Cows cows cows

 And here I thought I knew everything about cattle. Found this at http://www.funshun.com/amazing-facts/cow-animal-facts.html.

 Dairy cows can produce 20 to 35 gallons of saliva a day.

Cows drink anywhere from 25-50 gallons of water each day.

Where does the leftover water go? Hmmm….

How to Read the Classics and Keep Your Sanity

Check out the latest addition: How to Read the Classics and Keep Your Sanity.

http://worldliteratures.suite101.com/article.cfm/how-to-read-the-classics-and-keep-your-sanity

How's everybody's week going? It's rainy here. So glad Dad went and cut hay. 

Too Much?

A short weekend but a good one. J came up Saturday night and Sunday we ate breakfast with my grandma, aunt, uncle, a cousin, Dad, and Momma J, then moved cattle to the back pasture and walked fence, fixing the multiple spots with deer damage. Weeds are pretty heavy on the fence so I don’t have a good pulse, but a little is better than nuthin’ and at least the cows are pretty used to staying in where they need to be.

We then went and walked the ledges, a pretty trail along the Grand River, and met up with Dad and MJ at the local bar for pizza and beer before J and I continued on to Iron Man II. Great blow shit up movie. Loved the lightning whips. I showed J the first soybean field he’d ever gotten up close and personal with. There’s a lot of firsts with the two of us I guess.

So the tension is starting to leave my shoulders and that panicky feeling has subsided a little. I work ten days on and four days off, but lately has been closer to eleven or twelve days on and two off, sometimes not even with days off occurring together. And even if I’m not at work, I’m thinking about or working on the farm, or writing, so unless I’m with J, I’m more or less constantly working or brooding about it. Does anyone else have this problem? And what more, is it a bad thing? Is there a point where we work too hard, too much, and maybe need some rehab? I sure as hell don’t know. Leave me a comment and let’s figure it out.

And while you’re at it, let me know what you think of these two images, only with the second one, the cow hoof print, in place of the dog paw print inside the heart, but with the hoof print in the same color scheme.

Pause for PR

Whoa mental burn. Lotsa words this morning. If you don’t believe me, check out on Suite 101. Or go directly to my profile at http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/axbarclay to check out my book reviews, scuba diving article, recipes for drinks a la Hemingway style, and a girl’s night in with dinner and a book.

So boring blog today, mostly a PR thing. The book reviews I wrote came out and those are at
Sacramento Book Review and San Francisco Book Review. And watch for my book reviews on Amazon as well. I'll publish a list of the books I review every so often so its easier to keep track.

Working on linking up all my internet social networking sites with all this publishing success (said with tongue in cheek, since it's web content, not Shakespeare), so just for quick reference, I'm on Twitter.com/axieb and Facebook so stop in and bug me there too whenever y'all feel like it.

Cardio time now. And dishes. And mowing lawn… When is it supposed to start raining? (grin)

Grief

Some years there’s a bumper crop (still have no idea what that means, other than ‘good’) and some years just suck. For me, last year rocked and this year anything green that I breathe on dies. So today’s topic is what to do when your garden dies.

Mourn with impunity.

Go through the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief.

First comes denial. “This start will make it, I know it will. Just give it some water, sunlight, and time.”

Next comes anger. “Damn plants! I hate you!” As you throw clay pots of wilted California peppers and Miracle Grow-enhanced potting soil against the walls.

Third is bargaining. “If I had just started earlier… if I start sooner and do better next year, could you (reference to Higher Power) please spare this tiny little marjoram seedling?”

Depression hits next. “I am a worthless, dirty person. I can’t even get tomatoes to grow. Why should I even bother when I am such a failure?”

Wow, that’s a downer and I’m already through this. Moving on…

Acceptance. “It’s Okay…” Try the Tracy Chapman song of same name. Pretty awesome.

Pick Your Battles

Even if it’s late in the season, it’s not too late to purchase some pre-started plants and try it again, or (gasp!) throw in the towel, cash in your chips, cut bait, whatever cliché you like, meaning dump the whole project. Ask yourself if a garden is really that important to you, and to your family. Why do you want a garden in the first place? Would a few containers do? Or do you need the food to make it through the winter? Only you can answer these questions, but if the garden is more of a chore than a fun thing, I know what I’d do, and I wouldn’t be coming home with any fish.

And Last but Not Least…

If you do decide to pack the gardening in for the year, three words:

Learn. To. Crochet.

Recovery

So what to do after having cleaned up your dog manure mess of a word-hoard? In a word: recover. These are tips that help, not completely cure, but help, after cleaning up the mess or even after making a mess, and spewing words across the page in manic fashion. As many writers out there probably know, there’s a kind of depression after that, when the endorphins die down. Some of these might even work for that wonderful rejection letter we’re all bound to receive at some point.

• To start, sprinkle the scene of the crash with baking soda. This kills the smell and may help keep you away from trashcan hats.
• Realize you’re not the only one. I think I’m safe in saying that all writers go through the dog-mess, post-writing depression, and rejection blues. Even Shakespeare got bad reviews. Recognize your connection to the wider community of writers and…
• Realize that it’s ok. It’s okay to mope, for awhile. Go ahead. But don’t stay there.
• The goal is to recover and recoup, not to wallow. After you roll around in the initial blahs, get out and do something fun that you enjoy. The cuts and rewrites may hurt, the rejection may sting, the high may be missed, but ultimately the work will be stronger, regardless of what propels it there. Discover who you are outside of the clean-up, the rejection, the high, the whatever. Do something physical, something you enjoy, just a leisurely walk or a new endeavor with a friend, rock-climbing, surfing, wherever your passion runs. Hit the sheets with your lover or go out and hold hands with him/her at a movie. I can’t recommend alcohol unless it’s in the first wallowing stages or it’s canoeing with friends. Alcohol in the writing process should be used in celebration, not recovery.
• Bath salts. Can’t overstate the value of quality bath salts.

Basically, take some time to get your head back on straight. Nurture yourself as the font of words, don’t punish yourself for the algae growing on the bottom of the pool. Pamper yourself, but don’t forget to write on. After all, the recovery is only part of the writing journey. To be a writer, you actually have to sit down and get words on paper.

Good luck.

First of June and... crap

Sometimes writing is a lot like cleaning up dog shit. And I don’t mean nice, neat little turds either. I mean liquid, nasty ass black and green junk that smells like it crawled out the ass end of a skunk with traveler’s diarrhea and a bad attitude. It’s great of course when writing isn’t like this: when the character’s are flowing, the narrative voice is working, the words and metaphors tie together and ring true. It’s a high. It’s endorphins. It’s bliss of the purest kind.

But a lot of days, we writers clean up dog shit.

One thing I’ve learned lately is that the words we transcribe are not sacrosanct. Neither is the order in which they appear. Nor are the scenes. We might have to murder our darlings and this is hard to do. Much like it’s hard to go out in the mudroom on a hot summer day and start scraping liquid manure into a plastic bag with your bare hands and a butt-load of paper towel. But eventually the shit stench will drive you out of the house and into a homeless, babbling idiot on the street. And how cool does that sound? “I couldn’t clean up the dog shit, so now I’m homeless, jobless, and wearing a trashcan lid on my head so the government can’t steal my thoughts.” Rather than let the eau de dog, or eau de writing, drive you from your home, instead go in prepared and armed.

First, unless it’s absolutely necessary, for instance, your mother-in-law is coming to visit, don’t hit the mess right away. It might sound gross, but hot dog shit is harder to pick up than cold. Similarly, hot writing might be too hot to handle. It’s too new, too close to the bone, still bleeding on the page. Only tackle writing that has had time to cool. Unless of course there’s a deadline in the form of your mother-in-law. Then… the gods help you.

Second, go in with what you’ll need. Take the time while the shit is cooling to collect yourself and what you’ll need for the job. Paper towel, any pertinent research, carpet or floor cleaner, a rosary (if the stench is bad enough), and a whole lot of deep breathing, preferably through your mouth to avoid the major olfactory nerves. Think long and hard about how you’ll tackle the project and be as prepared as you can be.

Third, take a deep breath, maybe holding it, and jump in. Go page by page, scrape by scrape, and don’t be afraid to jump outside and puke. Keep what you can and throw the rest in a plastic bag to burn. Don’t throw out the entire carpet just because one corner is bad. Cut off the corner and smooth it down, don’t just hide it with sofa. And when it’s over, you’ll realize that either a) it wasn’t nearly as bad as you thought, because you were prepared and had all the right tools, or b) you need to utilize the yellow pages and find a good Haz-Mat team.

I wish I had all the answers but, ladies and gents, some days its all good and others… well, butt-loads of paper towel.