Finally Starting My Seedlings For My Fall Garden

Sunday:

I've been trying for a few days now, and seemed to run out of time (or oomph) to actually get it done. We'd brought the soil and seed starter, and my peat pots, over to the house last week, but I just hadn't made time until today. I now have Iceberg Lettuce and 2 different types of Cucumber seeds potted and watered in with banana peel water ... they should be ok to plant out in 3-4 weeks. I'm thankful we have "comfortable" Autumns here in SC.

I have to get some broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage started over the next few days as well, and get some potatoes in the ground.

We had rain today, and it's promised again for tomorrow, but I'm hoping that next weekend I can get the "veggie patch" over at the property, ploughed. It'll only be maybe 30' x 15' but that'll be good enough for us this year. We can make a bigger one next year.  Hubby just has so many ther things to do over there at the mo.

Monday:

Disappointed today, hubby went into Tractor Supply in Williamston and they had NO SEEDS. Apparently "they are seasonal and we had to throw them out". What? I've had to go online and order direct from Ferry Morse for my greens, but I also remembered to order Marigolds as well, to help keep down the pests naturally. 

On a good note, we retried Lady outside without a leash and she stayed close. She and I had our usual time in the car, with her lounging across the passenger seat

and her head on my thigh (me being in the driver's seat) and then I let her out to go in by herself, with Mark calling her. He has to walk her on a leash for potty breaks though as she justs sits by me and won't go do her business.

She just loves to be loved. She is such a good girl, and has come so far but still a long way to go. She gets nervous sometimes around Mama, and bares her teeth, and does the same when she is in her pen eating her food if she sees them. Not with us, but def with Mama and Sonny.

Mama and Sonny, on the other hand, are quite happy being free to roam around when we are there, and come into the barn to check on me all the time. Plus they know where the ice water, food and treats are! They've also started playing with each other a lot more, almost puppy like, which is lovely to watch.

At home, wow, Little Bit is now allowed outside to play with her brothers, and she and Brunel have a def connection. She is a total pain, skedaddles around him, nips at his ankles like she does ours, and has him chase her and chases him. She even lays like he does (as my granddaughter once said about Bru "your dog's broke"). He will have his legs up in the air, and his body twisted to the other side, with his head on the ground FAST ASLEEP ... and now she does it too. She seems to get bigger every day. Lightning just looks at them both, like "really???" and the expression on his face is hilarious. Rover tolerates her, but I think he's afraid to play with her after what happened between them before. He just walks away when she tries to play with him.

Hubby has been working on adapting an exhaust fan, to be a stand up fan for the barn, and has made a pretty neat encasement, and it's looking good! One of many projects. Still working on the fencing too, it's just so hot. Too hot to be doing it for too long.

Exhausted!

Sometimes you have to realise your frailties more than usual. Running back and forth, between home and our property in Belton, is tiring us out! But we have obligations, and so there's no rest for the wicked, as they say. 

At home, we have Brunel and Lightning (currently on daddy's bed)

and Rover (the great-grand-puppy, on nanny's bed), plus Little Bit
who gets her own special time on the bed. I am (sadly) very much a helicopter parent with her so still treat her more warily than the boys.

I worry they may play too rough with her, or get jealous, so I give her her own time. Plus there really isn't room for 4 dogs on 2 beds when a human wants their spot too. Then we have the cat, Madam,

fixed in her ways and deserving of a peaceful older age (she's 13) so there have to be times when there are NO DOGS in the bedroom, to give her some space, and quiet.

On the other hand, down in Belton, we have Sonny, Mama

and Lady kenneled in the barn with ice water, food and 5 fans blowing, and an outdoor run,

plus Solomon, Max, Sunshine and Maisie our goats, and our one solitary surviving chicken. We go down there to let the goats out of their shelters to graze, and the dogs to hang out with us on the porch and get lovings, and go walkies.

We're down there a few hours, and Mark gets on with different chores while we're down there.

Today, we had a scare. Lady, who has been nothing but clingy with us, went off the porch and into the barn (she does this when she feels stressed and usually goes back in her kennel and lays down on her bed). What we didn't realise was that she didn't do that today. Instead, she went out the tractor door and absconded.

We hunted all over the property. Nothing. I drove over to where they had been trapped by animal control. Nothing. I was getting very panicked. Mark drove back over again, and she was just coming out of the woods on Carroll, and he called her and she looked at him and tried to lope away. He told her not to, and she started acting silly and submissive and lay down for him, belly up. He had to carry her back to my car. Unfortunately, this means she will have to only be on a leash when outside again because we can't have her disappearing any time she wants to. Of the 3, I would have expected Sonny to have been the one to try, not her. She is the most clingy, sits between my legs, or snuggles against my chest like she's afraid of the world. Mark thinks it may have been a test - "do they really care? ; will they come looking for me?" Maybe so. Who knows. But, yes we do and yes we did.

I actually did much better in the heat, today, than I had expected to. There was a very slight breeze on the front porch and it def made it more comfortable, breathing wise. And while driving, since my AC went out the other week. 

Little Bit had her 3rd shots yesterday, and goes back September 23rd (my daughter, Tzena's, birthday) for her final set and her rabies. They (as always) followed up with an email today asking if she'd had any issues. She has them fooled. We go in there and she's so quiet and just wants to stay on daddy's lap ... then comes home and acts like a Tasmanian Devil. Zoomies around the bed, tags our feet with either a nose or a paw, totally crazy like the rest of the household. I messaged them back and let them know she was fine. I swear, nothing stops that puppy! 

Tonight I'm hoping for a good night's sleep! My body needs rest!

I've Been Absent ...

 It may seem as though I have abandoned my writing, but it's not true, I have just had so much going on in my life that mind just isn't in a creative state, I need peace and quiet and calm ... I've got rushing here and there to fulfil obligations, and rescuing animals. 

Back in June, hubby and I had been feeding a stray mama dog who was nursing puppies. At first she'd lie and watch us while we were out at the property that we bought last November. We left food out on the barn porch.

Then, suddenly, one day there she was with her puppies and we started taking care of them as well. I wormed by putting Safeguard in their food, and I de-flead by putting Capstar in ground beef meatballs, as they wouldn't let us touch them.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago, and they didn't show for 3 days so I called around and found that Animal Control had picked them up (actually a total of 11 dogs from that abandoned property) and they were at a local shelter. We went and got the stray mama and a male that was obviously bonded with her. This Thursday, we go back to get another, who'd been spayed but had been pregnant. We've made them a home in our barn, and Mama and the male, Sonny, have settled in well and love us dearly, even beginning to play like puppies. A great improvement over the emotional shutdown in the shelter and for the first day with us, during which time neither had eaten.

Our property is a 45-60 minute drive from our home where we have 4 dogs, 3 of our own and our great-grand-puppy who is the oldest. It's hectic trying to run 2 households and spending a few hours at the one in order to love on and care for Mama and Sonny, and our goats and chicken that are down there.

Then coming home to our others, who smell them on us and feel neglected. Introductions will happen but not until after we get Lady Lou from the shelter on Thursday and get her settled in and feeling safe and unthreatened.

Added to which, school started again a couple of weeks ago, and I take my great grandson to school and pick him up some afternoons. My 71 year old body is not dealing with the early mornings again very well! Added to which, we are having a heatwave and guess what died in my car - yep, the AC! So those afternoon pick ups are also stressful. I've never been good in the heat, I am so ready for the cooler climes of Autumn.

Basically, though, not enough time in the day to get into a creative/writing frame of mind.

On a good note: I donated 28 of my books to our local Shriner's Children's Hospital, and wrote a little note in the front of each. I hope they lighten the load of the kids in there. I am in awe of how much they deal with, and how they stay so stoic in the face of it all. Shriner's Children's and St. Judes are 2 of the charities I support, along with other local organizations. 

I apologise for my absence, and will try to get back in the swing of things soon.

Cancelled My Author Website Today

 Today I made the decision to no longer keep the RoseDempseyAuthor website, but have moved this blog onto my RoseDempsey.com one. It just wasn't viable money-wise, and wasn't giving me the exposure that I was hoping for. This one does better for me, so adding the blog to it makes sense.

I have some projects in the first stages of development, but not sure yet which will come to fruition first. It seems THEY decide when the momentum will come.

I hope everyone understands my decision. Thanks for reading my books, listening to my songs and reading my poetry, I appreciate it.

Published!

 Mister McAfferty's Cat is finally published! YAY!

 I am so glad to have made it through all the ups and downs. The link to order from is here so tell your friends.  It's a cute little story that would make a nice addition to their Christmas prezzies.

Nice surprise from my publisher - got the cover of "Mister McAfferty's Cat" and love it! The inside has one item needing revision but then we'll be good to go, YAY!

Methinks they did an awesome job!

My Favourite Books

I was an early reader, and from the get-go, I was hooked. Back then, I'm 70 now, there weren't all the paraphrased versions of the classics, so (between the ages of 7 and 11) I read most of the classics by Dickens, the Bronte sisters, Captain Marryat, Anna Sewell et.al. and some more contemporary, like Marguerite Henry and even Louis L'Amour.

My favourites back then were Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Jane Eyre, Lorna Doone, The Children of the New Forest and Oliver Twist. 

My Brighty copy was bought secondhand and was a dingy red hardback, that seemed huge to my 7 year old self, but I loved that book and read, and re-read, it over and over. It had awesome illustrations but sadly I don't remember the illustrator. 

I'm not sure what happened to it, whether my mum may still have it stashed away, since she has shelves full of old Ladybird Books, which were also my favourites and encompassed so many subjects.

My nan had bought it for me, and also regularly spent 2/6d on various Ladybird Books that were about things that interested me. Stone Age Man in Britain was one of them, and on annual holidays with my grandparents we toured Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall visiting historic sites - including burial mounds, caves with stalactites and stalagmites, places in the books that I read, and relics of the Industrial Revolution.

On those trips, on our first night out of London, we'd camp in the New Forest, which obviously fuelled my love of Captain Maryatt's book. In Somerset we'd visit Exmoor, the Doone Valley and Oare Church, the settings of R.D. Blackmore's novel.

I can't imagine not being able to have read those books, they fired up my imagination and created a lust for more, and for exploring the settings.

So, when I had my children, one of my first tasks in their toddler/preschool years was reading to them, and then teaching them to read and write before they started school.

At that point, I fell in love with Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. As did my kids! They loved poking their fingers in the holes. Others on their bookshelf - Goodnight Moon, The Velveteen Rabbit, Thomas The Tank Engine (and I actually spent some time with the Reverend Awdry in Wisbech in the 70s), Richard Scarry Books and the Berenstain Bears books.

I actually used Bears In The Night as one of the books when I was teaching my three to read, because of its simplicity and repetition.

By the time my granddaughters were born (after I'd moved to America) I'd also become a fan of Dr Seuss, especially Green Eggs and Ham although I happily read his others to them, and the children I babysat, because I loved the cadence they introduced children to.

I am still an avid reader, I usually have 2 or 3 books on the go at any one time. My tastes are many and varied, as are the authors that I enjoy.