Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other. (Erma Bombeck)

This time of year is never fun for me. I don’t like Christmas music or anything to do with holidays really, and my grandpa died two weeks before Christmas. I woke up thinking about that today. Well, that and would my dastardly villain live in the same house now that he’s a better dastardly and a bit more villainous.

My grandpa and I were close and holidays seem really hollow without him. He grew up during Depression days, so he liked having food on the table more than anything. There were times when they literally had nothing to eat and went to bed hungry. As I get older I have a better understanding of how important the little things were to him and it makes me miss him more. It makes me wish we’d had more time or that I’d been more present. Regrets are like assholes; everybody’s got them.

On a more positive note, I’m back making progress with the book. I got really hung up the past five days on a character, but we’re making headway again, one word at a time. It’s kinda like rehab, making it through one moment, and the next, and the one after that, only with words instead of not drinking. Especially since getting through word after word sometimes requires alcohol. Made a lot of sober progress tonight though, as in rewrote scenes for the umpteenth time and they finally work. I can get to bed before 2 a.m. for a change. Maybe get up at a decent hur too. Is that too much to aspire to? I used to be a morning person before I took up writing full-time.

Thoughts and policies according to Ax

Since it seems like all I do around here lately is bitch about the book, I thought I’d botch about something else today: the horse market. Or rather, lack thereof. It started watching the news last night. They ran a special report on the BLM mustangs, and granted, I don’t know much about the situation, but I do know it costs taxpayers money and that without a kill market for horses in this country, there is no alternative to make money from unwanted, crippled, or otherwise unusable horses. It even costs to dig a hole and put a horse in the ground! There is no way for anyone, government or private owner, to guarantee at least a minimal return per pound for the purchase of a horse. I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing whoever worked to pass and actually passed the act not to allow horse slaughter in this country did not have an ag background. It might sound harsh, but farmers and ranchers, for the most part, understand better than most that you need a return on the investment you make on livestock. And with some livestock, it’s just some return, not even the breakeven price. Dad pointed out that if the mustangs could be slaughtered, the old, the sick, whatever, basically the undesirables, then the program would generate some income, the land could be managed easier, and there would be less reliance on people adopting horses. Horses are a huge expense, especially when the economy is in shambles. It’s not like a cat or a dog, a few hundred dollars a year, it’s a few hundred dollars a week.

I try to see the other side of the issue too. I can see why people get upset thinking about the slaughter of horses. Horses are amazing creatures, intelligent creatures, but the fact of the matter is that they are livestock. Cattle, in my opinion, are equally intelligent. I have cattle that I’d rather spend the afternoon with rather than my horse. Sheep are intelligent, in their own fashion. But horses, in our society, have fallen into a weird category in that they are not livestock in some parts of the country, but they aren’t house pets either. If cattle fell in the same category, more people would protest their slaughter as well, I would venture. We need a bottom line. That’s the plain truth of it. Horses are selling for a couple hundred dollars now and that’s no way to make a living. The sad thing is, you can’t even humanely dispose of a horse. I’ve heard many horror stories about people just leaving their horses to starve because they can’t get anyone to buy them and they have no other options for where to take them. Is that fair to the horse? Wouldn’t it be better for that animal to have a humane death in a slaughter plant than starve in its own backyard?

The moral of this rant: there isn’t one. I just wanted to talk about something other than the book. Hopefully it spawned some food for thought and doesn’t piss too many people off. This is my opinion from my perspective. Everyone is entitled to their own views and I’m not trying to stomp on that. It’s just that the farmer’s perspective is so rare in the larger scheme of things that I like to offer it up for contemplation once in awhile.

A weekend very nearly off

I tried to take the weekend off. I really did. But after Friday’s writing disaster, I found myself mulling and stewing over the problems in the book, watching movie after movie and going through a large ball of yarn in the name of progress. The good news is that I worked out what bothered me in the plot/characters. The downside is I didn’t get a weekend mental break. Even today, after more or less cleaning the house, I’m back at my desk looking up demons for Taylor to fight and trying to rename the breed of demon that cut her tramp stamp. (Does that qualify as a spoiler? Oh well.) I do plan on doing my Christmas shopping this week, but that qualifies as medieval torture without the pear-shaped apparatus (yeah, stuff of nightmares) rather than a study break. I do have writing groups though, so that should at least take me out of my own head for a few minutes.

Later:
Other than a little research diversion, I did end up taking most of the day to clean and knit and chill. I think I’m refreshed for tomorrow, thankfully. I need to make pages. But I’ve got some great new ideas to start on, so that’ll be fun.

I’ve been laboring through the giant middle of The Count of Monte Cristo. After Edmond breaks out of prison and completes his good works, there’s a section that takes place in Rome and France. A little dull, but necessary for the plot. It’s a good book to live with for awhile. The premise of a good man bent on vengeance intrigues me. I’ve been writing so much, I haven’t been reading a lot, other than The Count of Monte Cristo and A Short History of Nearly Everything. Neither one are short so I’ll be glad to get to Sellevision by Augusten Borroughs or something similar.

Goth nails and leftover pizza

I got through the jam yesterday. YEY! It took a night in jammie pants, pizza, chocolate chip cookies, and beer, but I got it and sailed on for 3,400 words. I’m trying to step up the word count and its working. If I keep it up, I should be done with this version of the book in fourteen days. That is if it doesn’t go over 100,000 words. I’m trying not to do that. 80,000 sounds more appropriate. Today I need to spend some serious quality time with my villain. Joy. An afternoon with a bunch of self-righteous sexual sadists. Of course, they don’t see themselves that way. Why couldn’t I write satire and have mocking cardboard cut-out bad guys? Silly me, I wanted sympathetic bad guys.

The plow truck just roared through. It’s all snowy today and very cozy. I read a chapter in A Short History of Nearly Everything that kinda freaked me out. It was all about bacteria and other little creatures that feed on larger mammals and cause disease. Apparently it’s a miracle bacteria don’t wipe out all larger animals. Of course, being that effective would wipe out their food source. Anyway, it was incredibly interesting. If I ever design a home school curriculum, this book would defiantly top the list for science readings.

Later:
Worked all afternoon and got 600 words. Granted, it was a particularly difficult section and I’ve been pushing really hard all week, but it’s disappointing. I hate haggling for every word. I don’t have many days like this. I’m not sure if that’s something to look forward to or something to dread. So it’s another Friday night at the desk, tapping out what I can and painting my nails black when I can’t. Goth farmer nails mean bad writing day. At least it made my grandma laugh.

I have writer's jam; and it don't taste like strawberries.

I’m completely jammed on the book today. Got to a point last night where whatever I’d done before just flat didn’t work. So I’ve spent the day trying to get unjammed, revisiting past plot points, etc.

Frustrating.

But after some severe rewrites and a beer or six, I’m sure I’ll get back on track. Tay and I just need to reconnect (yeah, hippy-dippy-sunshine shit, but it works).

It’s been snowing all day and they’re calling for snow from here ‘til March. So far the calves all seem fine. I was worried about sickness in all this cold and damp, but they seem fine. The bull keeps romancing the cows and the horses got their feetsies trimmed today. So far they’re wintering fine on the pond across the road along with the young bull and his two ladies.

Maybe I need a night out. I’ve been really going at the book for several days. Maybe some time off would help. Clean the house, cook, knit, let my brain rest a little. All work and no play is, well, Axie-like.

Save the World: Plant a Tomato

Today I’m plugging Michael Pollen. Dad saw his interview with Bill Moyer and told me about it so I downloaded the transcript and read the interview after supper tonight. This man makes way too much sense to ever hold public office, such as Secretary of Agriculture. His whole premise is not invest billions of dollars in ag, but a grassroots movement on the part of people who eat to grow their own food, support farmer’s markets, and rediscover, as a nation, how to grow our own food. Like Dad and I discussed, in his lifetime, since the 1940s, we have lost the ability as a nation to feed ourselves. It’s gone from small farms and eating locally to the average piece of food traveling 2,500 miles from its place of origin to our tables. Not only is this expensive for the consumer, it’s unhealthy. All the food additives, which make the agribusiness corporations multibillions of dollars, are the leading causes of cancers, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease, according to Michael Pollen.

How empowering would it be to organize, as a nation, without largely relying on top-down enforcement, to make the switch from eating globally, to eating food grown within 200-300 miles from our homes? And I’m not just talking produce, but meat, eggs, butter, milk, bread, all of it. We’d be reclaiming our health, our environment, our food freedoms. Agriculture right now, as an industrialized model, accounts for a huge amount of pollution and global warming. As a farmer, it weighs heavily on my conscience that my actions, meant to care for the earth and nourish food from it, actually cause harm. But we don’t farm because we love it; we farm for the same reason most do, it makes money. At least it’s supposed to. And that’s the problem with centralized agriculture, the small, diverse farmer cannot compete with corporate farms. Not only that, but, again according to Pollen, centralized agriculture provides a huge opportunity for persons to stage acts of terrorism by poisoning our food supply.

Since Pollen says it all a lot better than I do (and so you all can get on with your day and stop listening to me rant) the transcript is here and the video can be found here. Let me know if it doesn't work right. Thanks for hanging out this long. And plant a damn tomato, people, jeeze.

Winter Driving and Factory Farmed Pandas

I loathe winter driving. For one thing, I’m a wimp about it. For two, I suck at it. Put wimp together with lack of skill and it’s a frickin’ mess.

I cleaned my room yesterday. Yeah, I know, alert the media. I’m the type of person who normally lives in quasi-organized chaos until it makes me crazy enough that I start organizing and, more importantly, throwing shit out. Haven’t used it? Pitch it. Zip really didn’t like going in that garbage bag. (Joke.) So the world feels all nice and streamlined today. For the moment. I’m sure when I go to write later, I’ll be tearing the place apart for that stack of notes that I know I just had.

We’re doing writing/reading group today. It feels weird not to go shopping and get a coffee, but there ya go. It is fun to set aside some time once in awhile to read someone else’s stuff and discuss a mutual reading assignment. And with there being no penalties for failing to do any of it, the whole system just rocks.

The snow has really piled up over the day. But the cows don’t seem to mind, all a bunch of big butts at the hay feeder. The calves look healthy so far too, no sniffles or sneezes or leaky butts. Well, I better try to get my pages for the day. All the running around this morning and writing/reading group this afternoon really cut into the day. Then Dad and I had this idea for factory farming pandas… don’t ask.