Rub an ear

And win a donkey’s love.

Rose delivers

September 3, 2010 – Rose delivers, in real life and fiction. More great reviews coming in for “Rose“, this one from the Amazon.com “Vine” program, the first review online for the book, and five stars. This is the best way to start a book tour, and I’ve rarely had reviews this enthusiastic as early. Rose and I are going to the Saratoga Springs Barnes & Noble at 5 p.m. on the pub date, October 5, to sign some books. This is a tradition for me, a place I go every pub date and where the staff leaves a big pile of books for me to sign. This is an unofficial event, so I will just stop by the story, and can deny everything. This will be Rose’s second signing, and she will probably not like it, but if Frieda could have a reading this is the least I can do for Rose, who inspired this ovel.

Speak up

For yourself, and for the right to tell your story. And to live your life, not somebody else’s version of it.

Ed Rouse. Teaching me

I’ve spent a lot of time with Ed Rouse in the last two weeks. I enjoyed every minute of it. He taught me a lot. And I learned a lot. About cows. Breeding. Milk. Droughts all over the world. Barns. Fences. Silos. Feed. And hay and grass. Tails and  udders, teats and hooves, myriad regulations, animal rights demands,  artificial insemination and drainage. Tractors. A hundred different machines. And Barns. He knows a lot, is by necessity the master of many things.

He is an honest man, a direct man. He has little patience for wasting time or for people who waste time. He is religious, conservative, Republican. He  speaks his own mind, and very directly. He works brutishly hard. He is devoted to his family and grandchildren, and brothers and sisters. He talks about them all the time. He talks about the barns he and his father built. About his family, farmers going back five generations.

He lives in a narrow world, bounded by chores, ritual, tradition and back-breaking work. He is hopeful that family farms can survive. When he talks about them, and the challenges they face, he shakes his head. Evening thinking about the plight of family farmers makes him sad, and he shakes his head. I value him and my time with him. He is intelligent, a good listener. He misses nothing, and keeps a thousand things in his head at once. He put five kids through college. One of them wants to stay on the farm.

I have no idea if his farm will make it or not, and it isn’t my business. He told me yesterday the farm, the barns, the tractors, the silos and the farmhouse all need major maintenance. It is hard to imagine where so much money will come from. Milk prices are very low. The cost of everything is high and getting higher.

He is asking me more questions about myself. How writers make a living, something that bewilders him. About my daughter, my age, my farm. We haven’t gotten to the divorce yet.

Lulu, Fanny, living their lives

Lulu and Fanny seem content at Bedlam Farm, and we are happy to have them staying here. Maria says she will one day be a neat old woman with two donkeys. Sounds good to me. She’s a pretty neat woman now.