In a scrapbook I have from my grandmother is a clipping from the Sunburst Sun (Montana) newspaper, Aug. 26, 1922, that reads:
Program
1:00 Parade of cowboys and cowgirls, headed by Cut Bank brass band
2:30 Tootsie Bailey will enter competition with entire field, riding wild steers with only one hand on cirsingle

     Another clipping states “Tootsie Bailey won first and Mary (Marie) Gibson second prize in the steer riding.”
Marie Gibson was a well-known Montana cowgirl and won national awards for bronc riding.
Tootsie was my grandmother and she would have been 17 at that time. I did have the opportunity to spend time with her, ride horseback, and get to know her pretty well before she died suddenly when she was only 57 and I was 12.

     I know that she was an avid horsewomen and that she was more at home on the back of a horse than behind a dust mop. My dad told me she had competed in rodeos, riding steers, when she was young. I kept thinking how courageous that was, especially as I got older and watched bull and bronc riders. Grandma was petite—five-feet two-inches and weighed a little over 100 pounds. I was amazed that she would pit herself against an animal that weighed 900 pounds or so, one whose sole purpose was to get that pesky rider off its back and then maybe stomp on her!

While my grandmother most often dressed in men’s jeans and did a man’s job, riding horseback and working cattle, she also “cleaned up nice” and dressed very feminine and fashionably when she was in social situations.

     Following is an excerpt from Cowgirl Dreams when my character, Nettie, donned a pair of her brother’s denim pants, sneaked out of the house one morning and rode in a neighbor’s informal rodeo. She loved the freedom of riding her horse Toby, wearing pants and especially riding the steer in the rodeo. The adrenaline of staying on the back of that bucking, twisting, angry beast had her hooked and the clothing allowed her to ride unencumbered by the extra fabric of a skirt, divided or not. (I don’t know that my great-grandmother was as opposed to her daughter’s rodeo riding as my character’s mother, but I know, from research, that it was often a family issue and a social stigma.)

     When Nettie arrived home, her mother was horrified to see her daughter dressed as a man. And having heard that Nettie had ridden in the rodeo against her wishes, Mama was highly upset.

     “You.” Mama stepped forward, her face dark red with anger. “You defied me.”

     Cold dread pooled in Nettie’s belly. She’d never seen Mama so mad. “No, I—”

     “Young lady, you were supposed to stay home today. Work on that pile of darning. You know Mrs. Connors wants it done by tomorrow, otherwise we don’t get paid till next week.”

     The darning. She hadn’t given it another thought after she’d decided to sneak out. Oh dear. Icy prickles of guilt stabbed at her. “But. Lola. Why couldn’t she finish it?”

     Mama stepped closer. “And, we had to hear it from the neighbor’s hired man. You. Rode. In. A rodeo.” With each word, she jabbed her finger an inch from Nettie’s face. “You know how I feel about that.”

     “But, Mama, I stayed on. I didn’t get bucked off.”

     “Don’t you sass me, girl.” Mama’s voice shook now. “And wearing pants in public, too.” She closed her eyes a moment and sighed. “You will take that basket of socks, go to your room, and don’t come out until they’re all finished. No supper. No No riding. For a month.” She turned on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen.

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     Thank you, Mary, for hosting me on Petticoats and Pistols. Today is my first stop on my virtual book tour. Please leave a comment to enter a drawing for some cool gifts. today, on Petticoats and Pistols, the drawing is for a pair of horse earrings. Perfect for P & P readers.

And join me tomorrow at L. Diane Wolfe’s Circle of Friends blog http://circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com/

     For the itinerary of all my stops on this tour and a list of prizes, go to my blog http://heidiwriter.wordpress.com/my-blog-tour/

Click on the book cover to purchase

With the release of my June Love Inspired Historical The Preacher’s Wife, I’ve launched a new website! To promote it, I’m holding a few drawings for books and prizes.

The first drawing ends June 1st, so stop in now and get your name in the fish bowl.

Visit my new new website at: http://www.cherylstjohn.net/

After you’ve poked around, fill out the contact form on the right side of the contacts page and send.

Your name will be entered in the drawing for an autographed copy of THE PREACHER’S WIFE and the pretty vintage teacup and saucer pictured here.

This weekend we’re privileged to have not only Melinda Elmore on Saturday, but also Miss Heidi M. Thomas on Sunday.

Miss Heidi is a brand new author who’s looking to meet readers. The Fillies told her this is the place to be for that and the dear lady took us at our word. Ah know you’ll be gentle with her and give her a big helping of the warm hospitality we’re becoming known far and wide for.

Miss Heidi will be talking about her book called Cowgirl Dreams. Sure looks like a humdinger of a story, let me tell you! Ah can hazard a guess about the kind of man any cowgirl would dream about. Hee-Hee!

Hitch up your buckboard and head to the Junction for two exciting days with Miss Melinda and Miss Heidi.

You might even get a chance at a prize. Woo-Hoo!

Howdy!  I dropped the names of everyone who posted into the cowboy hat and pulled out three slips of paper. The winners are . . .  

Martha E

Colleen

Roberta Harwell

Drop me an email, ladies. My addy is VictoriaBylin@aol.com.  You get your choice of my Love Inspired Historicals.       

Right out of the chute, let me say how thrilled I am to be joining Petticoats & Pistols as a new Fillie! I’ve loved this site since the day it opened and now I get to be here among these fabulous western writers on a regular basis.

I love history. That’s no surprise, of course, to anyone who knows me. I not only enjoy writing about the past, but researching those bits and pieces that make the historical story I’m writing realistic, interesting and accurate.

Research comes in many forms. I can spend hours in a library, hunting through books. Or online, looking for one particular fact. But my favorite type of research is the kind I didn’t plan. 

In my trips to research a story, I’ve come across some fun facts. Did you know there was a salt war in Texas? Neither did I was researching for this blog. Bonus: I discovered the Texas Historic Sites Atlas while looking for a picture of the marker.

Were you aware there was a Revolutionary War battle in St. Louis, Missouri? That’s right, halfway up the mighty Mississippi. The Battle of Fort San Carlos was fought when British-led Sioux, Sac, Fox and Winnebago warriors attacked a newly built French entrenchment in May of 1780. That historical fact came from a local newspaper article my mother forwarded.

Ever heard of Crash, Texas? It’s a town that was built for the express purpose of allowing spectators to witness a train crash up close and personal. A friend sent me that news story.

Then there’s the Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race, begun in 1848 and revived in 1977. I found out about it when researching the coach stops along the Santa Fe Trail after visiting the Pony Express Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Do you read the footnotes and attributions at the end of a historical research article? You might take a stroll through the archived blogs right here at Petticoats & Pistols –the Fillies have shared some wonderful research.I love running across obscure information while I’m researching something else. And you can find some of the most interesting—and mostly useless—tidbits in some unlikely places. ebay® is one place that surprised me. I found some cool info on china and crystal and Texas artifacts there while researching my latest release, Touched by Love.

Buy at Amazon

Now, you’ll have to excuse me. There’s a museum website I just heard someone mention.

What’s the most unusual fact you discovered in the most unlikely place?

Hello Darlings,

Miss Melinda Elmore will grace us with her presence this weekend.

The dear lady will talk about the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers and give us interesting facts on those Native Americans who lived so long ago. Ah know you’ll want to come to the Junction to visit with her.

While Miss Melinda is here, she’ll also tell us about her new book called Native Dreams. Looks like a humdinger of a story!

So hitch up your wagons and climb aboard. Join the Fillies in making Miss Melinda welcome. This is her first visit and she’s a little skittish.

All that changed while I was researching Kansas Courtship, my March 2010 release from Steeple Hill Love Inspired Historicals. The book is a continuity, which means I didn’t pick the characters. An editor wrote a basic story line for three related books. My book, the third in the series, features a lady doctor and a mill owner in a town devastated by a tornado.

No problem with the lady doctor. There’s plenty of reading material on frontier medicine (waving at Kate Bridges here; her P&P blogs were gold). I could visualize my heroine’s life right off the bat.  

The hero was a different story. From Day One, this guy was a problem child. He’s a mill owner. At the time, I knew nothing about mills. The story is set in Kansas in 1860. I’m thinking, “Kansas? Where are the trees? Don’t they grow wheat in Kansas?” A little research cleared up my misconception. Eastern Kansas is quite different from western Kansas. In 1860 there were plenty of trees. I was in the clear with my assigned characters, but I still needed to see a mill. 

I looked online. There’s a youtube video of an historic mill, but it didn’t help. I looked at dozens of pictures, but I couldn’t visualize how the pieces worked. Nor could I hear or smell any of the details. Milling is completely out of my range. Wood comes from Home Depot and bread comes from grocery stores. That’s about it.

 The answer came out of the blue on a gorgeous Sunday morning. My husband and I were leaving church when I started muttering, “I really need to visit an historic mill.”

The next thing I knew, we were doing a U-turn on Route 7. This wasn’t your garden variety U-turn. He gunned the engine of our oh-so-sporty Camry and I was half out the window. My voice went up two octaves. “What in the world!”

“A mill,” he said. “We’re going to a mill.” He sounded like James Bond.

“Where?” I asked.

“Up the road.” Imagine clipped speech. Picture the intensity of Daniel Craig or Sean Connery, and you’ve got the idea.

The next thing I knew, we’d turned up the road to the Colvin Run Historic Mill, an official landmark. We’ve lived in northern Virginia for several years now, but I don’t know the area very well. My husband, it turns out, had driven by the mill on his way to have lunch with a friend a few weeks earlier.

For the next two hours, we took in every detail of the mill and asked the miller dozens of questions. I’ll never forget the sound of water spilling as the wheel turned and the millworks went into motion. The gears made a huge racket and dust filled the air. We saw the miller adjust the millstones and learned about the perils of the trade. I used all those details in Kansas Courtship.

I had the best day! Best of all, I got to share it with my husband. My characters may be imaginary, but my husband is very real. He’s also my real life hero.

This isn’t quite related to milling, but I’m hung up on the James Bond comparison. I’m also shopping for a hero for my next manuscript. Of all the actors who’ve played “Bond, James Bond,” which one do you think would look best in a cowboy hat? Choices are Sean Connery, Robert Moore, Timoty Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.  I know there’s one other actor who played James Bond once, but I can’t remember who.  Anyhow, I am leaning toward Timothy Dalton, but Daniel Craig is moving up on the list.

And last, I want to say how thrilled I am to be a Filly.  It’s a joy to join this group of talented authors who all love western romance.  To celebrate, let’s have a drawing. I’ll toss the names of everyone who comments into the cowboy hat and pick out three winners. Winners get the book of their choice from my Love Inspired Historicals. Good luck!

Click on The Maverick Preacher cover to order from amazon .com!

  

To my surprise I mentioned to some friends (well, FORMER FRIENDS, the wimps) that I came home the other day and there was semen on my front porch. (Note the warning to keep the tank upright…I’m guessing that there is NO ORDER concerning a semen tank that anyone would dare disobey.)

 Their reaction – a cross between horror, amazement and completely tasteless jokes—made me think this might make a good topic for Petticoats & Pistols.
Now stick with me all you CITY GIRLS while I tell you about Artificial Insemination of cattle.

    So these are beef cattle. . .not to be confused with dairy cattle. . .and my husband mainly raises Angus.
~

Angus are black (although there are RED Angus-one is pictured above left) but for the most part when you say Angus, you mean a black cow.
The majority of his cattle are just nice, run-of-the-mill angus cows, but there is this special side to raising beef cattle that can lead to big money.

No, it hasn’t led us there yet, but my husband has a dream, a cool dream, that he’ll raise that magical perfect, beautiful animal with all the right ancestors and all the right lines; wide butt, broad chest, deep belly, (uh-oh, I just described myself) and this animal will be valuable and have valuable babies and maybe even, if it happens to be a BULL it might be marketable for it’s semen.

    So, to that end, my husband buys semen. He buys registered Angus cows and semen from snazzy Angus bulls and breeds the cows using artificial insemination.

   With really amazing names like (these aren’t all Angus-but they’re real bulls):
Hornster, Rib Eye; Red Hot Poker; Romeo; Grand Slam; Ladies Man; Bullicious; Rapid Response; Powerhouse; Red Hot & Rollin’—I could go on forever.

~
Birth weight of 56 pounds (that’s small-which doesn’t matter and is in fact good IF the calf gains quickly, a small calf is easier for the cow to deliver and complications are reduced)
–Progeny are Strong-topped, Deep and Sound with Ample Eye-appeal (this is NOT in English, do NOT worry if you have no idea what it means)
–Structured bull who possesses loads of bone substance, base width, muscle mass and volume.
– one of the most talked about bulls in the business
– Over 100 calves ratioed 97 for birth wt. in nine herds, 103 for weaning weight, and 60 calves ratioed 102 for yearling wt (this is actually something to really brag about but I don’t have time to define all the terms, just trust me)
– This may be the most powerful “878” son you’ll see with plenty of muscle and bone. (878 is the name of another bull, in this case, this bull’s daddy.)
 ~
 He gets these full color beautiful catalogues with pictures of bulls that (this is secret so don’t tell my husband I said it) ALL LOOK ALIKE.

     I’ve put up pictures of black angus and other types of cattle, you’ll note the black angus are all BLACK, try picking one of them out of crowd. The weird thing is, my husband can do it. We have about 250 head of cattle mostly all black, a bunch of them baby calves and he KNOWS THEM APART. This from a man who can’t seem to remember it’s my BIRTHDAY, but that’s a topic for another blog.
 ~
    They all look NICE, but c’mon, they’re black angus bulls. Of course they’re not all “the most powerful “878” son you’ll see—”, but those details don’t exactly show up in the snapshot.
 ~
   Then he buys it and it’s shipped to our house (do NOT ask me who does this for a living. The vet maybe? Is there an actual ‘semen delivery man’. Does UPS handle this stuff).

  And here for your enjoyment, a few captions
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Gomer Bull has had surgery WHERE?

 

 

 

 

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I’m being replaced with a frozen tank? I don’t think so. Bring it!

 

 

 

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I have the best job in the world!

 

 

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Mama and baby 

A new series begins with Montana Rose-coming in July

A departure from the westerns with a cozy mystery in a small town

Nosy in Nebraska coming in June

Book #3 Lassoed in Texas Series-available on Amazon-click the covers to purchase

Find out more at www.maryconnealy.com

Hi y’all.  Sorry for the delay in announcing the winner – had some chores to take care of first.  But things are all settled down at the moment and I took the names of all you super-nice posters from yesterday, put them in a hat and drew one out.  And the winner is none other than…….

Edna Tollison

Congratulations Edna!  You can contact me at winnie@winniegriggs.com to let me know if you’d like a copy of my current release or a book from my backlist.

Good Morning!

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged so bear with me as I try to collect my thoughts. For the past 16 months, I’ve been away from home while I started and finished a very intensive course (with my church).  Now I’m home and of course it seems like I have everything to do all at once.  But first and foremost let me tell you that I HAVE A NEW BOOK OUT.

As you might notice, this book is written with a different pen name — so let me explain before I go any further.  This book is about the Eastern Indian tribe, the Mohawk — a part of the Iroquois Confederacy.  My last eight books have had a very paranormal element in them (as well as being Native American).  This book, however, was written in the vein of THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS and has no paranormal element to it and is also a faster paced novel than what I usually write.

So my editor said, let’s give it a different pen name in order to differientiate it from my past books, because it seems so different.  And I was agreeable with this — and so now we have the name Gen Bailey — Gen comes from a family member, whose name is Genevieve — I’ve always liked that name and my youngest daughter has been trying to get me to use it for some time.   Here’s a picture of my youngest daughter, by the way — as well as my oldest daughter.  Anyway, so when it came time to choose another name, I chose Genevieve.  But it’s a little long.  So we went with Gen.  Now the interesting thing is — it’s an unusual name and yet when I went to select a new website, that name was already taken.  Interesting.

Okay, so that covers the new pen name.  The new website is www.novels-by-GenBailey.com, but for some reason it’s not live yet.  Bear with me, it might take another day or so for the site to go live.

For any of you who might not know, my last book, THE LAST WARRIOR, is also available, just in case you haven’t picked the book up yet.  Now, that said, I really think you are going to like the story of Marisa and Black Eagle.  It is set in a time when the world was on fire.  Set in the period of the French and Indian war, it takes the heroine and hero in and out of constant danger.  It’s set in the beautiful setting of upper state New York — around the Albany area — which was centered in the land of the Mohawks at this time period in history.  So again the name of the NEW book is BLACK EAGLE.  Also, it was wonderful to b able to write abut this area of the world.  I lived in Vermont for 10 years and raised my kids there.  And that part of the world has always been one of my most favorite places in the world.    So here goes another pitch:  Go and pick up your copy (or order it from Amazon) today!

And now for a comment on the cover of the book.  Isn’t it gorgeous?  Of course the hero is sexy and looks almost exactly as I described him in the book, but the cover in my opinion goes beyond that.  It’s stunning, in my humble opinion.

Now before I end off this blog for the day, I want to do two things:  1) I want to thank you for coming here today and blogging with me — I love to hear from you and so appreciate what you have to say. And 2) I want you to know that I’m running a new contest now that the book is out on the shelves.  The contest consists of this:  In the book, Marisa and her maid, Sarah, are escaping the wrath of Marisa step-uncle.  They are journeying to a town in New Hampshire, which is mentioned in the book.  Name that town, send me an email here:  karenkay.author@earthlink.net, and you will be entered into the contest.

One more thing before I end off for the day — today, as I write this (which is May 11th) is my wedding anniversary.  Here’s a photo of our wedding, which you can also see on my website.   And here’s another photo of us taken in 2007 at the Blackfeet reservation at their Indian Days Celebration.  Okay, so that’s all for today.  I hope that you will go out/order your copy of BLACK EAGLE TODAY and that you will enjoy the adventure in a time and in a place that was a part of our heritage.

I’d love to hear from you.  So please come on in and let’s talk.

You can order from Amazon.  Just type in Gen Bailey or BLACK EAGLE and it will take you to the page.