WordPlay

My glamorous life.

I am author, web master, Backlist eBooks partner, and…the Mighty Poo Wrangler.

(Don’t you wish you were me?)

At times, this is more obvious than others.  Like when the north slope in front of the barn is frozen for ever and ever in the wake of substantial snow, creating a weird glacier with artfully incorporated horse poo.  It was 4F last night–not unusual for deep winter–and it doesn’t get warm enough, long enough, to melt any of it.  That means…yes.  It goes through subtle warming-freezing cycles that compact and entrench it.

The snow is now slick ice; the poo will be there for archeologists to find centuries from now.  “We must surmise that the occupant of this home worshiped Poo, to have preserved it so well.”

In the meantime, daily feeding excursions to the barn are a bit challenging.  Time to get crampons.

The other time Poo Wrangling duties inch into that “Really?  HOW much clean-up and laundry?” zone is when the dogs pass a bug around between them.  Like this past week and a half.  In this case a weird little bug, with atypical incubation, atypical presentation, atypical course of illness. Mainly I spent the time going, “What?  AGAIN?  And you, too?  NOW?  Really?”

Now that I have the whole picture and have been able to pick the brains of some doggy experts (Brain Wrangling, a whole different skill), it’s obvious I was outwitted from the start.  Virus Win, Durgin Stress Shed, and cleaning product manufacturers rejoice.

It’s at times like this I think, “How many dogs do I have?  Why is that again?”

But of course, they’re quick to remind me.  They wait until I’m off guard and then they arrange to blindside me with adorableness, thusly:

Dart & Connery Ball of Cuteness

Dart & Connery Ball of Even Cuter

If you’ve got critters, I bet you know just what I mean!

By the way, there’s free fun for the next week, more or less--the short story A BITCH IN TIME is a freebie at Nook, Sony, and iTunes, but only until the stores pick up the directive to stick it back to 99c.  That should happen fairly soon–I think!–so grab it while you can!  If you have THE HEART OF DOG, you already have this story.  If not…have fun!

Dart & Connery Ball of Even Cuter

It’s 10am Christmas morning, which is a whole lot later than this day started.  Not because I have eager kids in the house, but because today was my chance to run a certification track with Dart Beagle.

In order to enter the TD (tracking) test, a dog must prove he’s ready.  That means passing on an informal TD track.  Ours was scheduled for Friday the 23rd–but we spent Friday snowbound, digging out from under the third storm in two weeks.

insert random beauty

Sunrise, right before the start of the storm...

Thirty-six hours later, as the sun is about to set...clearing skies with lenticular clouds sitting on the Sandia Mountains

So we rescheduled for Monday.  But then the certifying judge had to reschedule something of her own due to that same weather, and suddenly here we are on Christmas morning, squeezing in the track together.

It was 15F when we left the house; marginally warmer when I ran Dart’s little starter track (a wee morale builder).  Eventually the sun came up and that helped a bit–when we ran the certifying track a little after nine, it was all blue sky, bright sun, and eager Beagle.

And for Christmas this year, the eager Beagle ran a picture-perfect track and found the glove. 

Now I am off to celebrate!

insert random holiday cheer

My view from the office at Horse Feeding Time

Duncan feeling a bit jaunty in his power red blankie

The dogs say "Happy Holidays!"

Heh heh heh.  Are you ready for winter?

Here, we have a small stockpile of shreddings (recycled landscaping and construction), and Duncan’s paddock needs grooming for winter.

We did this last fall, too, but that application of shreddings has “matured.” In the side paddock, that means there remains a light scattering of shreddings which have helped anchor the daily application of  scattered horse poo, resulting in a light layer of fairly loose top soil over the rock-hard ground.

(Tip: to improve any soil or footing, mix in horse poo.)

In the barn area, the shreddings were applied 4-6 inches deep, and have mostly compacted into a spongy layer that absorbs water and buffers the natural footing. There are still loose shreddings kicking around on top, but the main improvement is that spongy layer.

This ground-grooming activity is all critical, because the natural soil in this area is adobe clay. In the summer, this is rock hard stuff, and every single time you strike it with a shovel you think, “I can’t believe this stuff!”

If it’s wet, it’s the squishieset, sploogiest, clingiest mud-cement you have ever encountered and, as you go skidding across the ground, usually leaving at least one shoe behind, you think, “I can’t believe this stuff!

Of course, in a natural setting, it’s got a cover of tufty grasses and other high prairie-foothill transition growth. But if there’s just been a house constructed, and the bulldozer has been busy, busy, busy….

Well, our entire back yard is covered with these shreddings, which is why the dogs don’t turn into cement mudballs when we do get rain (oh please, may we have some more of that?). So is much of the front area, so we don’t get mired when going to and fro.

But Duncan’s paddock is a special case, and the shreddings are even more critical–because horses churn up mud with astonishing speed.

Also because although when I staked out the barn flat, it wasn’t a direct downhill from the house–but after the construction crew finished prepping the house foundation, it suddenly became THE collecting basin for run-off.

(Yes, I squawked. Yes, I was given the old dismissive “it won’t be a problem” treatment. Yes, I was right.)

Anyway, that area needs constant maintenance to prevent problems large and small. I’ve done some water-scaping, and that’s helped, but mainly it’s that healthy, thick layer of ever-compacting shreddings that prevents the barn from flooding during a hard rain or snow run-off.

One…

Wheelbarrow…

at…

a time.

Pass the ibuprofen, please?

(Are you ready for winter?  Mwah ha ha!)

There’s always some woo in my books.  As in, woo-woo.  I suppose also as in “wooing,” but I swear I wasn’t trying to be punny when I started this sentence.

(Was that convincing?)

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the Reckoners a lot lately, as I begin the preliminary work for the third Reckoners book.  (The first two were THE RECKONERS and STORM OF RECKONING, in case anyone’s lost track, along with partner story, “Deep River Reckoning.”  So I’m taking another look at those books–at the things I did in those books.

And I realize it was bound to happen–that I’ve finally set a book in Sedona.  I mean, take one writer of things fantastical living only an hour away from the red rocks, canyons, and vortexes.  Give her a decade of exposure.

The inevitability of it is clear.

Seriously!  Only an hour away from the woo-woo!

Not that my characters were as enthused.

Lucia Reyes:  Shopping?  In tourist Trap World?  I don’t think so.
Lisa McGarrity:  Reckoning?  In Faux Woo-Woo World?  I don’t think so.
Trevarr: [    ]

Oh, right.  Trevarr.  He’s like that.

Sklayne:  Me.  You forgot about me.

Sklayne.  He’s like that, too.

Sedona has to be both the most over-appreciated and under-appreciated place in the world.  Think SEDONA and you get crystals and vortexes, mantras and spiritual retreats.  Because, sure… there’s a lot of that going around.

But drive to Sedona from Flagstaff, and you end up winding through a canyon with dizzying hairpin turns, dropping a couple thousand feet in short order.  Ponderosa pines and scrub oak cling thickly along the red rocks in a stark green and bluff-red contrast, and rushing creek and riparian water habitat thrives below.  It’s alive and it’s stunning and it’s unlike anywhere else you’ve ever been.  Suddenly you look at it all much differently.  You look beyond the woo.

You think, “This is a place where I’d like to sit.  I’d like to spend time.  I’d like to write about.  I’d like to help preserve.”

Sklayne:  Vortexes.  Tasty.

Right.  That’s the thing, isn’t it?  So alluring, the temptation of the woo-woo.   Sometimes I think it shadows the amazing nature of what’s already there.  Because right there in Sedona, the world changes.

Sedona sits at the Mogollon Rim, the profound natural dividing line between the Colorado Plateau and the lower Basin & Range country.  Spend a few winters in the higher northlands, and you know right where the snow line lays:  Above Sedona, it’s chains and closed roads.  Below it, the fog clears out and suddenly you’re driving clear and free.

Above Sedona, the land is all silent volcanoes and cinder fields supporting skiing and ponderosa pines growing thick and deep; the amazing San Francisco Peaks were formed by your classic hot-n-heavy volcano, topped by the classic dome explosion.

Below Sedona, it’s a quick descent through juniper scrub desert to the broad sloping valley bowl of classic hot, hot desert.  Saguaro, prickly pear, cholla spring up, while grasses grow sparser by the moment.  Picture your cowboy hero, crawling along the ground with his tongue hanging out, a rattler coiled up not far away.

And there in Sedona, you have it all, both above and below.  North Sedona is full of canyons, swirling wind-formed rocks, Vultee Arch, and a plethora of stunning trails and views.  As if I could resist taking the reckoning action out into those settings!

Lucia:  I’m pretty sure you could have.  Or warned me to pack hiking shoes.  And, the way things turned out, a bulk pack of sanitary wipes.
Garrie:  Bring it on!  I’ve got ghostie vibes to hike out.
Sklayne:  Squirrels!  Tasteee!
Trevarr: [   ]

South of Sedona’s main road, the land plunges down into the red rocks–striking red bluffs in formations so distinctive they all have names (Snoopy, Lucy, Chimney Rock, The Mittens, The Cow Pies, the Rabbit Ears….).  It looks like someone turned the Earth’s crust upside down and left us all gazing at the roots of the rock.

Truth is, I enjoy the woo-woo.  The vortexes, both male and female in essence; the crammed, tight little shops along Highway 89.  There you can get crystals, furs, a plethora of T-shirts bearing eagles, wolves, and largely misrepresented Indians, and–if you look in the right place–maybe a badger skull to add to the collection at home.  (Ask me how I know.)   Geodes, vortex tours,  and any little thing with a whiff of New Age magic…this is the place!  It’s all worth a little wallow.

Sklayne:  Tingles!

But for me, the rich treasure of the area comes in the land, which carries a woo-woo all of its own–just because it is.  And in the end, even if it was crystals and vortexes that tickled my idea generator, it was the land that drew me, and which helped drive this story.  What the land and its creatures deserve.

Lucia:  Let’s just sit on Sterling Ridge and look down on the pass for a while.
Garrie:  Non-ethereal woo-woo.  Want me some of this.
Trevarr:  *just happens to be standing close to Garrie*

…Sklayne:  When can I eat it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

first appeared more or less in this form, in the Tor newsletter

How innocent it looks...

Last winter, we had a week of astonishing temperatures, including a couple of nights in the -25 to -30*F zones.

(Don’t talk to me about “You think that’s bad, we do that every year–!”  Because we don’t, and that means we aren’t set up to handle it, and I will be CRANKY about it.)

During that time, the barn hydrant froze up.  I monitored our water meter as it thawed out, found no leaking, and figured we got lucky.

What was I thinking?

So yesterday morning, Duncan got a little “it’s too hot to ride” longe, and I did barn chores.  At which time I either inadvertently became bionic so my sudden surge of strength overwhelmed a barn spigot in perfect condition, OR…

The freeze-weakened join of metal-to-PVC at the bottom of the hydrant gave way without a lot of encouragement.

Let’s just say if I inadvertently became bionic, it was an extremely temporary condition.

The only sign at the barn was a slight sound whining up through the spigot, but the water meter indicated a loss of a gallon a minute.  In the desert.  In the worst recorded drought…ever.

And there is no way to shut off water to the barn without shutting it off to the house.  (Don’t talk to me about this, either.  It wasn’t my doing, and we hope to change it.)

[insert panic, chaos, and massive flurry of activity here]

Well, here are the good things.  Plumber and his Assistant are totally awesome, for starters.  What you see here is a picture of the repaired spigot, (Sunday double-time!), and with a much more robust installation at that vulnerable elbow joint.  Not only that, where the spigot used to point out toward that juniper in the background, it now points back to the trough, which will make my life easier in general, and a whole lot easier come winter, and means the installation isn’t as sticky-outie when it comes to Stupid Horse Moments.

Meanwhile, anyone who was expecting to hear from me yesterday?  Well, now you know where I was…

Duncan is a horse of much cool.

He doesn’t spook, as a matter of course. Not at bunnies flushed beneath his hooves, not at objects blowing past in gale-force winds, not at lightning or thunder or dogs rushing up at him from behind.

He does, however, get mad. And when he gets mad, he gets…

Really.

Really.

Mad.

One of the things he doesn’t find acceptable is smoke–as in, forest fires.  In this, I think he is a very wise horse indeed.  However, as it happens, we’re currently directly in the path of the prevailing winds from the Arizona Wallow Fire.  You know…several hundred miles away, a kazillion acres, zero containment, Ponderosa pine inferno.  It rises across the desert and dumps down in the Albuquerque valley, then spills over the Sandias to settle right on top of…

Us.

Ash everywhere. Inhalers by the bedside, on the desk…one certain Beagle boy with headsplosions getting sinus rinses twice a day and rub downs just as often.  The computers are covered at night against the ash build-up (my keyboard works are so gritty I doubt it’ll survive).

And the horse…  Yes.  The horse is mad.

Duncan pulls out his Big Trot for the Smoke Remonstration

Not to mention a lot of wheeling-to-gallop

And then there's the Angry Strut

And here, the Really Big Trot. See that smoky ridge? That's the smaller of two ridges in our skyline. The other, behind it----Sandia Mountain itself--is obscured by smoke. Normally the biggest feature of our sky...

Here is the first very cool thing for May.

MR LIZARD!

This lizard was snoozing in the cool pile of cheapo wood shreddings we acquired for the desperate purpose of turning our new yard into something that *isn’t* an adobe mud version of quicksand.

(Mainly, we were worried that short-legged little Belle would take one step out there and…slowly…disappear…)

That was 18 months ago; since the initial application, we’ve been slowly whittling away at the pile, applying patch-jobs to the yard as needed.  One day it’ll be an archeological masterpiece, layers and layers of unevenly shredded yard brush, old pallets, and the occasional dismantled house compacted into the clay adobe soil and decomposed into a solid layer.  Pity the fool who ever puts a bulldozer to THAT.

But!

Back to Mr. Lizard. HE IS SO COOL.

And although his shreddings pile is now smaller than it used to be, I bet he’s still got plenty of room to call home.

YAY!  LIZARD!

Oh, but I promised TWO COOL THINGS and I have them. Thing number two is the Backlist eBooks Merry May sale.

There are fantastic sale prices on nearly 200 books by more than 50 traditionally published authors. Books start at 25% off and get better from there–it’s a great way to feed your ereading device!

To grab the sale books, head to BacklisteBooks.com for a list of titles and Smashwords coupon codes, identified by genre.

If you’d like a heads-up on these Backlist eBooks sales, here’s our newsletter sign-up.

YAY!  BIG EBOOK SALE!

I spend a lot of time outside.

Brrr! Now that's outside...

When you add up the bird-watching, the flower-prowling, the agility training, and the horsie back riding…yeah, I spend a lot of time outside, and always have.

I started out working as a park naturalist in Ohio and then headed to the deepest Appalachians (100 acres, log cabin, endless mountain ridges); from there, I had an interlude in the western New York suburbs.  I eventually escaped to the rural southwest–first to the amazing world of Flagstaff’s San Francisco Peaks, then to Albuquerque’s unique South Valley, and most recently through the pass to the Tijeras Canyon foothills.

That’s where I am now, and that’s where, barring significant surprise, I’ll stay.

It’s  a journey that spans a treasury of different ecosystems, different weather patterns, different critters.   It includes the richest riparian forest; chill flat hickory and chokecherry woods; the rarified air of high desert, snow pack, and ponderosa pines; the hot bosque valley of the Rio Grande–and now the windward foothills of another sacred mountain.  Totally different flavors of life, and they’ve all become part of me.

All absorbed right through to my writing.

At first I resisted the lure of using my personal worlds in my writing. And at first the resisting was easier–I was creating worlds for my fantasy novels, so I could use what I knew without being (too) obviously referential about it.

But then I started writing more contemporaries. And while I can and have researched the ecological details of Far Distant Places, my own closer places keep wanting to come out.  (Most recently, this means a book of luxuriating in the complexity of Sedona, Arizona–from the striking red rocks to the deep canyons.  As if I could resist!)

It’s more than just the convenience of it–although the convenience of weaving location through the plot-building process can’t be denied.  But it’s because…you know, writing is about sharing what drives you, and about what means something to you.  And I don’t just live in these places, I live as part of them, soaking them in…wallowing in them, if I can wax just a little bit poetic.  So I love these worlds of mine…and I want readers to love them, too.

Here’s where it gets into nefarious deeper layers. Ulterior motives, even.

Because the things you know and love become things not so easily dismissed. If you know–even vicariously–the scent of the ponderosa pine, the deep green needles, the ridged, red-tinted bark…then when climate change makes them vulnerable to the pine bark beetle, maybe it matters just a little bit.  When fire rages through the mountains due to perfect storm conditions created by man’s intervention with natural cleansing fires, then maybe suddenly allocating resources to forest management matters, too.

And if it matters to enough people, then maybe it makes a difference.

One can hope.

So I guess that makes me an environmental proselytizer.

But you know, mainly…it’s because writing where I am is about writing what I am, and what I know and love–and being able to share that so it changes just a little bit of something in someone else.  It’s what I want to be able to say about my writing…that on some level, it matters.

Isn’t that what we all want?

first appeared in Terry Odell’s Blog

Morning in the dog yard…

Dogs: We are full of US!!

We have a routine. Dogs get fed; Belle and Dart go outside.  Connery stays inside to inspect the house until he’s ready to play, at which time he presents himself, and we have a round of fetch.  Then out he goes.

(Why special?  Because he so often hasn’t felt well this past winter, and I need to assess him…and when he doesn’t feel well, being special helps.  And when he feels fine, then I get to enjoy it!)

Connery: I AM SPECIAL!  BAWH!

(I told you he talks in all caps a lot, right?)

Then the horse gets his morning feed and chores, and then it’s off to the dog yard for chores, where the dogs are waiting.

Dogs: It’s our turn!  We rock!

Dart: See my toy!  See my toy!  See my toy!

Connery: Me!  Me!  Me!

Belle: I will help you keep those two boys in line, hee hee!  I bark at you, boy dogs!  You Beagles!  You dogs with legs!  Behave yourselves!

Me: Yes, yes.  You’re all quite wonderful.  But I have a job to do.

You may guess what this is.

Isn’t that special?

Dart: Throw my toy!  Throw it!  I make mooing noises at you because my toy is so special and I want you to throw it!  I throw myself at your feet!  I wiggle uncontrollably!

I have one hand free, so of course I do.

Belle: Bark!  I bark! That boy dog is being rambunctious!  He has long legs!  He’s brown!

Connery lurks. Dart’s toy isn’t one he wants.  Belle is just being noisy.  But he is a working dog and he has things to do.  And he is a tracking dog, so he knows how to do them.

Connery: Over here!  I found poo!

Yes, Connery helps me clean up the yard.

Dart is unmoved by this display of responsibility. He dashes up the hill that borders the yard–quite steep, if short, and it could probably use a retaining wall but at this point is covered with chipper shreddings from the nearby recycle station where they take brush and offer really cheap, crude ground covering in return.  In a land of adobe mud, these shreddings have saved my sanity.

Dart loves the hill. He loves the chipper shreddings.  He LOVES to throw himself on his back and sled downhill head first, upside down, wiggling to scratch his back all the way.  With the favorite toy of the moment in his mouth as he goes.

I am so, SO sorry that I haven’t been able to get a picture…but even if I had the camera, my hands are usually otherwise engaged.

Connery: Over here!  I found poo!

Yard dogs, watching me from the hill

Bonus pic! Because Connery...is about...to...SNEEZE!

Well, INCHES matter.

One inch, said the weather critters of the impending snow. Three if over 7500′ altitude (we’re just below 7000′).

Fifteen inches later…

Snow means a waterpack on the mountains, and good slow water soaking into the sucked-bone dry ground.

But so much snow all at once? On our gravel driveway and hilly dirt road, that equals “snowbound.”

I dug out the barn. I worked on the driveway.  I took ibuprofen!  I dug some more and helped a kid who got stuck at the corner in the family van.

I stared at the remaining snow blocking my car and said, “No.”

But!  I still got the mail from the rural community box.  I might not have 4WD, but the mailman does.  And I have four HOOF drive.

Duncan was somewhat excessively proud of himself and his patience while I leaned, jostled, and made aurgh noises, trying to manage the awkward angle of that flat, tray-type mail niche.

DuncanHorse: ONE of us is dignified.

But hey–we trundled right on past those those stuck cars we passed along the way.

Dart Beagle hasn’t seen snow–just the massive hailstorm from October (still undergoing repairs…).  So this All at Once deluge was of some surprise to him.

I took lots more pictures, but the camera ate everything but this. Boo!

Dart Beagle: I MUST EAT ALL THE SNOW!

Dart Beagle: I MUST PEE ON ALL THE SNOW!

Which is a pretty convenient sequence when you think about it.

Connery Beagle: I love my dogloo.  You fool.  BAWH!

[Connery's just being dramatic.  He spent most of the time inside.]

The camera ate the pics before the entrances were tromped open. Boo!

So it’s a good thing I went out and took piccies of the wild Christmas trees two days before all this snow fell.

What, you don’t have wild Christmas trees? Around here we apparently grow them on the National Forest land.

Yes, the sky was that blue.

PS And Sunday, because of the immediate warming trend and the strength of the mountain sun, we had…wait for it…THE MELT.  *splooge*  Like butter in a microwave.  Turns out there’s an awful lot of water in all that snow…