the other. And the same as the day she was born, I remember clearly the phone call that came a few years back, when her girls were still just little. She was doing up her will. She asked if anything ever happened to her, if Mark and I would take the girls. "Nobody loves them more than you," she said.

I've been lucky enough to have the best of both worlds.

Nance's girls started visiting the farm when they were just little. As they got older, the stays extended from a weekend to a week - then when they were old enough - the entire summer. They have always considered this their second home. Nance's firstborn, Lace, is almost 20 and now lives in Winnipeg. The middle girl, Kassarah, 18, is asleep in our spare room downstairs. Hopefully I'll see Emma again this summer.

Happy Birthday Nance. You are a gift. You are always in my heart and only a two hour flight away.

See you on Friday.

A mother's sleep: As interrupted when they are teenagers as when they were babies.

Guilt on Easter Sunday

1. Slept in this morning til 6:00 a.m.
2. Didn't have to check the cows because Mark was out most of the night.
3. Turned on the dishwasher.
4. Set out Easter candy for the kids.
5. Turned on my computer to discover that my MSN homepage has disappeared.

It figures. The first thing that comes to mind is that I'm being punished for spending two fun mornings working on my blog. So now, with real work bearing down on me, I have to make a choice - I can either keep working on the blog or create a new home page. Time restraints are such that I can only work on one until life pulls me away. And of course, while I am working on this, my novel sits waiting.

I find it rather ironic that I am discussing this on Easter Sunday morning. Like I am being punished for the sin of relaxation. When did it become mandatory that every moment of our day be productive or considered a waste?

Thinking back, I have always been like this. Writing has always been my passion but also the source of guilt. I can remember during class at school, pulling out my scribbler filled with writing and sneaking in a few paragraphs between Math and Science. I even remember writing through the classes I found easy, my stories coming through the pen onto the page while one ear was listening to the teacher going on about geography, health or what should be done with a verb. The teachers finally gave up trying to catch me not paying attention. I remember answering their impromptu questions without even looking up from my page.

After school and on weekends there were chores to do. All I wanted to do was write (and read), but tidying my room, delivering newspapers and helping around the house were tasks my mother nagged me into doing instead. Growing up in a home where a strong work ethic was the most important quality a person could have, I always felt lazy. I remember feeling this way from Grade 4 straight through High School. I stopped writing when I became distracted by boys, began socializing and got a part-time job.

Writing has always been the generator of guilt in my life and it is something that I've never outgrown. I imagine a lot of writers must feel the same way.

Excuse me now while I try to squeeze in an hour of work on my novel. The kids are still asleep and Mark has gone out to do the chores. The desktop publishing job that should have been finished on Friday will have to wait until this afternoon. Yes, of course I feel guilty that the bed is not yet made, the floors need vacuuming, the little dog would love to go for a walk and I have not exercised in over two weeks. Yesterday's laundry still waits unfolded. The light is perfect outside right now and I really should go out and take a few pictures . . .

The Dishwasher: Spent the first 24 years of my marriage without one. Next to my computer, it is now my most valuable writing tool.

A calf being born

1. Woke up at 4:00 a.m. thinking about my blog.
2. Showered.
3. Dug through the laundry pile to find a pair of matching socks.
4. Made a pot of coffee.
5. Went out to check the cows.
   
6. Clicked on my site meter and was relieved to see nobody has visited my blog yet.

Calving season begins in early-March and lasts for about six weeks. I do the morning checks. I don't mind this, actually I quite enjoy going out first thing while it is still dark to see if there is anything happening in the calving pens. It also gives me a sense of what went on during the night. When the weather is especially cold, my husband Mark checks every two hours to see if a calf has been born. Minus 17 degrees C is the tipping point. Any colder than that, especially if there is a wind, then we bring the newborns into the barn to ensure that they don't freeze. Once the calves are dry, their blood is circulating, and they've sucked from the cow, they are surprisingly hearty.

6:30 a.m. - A quick check through the pens and I can see a few new calves were born in the night. A cow is starting to calve now. I can see something protruding from her back end, but can't tell if it's the two hooves coming first or not. I decide to wait a bit and come back when it is light out.

7:05 a.m. - The cow has made little progress. Now I can see the calf's nose, but no feet. I hurry back into the house to get Mark.

7:10 a.m. - The pen is just across the road so I can see it from the livingroom window. Mark signals me to wake up our son Laurie. Sometimes a cow will need help giving birth, especially if it is her first calf or the presentation is not natural - breech, a leg back, or upside down. It takes years of experience to know what to do and often times when you take a cow into the barn, you have no idea what the outcome will be.

7:20 a.m. - I arrive just in time to see the calf pulled by hand. The birth was taking too long because the calf is big and the shoulders were jammed in the birth canal. By reaching in and pulling the front legs, it loosened the shoulders and the calf came out easily. Mark was able to do it alone and while he rubs the calf to stimulate it to breathe, Laurie coaxes the cow up. The calf is put in the next pen and the cow follows. Mark comments what a nice cow she is - a good mother and she has a nice disposition. He pours a little grain on the calf to encourage the cow to lick it thoroughly. Sometimes when there is intervention during the birthing process, the cow is slow to mother, and since this is a big calf and the birth was long, he just wants to be sure the cow bonds well.



112 on the ground, 188 left to be born.


The laundry pile: We all have them.

My first entry

1. Woke up this morning at 4:00 a.m.
2. Started working on my novel.
3. Got stuck.
4. Hit by the painful realization that I'm not very much fun.
5. Decided to start a blog.

Does this suddenly make me funner?

Yes, I know that funner is not a real word. But it is a lively word, one that makes me think of childhood, a time when you could jump up and down and holler out pretty much whatever you wanted and people thought it was cute. Life was more funner then, before we knew about the word responsibility.

The above paragraph is the perfect example of "telling not showing" a writerly no-no, especially when writing fiction. Writing non-fiction is much easier because you can just tell, tell, tell. I'm trying to teach myself how to "show" but since my day job is all about telling, the brain switch each morning is a challenge.

No, I'm not a school teacher. I would never be able to stand all that noise. I prefer the quieter pursuit of non-fiction writing to earn a living. Just me and my computer.

Like I said - boring.

Dictionaries: How do you look up a word if you don't know how to spell it?