Silly Cats

I'll get to the silly cats in a minute.

Last Saturday I had an opportunity to go over to the Paradise Valley. The Yellowstone river flows through this beautiful valley after leaving Yellowstone Park.

We had just gotten over a foot of snow, so I expected the driving conditions might not be the greatest. I almost talked myself out of going, but decided to brave it. As I drove west on the interstate, which was dry, the snow began disappearing. It seemed odd to me, but the storm apparently missed a large area. 

Once I headed south, there was no evidence of the huge snow storm that covered eastern Montana.

Here is a shot of the western edge of the Absaroka Mountains and the Yellowstone River.

My friend said they only received an inch of snow there and it quickly melted.

 The peaks looked quite dramatic, don't you think?

Now onto the cats.

 Sammy, what are you getting into now?

 There must be something good in the bottom of that jar.

 He's going to get every last drop.

Actually we set him up. Well, he came up with the idea. He stuck his head down in the jar and looked so funny that Tom poured in a little milk to set up a photo op.

This is the desk I work, or attempt to work, at. These two are always jumping up on the desk, trying to walk across my computer, you know, generally bugging me.

When I glanced up the other day, they were just sleeping.

I snapped a few photos and then Sammy put his little arm over Penny. But you can see she woke up and had had enough. She left immediately after.

I took a break and when I came back, they were both snoozing away again.

The Pitch

When I first published A Story of the West, someone else wrote the back cover synopsis. I know nothing about the person, man? woman? no idea. I just figured that if a professional wrote it, it must be good. That was a bad assumption as I later realized that person hadn't actually read the book, but had only skimmed through, read a few pages here and there and then quickly scribbled something out.

Before I ordered additional printed copies, I redid the back cover. But I didn't take what it said too seriously. More than once I've read a book and then reread the back cover and decided it wasn't a very accurate description of the book's contents. I usually read a few pages to determine whether I'm interested.

Recently I had to change the way I view back covers.

This morning I entered a writing contest. It's called the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. It's open to anyone, with certain guidelines, who has written a book that's not under contract with a publisher (I self-published A Story of the West, so there is no contract). They accept five thousand entries and the first round of judging is based solely on the back cover pitch. Only one thousand entries (twenty percent) make it to round two.

The reviewers use the pitch as an indicator of the author's writing style and also to determine whether or not we actually know how to put sentences together, in three hundred words or less.

After reading advice from different authors on how to write an engaging pitch, this is what I came up with:

Pitch for A Story of the West

Matt Daly’s eyes narrowed as he faced the stranger in front of him. “I know I don’t have a quarrel with you because I don’t know you,” he growled.

“But I know you,” the menacing outlaw sneered back, clearly ready to use the Colt revolver hanging from his hip.

Only a few years earlier Matt and his father had trailed a herd of longhorns north from Texas into Montana Territory. Upon arriving, they decided to stay and raise cattle on the fertile grasslands.

Shortly after the Northern Pacific rail line was completed and it became easier for people to head west. Lavina Lavold stepped off the train in Miles City with her family and immediately caught Matt’s eye. When they fall in love, Matt’s life seems perfect.

There are unscrupulous men, however, determined to build cattle empires. A ruthless neighbor decides he wants the Daly’s claim, and he will stop at nothing to acquire their ranch. Since the entire area is undeeded land, it is up for grabs and there is no law on the rough frontier to prevent a range war. When Matt refuses to back down, his life takes a dangerous turn.

Forced to abandon his family, his travels take him down a long road of misery. An encounter with an Indian medicine man helps him to regain his sense of self, but not until after he gives in to his desperation.

A Story of the West depicts life during the open range ranching days of the Wild West. Besides plenty of action, I have added a women’s perspective to settling the American West. I researched the era to ensure historical accuracy and have written an accurate portrayal of life during this time, as well as an exciting read.

So, after reading the above, are you curious? Does it make you want to open the book and investigate further? Does it hook you?

The one thousand entries that make it to round two are then judged on an excerpt of the book. Two hundred and fifty entries are chosen for round three, where the entire manuscript is read and then a single winner is decided. The whole process takes until next June.

Even if I don't make it past round one, I've learned a good lesson in marketing my books.

I like this pitch a lot better than the one I'm using now. Let me know what you think.

Feed Lines and Winter Scenes

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome back. I really appreciate the good wishes! I figured I would be long forgotten after all this time.

Yesterday morning I went out for my walk. As the sky cleared after the snowfall the night before, this is how my world looked.

 I just love this view. I wish I could paint like this.

The sun poked through the clouds in the afternoon and these antelope found a south facing slope just behind our house to absorb what little heat there was. They napped there all afternoon. As evening approached, they moved off again.

Last night it snowed even more. There's more than a foot on the ground now. It's light and fluffy, perfect for the powder hounds (skiers, for those who don't know).

 This afternoon we went out and fed the cows first.

 Munching away, they never noticed that the clouds were lifting off the peaks.

 We got to the horses just as the sun sunk below the hill.

 Hooper and Peepster waiting for their dinner.

 Chowing down.

Melly walked on past on her way to another pile of hay. She had no interest in getting a pet.

If you enjoyed these winter pictures, you might also like these posts:

Breaking Ice

Good Dogs 

It barely got above zero the past couple of days, but change is expected. The forecast calls for a warm up, which here means a chinook is blowing in. Tomorrow it could look a lot different out as the wind will blow all this fluffy snow either away or into drifts.

New Critters

I haven't posted in quite  a while, ok, a really long time. I've just been doing other things, so I guess I better get caught up. First of all, here is a shot of the Crazies taken a month or so ago. I think I could take a picture of these mountains every day and come up with something new. 

Next, we've added to our menagerie of animals.

This is our first addition. He's a Brown Brahma rooster, commonly called a feather foot, and you can see why. We traded a duck for him last summer. He was only a couple months old when we got him, but he fit right in with the girls. His name is used to be Biff, but now it's Timmy, both names because of a certain sports team. Any Denver Bronco fans out there?

I took these two photos while he was out foraging last fall. In this one he had been disturbed by a certain someone lurking in the grass. (See last animal addition below.)

Our second addition was Bru. He's a ten to twelve year old half lab, half rottweiller. He belonged to a friend. She had two dogs and I would took care of them when she was away. Bru's buddy died last summer, so he was really lonely. When our friend left town for ten days in September, I went and got him and brought him to our home. When she returned, Tom and I told her we wanted to keep him. We just couldn't stand the thought of him having to go back to his previous existence. She agreed because at her house he was stuck in a kennel most of the time since she's rarely home. Here, well, here is animal heaven.

Except for the Bru drool, which flows freely from his jowls at certain times (he'd make a great Pavlov dog), he's a wonderful pet.

Number three is Sampson. We had him for a month last summer when Tom brought him over from the neighbor's to breed three mares. Then he went home. Last fall his owner asked if we could take care of him for a while as he was moving and hadn't yet found a place to keep him.

We've had him almost four months, but his owner called last week and said he would be coming for him any time. This is good because here he has to be in a corral all by himself here. He gets along with geldings, but we have unbred mares in with our wild bunch.

 

 Sampson is a Mammoth, gaited jack with spots and is a real character.

 He has the sweetest personality. Although he chases dogs out of his pen, he didn't mind Hazel being there.

There's a photo of him playing with one of his offspring at the bottom of this post:

Sampson with baby mule 

And here's number four. Sammy, the kitten, came to live with us in October. Some friends moved and couldn't take him with them. Tom went over to their house one day not long before they left and came home with him.

Unlike our other cats, he has a very outgoing personality. Whenever we have company, instead of hiding, he ends up in someone's arms.

Here he is stalking chickens. Remember what was bothering Timmy above? Well it was little Sammy.

Winter finally hit here. It's snowing and 10 degrees out. According to the satellite weather pic, it looks like most of the northern US is getting slammed. As usual, the precip is welcome here.

Better go put a log in the stove.

Hope everyone is warm and dry and having a great start to 2012.

Swallows and Wildflowers

One evening as Tom and I drove up our driveway, we came to an area that was still flooded and saw these swallows. We sat in the pickup and Tom tried to take pictures. He couldn't see the birds in the view finder, so I watched over his shoulder. When it looked like the birds were in the right spot, I told him, "Now," and he'd quickly take a picture.

Here are some of the results.

There were two or three of them, and they'd come swooping down this narrow stretch of water.

 They were almost kamikaze-like, except they were diving for bugs.

They kept coming and coming as we sat and watched.

We had company over Memorial Day. When people come to visit, there's one place I usually take them. It's only twenty miles or so from town and it's a cool thing to see.

The water goes down into the rock here,

and comes out down below. There used to be a natural rock bridge that went across that dry dip up above. The bridge collapsed in the late 1980s. During high water, the over flow forms a waterfall. Just to the right the water goes back underground again.

With all the water we've been getting, this is the beginning of a great wild flower year.

There were bunches of Arrowleaf Balsam Root growing along the upper edges of the river banks. These, along with

the Mountain Bluebells that were growing along the trail we walked on, were the first flowers out in the spring where I grew up.

When we were young, my older sisters and I would get up early on Mother's Day and go looking for these two kinds of flowers flowers to make our mother a bouquet with. Some years they were blooming profusely that early in May and other years we'd have to figure out another gift for our mom.

The Pasque Flowers were also out that day, although they're already looking a little faded.

On the way home, along our driveway I found these Sand Lilies next to some Prickly Pear.

Tractor Repair and Flowers

On Thursday, Tom drove over to the John Deere dealer and picked up the parts to repair the tractor.

Once the water went down enough that he could get to it, it took him only a short while to put it back together.

 And then he easily,

drove 'er out.



I've been taking a few pictures of the flowers that bloom around here.

These low-growing phlox are some of the first to bloom on the hillsides.

A couple days ago we walked up to repair a fence and I found these larkspur. The flowers are a little out of focus, either because there was a breeze, or because I didn't hold still. Both these things seem to happen frequently. But I really like the color next to the sage and grass.

The locoweed is also out in full force.(This time I think it was the breeze causing the blurring. Look at the old grass seed heads leaning in the foreground.)  It and the larkspur are poisonous to livestock, but they have their merits also. First of all, they aren't a preferred feed, so livestock only eat them when there's nothing else. Secondly, they are both legumes, which means they fix nitrogen in the soil, which rangeland soils need. So we leave them alone and don't hold our cattle and horses very long in areas they are blooming. After that they aren't a problem.

I also saw these little flowers, which I don't know the name of.


In the yard the flowers were much more spectacular of course.

Our little apple tree might have apples for the first time. The big apple tree is way behind this one. If they bloomed together and  pollinated one another, they'd produce more fruit. Both trees were here when we moved in and I don't know what kind they are.

This is a corner of my yard. I can't help but feast my eyes on the bright colors of the tulips and bleeding hearts every time I walk by.

Here's another shot taken from the other side after this spot was in the shade. I think the colors are even more vibrant.

We had a couple nice days and I weed whacked the over foot high grass in my yard and weeded my flower beds. As you can see in the photo above, I left the dandelions that were blooming since they are so pretty right now and they aren't crowding anything.

Now it's raining again, but it's supposed to hit the seventies by mid week.

It looks like we'll be spending most of Memorial Day inside getting ready for company. Let me know how you are spending the holiday.

Weather

I was all set to write a kind of bad things-good things post about how one day Tom parked the tractor in the strangest place,

 the ditch.

Actually something broke on the front end (Tom told me what, but apparently all I heard was, blah, blah, blah, because I don't remember what he said) and it's sitting there until the parts that had to be ordered arrive. Tom gets to put it back together where it sits. Bad thing.

And then the next day,

a friend gave us these morel mushrooms that he picked. I sauteed them in butter and added garlic and lemon juice. The finest delicacy, and they grow all around here. Good thing.

But things continued before I got the post written. And it's not really bad things, more like life happening.

We got a reprieve from the cold, wet weather we've been having, at least long enough to get the cattle moved. Look, I'm actually riding in a t shirt and you can see blue sky.

Then it started raining again. It poured for days and the already saturated ground couldn't hold any more water.



When we got home yesterday afternoon, this is what we saw.

 There was no way the culvert under the county road could keep up.

The normally dry creek bed near our house.

The irrigation ditch overflowed, and the water hadn't even been turned on yet.

The water flowed over the driveway as that culvert couldn't handle all the water either.

Remember our poor broke-down tractor?

This is what it looked like yesterday evening. Good thing Tom ordered front wheel bearings to replace the old ones while he had it apart, 'cause I think they might really need it now and it might be a while before it's repaired.

I posted pictures of the flash flood we had a year ago. Compare the pictures here. That flood lasted only a few hours. With all the rain, this one has been building.

Our basement had close to a foot of water in it yesterday. We have one pump down there running full time and another one set at intervals to keep up. 

Today, since it hasn't rained, the water pouring out of every drainage has slowed a little, but it's still  coming in the basement just as fast.

We've had record rainfall in this area. There is extensive flooding east of here with road closures, people stranded from their homes and irrigation systems wiped out. It could get a lot worse when it warms up because the above average snow pack in the mountains hasn't really begun melting yet.

And there's another big storm on the way. Yep, life is definitely happening.

I was rereading some of my older posts and realized that I write about the weather a lot, but, as you can tell, it's a big part of our life here.