Late yesterday afternoon I turn off the highway onto our road. In the ditch I see two dogs: a black lab and a St. Bernard... a BIG St. Bernard. These dogs don't live on our road. I have no idea whose they are.
I pull over and open my window. "Hey, guys, what's going on?" They raise their heads and begin ambling toward me, relief written all over their faces. Maybe this lady can help us get home.
As I climb out of the car, a van pulls up. A woman had passed the dogs on the highway, gone up to the turnaround, and returned, concerned they were about to wander onto the highway. The dogs mill around our legs as we talk, so we grab their collars. No ID tags.
"I wonder if they've been dumped," I say. It happens a lot. People who take their dogs and cats into the country and push them out of the car to fend for themselves should be strapped in a parachute, flown to Antarctica, and pushed out the plane.
But I digress. "We can't just leave them here," the woman says.
I offer to take them, but not very enthusiastically. The woman says "I'll take them." She lives 1 1/2 hours to the south, and she's heading north to a conference or something. "I can shift some of the luggage around." Turns out she has a car filled with kids, luggage, and a pregnant sister. And still she's willing to make room for about 200 pounds of dog. This is an animal-lover.
We discuss the animal shelter in Red Wing, 25 miles away. The pregnant sister wants to take them there.
I sigh. I'm tired. My irregular heartbeat is bugging me. I'm hungry. But I've lived in the country long enough to know that these dogs are my responsibility. It's a rural thing. Lost dog, sick neighbor, whatever, there's no dodging the responsibility.You just step up and help, no matter how tired you are.
"I'll take them. I live around here. We'll make some calls."
The woman is skeptical, but I insist. We open the back of our Saturn Vue and the St. Bernard climbs in. There is no room left for the black lab, so I put her in the back seat. She doesn't seem to know that she's supposed to step in, as if she's never been in a car before, so I must lift her in. I give the woman my website in case she wants to email to learn how the story ends.
As I'm driving home, part of me is thinking we will take them to the shelter and be done with them. Another part wonders that if no one claims them, will they be destroyed? Can we make room in our lives for an enormous St. Bernard? We've recently gone from three dogs down to one, but we'd resolved to not add more for at least a year.
Melissa loves the dogs. The black lab is so happy she whimpers with joy when we pet her.
Time for the phone calls. The dogs don't belong south of the highway, so if they're from the area, they're from the north side of the highway.
Melissa calls the first person. The woman can't think of anyone who might own those dogs, but she suggests Melissa call a second person. The second person isn't home, so the phone is answered by a kid, maybe eight or ten years old. The kid doesn't know anything, but takes down the information. Before they hang up, Melissa reminds him once again: "If your parents know anyone with a "Beethoven" dog, have them call me."
Beethoven dog! Brilliant. The kid shouts, "Hey, I know who has one of those!" St. Bernard meant nothing to him, but the dog in the movie? Melissa says she doesn't know much about kids, but she speaks their language like a pro.
Melissa looks up the phone number of the name the kid gave her. The woman who answers nearly falls apart with gratitude. They've been searching for two days, calling the sheriff, the shelters, driving in circles around their home. The dogs only live, as the crow flies, about 1 1/2 miles away. They'd wandered too far from home and couldn't find their way back.
Ten minutes later she's in our driveway and hugging the stuffing out of the dogs, Lucy and Rosie. We stuff Rosie into the backseat. The toddler strapped into the carseat is nearly buried in St. Bernard tail, but his grin reaches from ear to ear. "He's been so worried," says the mom.
The whole episode only took one hour, which is a pretty small investment for reuniting a family with their beloved dogs.
And what's the woman going to do first thing this morning? Order ID tags. And me? I'll be cleaning the dog slobber off the back of the seat.
Years ago when I was writing but not selling anything, I dreamed of a life in which I was a successful writer with enough money to travel all over the country doing research for my next book.
I haven't reached that point, but that's okay, because I am traveling to promote my books and earn an income. I just need to get more efficient and work some research into every trip. :-)
So here's my schedule for 2012, so far. If I'm coming to a city near you, and you have suggestions for libraries/yarn shops/bookstores I might contact, please let me know. If there's something interesting in that area I should see or research, don't be shy! (And if you know of a responsible person in my area who might want to do chores the days I'm gone, let me know. We have one person lined up, but we're going to need more.)
- Feb 16-20 San Francisco Writers Conference (and post-conference workshop on memoir)
- March 2-3, Aquindneck Island, RI, "March into Reading" school visit and public booksigning
- March 16, The Loft, Minneapolis (MN Book Award nominees)
- March 18 Women's History Month, Quatrefoil Library, St Paul
- April 14, Class on writing memoir, Anderson Center, Red Wing, MN (Contact the center to sign up)
- April 20, N.Wis Lutheran Church Librarians, Eau Claire, WI
- April 21-22, Wisconsin Spin-In, Milwaukee
- April 28, Yarnover, Hopkins, MN
- May 8-12, a whole mess of libraries in NW Minnesota
- May 22? Fergus Falls library
- June 1-3 Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival, Franklin, IN
- June 7, Writers on Writing, Stillwater, MN, ValleyBookstore
- June 22-24 Charlotte Fiber Festival, Charlotte, SC
- July 12-14? Iowa City Book Festival, IA
- August 11-12 North Dakota Fiber Festival, Grand Forks, ND
- August 17-10 Michigan Fiber Festival
- Sept 8-9 Wisconsin Fiber Festival, Jefferson County, WI
- Sept 12, Rochester Tech College Garden Party, Rochester, MN
- Oct 9-10 Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD
- October 27-28, Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair, Asheville, NC
- November.... collapse
- December...continued collapse!
- January 2013...Rest and relaxation
- Feb 2013...more rest and relaxation
- March 2013...Where should I go next?
I hope I'll be able to meet some of you on my travels.
As a memoir writer, I'm used to sharing my mistakes, especially when they're farm-related. But today I'm sharing an audio-related mistake. A blooper. The audio file is a blooper from when I recorded the audiobook of Hit by a Farm.
In this blooper, I've forgotten how to say the word, 'iron.' Remember I'd been closed up in a little sound booth for days, with no contact with the 'outside' world but a 12x12 inch window so I could see the sound engineers, etc. I'd been talking for days. My mouth muscles had started to lock up. I began hating every word I'd written. And normal words began to look like alien things I'd never seen before... like 'iron.' Look at that word. Of course it's i-ron.
Quick note: The clicks you hear between 'takes' are made with a dog training clicker. When I wanted to redo a sentence, I'd click, and this created a spike in the file so it would be easy to find and make those repairs later.
The audiobook, which DOESN'T have any bloopers, is now available from Dog Ear Audio. Yea!
http://www.dogearaudio.com/hitbyafarm.htm
We get off the farm so rarely together that I thought I'd share a few photos. When we spent the holidays in Florida with my sister and brother-in-law, we didn't do Disney World or Epcot or any man-made places. We pretty much stuck to nature, which I guess isn't surprising.
We went sailing one afternoon with Sandy and Rick. Here's the Head Farmer at the bow of the boat, watching to make sure we don't hit any crab pots.
Here's the Backup Farmer actually driving the boat (oops, I mean piloting!):
Here's my sister and her hubby:
Their neighborhood was all decorated for the holidays. The big thing in this area are inflatables---Santas, snowmen, nativity scenes, elves, etc. They are inflated on timers. During the day they're allowed to collapse. In the evening they all rise up like ghouls and take shape. Here's a deflated one. Cracked me up. During the day the whole neighborhood was littered with deflated beings:
The coolest part of our trip was visiting Blue Springs State Park, a manatee refuge. It's a 1/3-mile long spring-fed creek that feeds into the St. Johns River. Because the water is warm, the manatees come here to survive the winters (they can't take water much colder than 65 degrees or so.) They rest and warm up in the spring, but must venture out into the St. Johns every day to find food.
We saw turtles...
.
Alligators...
And of course, manatees. Here's one coming up for air:
It was such a lovely place. Those gray shapes are manatees hanging around the bank of the creek.
The heated water is incredibly clear, since it's coming from a gash in the earth. The gash itself is only about thirty feet by ten feet.
But get this. The crack descends130 ft into the earth, and is riddled with caves.
Apparently people actually strap on tanks and descend into this gash in the earth.
Suddenly farming doesn't sound so crazy.
