Life is like a...box of books

It was a grand sight.

Two big boxes were sitting on the back porch (surrounded by our cats who were waiting for dinner). This is it. My first official copies of So Much Sky.

I popped open one box and it was like looking into a new box of chocolates: so uniform, so perfect, so fresh.

A couple days earlier, my book popped onto the cybershelves at amazon.com.

And, poof, just like that (after 6 years), the book is done. ;-)

So is my website for So Much Sky. And my author site too. Thanks to Bob and Carina at Catchup Communications.

So Much Sky on sale now!

So Much Sky is on sale now through Create Space, the printer and distributor of the book.

Although my book will be distributed in a number of places, this is the first. It's so exciting!

So Much Sky also goes on sale this week on amazon.com. More on that later.

Check it out on Create Space now!

https://www.createspace.com/3615731

So Much Sky

Okay, so I'm a slothful blogger. That's pretty obvious. But I'm back in the saddle again. Because I have some cool news. My new book, So Much Sky, is on the way. It features an awesome cover photo by Graham Jimerson of our Haflinger horse Sam standing with his friend a Katahdin sheep in our pasture. So Much Sky will be for sale on amazon.com soon.

So Much Sky is a compilation of 55 essays that were published in Country Home, Country Almanac, and Horticulture magazines. The book is organized into four chapters that reflect the seasons and the goings-on at our farm in rural Iowa.

I'll post more about the book soon. Thanks to everyone who has sent me emails asking about it.

Book Cover Photo?

Amid my other writing projects (oh yeah, and I'm trying to paint all our fences before the weather turns cold), I'm making the final edits of my book of essays about living in the country. The working title is So Much Sky.

My son Graham took the photo above of our Katahdin ewe and Haflinger Sam standing together in our barnyard one evening. It's a really awesome (and oddly bizarre) composition. As it's fairly difficult (okay, impossible!) to pose livestock (especially multiple species), getting a shot like this is pure luck. The sun rays shooting out of the clouds are a bonus. We have amazing sunsets at the farm, but this one is especially celestial.

My friend Sundie is designing the book cover using this photo. It's a horizontal photo that needs to go on a vertical book cover. I hope it works out.

Maximus Grazing

Maximus, my son Graham's African spurred tortoise, is changing his address for the winter. During the summer he hangs out in our greenhouse, eating tomatoes and greens from the the garden. During the winter, he has less glamorous digs indoors in a large aluminum stock tank with a heat lamp that provides sunshine. Today, October 10, it's bizarrely warm outside (84 degrees F.), so Doug set Maximus out on the lawn so he could stretch his legs, graze on a little grass and enjoy the big, wide-open world. Our Jack Russell terrier Archer couldn't take his eyes off Maximus on the lawn, but was too intimidated to venture closer than a sniff.

Sputnik The Corgi

I know that hearing about how adorable other people's puppies are is really boring. Because, really, you might say, all puppies are cute. And that there can be no "cutest puppy." But you are wrong. I have just spent the weekend with the most adorable puppy ever. My son Tristan's new puppy, Sputnik.

Sputnik is a tricolored Corgi puppy and looks like he was assembled with spare dog parts: His big-dog head is fitted on a small-dog body. His batlike ears face forward when he's thinking and twitch sideways when he's eavesdropping. His cinder-block body rides on four stubby legs that end in big clubby feet. (In fact, his ears are longer than his legs.) He wobble-walks across the ground like a wind-up toy.

Smitten? Yes!

Sheep and Wool Festival: Adel, IA

The rain clouds parted for a few hours last weekend so the Adel Sheep and Wool Festival could proceed amid raindrops in steamy sunshine. The festival is a unlikely mix of livestock and fiber people. The common denominator, of course, is sheep.

You can distinguish the sheep/goat/alpaca raisers by their outfits: muck boots and jeans. The fiber fans are decidedly more colorful, some wearing hand-loomed garments.

As always, the dog trials were a hoot to watch. The "field" was a puddle-filled, mud-fest with a Border Collie expertly moving three sodden Dorset ewes around in a figure-8, a gate run, then into a corral. The test of wills between dog and ewes is filled with tension and comedy. The ewes create a united front of wet wool and angry attitudes, stomping a front leg in indignation. The dog takes a step closer and the sheep run like ninnies. So much for the show of toughness.

Some dogs exhibit amazing control, dropping on command, and lunging fast in large outruns at a "Way to Me" command. Others are tongue-hanging, crazy-eyed, trigger-happy zealots that shoot the sheep all over the field like pool balls on a billiard table.

I bought a really cool, hand-loomed scarf from an alpaca raiser from Maxwell, IA (C&M Acres). The scarf is made from the fiber from Black Label Johnnie and Alydar (a black- and a white-fleeced alpaca, respectively). Both are pictured on the scarf label. What a cool way to market fiber products--by the alpaca the fiber was shorn from.