Day: May 31, 2013

Red was greeting people at the Hubbard Hall Writer’s reception when he heard the noise from an Irish step-dancing class and he went skittering over to say hello to the dancers.He is from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. One of the things I love about my town is the instructor came over and knelt down to meet him, she was delighted. I’ve lived in places where they might have called the police. The Irish step-dancers seemed to love him too. Red is a charmer who loves the ladies. I guess he is Irish.

The Hubbard Hall Writers did a public reading tonight from their amazing work on their blogs and in their writing, photos, animations and art work. We had a full house in stifling heat and the writers and audience bravely sweltered through the night. I had a wonderful feeling to it, these gifted people who have been so creative and so supportive of one another, people came from as far away as Buffalo and the Midwest. John Greenwood, Diane Fiore, Dr. Jen. Baker-Porazinski, Rebecca Fedler, Kim Gifford and Rachel Barlow were funny, touching, uplifting and honest. What a privilege it is for me to work with these brave and gifted people. They were all nervous about appearing in public before the readings, but they didn’t seem nervous tonight.

The workshop was supposed to last four weeks, but is heading for two years and will probably go another ten more. In the Fall, I’m teaching a four part course on separate Saturday mornings at Hubbard Hall called “The Art Of The Blog.” There was a great feeling in the room tonight, how wonderful to hear their great work and see it celebrated. Red was stellar as usual, except for his fascination with the Irish step-dancing class. He is from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

My e-book “Listening To Dogs: How To Be Your Own Training Guru” has been out for four days, is atop most of the dog training lists in the online world and we have had an intense and useful week of discussions on Facebook and elsewhere. I will keep the topics coming on dog training next week.  “Listening To Dogs” is available everywhere digital books are sold, it costs $2.99. It is an empowerment book, I am challenging the idea that we can’t do much of the training of our dogs ourselves, without a lot of expensive and sometimes didactic gurus.

We had some great interactions this week, and today had a groundbreaking and civil discussion about Cesar Milan and dog training theories. It was very informative and interesting, it is on my Facebook page. We battled all week about whether Milan is abusive (I think he is not) and traded a lot of good information in the process.

There are lots of great trainers in the world, and I appreciate them, and many have responded favorably to my book as good trainers love to see dog owners take more initiative and responsibility for training their dogs. I am already working on my next e-book, “Love And Light From Bedlam Farm,” a collection of some of my photographs from the farm, especially those dealing with color and light. That will be in July or August. In the meantime, I’m far from done with this one. Thank you for your interest in this book and your support of it. I am putting together the next phase of my writing life, and it has lots of elements – the blog, podcasts, new subscription options, Facebook, PInterest, etc. Exciting to be a writer now.

Maria, the pied piper of the farm, led the animals out through the gate and into the new pasture – everybody came but Lulu, who raced back and forth looking for another way in. When she brayed, Simon and Lulu came running to her and the sheep followed. The pasture is rich in brush and grass and beautiful. We all hopped the moat, got muddy but not too bad. We are waiting to see if it dries up, if not, we’ll have to put some gravel down, or a culvert.