I love this time of year. Love the changing colors and the deep blue sky. The shifting of the season from one of loads of neverending work and busyness to one of quiet rest.
There is something fascinating and peaceful and soul-satisfying in watching the leaves flutter to the ground. I’m blessed to have my desk by a window where I get to sit with my scented candle burning, a cozy blanket on my lap while the wind blows outside and the leaves swirl and twirl to the ground. It a wonder I get any writing done at all. : )
But, I actually have been writing a good bit, and in case you missed it, Friday Cowboy Falling Hard released in audio and ebook. That was just four days ago and it already has over a hundred reviews on Amazon.
It wasn’t that long ago when I struggled to get even five or ten reviews on my new releases. I’m so very, very grateful to my ARC team and to all of you who read and enjoy my books, leaving reviews, sending me kind, encouraging comments and being so amazingly supportive. You all are the best!
I don’t really have a farm story, exactly, but I do have some news I wanted to share with you, but first, I wanted to include two of my very favorite reviews from Cowboy Falling Hard:
This is from Mari on Amazon: “This story is a lovely reminder of how relationships work best, by considering the partner over self. As I was reading, I kept thinking young people need to read and understand this! By the time I finished the book, I was doing a self-evaluation and realizing I needed to read and understand it, even after 30-plus years of marriage.”
And this gem is from an annoymous reviewer on Amazon: “There seems to be an overabundance of authors who believe writing physical descriptions of characters creates an accurate depiction. The number of synonyms for an aesthetically-pleasing outward appearance forces the reader to do embarrassingly more than suspend disbelief. Remarkably, and to her readers’ endless relief, Ms. Jessie spends the majority of her effort describing the hearts, minds, and souls of her characters. These are real people, genuinely working through everyday struggles and building meaningful relationships, not worthless encounters. That, combined with beautiful Scripture passages, creates storytelling at its finest. Readers will be moved, inspired, and changed. Too few fiction authors can make that claim. Ms. Jessie stands alone on both her Biblical principles and incomparable writing talent.”
Wow. I never feel like I deserve words like that. They also scare me some, because I start to think how can I write another book like that? But then I remember that I didn’t really write this one to begin with. If there is anything good in my writing, it’s all God. He takes what I write and somehow makes it something He can use. God is good!
A few weeks ago I mentioned that we did herd check and weaned our early spring calves. Herd check involves bringing all the cows up into our corral, separating the mamas from the calves (so the moms don’t crush the babies when we run them into the chute), giving any vaccinations, wormers, doing any treatments and dehorning necessary (we had one with hoof rot that we needed to treat this time) and this time we had our vet there to preg check the cows since we’d put embryos in about twenty of them and hadn’t had the bull in with them very long.
Most of you have read my stories of #16. She was in with the spring herd.
Now, we knew she wasn’t going to have an embryo because earlier this year when they put the embroys in, I was in PA with my granddaughter and Watson was doing my job of herding the cows into the chute. #16 charged him and he ended up climbling the fence three times to get away from her. (I am not laughing. Much.)
Anyway, he was unable to get her in the chute to receive an embryo, so they just left her out with the bull.
Well, she was open, which means she wasn’t bred. (Just fyi, I did get her in the chute, and she did not kill me. : ) There were about twenty other cows from that herd that weren’t bred, and we separated them into a pen by themselves.
When the vet checked #16 and said she was open, Watson yelled down to me that she wasn’t bred and she was going down the road.
I called back and said, “I want to keep her.” After all, she and I are almost buds now.
Seriously. So, I was trying to think of how to explain this and I thought of how some guys seem to be attracted to girls that are all drama and high-maintance. I’ve never really understood that. But I think some men just love having to give that extra effort, or maybe having to work harder for her affection makes the relationship more satisfying for him. I’m not sure, but I kind of thought of my affection for #16 that way. She takes a little more effort, a little more caution, but, when handled the right way, I’ve kinda figured out how she works and she and I get along mostly okay. I respect her and I like working with her because she presents a challenge that is satisfying when things go my way.
Anyway, Watson yelled back down, “It’s #16!”
Me: I know. I want to keep her.
Watson: I don’t.
Me: (I shrug.) I’d keep her.
The vet is standing at the head of the chute with Watson and Watson tells him how she’d rammed me into the fence then turned and came back for me and how she’d chased him up the fence earlier this year and the vet suggested we not keep her.
I really like our vet. He’s patient with the girls, explains things and is very sensible. But he was on Watson’s side with this.
So, finally after they talk about it for a while, Watson yelled to the guy working the gate (he was the logger who logged our front woods and just likes hanging out at our place, I guess). They let #16 out of the chute and put her in the pen with the cows and calves who were being shipped out.
So, yeah. That’s my news: #16 is no longer with us. Honestly, I’m sad about that.
However, we do have one of #16’s heifer calves. We named her Dazzle and she’s as tame as #16 was wild. In fact, she freshened just last week and simply stood and sniffed us while we tagged and banded her husky bull calf.
Thanks so much for spending time with me this week!
Hugs and love,
~Jessie 