The Smokey Westford Monograph

Frisco Highline Trail

2009-08-10T13:56:00.008-05:00

2009-07-05T21:31:00.003-05:00

We are two months late, but we finally got the garden done. We are trying to downsize, so all the beds has to be moved and rebuilt. We were able to get most of the weeding done this weekend, put clean straw in the isles and wood chips along the front. We also planted carrots this weekend. String beans are coming on. We will have to can or freeze them next weekend.There was a thunderstorm Friday morning. I heard water dripping inside the wall in the dining room. I slogged out to the garage in the rain and brought the ladder in the house. The attic access in in the bathroom. There was rain water running down the sewer vent pipe. Luckily, it was an easy fix to go up on the roof and put sealer around the pipe. Our roof covering is 18 years old so we are walking a fine line with it.

I missed the past two weeks with my writing group, but did make the monthly meeting. I am usually a zombie in the summer because I work outside shoeing horses and the heat is wearing. I am planning to go this week. I have several nonfiction books I want to get outlined. I started carrying a digital voice recorder with me in the car. I drive a lot between barns and always think of things to write. But when I get home my mind goes blank. There are a couple of writing courses I would like to attend next year. Both are in Texas. I think I would benefit from that more than a conference at the moment. I would rather wait until I have the novel done before I attend another conference so I can take advantage of the agent and editor meetings.

Yogurt and Coffee

2009-06-21T20:38:00.003-05:00

Growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts you had occassion to eat Greek food. Lowell in the 1980's had the second largest Greek community in the United States. As a kid I found Greek yogurt to be too stout for my taste. As an adult I enjoyed Greek yogurt as part of Greek food. This summer I have been eating Greek yogurt as a subsitute for the other kind of yogurt. Regular yogurt has too much sugar in it. However, Greek yogurt is more expensive than the regular yogurt. In my neighborhood the 24 ounce container costs $3.99 to $5.99. I did some research and found this link to make my own Greek yogurt. It was amazingly easy to make and tastes just like store bought. Here is the link that includes the recipe and a video -

http://video.about.com/greekfood/Make-Yogurt-at-Home.htm

Anyone who spends time with me knows I am addicted to Starbucks. Or any other coffee shop. But iced lattes can be expensive. I bought a cold coffee maker for $39.99. It comes with a glass carafe, a reusable filter,a cork and the toddy pot. You can buy a one pound can of the cheapest ground coffee in the grocery store. If you buy whole bean coffee, use a coarse grind. Place the cork in the bottom of the toddy container. Saturate the filter and place it inside the container, at the bottom just above the cork. Then put the pound of coarse ground coffee in the toddy pot. Fill the toddy with cold water and place on top of the glass carafe. Let sit for 8-12 hours. Lift the toddy enough to pull out the cork and replace on the glass carafe. Let the toddy sit for about an hour until all the liquid runs into the glass carafe. Put the used grounds in the garden. Wash the toddy, the cork and the filter so they are ready for the next use.

This cold process method of brewing gives you about a half gallon of espresso strength coffee. Since the coffee is cold brewed, it tastes less acidic. Keep the carafe with the brewed coffee in the fridge. I can make an iced latte for pennies whenever I like at home. A carafe lasts 7 to 10 days. If you want a cup of coffee from the cold brew, just use a 1 to 3 ratio of the cold brewed coffee to water and heat it up in the microwave. One ounce is the same as a brewed shot of espresso. You can make any of your favorite coffee house drinks with this cold brew.

50 and up

2009-06-08T08:46:00.008-05:00

I am officially 50 now. Hubby organized a birthday party where good friends met over Italian food. I have to admit this was a tough birthday. It is the birthday where you realize that your biggest dreams have to go away because there isn't the time or money anymore to accomplish them. At the moment, I am stuck between two worlds and neither one pays a salary. My 50 year old body can't do what it could ten years ago. My knees and one hip hurt all the time and no matter how hard I work physically or how much better I eat, the extra weight won't go away.
I also had no idea how physically and emotionally difficult going through menopause is. I am tired and REALLY cranky all the time. I will probably be arrested for public lewdness any day now because I can't even stand to have clothing touching my skin when a hot flash consumes me! I Immediately start tearing layers of clothing off. That was OK when it was winter. But you run out of clothes a lot faster in the summer!

I understand my mother a lot better now than when I was a kid. In this picture, taken in Leavenworth, Washingon, she is in the middle. My sister MeMe is on the left and I am on the right. I was an accident, or late baby, when mom was older. My parents owned a Mobil gas station with service bays, gasoline pumps and tow trucks. Personally, I think every one of us girls was conceived while mom and dad were at an annual Mobil dealers convention. I was born a month early and mom told me that I have been in a hurry ever since. Most of my awareness of mom was when she was older. I always found her to be an angry and rather cold person. She yelled a lot, drank too much and was curt with people. I have a picture of her from a Las Vegas convention. It is one of the few times I saw her look happy. She is dressed in a blue sequin gown that she made. Her hair is a vibrant red and her shoes were silver. The picture is in a gimmicky box viewer that you squint into with one eye, so I can't have it enlarged or copied.

As I turn 50 I feel the impatience and anger I saw in mom. I had so little patience before, but now I have none. I started walking away from situations and people who waste my time. Almost all of my customer service skills have gone away. In an odd way, that is working. I just spent 50 years trying to make everyone happy and worrying about everything. I am exhausted from it. I now spend a lot of time alone. I say 'no' frequently. So far, nothing bad has happened. It is very liberating. Now, I need to figure out how to make money with it!

Last winter I began to realize that I am considered a highly sensitive person. I don't handle loud noises or stressful situations well. My body is always in flight or fight mode. I mirror the emotions of those around me. I form what is called 'inappropriate attachments' to people. I get too emotionally involved in work. Movies, music and books stir up emotions in a highly sensitive person. We are the folks others lean on when they are down because our responses are so genuine. That also means we need a lot of time alone to decompress. We also need regular sleep and we have to control the amount of stimuli in our lives. Star Trek New Generation had an officer from a planet other than earth who could feel what others were feeling. I think someone who is highly sensitive is like that character. I also think mom was a highly sensitive person. I also think that when I was growing up was when she retreated from the world because it had hurt her so much.

The garden is starting to produce. We are using fresh herbs daily now and have been eating spinach, radishes and lettuce for awhile. The tomato plants are blooming like crazy. Last year, we put in about 100 strawberry plants. We faithfully pulled all the flowers off the plants all summer long. That paid dividends this year. Tom is getting a half a gallon of berries a day out of the patch.The next garden emergency is getting the trellis up for the tomatoes. We had some nice warm days so the plants are starting to get some height to them. We also need to make sure all the plants I moved around this spring have access to water.

I am writing an article about the new car, Two Bit, for Subaru magazine. I use the car to shoe horses out of. I felt that might interest them to see a unique use for their vehicle line. Why call the car Two Bit? Because when you push on the door open button twice to get all the doors to open, it sounds like the jingle 'Shave and a haircut, two bits.' The Smokey Westford novel storyboard is coming along. It really helps to lay everything out in the form of a storyboard so you have a road map. I also finished outlining four horseshoeing books that I will publish as online books as soon as I can afford to purchase the block of required ISBN numbers. The books cover an exercise program for farriers, what someone should know if they want to be a farrier, tips to start up the business and tips for safety. As with most Ebooks, they will have a lot of links to helpful websites. I am working on a horseshoeing business brochure for myself. I am still new enough to publishing as well as short on time, so I will do the writing and let a printer do the desktop publishing.

A truly venomous day

2009-05-19T10:16:00.007-05:00

One of my horseshoeing customers found out she had diabetes about six months ago. She tried to take care of it through diet and nutrition, but it looks like she will have to start insulin. She said something that struck a chord on my heart. She told me how angry she was at herself for almost a year. She was tired, out of breath and found even daily repetitive tasks difficult.

As a side bar, most of the women I know have daily repetitive tasks that include cleaning barns, training and riding horses, moving 70 pound bales of hay and fifty pound bags of grain. They also run farm equipment, operate their own businesses, maintain a home and take care of an extended family. Not feeling up to par becomes a serious issue with a cascading effects on their family, income, livestock and pets.

She thought it was her fault and just tried harder. Hmm. Sounds just like the story I just told on www.thereisnocryinginhorseshoeing.blogspot.com. I was bitten by a spider at a barn and did not feel the bite. I was alone at the barn working on four horses. I got angry at myself because I had to sit down and rest several times. My arm hurt for what seemed like no reason since none of the horses pulled that much. I was nauseous but assumed it was because it was so humid and I was getting dehydrated. For the rest of the day I was cursing at myself because I was too weak to keep up. I pushed harder.

It was the next morning that I found the two bite marks in my arm and realized that I was having a reaction to the venom. So, why is it that women feel like they need to beat themselves up so bad? Why, when we don’t feel well, do we just assume it is because we are wimps or not good enough? What is it that makes us ignore our bodies and just push back or try harder? Maybe that is what keeps us strong enough to survive. I wish I had an answer.

I am turning 50 in two weeks. All my adult life I have worked in male dominated professions. It really hits home with me if I can’t keep up. The past two weeks I overbooked and my body is exhausted. On one side of the coin, I am so thankful that I am physically capable and strong. Even though I am complaining, I still know I can outwork most men. On the other side of the coin, I just want to pronounce that I am a girl with a Masters degree and that I am ready to be a princess now. Some days, I would like to wear a damn dress and watch other people work!

Sunday was one of those rare perfect days. It was sunny, almost windless and not too warm. Tom and I went to Lawrence to ride the bikes along the river. It felt like we were only out about 45 minutes and I was surprised that we were out for two hours.

I am still working on my novel and am up to about 60,000 words. With horseshoeing this busy I am too tired for a lot of creative work, so I am writing some nonfiction books about horshoeing that I will post on Smashwords by the end of the summer. I have also written about a dozen articles that I will pitch to magazines. I have a person in Topeka who is going to develop a logo for my business that will be adaptable as Smokey Westford. I can't wait to see it. I am developing a brochure for the horseshoeing business that I will have printed at the local newspaper office.

Healthy for twenty minutes

2009-05-11T17:36:00.005-05:00

Here are the new garden beds and the new greenhouse. There is still work to be done on the inside of the greenhouse, but we were able to use it in time for gardening season. We purchased two yards of composted soil from a greenhouse, but they delivered top soil. We seem to be stuck with that, but we started with worse soil fifteen years ago and we know how to fix it.

The Shawnee County Master Gardeners had their first annual plant sale. We bought petunias, portulaca, and marigolds. This will their annual fundraiser.

A couple of weeks ago, I had my annual physical. The doctor pronounced me healthy as a horse. Yes, he knows I am a farrier. At least he doesn't sing 'The Old Grey Mare' when he sees me. It takes about twenty minutes to drive back home from his office. When I got home, I walked from the car to the garden and promptly stepped in a mole hole that I didn't know we had. I fell down, twisted my ankle, wrenched my back, landed on my knee and jarred my shoulder when I put my hand out to stop the fall.

The next week, while at a barn shoeing, I went to the car for a cold bottle of water. I turned away from the car to walk back to the barn while I was closing the car door. I didn't time this right and closed the car door on my face. My left jaw line to be more precise. I now have a wonderful black and blue and swollen cheek. Tom keeps checking to see if I have two left feet or if I am just putting my shoes on the wrong feet. He is also glad that he has plausible deniability and was out of the county working each time that I injured myself! And you thought horseshoeing was dangerous.

Oklahoma Writers Conference

2009-05-04T14:13:00.003-05:00

I followed the Kansas Writers, Inc annual retreat with the Oklahoma Writers Federation annual conference. This was my first conference. There was a TON of information to learn.

I think the cats feel abandoned. We have traveled three of the past five weekends.

I spent most of the time in classes that teach technique for novel writing. My favorite workshop was on editing, by Robyn Conley, the owner of The Book Doctor. She also taught a class the next day on point of view. The other classes were on women’s fiction, finding your voice, characters, settings and novel structure.

Like most conferences, there was a book room. Part of the room was for published authors. They could sell their books and were available to sign them. There were also books about the craft of writing. I purchased a book called Write History Right by M.H. Collins; American Slang, by Kipfer and Chapman; and Be Your Own Book Doctor, by Robyn Conley.

What is the next step? I need to find wall space in the house to put up an outline of the book. While I know what my plot is, I need to sharpen it. I also need to clarify what it is that my character wants so I know how to stress her. We had fun re-writing Jack and Jill. It was interesting to see how many versions people could come up with.

2009-04-20T16:00:00.002-05:00

Years ago, I read an article in Training and Development magazine called The Ground Crew. It was written by a man who stayed home with the kids while his wife worked. She was in the training profession and traveled extensively. He picked her up at the airport one night and she immediately started going through a list of questions about whether this got done or that got done. That upset him and he was trying to figure out a way to talk to her about it when he noticed a plane lit up on the ground being serviced by the ground crew. He watched how everyone had a job to do to get the plane ready to take off. Each job was important and necessary. So he explained to her that even though she has lists of things that need to get done while she is gone, her ground crew consisted of one husband, a 6 month old, two twin 3 year old boys and a 6 year old girl.

The article always sticks in my mind because I am like that woman. I have lists of things to do every day and won’t rest until the list is done. Since the list is always there, it is never done. My husband is the opposite of me. He enjoys every bit of his weekend. At 9pm on Sunday night, he decides what part of the list he wants to tackle that can be done in 30 minutes and that is all he will do. This is my ground crew. He is the best ground crew any woman could ever want or need.

Tom has the most beautiful blue eyes. I could and do stare into them for hours. He has salt and pepper hair and either a beard or goatee depending on the season. He treats me like a princess every minute of every day. Tom worked on dairy farm and an agricultural farm as a kid and still has the strong looking hands and forearms to show for it. He is a patient teacher and has shown me how to fish, drive all types of boats, and paddle a canoe. When we hike, he is always pointing out wildlife or animal tracks. When we first starting dating, he went out and bought a used rototiller and tilled my garden. He loves to can what we grow in the garden. It is March and we are still eating bean, carrots, tomatoes, peppers and onions we grew last season.

He built my greenhouse for $125. I watched him draw it on a piece of paper, and assemble it in a weekend. I never saw him measure anything and claimed it couldn’t be level. He showed me it was. I have no idea how he can visualize that and do it. He is just now finishing up my third greenhouse.

He is my support, my rock, and my friend. We laugh together. Sometimes, I swallow the metaphorical feather and I will start laughing and can’t stop. It gets him laughing too. It was a big sacrifice for him to agree to my becoming an apprentice horseshoer. He would have to support both of us. He has never complained about that, no matter how hard it gets. We get along very well together and usually chose to be with each other on the weekends instead of doing things alone or separately.

He loves me unconditionally. We have been married 13 years and he still holds my hand every car trip. He kisses me goodnight before going to sleep, even on the nights we have been grousing at each other. (Like the old joke, we never go to bed mad. We haven’t been to sleep for 3 years!). He cleans a kitchen better than me. (Something about cleaning deck plates on a Navy ship with a toothbrush every time he got in trouble!) He also cooks healthier foods than I do.

Tom is also my voice of wisdom. I will work myself to death. Over this past year, he makes sure I eat when I am too tired to. He makes me stop and rest on my days off. He makes sure I slow down when I work outside so I don’t get heat exhaustion.

He has the patience of a saint. He speaks softly and thoughtfully. He is rarely angry. Being raised by a mom that yelled every day and was unpredictable every day has a lasting effect on my life. Tom is quiet, consistent and dependable. I really need that in my life. When we met, we both just got jobs in boating safety. He has always called me his swab, even though I got promoted to mate when we got married. He always greets me with a pirates “yar matey.” That just makes life so much more fun. I was so lonely until I met Tom. He is truly my other half.

Like the woman in the Ground Crew story, I can get carried away about the list if I am not careful. I work every day at appreciating Tom so I don’t take him for granted. It is easy to complain that something didn’t get done on the list. But sometimes you just have to throw the list aside, lean on the door jam and watch him napping on the sofa with the kitten tucked into his arm. An unlimited supply of hugs is better than the list any day!

I Know The Wichita Lineman

2009-04-20T15:48:00.002-05:00

When I move to a new state I look for clubs to join, so I can meet people with like interests. In Hutchinson, Kansas I joined a kennel club. I wanted a dog and I wanted to learn to train dogs. The president of the club at that time was a man who was recently retired from the phone company. He started working for them nearly forty years earlier as a lineman in Wichita.

After his retirement, he and his wife started raising Pomeranians. They are active people who love to hunt, fish, ride horses, boat and camp. Last year, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with all their friends and extended family. When he and his wife took a six month trip, I stayed in their house and took care of their thirty dogs. This wonderful man stands six foot, five inches tall. He is lean and long, with a full head of silver hair and a smile that always sits comfortably on his mouth and in his eyes. He has a way about him that makes people feel comfortable. He is also a great story teller.

One of his stories takes place when the kids were small in the late 1960’s. His youngest child was mad that his older siblings would not let him ride the horse, so he decided to run away. Instead of trying to make the kid stay, his dad said “OK. But it is getting dark. You had better take a flashlight.” The kid went to the cupboard for a flashlight. Dad walked him to the door. “It is supposed to be cold tonight. Do you want a coat?” The child went to the closet and got a coat. Dad opened the door and looked outside. “It is almost your bedtime. Do you want to take a pillow and a blanket?” His son went to his bedroom for his pillow and blanket. They walked outside. His dad asked him about supper. “You are going to miss supper if you leave now. Do you want some food?” Back in the house he went for a box of crackers. Dad was waiting for him with a wagon. “Here you go. It will be tough walking with all that stuff in your arms.”

As his son started down the driveway, he asked his son if he wanted to take one of the dogs with him for company.

So, he watched his boy walk down the dirt road with his wagon and the dog. His oldest son walked up to him. “Dad, you can’t let him run away from home!” His dad said “He won’t go far. He is not allowed to cross the road. So he either has to walk a circle around the section of farm ground, or go to the school bus shelter at the end of the road. Besides, the dog is with him and that dog won’t let anyone near any of you kids.”

He watched the child through binoculars until he saw him go into the bus shelter. After supper, when it was just dark, he walked to the bus shelter. His son was cold, tired and trying not to be scared. Dad told him that he was just checking up on him, that he didn’t need to come home. “But if you want to come home, I will walk with you.” I think the boy and the dog rode home in the wagon pulled by his dad.

Read to learn how to write

2009-04-07T13:02:00.004-05:00

Books are woven through all parts of my life. I was a latch key child long before there was a term for it. I spent hours reading. As a kid I read every Louis L’Amour western and every Walter Farley black stallion book I could get my hands on.

Our public library was an old three story Victorian mansion in the center of town that was donated to the town years earlier. It was dark with lots of small rooms and too many stairs. There was no security at a library back then, so I would go into the back rooms where the old books were kept and sit on the floor in the corner looking through them.

From that library I read Congo by Michael Crichton; Johnny Tremain, by Esther Forbes; Savage Sam by Fred Gipson; and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.

I remember reading a great book with twin sisters, one of whom went on a space journey where she was frozen in time so she would survive the journey. When she finally got back to earth, her sister was fifty years old than she was. I don’t remember the name of the book or I would read it again.

During the summer of 1981 I was recuperating from some unexpected surgery. My neighbor started taking me to her Friends of the Library group. People donated books to the library all year long to be sold at an annual sale. This annual sale also gives the library a place to put books they have weeded out of their system. I had a lot of fun sorting the books and stayed for three years, until I moved to Texas. Each state I move to, the first place I go is the library to sign up as a volunteer. I am now in my 27th year volunteering.

I volunteer a couple of hours a week sorting the Hobbies and How To section books. As a rule, the maintenance staff keeps a constant four pallets of donated books to sort through year round. There are sorters who go through those books and sort them into categories. They roll their carts of sorted books down the isles where there are tall bookshelves defined by individual categories. Each person assigned to sort a category sorts the books into sub-headings. Those books are boxed and stored until the annual sale.

At the same time, some of the sorted books are sent upstairs to a used book store located inside the library. Books that are deemed to have a potential larger value are stored separately to be sold on an Internet store front. I enjoy my volunteer time though out the year. It is quiet. We are in the basement, so my cell phone won’t work. You can visit with people or just lose yourself in books. The person who sorts audio ‘stuff’ has a record player and he plays music on vinyl throughout the morning. There is a dining room in the library if you need coffee or a muffin. And, of course, there is the library upstairs. The photo below is the where the main sort takes place.

Writers Retreat

2009-04-02T18:25:00.006-05:00

I am going to Norman, Oklahoma to a writer’s conference at the end of April. I am curious to see what a writer’s conference is like. I had hoped to go to one last year at Ball University last year, but it didn’t work out.

The writers group I belong to just got back from a retreat at the Elms Hotel in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. We wrote a lot and ate too much junk food. The meeting room we worked from had windows along the entire wall that looked out over the grounds. It snowed most of the day, making it the perfect day to sit indoors and tap away on the laptop. It helped that the bottom floor of the hotel has a heated mineral spring water lap pool and a full service spa!

I am back in the shoeing season groove. I left the bookstore because my supervisor was a bully and I just didn’t want to be that miserable everyday. It did pay the heat bills this winter. It also paid for a new fridge, carpeting in the living room, two new recliner chairs and a big repair bill on the Subaru. Everyday at that job was like being in the movie Gaslight. Life is too short.

The past month was spent getting caught up on my novel writing. The location and setting within the novel have been tightened. That also meant I had to change some characters around. The ones I don’t need can be used in another novel.

2008-10-31T20:44:00.009-05:00

Life is like a giant jig saw puzzle. It takes years to find out who you are. You get a few pieces at a time. Those pieces do not go together, sometimes for many years. You also have no idea what the picture looks like that you are putting together. Learning about yourself and staying true to yourself and who you are is a struggle.

We had a medium talk to us at our writers group. Books on paranormal are what is selling right now. We wanted to be able to write with some authority on the subject. Oma, the medium who talked to us, was very approachable. She was a pleasure to listen to. Quite a few of the authors in the group are romance novelists.

I worked with my mentor for a few minutes this week. One of my customers has an older donkey that has foot problems. The owners had the veterinarian out to do radiographs. The veterinarian wanted a more radical trim done. I have been working on this little guy for two years now and have worked hard to keep his feet as short as possible. A different veterinarian said I should be a little more cautious since the coffin bone was rotating toward the sole.

This was confusing, so the owners and I called Bob in. He didn’t take very much foot off at all, so apparently I was doing right by the donkey. I considered the stop a training day. Bob knew I was out there about 4 weeks earlier so he said he would not charge anything. I think we did the best we could for this customer. I was glad to see I was doing the right kind of trim. It is difficult to resolve within yourself that you cannot make some horses feet better. The best you can do is maintain or minimize pain and damage.

Bike Across Kansas

2008-10-23T20:18:00.011-05:00

Hubby decided he wants to enter the Bike Across Kansas ride in 2010. I tend to think in terms of my schedule and not other people’s schedule. Because this is important to him, I have made a point to get Hubby and his bike in the car a couple of times a week to go to a trail so he can ride. Sometimes I shop and eat my way through downtown Lawrence and have him meet me at Starbucks. Sometimes I drop him off on the bike trail and drive to the other end and wait for him. He needs to be doing twenty miles regularly this year and 30-40 miles next year. To ride Bike Across Kansas he has to be comfortable riding 60-70 miles a day.

When autumn came around, which is my favorite time of the year, I got tired of watching him have all the fun or waiting for him. So I bought a bike of my own. I am up to ten miles now. That is where I can still make it back to the car and am not sore the next day. Tom will have to go with his cousin on the Bike Across Kansas tour, though. I will happily stay in the air conditioned Subaru with the spare bike parts and repair kit and follow them. We are checking out a Katy Trail vacation next spring. The Katy Trail is a rail trail across Missouri. We can take the car to the train station in Kansas City. From there we can get on an Amtrack train where we will travel 60 miles east. We will depart the train and ride the bikes back. There are Bed and Breakfasts all along the trail. I love going out on the trails to ride bikes. Tom named my bike Helen because I am hell-on-wheels on my bike.

I am still working on the Smokey Westford novel. It is excruciating and slow! I have to figure out how to add the chunks of the books that create the mystery. I am confused about putting in the technical stuff. I love books with technical information. I can’t put them down until they are done. When peers edit my work, they keep asking me to take out the technical stuff. They are usually romance novelists and their books are supposed to be light in substance. I don’t know if I should put my tech stuff in or not. I call myself a Chick Lit novelist, but that is because I don’t think I can pull of the larger technical aspects of a thriller.

I am signed up and ready for the November National Novel Writing month. I plan to ditch all the technique issues and just get some writing done. It is so much fun creating characters and making them come alive. My character, Lena, is the person I would love to be. She has more guts to live life to the fullest than I will ever have.

The Shawnee County and Topeka Library Friends of the Library had its' annual book sale in mid September. The sale raised over $55,000 during the 16 hour three day sale. Even though I sort books once a week all year long, I still brought five bags of books home.

2008-08-25T19:25:00.006-05:00

As I trim and shoe my way through the summer I have talked to my customers about my novel. Most express surprise that I am a writer. When I sat down and thought about it, I have been writing all my life. It should not be a surprise that a novel would be the culmination of that work.

Writing is a difficult as horseshoeing. I am not talking about physical labor. Rather self confidence, tenacity, and failure. As a kid, and still today, I live a whole different life inside my head than the face people see. I thought everyone was like that, but as an adult I realize that is not true. I was always fascinated by horses. My first story on paper was part of a homework assignment in middle school. I was so proud of that story. It was 43 handwritten pages on notebook paper in its’ finished product. I titled it Blue Max. It was about a 100 mile endurance trail ride. I mostly wrote for myself for the next few years. There was a magazine called Horse of Course. I sent a fiction horse related story to them when I was 11. They used it six years later. They never notified me or paid me. I was not getting the magazine anymore, but someone in 4-H with me was, and showed me. As a senior in high school I wrote for the newspaper and the literary magazine. I had several stories published in the literary magazine. One of my English teachers, Polly Cleary, put my name in for the national Quill and Scroll award without telling me. I won the award. I remember how special I felt. I was also a scholarship finalist for a journalism school.

My best friend, Diana and I were so in love with Starsky and Hutch. We started writing an S&H mini novel. She would hand write on paper a segment and hand it to me. I would add to it and hand it back to her. One day, I was so excited about what I wrote, I could not wait until after school to tell her. I don’t do very many ‘bad’ things. But that day, I went down to the bottom of the floor of the senior high school all the way to the back of the building where there was a pay phone near the gym. I knew the gym would be deserted that time of day. I looked up the phone number for the junior high school and called the office. I told them I was Diana’s mom and needed to speak to her about an eye doctor appointment. When Diana got to the phone I read the new passage to her while the poor girl was being watched by the principal of her school.

Now that I have been shoeing horses for the past few years, I have developed a much tougher skin and have quite a bit more self confidence. People seem to respond to my writing now. I think I can with stand the continual rebuffs now and still keep trying to write.

I have some new trim customers that are great. At one stop my customer cried while I was trimming her horse. I asked if I was doing something wrong. She said the past five shoers hit her horse when the mare would not hold her leg up. While I realize this is in my benefit because it gets me customers, I still can’t believe there are shoers out there that don’t understand geriatric horses don’t have the flexibility to hold their legs up. When I arrived at the barn, the first thing I noticed what how swollen the horses joint are. The tendons on the back legs were so stretched, they would not hold the ankle up. Her face looked old. I let her smell me and rubbed her withers. Then I kneeled down on the floor and rested her front leg on my lap to trim. On her hind feet, I picked up her hind leg and rested her hoof on the titanium on my boot. She was not in pain, so she left her leg there. It made it uncomfortable for me to trim, but she was happy. The owner was thrilled that I didn't hit her horse and begged me to come back in eight weeks.

2008-05-28T14:04:00.003-05:00

The Smokey Westford novel is coming along slowly. I have the idea on paper, which is the easy part. Now I have to learn the techniques to polish the novel, add humor, create excitement and push the drama. I have not decided how to install the love interest for this character. I would like to take some time before I introduce a man, so Smokey has a chance to go out on some very bad dates.

I belong to Kansas Writers Inc. They have a training tape library. The tapes are great. They have been extremely helpful, but they do prove how much I need to learn and how much more work I have to do on the novels.

Horseshoeing finally kicked it up a notch last week. I expected last week to happen at the beginning of March. Horse people are starving their farriers this year. Even twenty year horseshoers are looking for part time work. No one has disposable income right now. I picked up a few new trim customers with good quiet horses.

2008-04-22T19:21:00.005-05:00

I am still pushing to complete the first Smokey Westford novel. I meet at a Topeka coffee shop on Thursday evenings with several other writers. We spend a couple of hours writing. It helps to have other writers around to bounce questions off of. I am at the point in writing where the work starts. The concept or creative part of the story is on paper.

The next step is to connect the dots of the story, to make sure the story keeps moving and check for consistency. There is a Midwest Writers Conference at Ball University in July. I hope to attend the training classes and meet with an agent to pitch the book. The conference also gives me a deadline to have the book ready. I am also having a graphic artist make a Smokey Westford logo. My brother-in-law is taking a likeness of me, and turning Smokey Westford into a ‘Toon’ (cartoon). Once we have the logo and the Toon, we will start building the smokeywestford.com web site.

It is no secret that gasoline is expensive. I went to the Toyota dealership to measure the cargo space in a Prius. At the moment, it looks like I have painted myself in a corner. My truck is Blue-Booked at just over $10,000. I owe $7,700. The dealership is willing to provide $3,300 for trade in on the truck. My vehicle payments would double, which we can’t afford. The Prius is young enough that there are not very many previous year trade-ins. If a trade-in becomes available, it sells within thirty minutes for about $1,000 less than a new one. There is also a six month wait after you order one before it is delivered. It looks like I will be driving my truck this summer and looking for a used Subaru to shoe horses out of before next season.

A yacht captain friend of mine in Maryland called me a turtle. He said I hide in my shell until I am sure it is safe. Then, I peek my head out. I never venture too far away from my shell. Last year was my first year on my own shoeing horses. I spent last year working to better my shoeing skills and gaining confidence. I only know how to shoe horses The Bob Way. I was not willing to learn another way until I was a little more confident. This year, I called a farrier who lives near me to meet for lunch.

A few weeks later, he invited me to a clinic and training class in Missouri. Horse shoes have names depending on what the shoe is supposed to accomplish. This clinic was about two different styles of a shoe called a Heart Bar shoe. The purpose of the shoe is to put pressure on the frog of a horse that sufferes from laminitis. The pressure, or load, on the frog increases blood flow to the foot. The blood flow speeds healing. Like the turtle, I was willing to stick my head out to meet one person. Going to a clinic with A LOT of shoers was a big step.

I need to digress here for a moment. I have a part time job at a greenhouse. Common sense would say that horseshoeing would make you hurt more than working at a greenhouse. My muscles get sore horseshoeing and I get very tired. But the greenhouse work hurts my hips, back and knees. For the past two months I have been balancing the two jobs with very little time off. So, I was debating whether I should go to the clinic. My line of reason for going went something like this: I would be chauffeured; I would be able to sit most of the morning; I would not have to do any physical labor the whole day; there would be free food. How could I turn that down? It was one of the better decisions I have made in awhile.

There were about 18 farriers there, all men. No one assumed I was the wife of a shoer. No one immediately walked up to introduce themselves. As the day progressed, every one of the shoers came over to visit. The few who live closer to me provided their contact information and encouraged me to call if I need any help. I was impressed with their skill level and their willingness to work with other shoers. I had the chance to watch one shoer, Scott, put handmade front shoes on an Arabian mare. This is the first person that I would want to emulate in blacksmithing skill. His forge and shaping work was beautiful. There was no wasted motion. He let his tools and the heat do the work for him.

There was also a veterinarian at the clinic. He brought an IDEXX Digital Radiography computer with him. He would radiograph the leg and foot so we could see if all the joints in the leg were level after the horse was trimmed. He used the radiograph to help pinpoint the exact placement location for the heart bar shoe. It is uncommon to have access to this type of equipment (sticker price $90,000) for free and we took every advantage of it.

Two weeks ago, I had a call from one of the few female shoers in the area. She has 22 years experience. She recently picked up a large boarding barn and wanted to know if I would work with her for the day. I thought she did a good job on the horses’ feet. She truly does work completely opposite of The Bob Way. I couldn’t seem to get out of her way. She wanted me to help, but she kept working with me so she could show me her way to do things. That is appropriate, as these are her customers. Trying to learn a different way to cut clinches, pull shoes, cut nails, clinch, and finish rasp under the gun is difficult at best. I did learn some things from her. I would like to practice how she works on a back foot, although for many of my customers her way would be too dangerous for me. A horseshoers first customers are usually horses no one else wants to work under.

You always take something from everyone you work with. Most of the time, you learn additional ways to accomplish your work. Once in awhile, you see things you don’t want to do. I would work with her any chance I have. She is good company, handles the horses well, and is a skilled shoer. I would not price my work the way she does. She wants to keep this barns’ business, so she is cutting them deals. In my opinion, if someone wants me to pull 4 shoes, trim and replace those shoes, I am charging my full price. I don’t care if it is every 5, 6, or 8 weeks. I still have to do the same amount of work, am still at the same risk of injury, and still had to drive there. I have had customers argue with me on the phone about my prices. I don’t get mean about it, but I tell them I don’t discount my service.

2008-03-02T21:15:00.005-06:00

Welcome to the Smokey Westford Monograph. Smokey Westford is a fictional character who lives in the Flint Hills of Kansas. Smokey has a name like a stripper, but refers to herself as a fat suburban housewife. She is a farrier by trade who would much rather be with horses than humans. Like most people, Smokey projects a confident and strong physical persona. However, inside she is insecure and harbors multiple ‘issues.” There are three Smokey Westford books outlined that, I hope, will be available in print for your enjoyment.

I am Cheryl Swayne, a professional farrier and a writer who resides in Kansas. The purpose of the BLOG will be to share stories about the life of a horseshoer and provide updates for the Smokey Westford novels.

We are just coming out of an unusually cold and wet winter for Kansas. This is the time that customers starve their horseshoer. People ran out of money at the end of fall last year and skipped their last farrier visit. The few people that did schedule bailed when we had a one-two punch of weather. An ice storm, followed a few days later by a blizzard, prompted the rest of the customers to postpone until after the holidays.

People are just now beginning to return calls. I have not heard from some of these people since last summer, but they want an appointment immediately because their horses’ feet look bad or the horse is lame. That is another irony of the trade. For ten weeks you twiddle your thumbs, and then overnight you are booked three weeks out.

I usually have one or more part time jobs in the winter. This winter, that did not work out. I was able to spend time at home. Personally, I do enjoy being alone. I was not sure it would be tolerable for ten weeks. I was never bored and never had time for a nap. I didn’t really watch TV during the day, except for the Gilmore Girls. I did drink too much coffee. I lost a few pounds and went to the gym a lot. I am in the category of upper middle aged and female. It was critical that I spend time in the gym to maintain the muscle tone I have. It will still be physically painful to jump back into horseshoeing this week. But it would have been impossible if I had not taken the time to go to the gym.

I write a column called Gardening Among the Stacks for the Master Gardener newsletter. I was able to write an entire season of articles while I was home. I am also a trustee for the Meriden Library and I volunteer for Friends of the Library in Topeka.

I have a miniature horse customer that is foundered. For whatever reason, her founder has been quite active this winter. I have been able to keep ahead of it for the past two years, but this winter I had to call in help. The person who trained me, Bob Grady, still helps if I ask. He was certainly more aggressive at trimming hoof than I would ever have done. The owners’ husband helped us hold the mini. We had to lay her down on the barn floor to trim her. She was very sore when we put her in the stall. I understand that the next day, she was running in the pasture and they could not catch her. The owner said they had not seen her run or act playful for several months. That is the reason for doing this kind of work.