childhood memories of the farm
Another way of keeping cool
Many of us in the nation are in for a hot July Fourth holiday with temperatures soaring into the nineties and even higher. People here in Upstate New York usually don’t have air conditioning. We’ve never needed it, but with the summers getting hotter, we installed AC in our cottage several years ago and have…
Read MoreWhat’s Not on the Page
Some of the material in this blog appeared years ago on a blog, but I recently was thinking about how much of what the writer knows about a character never finds its way onto the page, but is important in developing both character and plot. Particularly important in my writing is my life as a…
Read MoreTales from the Hayloft: A Smile and A Laugh
Growing up on a farm was lots of fun, and I was never bored although I had few other children as companions. As I indicated last week, being alone sharpened my imagination, and I credit being an only child with my becoming a writer. I was reminiscing about my childhood and thinking of stories…
Read MoreTractors and Eve’s Sense of Moral Purpose
The virtual book blog tour for Mud Bog Murder is over as is the tour for Happy Homicides 4: Fall into Crime. I had fun with both the tours, and I especially loved getting to know the other authors from Happy Homicides 4. In one of the interviews from my tour, I was asked…
Read MoreTales from the Hayloft: The Bumblebee Skirt
Many of you know my passion for yard sales, consignment shops and stores that sell used clothing and household items. And some of you also know that I come by this passion via my father’s mother, my grandmother whom I have labeled the queen of recycling, reusing, redoing and reinventing. She took my aunt’s clothing…
Read MoreTales from the Hay Loft: Chickens and Panda
Attending the fair last week and spending some time looking through the animal barns reminded me why I’m not fond of chickens. As a kid growing up on the farm, we had pigs, cows, boarded a few horses, and raised chickens, the white feathered variety. The rooster we owned was proprietary about…
Read MoreTales from the Hayloft: It’s Fair Time!
It’s the end of summer and time for county fairs. See that ferris wheel in the picture above? I rode on one only once in my life. I’m not one for heights or for that feeling you get in your stomach when the wheel descends. County fairs are about more than the rides. They’re also…
Read MoreMy First Hangover
It’s past July 4, and as we used to say on the farm, the corn was knee high by the fourth of July here in Upstate New York. Getting hungover may not seem like a fond childhood memory, but it’s one of my earliest on the farm. We moved from an apartment in our small…
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