April 2014 - Page 2 of 2 - View from the Front Porch

11 04, 2014

Whew! Weekend Chaos on Miller Farm is OVER

By judythemorgan|2014-04-11T06:00:25-05:00April 11th, 2014|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A Guest Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

As expected, keeping up with six dogs, two cats and many chickens for the weekend was chaotic. I survived, but I’m so ready to return to plain old “Chicken Wrangler Sara.”

It was quite a weekend filled with adventures and misadventures!

I thought feeding the cats would be the easiest chore. The food had been left at our house and the bowls were left by the neighbor’s truck. Only problem was when I went to feed the neighbor’s cats, I couldn’t find the bowls so I used some of ours and put them by the truck in the neighbor’s driveway.

Upon reviewing the text message, I realized that the bowls were supposed to be at the back door. Not sure how I mixed that up.

By this time, it was dark outside so I couldn’t find the bowls by the door either. I moved our bowls by the truck to the back yard. Both cats seemed excited to have the food.

When I checked on them Thursday, however, only one cat was around. Now it’s been a while since I had cats, but I remember them being pretty independent so I didn’t worry too much. Today I confirmed both cats are still at the house or nearby.

Whew – I didn’t lose a cat.

Jengo offered more of a challenge. He is still a puppy who likes to chew. I came home Friday after chapel to discover white feathers all over the kitchen. My first thought was “Oh no, he got a chicken!” Then I remembered the chickens are outside. The feathers were part of Brian’s fly-tying materials.

Whew – I didn’t lose a chicken.

On Thursday, while I was teaching piano, I heard noise coming from the kitchen. I assumed it was Brian and so didn’t think much about it. When I finished teaching, however, I discovered a bag of potatoes strewn all over the kitchen. Jengo must have been hungry. It only took him three potatoes to realize he didn’t like them.

I moved the unsampled potatoes out of reach.

Jengo is also unstoppable. The gate at the kitchen door was not a deterrent. At all. Too many times over the weekend I turned around to find him right behind me. It was like having a toddler again. I only wished he went down for a nap.

The chicken wire over the gate to the chicken yard was also ineffective at stopping Jengo. He regularly followed me as I checked on the chickens. Fortunately, Jengo lacks Bella’s killer instinct and simply sniffed the chickens.

He wasn’t too sure about the chicken feeder especially when it started swinging.

He was also very curious about the bees. Since he is a puppy, I was able to distract him before the bees got too irritated.

Whew – I avoided treating a bee sting on a dog.

The cats are now back in the care of their owners and Miller and Jengo are once again in their own homes.

Whew it’s quiet around here. Well, as quiet as the Miller Farm ever gets.

I met in the 99 cent store today who said she needed to get rid of a miniature long-haired dachshund……… I didn’t even hesitate to say NO.

I’ll stick with four daschunds and thirty-something chickens. Thank you very much.

9 04, 2014

Dress – One Word Wednesday

By judythemorgan|2014-04-09T06:00:46-05:00April 9th, 2014|one word Wednesday|0 Comments

By dress, I mean what we wear generically. Not the specific ladies’ apparel.

Spring always reminds me of shopping for a special new church dress for Easter Sunday. I loved dressing up and wearing an Easter bonnet.

We don’t dress up for church so much in today’s culture. In my day, we dressed when we went out to church or anywhere.

I had two types of dresses in my wardrobe — a Sunday dress and a school dress, which were both removed as soon as I got home and hung in the closet before I got them dirty. I hated taking off the pretty dresses back then.

Last weekend I attended a writer’s conference and had to dress up. Okay it was business casual, but it still felt like Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.

All grown up now, at the end of the day, I couldn’t wait to crash in my hotel room and get out of those fancy clothes.

You see, I don’t need to dress for my work. My daily wardrobe looks like this:

SOURCE for comic: Debbie Ridpath Ohi

YOUR TURN: How do you dress for work?

7 04, 2014

Reader Book Reviews – An Author’s Conundrum

By judythemorgan|2014-04-07T06:00:39-05:00April 7th, 2014|Make Me Think Monday|0 Comments

I’m a writer.

I’m a reader.

Frankly, I’m not sure you can be one without the other.

When I finish reading a book, I write a review. Why do I take the time and go to all the trouble?

The popularity of eReaders combined with the ease of independent epublishing has generated a flooded marketplace of book choices.

That ocean of available works is so huge knowing which book to select is difficult and book-buying budgets are often limited.

Personally, I check reviews before I purchase a book. Consequently when I read a good one, I want to share the news.

As an author I also recognize that reviews posted on eRetailers like Amazon or Barnes & Noble or iBooks are critical for sales whether you’re a new or established author.

Yes, I know there are authors who defraud the on-line review systems and reviewers who use their power to target and destroy. Thank goodness, those types are in the minority.

I’m not saying don’t post a bad review if you don’t like a selection. Most authors welcome an honest evaluation of their work if it’s in the form of constructive criticism, not trashing.

Finding reviewers to post reviews presents a major conundrum for authors.

The validity of a review by family and friends can be questioned. Think about it are you going to tell the world Uncle Joe wrote a terrible book?

That’s why on-line retailers build checks and balances into their systems.

Within the publishing industry, there are review writing services — professional reviewers who are paid to write book or movie reviews. Those services can be very expensive.

Small publishing houses and indie authors can’t afford to use those services instead they rely on readers spreading the news.

I’m not exactly sure why coaxing a reader to write a review is so hard. Maybe it brings back painful memories of those dreaded book reports we had to do when we were in school.

Whatever the reason readers don’t write reviews, I wish more understood reviews help an author and the process to post a review is easy. Reviews don’t have to be lengthy or formal.

Next time you finish a book, can I suggest you post a review.

Should you want to give writing reviews a try, contact me I’ll be delighted to send an ARC (pre-publication) copy of my next release or a book from my bookshelf list

as long as

you promise to post an honest review and include a statement that I provided a complimentary copy of the book for you to review.

4 04, 2014

Expecting Weekend Chaos on Miller Farm

By judythemorgan|2014-04-04T06:00:57-05:00April 4th, 2014|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

Jengo and Miller are staying with us through the weekend. Remember, they are our friend’s two daschunds and visit often. Jengo’s the puppy. We shared lots of fun times the last time he visited.

It’s always a fun time when dogs outnumber humans 6-4.

Then the neighbor texted last night asking if we could feed their two cats while they were gone for a couple of days. Okay, that’s doable. Mixing the cats and dogs under the same roof, not so much.

Since Beekeeper Brian and I were in Abilene at the time, the neighbors just left the cat food on the front porch. When our son Matt got home before we did, he simply moved the bag inside. He’s learned it is better sometimes not to even ask.

This brings the total number of four-legged animals under my care to eight — not counting chickens. We know from previous posts that we have more than 30 chickens including quail.

So this weekend, I’ll be keeping up with thirty-four or more animals if you count all the fowl. Let the fun begin!

I’m sure there will be some interesting stories for next week’s Miller Farm blog.

3 04, 2014

The Creative Mind

By judythemorgan|2014-04-03T06:00:29-05:00April 3rd, 2014|Company's Coming|25 Comments

A guest blog by J.D. Faver

Thank you so much, Judythe, for inviting me to be your guest today.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about creativity and how different individuals express themselves. I am a writer in a large community of writers, both virtual and real-world. What I noticed first is that all my writer buds are incredibly creative with words. They write novels and non-fiction. They write poetry and specialty blogs. I am in awe of all the many genres represented in this group. The fascinating thing I found is that writing is only one of their talents. In a very non-scientific survey, I learned that these writers also garden, sew, make jewelry, do stained-glass, make pottery, etc.

This took me back to a wonderful class I had as an undergraduate. My original major was Theater, so I was hanging with a bunch of creative types, even then. The man who was Chairman of the Department was Paul Baker, founder of the Dallas Theater Center. I was enrolled in a class with him, in a huge tiered room with lots of windows on one side. The windows looked out on the beautiful, wooded Trinity University campus and often Dr. Baker would be lecturing to us, while gazing out the window. On some level, I figured he had given the lecture so many times, he was playing a tape from memory, but it didn’t matter. The words that dropped from his lips were stirring and inspired us all.

The name of the class was Integration of Abilities. Yeah, think about that for a moment.

Keep in mind this was a class in the Theater Department. Dr. Baker sent us out to gather a nature object that appealed to us. I recall that my object was a twig completely ensnared by lichen and Spanish moss. He had us draw pictures of the object from every angle, focusing on minute and realistic detail. He had us use different media to capture our images, graphite pencil, charcoal, conte, pastels, etc. He next told us to abstract the drawings to capture the essence of the object. Then we abstracted the abstract. So we were pretty much in tune with all the visual aspects of our objects.

Our next task was to write or choose a musical accompaniment that expressed our object. Yes, we did a movement piece where we danced or moved to the music. All this was relatable to the nature object, or in my case, a lichen and moss covered twig.

Next we wrote about it. We wrote odes, poems and haiku to and about our nature objects. These morphed into short stories, sometimes just a single scene. Trust me, by this time, the character of the nature object was getting stronger and stronger. Finally we wrote a scene for the character we had pulled from the nature object. We got up in front of our class and performed this scene.

My character turned out to be a barren woman (dried twig that had all the life juice sucked out by a leech-plant). She was bitter and I got a standing ovation. Amazing for this very talented class.

The upshot of all this reminiscence is that I use this sort of creativity to develop characters for my novels.

My other creative outlets are, I love to dance, love all kinds of music, I draw and paint, garden, make quilts and sew, make stained glass, jewelry, mosaics and pottery and many other arts and crafts. Not all at once, of course. And, it’s hard to have your hands in another project when they are constantly on the keyboard, but I CAN do all those things.

My contention is that exploring different creative outlets will enhance all your abilities. My very creative critique partners have a multitude of interests outside of writing. They do scrapbooking and crochet, drumming and bread-making, singing and sewing. The list goes on.

So, I encourage you to explore your creative process and be bold in trying new things. Take a class or just go draw on the sidewalk with colored chalk. Do something to polish another facet of your fabulous brain.

J.D. Faver is a Houston-area author of romantic suspense and under her pen name, Calista Anastasia, author of young adult fantasy.

Please like her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JDFaver

and follow her on Twitter @JDFaver_Author.

Be sure to check out all her novels on her Amazon Author Page

2 04, 2014

Criticism – One Word Wednesday

By judythemorgan|2014-04-02T06:00:54-05:00April 2nd, 2014|one word Wednesday|0 Comments

Monday I talked about readers writing book reviews. I only briefly mentioned critical reviews. Primarily because those who write negative reviews tend to be harsh rather than constructive.

Edie Melson came to my rescue with a perfect picture to demonstrate my point about criticism. So whether you are writing a book review or reprimanding someone verbally, be gentle.