So, I’ve got a book coming out this month.
I haven’t talked too much about it because it’s in a book club and not that easy to get your hands on. It’s not in bookstores and it’s not on Amazon.
The reason for this it to make the book club a cool place to be, because you’re getting the books early!
I’ve got another coming next month and a third in December and, a year or so from now, Barbour Publishing will repackage these three books into an anthology and then they’ll be in book stores.
But, just because you can’t get it, doesn’t mean it’s not important to me. So I’ll tell you a little bit about:
BUFFALO GAL
October, 2008
Book #1 in the South Dakota Weddings Series from Heartsong Presents
They’ll never see eye-to-eye.
Buffy Lange has spent her life learning about, caring for, and protecting buffalo. She’s landed the job of her dreams, managing a huge buffalo ranch in South Dakota. With stars in her eyes, she imagines all of the Midwest given over to free-ranging buffalo. To her, buffalo embody beauty, majesty, and strength. To Wyatt Shaw, however, the buffalo are a constant threat. Wyatt‘s ranch adjoins the Buffalo Commons and he watches in trepidation as its owner expands and rides roughshod over the local ranchers. Buffalo are wild, untameable, and dangerous. They present a hazard to man and beast.
When disaster strikes, Wyatt‘s worst fears are realized and Buffy can do nothing but clean up the mess. With one determined to rid the area of buffalo and the other determined to see them flourish, the dust seldom settles around these two. Will they find a common ground or are they destined to forever stand alone?
>>This is the outcome of my obsession with buffalo. I told you a few weeks back that I petted a buffalo at Husker Harvest Days. Reached my hand through a really BIG TOUGH fence. I promise I wasn’t the least bit brave.
I’ve also got these buffalo pictures from visiting a buffalo ranch about ten miles from where I work.
They seem so weird to me. Strange looking animal, back end too small, front end too big. The fur is just shaggy and hanging off the animal in clumps. They seem so placid but they kill people.
Quotes I found:
1) Buffalo kill and hurt more people in Yellowstone than any other animal
2) Most attacks by bison occur in Yellowstone National Park, the home of the largest herd of free ranging animals. An average of three attacks occur annually. Four fatalities have resulted from these attacks since 1975 (excluding car wrecks).
Most bison attacks are considered provoked, often by tourists who approach the animals too closely for photographs. However, totally unprovoked attacks also occur. Bison can weigh as much as 2,000 pounds (900 kg) and can run as fast as 35 mph (57 kph). Their potential for injury must be respected.
Injuries from bison attacks include gorings and blunt trauma.
3) A 12-year-old boy from Pennsylvania was hospitalized after he was flipped into the air by a bull bison at Yellowstone National Park.
Park officials say witnesses reported that the boy was posing Thursday (June 26th) with members of his family within 1-2 feet of the mature bull bison.
I’m only pointing these things out because I touched the buffalo and I make quite a huge point in my book, Buffalo Gal, about how dangerous buffalo are. So all my research taught me NOTHING. On the other hand, other people were touching him(her?). So peer pressure I guess. Also, WHILE I touched the buffalo I was terrified. So that showed some sense…sort of. The other people touching the buffalo seemed oblivious of their brush with death. Where’s the fun in that? They might as well have touched their CAR if they weren’t terrified. I had WAY more fun than them.
<<<That is my hand. That is a buffalo. You must TRUST ME. I’m a writer not a photographer.
Now I have a powerful desire is to see a bull elk in the wild with full antlers. I don’t know why, that just strikes me as a beautiful thing. I will NOT touch him. I promise. Unless other people are!
So are you ever around wildlife? Anyone ever been brave around a wild animal? Brave or stupid?
Tell me about your brushes with ‘When Animals Attack.”
And, yeah, I guess you can count mice.
Calico Canyon: Lassoed in Texas, Book 2 (Truly Yours Romance Club #24
Author of Romantic Comedy...with Cowboys including the bestselling Kincaid Brides Series
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Wow Mary you are brave I would not have been able to touch a buffalo they are way to big and scare me. I lived on a farm when I was younger and I have to feed the pigs and oh man they could be mean, I was really upset it was me who had to get into the pen and feed them. I would try and wait until they were on the other side of the pen and sneak in and drop the food but only one would always hear and then they all would come running and some of them were a little mean not sure if they would really bite me but I didn’t want to find out.. So you are very brave!!!!!!!!
I guess we will have to wait to get your books later, bummer.
As for Michael Jackson the should have been him hanging for that window, what kind of parent would do that, I guess a parent who doesn’t care about there child.
Well, it helped that this one was acting like a fifteen year old, drunken hound dog. Very laid bad.
I had to help with the pigs when I was a kid, too, Brenda. A mama pig is the most ferocious animal in the world. Just a rabid killer. we were trained to be fanatically cautious around the mamas. I helped herd pigs when we’d sell them too. Some of the funniest, most disastrous memories of my childhood…herding pigs.
Actually, pound for pound, a mother CHICKEN is the most ferocious, I’m serious, those little balls of rage are just vicious. But I chicken just doesn’t quite have the killing power of a sow.
Great post, Mary!
One thing that should also be said is that buffalo attack usually in seasons — mating season — and it’s the males who attack usually — unless you have that strange buffalo (a female) who would attack anything in sight. She also looked differently — she had bangs, etc. A few of my books goes into this particular kind of buffalo as well.
But outside of her, buffalo tend to attack within a certain season, and that of course is the mating season.
What I found interesting when I traveled through Kansas were the buffalo hollows that exist there to this day — these were hollows made by male buffalo fighting — or also sometimes made by buffalo rolling around in the dirt.
Anyway,…great post, Mary!
I found this while I was researching.
Bull buffalo can turn on a dime. Yes, literally on a dime.
Unlike other animals they pivot on their front legs when they turn. They do a 180 degree turn in less than one second. They can weigh up to 2,500 lbs, and run at 30mph. They can attain that 30mph with four jumps. They can clear a normal barbwire fence with a flat footed single jump, but most times they just go through it, not over it. At 2,500 lbs x 30 mph, well you figure the mass and impact. Even a full growed Grizzly won’t take on an adult bull. It is just not a profitable activity.
Wow, Mary–I didn’t know that about buffalo. I’ll be even more careful around them now! 🙂 And very interesting post! Congrats on your newest book!
Hi Mary –
I didn’t realize how dangerous buffalo are! And yet you put your hand through a fence to touch them! You are a brave girl. Since I haven’t seen a live buffalo anywhere but in a zoo, I suppose I’m out of danger but the facts are really cool. Good luck with the book. Great title and cover!
Hi Mary,
Love the title and cover of “Buffalo Gal!” It looks intriguing. Congratulations on its release.
I’m so proud of you and your daring. I’m not adventurous at all. When I see any wild animal, I’m going to be keeping my distance and getting ready to run. I hear of elephants going on the rampage all the time and trampling people. Those things are HUGE. If you get under one you don’t stand a chance.
Great blog! 🙂
GOod morning, Mary. I’ve got an old song “Buffalo Gal” moving through my brain right now LOL. Great cover and story.
I have only seen buffalo at zoos or through a bus window. But it breaks my heart that only 23 were left in 1900 after all the “buffalo hunting” of the 19th century.
We had a bear walk right through our campground while camping in the High Sierras. My hubby still laughs out loud at the sight of my big old rear hightailing it into that great bastion of protection: a nylon dome tent. (Not long after, we got a truck and camper LOL.)
Great post as always.
Well, maybe the bear would have been full of nylon before he got around to eating you, Tanya, so it’s not the world’s worst idea.
I’ve got a brother-in-law Jim who’s big into Nebraska Game and Parks. He’s always giving us advice like: If you come face to face with a mountain lion, don’t run. Their instinct is to chase something that runs.
Uh….Jim? If I come face to face with a mountain lion, I’m pretty sure I’m going to run.
Buffalo Gal is book one in this series.
Next come Clueless Cowboy and Bossy Bridegroom. They’re all three a lot of fun. I’ll talk about them more if and when they release to book stores.
I think they can be ordered through bookstores, though few would have them onhand. But it’s tricky. 🙂
Charlene, you can never say now that you haven’t been warned.
There’s a scene in Buffalo Gal where Wolf Running Shield, the expert buffalo wrangler on the ranch, has a hard talk with two little kids who want to go pet the buffalo.
Very funny, I think, the extent he goes to trying to terrify these absolutely fearless little boys. The more awful he makes his story, the more the boys love it and want to go ride the buffalo. Only now they want their dad to come along. “Dad will protect us.”
Sounds Cute, Mary!!
How exciting, Mary! Sounds like a fabulous book with a great premise–love that title. Congratulations on the release!!
I spent a week in Yellowstone National Park and had a few close encounters with some wild bison–hair-raising to say the least!! They look like lumbering clods of fur, but they can sure get up and go—I kept my eyes on the nearest tree just in case I had to do some fast climin’ 😉
Thanks for blogging today!
Close encounters? Stacey…be careful.
I need to spend more time out in nature. My nature research is usually done sitting behind my computer, googling stuff.
The park that includes Lake Houston has a display
area that houses 3 or 4 buffalo. They appear to
be fairly young as they don’t seem to weigh any
where near 2,000 pounds. I, for one, am not going
to get near enough to find out! My couple of
sightings of the group have been from the car on
the road that wends through the park. That’s close
enough for this Grandma!!
Pat Cochran
Well, congrats on the book – regardless of where it’s available, it is an accomplishment!
Wonderful post – no I will not touch a buffalo, or an elk or anything else in the wild.
PamT
This is disturbing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNvTHOrTf_Y&feature=related
Hi Mary! I didn’t know buffalos could be so aggressive. You had better watch out! LOL
Your book sounds really interesting–great cover, too! I’m amazed how prolific you are!
Animals seem to smell my fear. I’ve been bucked off a horse (it tried but I hung on) attacked by a rooster and bitten by a donkey.
Now I just stick to little puffy white dogs and small kittens….
Fortunately I don’t live where there are any buffalo – I tend to love all animals and not sure I’d stay away lol.
I heard once that one of the possible reasons the Native People in North America didn’t progress as much as Europe was because they didn’t have good beasts of burden.
They had llamas and alpacas in South America and those areas did progress more.
But in North America the big animals were buffalo and they weren’t tame-able. Unlike Water Buffalo in Europe/Asia/Africa and horses and oxen/cattle. Horses only came very late to North America
Great blog Mary! Bummer that I can’t run right out and buy your book because I can hardly wait to read what you did with all your research. Remember I can tell you about a buffalo stampede first hand!
Mary, Just had to return to tell you of my close encounters with moose. Camping in the mountaains in Colorado a moose walked through camp. I was trying to get closer for a picture while my friend was trying to get me into the pickup to be out of danger. Moose can be dangerous when they turn on you but I really can’t say that I was afraid.
Another time our son was laying next to a long log next to a campfire when a moose decided to walk along the other side of the log. The moose did not even know that Eric was there but Eric could have reached out and touched his legs.
I see you are interested in touching an Elk. I know where you could? A Christian friend of mine I met on the internet lives in Alaska and she has Elk come right up into her yard. She doesn’t like to let her dog out at night because of the Elk in the yard. So thought I would tell you.
God Bless.
Wow, I am so so so so so so so far from Alaska. But other than that, it’s a really good idea!