Sunset is Coming but the Sunrise We’ll See

I have an announcement to make, but I wanted to tell a story first. : )

Back when I was a young mother I read a book and in it the author mentioned how much she loved the color red, and how she’d decided whenever she saw a redbird, she would stop what she was doing and thank God for loving her. The redbird came to represent God’s great love, and she told several stories about how redbirds had shown up at different times in her life when she was down and really needed a reminder of God’s love.

Well, I don’t see many redbirds. We have cardinals, in the winter especially, but I didn’t want to go all spring, summer and fall without a reminder of God’s love, and without being reminded to thank Him for it.
So, I choose sunsets as my visual reminder of God’s love and of His care and protection for me. Sunsets are pretty much a daily occurrence, lol, right?
Anyway, through the years sunsets have reminded me of God’s guidance and care. Last year I had something personal happen to me. I wish I could give details, because I know a lot of you would relate, but I don’t want to talk about the person who hurt me, but it was painful and hard. I knew I needed to forgive, but I wasn’t sure what direction I needed to go after I did that. I knew which way I wanted to go. But I prayed a lot that I would not do what I wanted, but would willingly do whatever God wanted me to do.
Well, it seemed like God wasn’t saying much to me, so, although I forgave the person who hurt me, I was taking steps to go in the direction I wanted. I spent months making plans and lining things up. Just as I was ready to do some things that would be impossible to undo, God made it clear that my way was not His way.
I was pretty bummed about that, to say the least, but the leading from the Lord was unmistakable, and I moved to undo everything I had done, and submit to God’s direction.
I can’t say I was happy about it. In fact, I was rather depressed and felt like God was asking more of me than a person should have to give. After all, I wanted to be happy, right?
Anyway, I was out on the four-wheeler in Virginia one evening, checking the cows, feeling pretty down and forlorn and dejected and wishing that God’s way wasn’t so hard and that He didn’t require so much, when I looked over toward the western sky and saw the entire thing had just exploded in brilliant and beautiful color. It was by far the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen in my life, and it made me stop the four-wheeler completely and just stare at the sky. Of course, I remembered about how the sunset has always been a sign to me of God’s love and provision, of how He uses it to show me that He loves me and cares for me, even when, or maybe especially when, things aren’t going the way I want them to, when I feel lost and sad and alone and depressed.
And He had pulled out ALL the stops this time, painting the entire sky with a depth and richness of color I’d never seen before, like He wanted to make sure I knew I was loved. Of course, I felt that love the whole way to my soul and it filled every part of me. It’s the only time in my life where God’s love felt like a tangible thing that I could actually touch.
So, yeah, sunsets are special to me.
My announcement is that I am leaving the Petticoats and Pistols group. Leaving P&P was not an easy decision, or one I wanted to make, so when Pam said that my last post would be a “riding off into the sunset” post, I had to smile – that was God saying He loved me again, and that this was the exact right thing for me to do, even though I love and admire my fellow fillies and will really, really miss being a part of their loving, supportive, family-like group. They really are the best, and I can’t say enough good things about them.
Still, this road is the right one for me, and I have to ride it, even when my hooves are dragging and I’m looking back sadly and with longing at my filly sister and the readers who have come to mean so much to me. I suppose I need to turn around and keep my eyes on the sunset and remember that God loves me and His way is the way to true happiness and blessing.
This reminds me of a Stamps-Baxter song in one of my hymn books “Sunset is Coming But the Sunrise We’ll See.” It’s basically a song saying that this is not good-bye, but an “I’ll see you later.” Even though I’m riding off into the sunset, it’s not a good-bye for us, but an “I’ll see you later.”
In the meantime when you see the sunset, you can think of me if you like, but I’d rather you smile and remember how much God loves you. That’s what I’ll be doing.
Thanks so much for the time you’ve spent with me over the years, and today especially.
Hugs to all of you who have been so very wonderful to me, and here’s wishing you lots of beautiful sunsets. Remember – the sunrise is coming!
Love,
Jessie

Sweet and Happy Autumn

It’s fall!

Well, not quite, but our fall calving season started early on the farm, because we put embryos in last November, and they started dropping mid-August.
I love calving season. I go out every morning on the four-wheeler and look for new babies hiding in the grass, standing on new, wobbly legs or trotting beside their moms, keeping a leery eye on the noisy machine that is interrupting their first breakfast!
I will never tire of watching a new little one enter the world.
Last week I got to see Cookie, a cow who was born on our farm in PA and who came down to Virginia as a nursing calf and who now has had two calves of her own for us, birth this year’s offering – a sweet little heifer. It was a bittersweet joy because earlier that day Cookie’s mom, #3, had a still birth.
I was able to grab a pic of Cookie and her newborn – so new she hadn’t even stood up for the first time – with #3 in the background. She’d been over to check things out, sniff Cookie and give her a little encouragement, before she went back to grazing, nearby, just in case her help was needed.
It wasn’t. Cookie’s baby slipped into this world pretty easily and under one of the most stunning sunsets in recent memory.
I usually think of spring as a time of new birth, but fall is when cooler temps kill off the flies and other insects that have plagued us all summer, giving us a welcome reprieve from their annoyance. (Just as an aside, my husband has a real issue with chiggers. His legs are covered with bites, and he even has them on his stomach and arms. He wears boots, socks, and pants everywhere. While I run around in flip flops, knee-length skirts and sleeveless shirts and they don’t bother me at all. I guess I just don’t taste very good. : )
Fall mornings just smell fresh and clean and pure, like the air had been run through a purifier all night long.
This time of year, I think about picking apples and long to go to an orchard and see the dark green leaves, the red apples and the blue, blue sky. I worked on an orchard with my kids when they were young, taking my youngest child in a pack-n-play and picking bushels of apples with my older kids. We’d get paid and go home, I’d get some buttermilk and we’d sit on the back porch and read poetry as we rested from our labors, enjoying the play of words and the rhythm of the stories in verse. Mom might show up with an apple pie – her specialty – and the boys would gather around Nana and brag about how many bushels of apples they picked. Beautiful memories of by-gone days that were so much fun.
The days are getting shorter, and I have my twinkle lights out, candles lit and my blankets ready to snuggle in. Fall evenings with the soft lights burning are the best times to write, to create the stories in my head and breathe life into them, sweet and gentle, in the safe warmth of our resting home. Spring and summer are so busy and winter can be harsh, but fall is the perfect time for stories to come to life.
Sometimes we play games in the evenings as well, and sometimes we take drives, watching the leaves as they blow across the road and we explore remote areas we see in the other seasons, but don’t have time to travel down.
Whatever season we’re in is always my favorite. But I definitely look forward to autumn! What do you do this time of year?

Home Sweet Home

For a lot of years, I didn’t go anywhere. With five kids and homeschooling, a ton of dogs and other animals to care for, a husband who was seldom home and loads of gardening and farm work to do and not much money, we didn’t even take vacations.

But I love seeing new places and traveling, so now that the kids are older, I was able to go to three different writing things this year, flying out to each of them.
This past weekend I was in south Texas visiting a writing friend, Alexa Verde. I love Texas – big and hot and so much history. I love the other places I was at this year – Minnesota and Lake Superior and South Dakota, the Black Hills and the hardy people who live there. But there is something so sweet about pulling into my driveway, seeing the pasture we cleared and planted and fenced, seeing the cows under the shadow of the Blue Ridge and driving under the sugar maples that line the last one hundred yards of our drive and pulling into our house.
Sunday night when I got home, my family had waited up for me, and in the darkness, figures materialized as I parked. My daughter was hugging me before I even got out of my car and my dog was trying to climb into my lap (she’s a 60 pound German Shepherd, but she thinks she’s my lap dog). A warm, late summer breeze blew softly, stirring the leaves in the apple tree, and a half moon shone, giving the mountains in the distance just an outline of the grandeur I knew was there.
There’s something about the mountains that I love and that feels like home, even though these mountains are different than the ones I grew up in up in PA. I suppose they’re like sentinels, in a very real way, because they interrupt the air currents and keep us safe from tornadoes. I love thunderstorms and do not fear them, mostly because I know the mountains literally have my back.
When I drive to PA, I cross the Potomac River and drive a few miles through Maryland before I hit the PA line. Those mountains are the familiar bench shape, they look older, but smaller. Nestled on this side of Town Hill Mountain, is the little town of Amaranth. Just a post office and one or two houses, plus a church, of course. (What is a town without a church?)
It’s about two hours from where I grew up in PA and my Aunt Ruth used to live there. I visited her farm for a week or so each summer before I was old enough to work full time on the farm at home. It’s where I learned what an electric fence was. (And if you know, you know, right? ) It’s where I first smelled that clean, slightly farm scent of dozens of fresh eggs, just laid. (They owned a chicken house, such as it was back then, along with their beef cattle and hogs.)
We baked peach cobbler, peeled a million apples (and threw the peels to the hogs), stepped on thistles, learned to quilt and play cut-throat games of checkers. My aunt was paralyzed from the chest down, but I never heard her complain. She was not depressed and she didn’t mope. She got up every morning and worked just as hard as anyone I knew, and hard work was a given in my family. I learned a lot from her, and I loved my time on her farm, but I’d sit at the window in the spare room after everyone else had gone to bed and watch the headlights on I70 go up Town Hill and over the other side and wish I was home, because as much fun as I was having, home was always where I wanted to be.
I guess to me, home is where people love you. Where they run out to your car and hug you before you can get out of it, even if you were only gone three days. Where you laugh and cry and work together. Where the mountains remind you that God is your strength and help, where you sing and play instruments and the halls ring with God’s music and praise to him. Where you step outside, and yeah, there’s a lot of work to do, but many hands make light work and home is where the work is light and there’s good food, fun and fellowship with people who love you, and who like you, too. Because there’s a difference, right?
But, maybe the older I get, the more real the idea has become to me that this world is not my home. Aunt Ruth isn’t here anymore, nor any of her sisters, my beloved aunts, whom I used to visit as well. My mom resides in Heaven and it feels like more and more of the people who love me have moved there. Maybe that’s one of the lessons of life, since, I love my earthly home, but I am more and more eager to get to my Heavenly one.
Home is one of my favorite things. What makes your home feel like home to you?

All about North Dakota!

Hey, everyone!

Most of you all know I write a lot of books that are set in North Dakota. While I was researching my first book, I fell in love with that state and have admired the people and loved the wide-open spaces and rugged climate ever since.

I get a lot of mail asking if I live in North Dakota – even from North Dakotans! It usually surprises people when they find out I’ve never even visited. I really, really want to, though. Some day. Not this year, though.

I know I usually include a farm story on my blog, and I do have some great stories I want to share, but I just released the thirteenth book in my Flyboys of Sweet Water, North Dakota series and today I thought it would be fun to list some cool facts about North Dakota.

  1. North Dakota is home to the Enchanted Highway, which is a collection of the world’s largest scrap metal sculptures. This unique highway is 32 miles long and is definitely worth experiencing. It’s great for all ages, and kids especially love it.
  2. The state capitol is the tallest building in North Dakota
  3. North Dakota is the least-visited state in the US
  4. It’s illegal to go dancing in Fargo while wearing a hat.
  5. North Dakota has the least amount of forest land of any state
  6. The world’s largest buffalo monument is in North Dakota
  7. Milk is the official drink of North Dakota
  8. The largest metal sculpture in the world is in North Dakota
  9. The official dance of North Dakota is the Square Dance
  10. North Dakota produces more honey than any other state
  11. The geographical center of North America is in North Dakota
  12. There are 43 abandoned towns in North Dakota
  13. Over thirty-five thousand men from North Dakota fought in World War I
  14. Most of the pasta in America is made from North Dakota durum wheat.
  15. North Dakota grows more sunflowers than any other state.
  16. Fargo, North Dakota hosted the world’s largest pancake feed in 2008. The town served 34,818 pancakes.
  17. North Dakota took Hawaii’s long reigning title as the happiest state in 2014.
  18. North Dakota has consistently kept at one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country for multiple years now and continues to do so.
  19. The coldest temperature ever recorded in North Dakota is colder than the record low temperature in Nepal – even on Mt. Everest.
  20. There are more registered vehicles in the state than there are residents.
  21. There are also about three times more cows in the state than humans.
  22. English didn’t become the official language of North Dakota until 1987.

How many of those surprised you?

Just for fun, tell me something interesting or unusual or little known about the state/country you live in.

Thanks so much for spending time with me today!

The Pink Pistol Sisterhood Finale!

 

Usually I share a farm story here in my monthly blog, and I have a bunch of those I’d love to tell, but my Pink Pistol Sisterhood book, Pistol Perfect, is releasing in just FOUR days (on 7/10). I’m so excited about it and I wanted to share a little about it with you!

This is book #1 in my first Sweet Water series – the book that started it all!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with my books, I write a lot of books set in North Dakota. Originally I thought about setting my books there because there just don’t seem to be too many cowboy romances that take place there. But, the more I researched North Dakota, the land, the people, the history, the weather, the weather, the WEATHER, lol, the more I just absolutely fell in love with it.

That’s kinda funny since I’ve never been there. Truly.

I suppose when you love something (or someone, for that matter) you want to find out all you can about it, right? I guess I did that with North Dakota. I love talking to natives, reading books written by people who have lived there and following YouTube and TikTok channels of folks who make their home in that state.

This is book #1 in my second Sweet Water series. My daughter, Julia Gussman, made this cover and it’s my all-time favorite cover ever.

I created the fictional town of Sweet Water, North Dakota (not to be confused with the REAL town of Sweetwater, ND) and populated it with lots of fun and quirky characters, including The Piece Makers, who are matchmakers disguised as a quilting group, lots of cowboys with integrity and character, big families who work and play together, horses (of course!), cows, including Sweet Water’s own matchmaking Highland steer and some special needs pets.

There are always festivals going on, plus competitions, farm work, and farm fun! I suppose Sweet Water’s theme could be “When you’re here, you’re family!”

This is book #1 in my third Sweet Water, North Dakota series. That last book in this 13 book series will release July 21st.

There’s a diner, of course, which is famous for its menu item “Marry Me Chicken.” (I can’t take credit for that. My narrator, the incredible Jay Dyess, came up with that, since he comes up with all the menu items in Sweet Water. He also makes them on his YouTube channel, and you can find the instructions for the Sweet Water diner’s Marry Me Chicken here: https://youtu.be/OGxJvl2x-IY)

It’s in this world that my book, Pistol Perfect is set. Pistol Perfect is a stand-alone book, starring Mable LeFrak, whose sister, Gladys got her own happily ever after in one of my Sweet Water series. Mable wasn’t ready for hers then, because she wanted to become a veterinarian and that takes some time. But she had a man of character who watched her grow up and waited for her to fulfill her dreams, and as Pistol Perfect opens, he’s ready to step in and sweep her off her feet with a little help from Billy, the match-making steer, and from the Pink Pistol.

This is the eleventh and final book in the Pink Pistol Sisterhood series. I’ve had so much fun talking and dreaming about this series with the other Petticoats and Pistols authors and I can’t believe that not only is my book almost here, the series is almost over! Have any of you read all ten of the books that are already out? I’d love to hear what you thought or which ones you’ve read in the comments!

I’m super excited to send my contribution to the series out in the world and introduce you all to my favorite fictional town, Sweet Water, North Dakota!

I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I need advice!

Hello Sweet Readers!

It’s June! Can you believe it?
Now, I know, normally I tell a story for my monthly blog post. But I thought this month I’d do something a little different. I’m gonna give you a bit of an update on me and I’m going to ask for your help. Ready?
This past January I started releasing my Flyboys series which is set on Sweet Briar Ranch near Sweet Water, North Dakota. It was the third series I’d written that is set in Sweet Water – I love it there, can you tell? : )
This month I will release the twelfth and final – almost – book in the series. I say “almost” because I’m going to write a bonus book that will only be available on Say with Jay. In case you don’t know, Say with Jay is the YouTube channel of my lifetime narrator, Jay Dyess. He has over seventy of my books performed and produced in audio and available for free for your listening pleasure! You can see them by series here: https://www.youtube.com/@SaywithJay
It’s a little sad for me to be wrapping things up in Sweet Water, since, for the rest of the year I’m going to be writing fun and sunny beach romances set in the lakeside town of Strawberry Sands, Michigan. I’m sure I’ll be heading back to Sweet Water sometime, next year, most likely.
In the meantime, the tenth book, Just a Cowboy’s Love Song releases tomorrow. The eleventh book, Just a Cowboy’s Lifetime Love releases in two weeks and two weeks after that, on June 30th, book 12, Just a Cowboy’s Dream Come True will release. Whew! I told you I had some news! : )
This series has been getting awesome reviews and I’d love for you to check it out.
In other news….
I’ll be joining many of the other fillies in Deadwood, South Dakota for Wild Bill Days and I’ll be at The Lodge on June 17th with a table filled with books. One of those books will be my contribution to the Pink Pistol Sisterhood series, Pistol Perfect. I’d love to see you and sign a copy for you, so if you’ll be in the area, please be sure to stop by and say hi!
Now, I grew up in Pennsylvania, but my family took a lot of driving vacations and I’ve been all over the US, including South Dakota where we saw the badlands and stopped at Mount Rushmore. But, to my knowledge, I’ve never been to Deadwood. I’ve also never been to a book signing, either as an attendee or as a signer.
Have you? If you have, or even if you haven’t, I would LOVE for you to give me your best advice! What do you expect from an author? What should I wear? What books should I bring? How many pounds of M&Ms will it take for me to make it through? I’m kinda kidding about that. Mostly.
Please comment below and tell me what I should expect. : )
Thanks so much for spending time with me today!

We save one, we lose one

Today I wanted to share a story I wrote early last spring:

I talked last week about how slippery it has been in our pasture—especially with a skift of snow on top of a thin layer of ice on top of some wet mud.

We got a lot of rain last Monday night, so our creek was swollen, the pastures were saturated, and it was too muddy and slick for even Watson to drive through, so we walked out to check the cows.

We have around twenty cows that should freshen in the next six weeks or so, so we’re keeping a pretty close eye on them.

Tuesday morning, Watson fed the cows, then he came back to the house and got me.

Now, I talked some about Watson last week. He’s a machinery guy. He loves tractors and equipment and anything with a motor and wheels. He knows them, understands them, and is really intuitive at driving and fixing them.

I’m kinda the cow person.

Watson loves his cows. I mean, really, he loves them, but when it comes to actually knowing about them, that’s really me.

Anyway, it was too wet and muddy to drive, so we had to walk. I think that’s why he wanted me, but also in case we had a cow with a calf. I have a better knack for knowing what to do in a pinch, if that makes sense.

We have about ten or so cows who were bred to a Hereford bull who are going to freshen in the next few weeks—four of them already have. These cows will have black-bodied calves with white faces.

Our other cows who are going to freshen will have solid black calves. They’ve been bred to our Jesse James/Penn State bull, and these calves are going to be really nice beef.

So, as Watson and the two little girls and I were walking through the herd while they were eating the hay on the ground, we’re looking at the cows we know are going to calve and we’re counting the little white-faced calves. Watson and I think there should be four, one of our girls is insisting there should be five.

Ha.

So, we’re trying to figure that out, and we’ve counted three so far and we’re missing the solid black heifer that had been born the day before and was a little sluggish. We thought she’d eaten, but I like to keep an eye on them for a couple of days and make sure they can find their lunch okay. Also, we’d gotten a lot of rain overnight. We wanted to lay eyes on her and make sure she was good.

Well, we couldn’t find her—she wasn’t with the herd, and her mama, 116A, was down by the creek bawling.

Also, as we continued to head toward the creek, we realized there was another cow—122—who was down there bawling, too, and who hadn’t had her calf when we’d checked them Monday night.

So, we have two cows down by the creek—116A has a calf we can’t find, and 122 MUST have a calf, although we haven’t seen it yet. Cows on grass and hay aren’t really like women. I know I need to be careful here, because you can’t always tell when a lady has had a baby, but…let me say it like this: grass-fed cows have hay bellies, while grain-fed cows are usually sleeker with less of a barrel look.

And…moving RIGHT along, LOL, Watson and the girls and I reach the creek on the bottom corner of the pasture, and we start walking up along it, looking. It’s cold, and there are patches of snow on the ground, but the ground isn’t frozen and mud sucks at our feet with every step.

The girls get ahead of us (because, kids, right? LOL), and Watson and I are talking strategy and where we’d last seen 116A and her little girl and why we’d decided she’d eaten and where we think she might be.

So, the girls get about halfway across the pasture with Watson and I about twenty yards behind them.

They yell back, “We found one!” and Watson and I get to the bend in the creek and see the little heifer we were worried about, lying down at the edge of the creek at the bottom of a six-foot drop-off.

Now, I mentioned we’d gotten a lot of rain the night before. The creek is up—although not like it’s been in the past—it’s muddy and deep, but it wouldn’t be over my head and the current wouldn’t sweep me away. But it would be strong enough to knock a newborn calf down. Or, more likely, if the calf were to fall, the current would be strong enough to keep it from getting back up, since newborns have trouble balancing anyway.

The girls are ahead of us, and they go about fifteen yards up the creek to where the bank slopes down. We just need the heifer to get up and walk those fifteen yards to get out of the creek.

Well, the girls haven’t chased cows much, and I guess they really don’t realize how precarious the situation is.

They run to the slope, and my youngest plows into the water, splashing across (and realizing it’s a little deeper than she was expecting—over her boots).

The other girl is a little older, and she goes more slowly, which seems wise, but maybe wasn’t, because the mud is pretty deep there, and she gets both of her boots stuck in the mud.

The girls have made a lot of noise (they’re girls—there is laughing and giggling and squealing as they get wet and stuck), and the calf has gotten up and started running—in the exact wrong direction—and the creek goes from about 1-1/2 feet deep to about 3 feet deep.

It trips.

Its head goes under the water.

I race toward the bank, and I do something I never do—I yell at the girls.

I yell at my youngest to turn and face the bank (a cow will always choose to avoid a face, but they will run toward a back. I don’t know why, but this is a truth), and I yell at my other daughter to get out of there, because the calf isn’t going to run in that direction while she’s standing at the only spot where it can get out.

I didn’t realize that both of her feet are stuck, and in fact, as I look, I realize that she’s lost a boot and has one stocking foot in the freezing cold water of the creek while she’s trying to pull her other foot out, which is still stuck in the mud.

She yells, “I’ve lost a boot, and my other foot is stuck!”

I yell back (at the same time the calf has gotten its head out of the water and I’m reaching down the six-foot bank—I REALLY don’t want to go in the water—and waving my hand in front of its face, and I’ve gotten it partially turned, but it doesn’t want to move forward because my daughter is RIGHT where it needs to go), “Forget about your boot and get out of there!”

The water is icy—my daughter yanked her second foot out of her stuck boot and is now in two stocking feet struggling through the knee-deep mud to get out of the way—the calf is shivering and exhausted, and I’m shaking because while I didn’t run that far—only thirty yards or so—the mud was sucking at my feet the whole time and my legs feel like Jello, partly because I’m not used to running with suction cups on the bottoms of my feet and partly because my brain has already gone to pneumonia—in the calf and the girl—and I don’t want to watch this baby drown right in front of me.

I’m on my hands and knees on the bank waving my hands trying to get the calf to turn around. As my daughter leaves her boots behind and scrambles up the slope, she scares the calf, and it turns and starts back toward the deep water.

My youngest daughter scooted along the edge of the bank—with her back toward the calf—until she was well behind it, and she splashes across the creek toward the calf as Watson hands me a long stick.

Between us, we get the calf moving, and we pass the stuck boots as the calf climbs tremulously out of the bank and is reunited with her mother.

I go back and slide down the slope, grabbing first one boot, then the other, and pull them out of the mud. I’ve done that multiple times—lost my boots in mud. I’ve actually completely lost a pair of sneakers—like lost, lost, where I couldn’t find them. [And I’m saying mud, but where there are cows… : ) ]

I help my daughter get her boots back on, apologize to both of them for yelling at them—they said I could do it once every decade or so, LOL—and I send them up to the house to get out of their wet clothes and get dry, asking them to go by way of the deep gully and make sure there aren’t any calves in it, because, while we’ve gotten 116A and her calf reunited, 122 is bawling like her heart is broken, and we haven’t seen any sign of hers yet.

Watson and I follow the creek up to the other end of the pasture—he crosses it, and even in this normally shallow spot, the water is over the tops of his boots—and we walk both banks the entire way back down the pasture, checking the woods on the other side, in case it crossed the creek and got through the fence, and looking at the few spots along the creek where it might have gotten tangled up in tree roots.

Okay, I’m going to be blunt now and admit I’m also looking for any sign of black hair waving in the water. Our calves might be 60-80 pounds when they’re born, give or take, but newborns don’t have great balance, and it doesn’t take much—a little bit of current—to knock them down.

I know, if a calf fell in the creek the way it was up from all the rain, it would get carried downstream and drown on its way down. The body would be hung up on a rock or a root or a bunch of debris. Even though it was still muddy, I could tell the creek had gone down some from its overnight high, and I figured if the calf was born even a few hours before—or more—the current and depth would have been worse.

122 is still standing at the same spot—right beside the creek, almost in the middle of the pasture—bawling while Watson and I slowly walk the entire length of the pasture.

When I reach the fence, I climb through it into the next pasture. The creek flows the whole way around the bottom of that pasture and on through another one before it empties into the river. Watson says, “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to follow the creek on down.”

He kind of looks at me. I say, “Did you check the woods real good? The calf will be able to get through the fence while the mom can’t. It could be up there holed up in the woods.”

“If it’s up there, we’ll never find it.”

“Well, we have to, because she obviously has no idea where it is.”

He looks at me again, and then he looks down the creek where I’m going. It’s cold out, but I’m hot. I have sweat running down my back, which should make me shiver, but while I feel the trickle along my skin, I’m not cold.

I don’t have a good feeling—that upset stomach feeling that your heart gets when you know things just aren’t going to turn out the way you want.

Watson knows if I go down the creek and find the calf, it’s just going to be a body.

Watson doesn’t give up much better than I do.

He grits his jaw and looks back the way he just came. Then he calls over the creek, “I’m going to go back up through and just focus on the woods. It’s gotta be there somewhere.”

We both know it doesn’t have to be there.

It could be downstream.

I jerk my chin, then start slowly through the next pasture, following the creek, looking hard at any place along the edge where a calf might have pulled itself out and be lying there shivering.

I’m also looking at the water, watching for a wave of black fur. Or the graceful lift of a limp little tail moving up and down with the current.

I’ve made it a slow thirty yards—the creek deepens, and I’m really searching the water for a black shadow, when I’m scanning up the creek and I see Watson walking toward me.

I think he knows too. He looks all tough, but honestly, he’s softer than I am about this kind of thing.

He changed his mind, obviously, about going back up, and I don’t ask why, but I guess it’s because he doesn’t want me to find the body by myself.

We slowly walk downstream, across the creek from each other, him on one side, me on the other, going slow through this deeper part.

Watson swears.

My eyes fly to his face, judge the trajectory of his gaze, and go back to the water while my heart falls.

I’m still searching.

“It’s right there,” Watson says, and I see the fur, lifted by the current, before it falls again. The body is almost completely submerged.

Watson climbs down the bank, fishes in the water for a hoof, and drags a big, beautiful, dead bull calf out of the muddy water.

Up the creek, in the other pasture, 122’s bawling cry cuts through the air again, and as I stand there looking at her baby, I know she’ll be bawling all day today and all night and all day tomorrow, standing up there by the creek and hoping her baby comes back.

Of course, he’s not going to.

Now, I don’t know what everyone else thinks when something like this happens. Maybe they don’t. It’s probably easier that way. But I’m looking at the calf and I’m running through my mind, trying to figure out what we could have done to have saved him.

“What a waste,” Watson says. 122 bawls again. “She raised one of our best-looking steers last year.”

It’s pretty heartbreaking to hear her cry and to stand there looking at her baby and knowing her distress is in vain, but I’m not going to cry, and I’m not going to get angry (at what???), although I kind of feel like I want to do either or both.

“Man, this reeks,” Watson says, frustrated.

I agree, and I can hardly stand to hear 122. But I say, “I know the upper pasture is smaller and it’s going to be a muddy mess, but I think we should move the whole herd up there, close the gate, and keep them there. That way they only have access to about fifteen yards of the creek, and it’s all shallow.”

Watson is probably having just as hard a time as I am listening to 122. “I’ll feed them up there tonight, and we’ll shut the gate while they’re eating.”

We walk up and get the Gator—this pasture isn’t as muddy as the other—and we go down and drive across the creek, stopping where the calf is over the bank.

Watson goes down and grabs a leg; I stay up and pull Watson’s other hand as we drag it up the bank and over to the Gator.

He takes the front legs and I take the back, and we swing him up. He’s heavy, and I can barely get my end up. We stand there and look at him—a nice, beefy bull calf and a hard loss, from a business perspective and from a heart perspective.

Finally, Watson says, “I guess if it were all peaches and cream, everyone would be doing it.” He pushes away from the Gator and moves to the door. “Just gotta take the hit and move on. It stinks, though.”

Which, of course, reminded me of a verse from the Bible which also reminded me of something God’s nudged me about more than once over the years—that struggle and hardship and loss make us stronger, and they also make us appreciate our success more, as well as help us to put things that aren’t quite as important into better perspective.

It’s a lesson I need over and over, because any time things get hard, it’s always tempting to quit, to complain, and to pray that God gets me out of this or at least fixes it for me.

It happens with our kids, too, right? We want to fix everything for them. We hate seeing them suffer. We want to pad the playground and keep anything bad from ever happening to them. But just as God allows the rain to fall in our lives, we’re doing our kids a disservice if we protect them from the rain in theirs.

It’s funny because that night, Julia had an issue she was talking to me about, and as she was leaving my room, she said, “I love talking to you because you always make me realize that my problems aren’t as bad as I think they are. You’re just so chill.”

Ha. That was kinda funny to me since I had just yelled at the other girls that day, but that really is another good thing that comes from walking through pain and loss. We get to share the (very small bit of) wisdom we’ve learned with others. It’s a good feeling.

That’s actually just the tip of the iceberg of the week that we had last week, but again, the pain and the loss and the suffering is hard, but it’s always for our good.

Thanks so much for spending time with me this week!

Dryer Screens and Wrecked Fences

Happy April! It’s so nice to be here with you again today.

Now, I know some of you have figured out that a lot of the things in my books are based on my real-life experiences on the farm. It’s not just about the adventures we have, but it’s also about relationships and the care of them that I love including in my stories.

The real-life story I wanted to tell you today has a little of both – adventure and the care and handling of relationships. : )

It’s been wet here in Virginia, and the two connected pastures where our cows are rather muddy. They’re also very steep—too steep to plant—which is why they’re pasture.

Last Thursday as it started to snow, Watson drove out to check the cows. I rode along. I think he likes me to go, that way he has someone to try to scare while he’s driving. (Any of you have husbands like that?)

The temps were right around freezing, so there was mud, then a little bit of ice on the top of the mud. It wasn’t frozen solid, just had a slippery crust on it. Then, with the snow coming down, there was a dusting of even more slippery snow on top of the slippery ice on top of the slippery mud.

Did I mention it was slippery?

I’m going to complain about my husband a bit, so I think I’d better start out by admitting that I am not a good driver. I mean, I am a very courteous driver who absolutely never gets angry while driving. I just don’t. (No matter what some other driver does to me, I know I have done much worse—on accident—to someone else. How can I get upset at anyone?)

I know I’m a bad driver, though, because I have totaled two cars.

Enough about me. Let me tell you about my husband. : )

We drive into the pasture and pretty much slide almost to the bottom. By the way, at the bottom of the pasture is the creek. A fence separates the upper pasture from the lower one.

So, we have the Gator in four-wheel drive, and we drive along the creek, checking the other bank for mama cows who want a little privacy to have their babies.

There’s nothing there on Thursday, but because of the snow falling, it’s a really good day for a cow to freshen, so we go around the fence. Watson tells me to “hang on” while he goes through the bottom of the gully as fast as he can to try to get a run to make it up the other side of the hill.

It was a good idea.

We make it halfway up.

There’s a gully on our left side (it deepens fast and is a favorite spot for new mamas to have their babies), and the fence is behind us. We’re stopped, but the wet mud, ice, and snow has made it so if we start backward, then turn sideways, we’ll slid downhill.

Watson kind of excels in situations like this.

We’re sitting on the hill in the Gator, I’ve got a hold of the door handle and the handle (that was so thoughtfully provided) on the dash, and Watson looks at me and says, “Now what?”

You know how when you’re in a situation like that and your brain is going a hundred miles an hour and you have all these thoughts? Well, one of my thoughts was that I should have put my seatbelt on.

The Gator actually does have seatbelts, but while I wear it religiously in my car (and you know who doesn’t, right?), we never wear them around the farm because you’re getting in and out all the time, to check cows and open gates and roll bales out, etc. It would be a real pain in the tush to put a belt on and off.

I’m honestly not even sure they work, since no one has ever actually worn one.

Anyway, I’m sitting there thinking this would be a good time to test the seatbelt out, but while my brain is coming up with all these really good thoughts, I can’t get my hands to work. (It might have something to do with there not being a crowbar in the cab of the Gator to pry my fingers off the handles.)

Maybe I’m the only one who has this problem, but my husband never wants my advice before we get into trouble. It’s always when we’re sitting in the middle of a mess that he suddenly remembers that I might have something to add to the conversation.

So, he’s waiting on me to answer him. Ha.

So I say, “I’m pretty sure we’re going to hit the fence.”

He looks over his shoulder, behind us. The fence is about thirty yards straight down the slippery hill. “Yeah.”

“It’s old, and we’re going to flatten it.”

He doesn’t need to look this time. Instead, he looks at me and gives me that grin that says he knows he should be in deep trouble, but he’s really looking forward to this. His eyes kind of sparkle as he says, “Yeah.”

I’m not going to waste my energy getting upset. There’s no point. So I say, “But that fence needs to be replaced anyway, so really, someone needs to take it out. Why not us?”

“Good point,” he says, just before he releases the brake, yanks the wheel to the left, and guns the gas.

Watson’s goal is (apparently) to slide around parallel to the fence with enough momentum to run along the edge of it as we slide downhill, hitting the gully at the lowest point, just above the corner fence post, and slipping around the fence.

We almost make it.

We smack the fence with the hard plastic part of my door. To my great surprise, the fence holds, we slide around, and when we finally stop about three centimeters from the edge of the creek, I wind my window down and stick my head out, noting that there isn’t even a scratch on the Gator.

Our bull (all two thousand plus pounds of him) is in the creek, slightly disturbed at our untimely and rather rude arrival.

I don’t know how many of you have ever looked a bull in the eye before, but he’s got his head up and is staring right at us. I’m sorry, I don’t mean this to be rude, but bulls just do not look smart.

Anyway, Watson and I are staring at him, and I say, “I’m pretty sure in our marriage contract it says that if we get stuck in mud, it’s your job to get out and push.”

I’m also pretty sure that Watson never read our marriage contract. Actually, I know he didn’t, since there’s no such thing, but I’ve been using this line for years and he’s never caught on. Most recently, I’ve been using it about the dryer, since for the last ten months, our dryer hose has been plugged somewhere and our dryer hasn’t been getting the clothes dry.

This annoys me, since I’m the one who runs the dryer. I’ve asked him to fix it (since it states in our marriage contract that anything that needs to be fixed under the house is his job), but he insists that there’s no problem with the dryer, I’m just not smart enough to run it.

Hmm.

So, I was kind of patient about it for a while, but lately I’ve been folding his clothes wet and putting them in the closet like that. It annoys him, so then both of us are annoyed, which seems fair to me.

Last week, he was getting ready to leave for Pennsylvania, realized the clothes in the closet were wet, took them all back down to the dryer, and put them back in.

After he left, I realized he’d taken them out but hadn’t folded them or taken them back up or put them away. So…I’m annoyed again, and I carry the basket up (which I’ve already done once—I’ve also already folded the clothes, and I’ve already put them away!) So…I’d really like to say that I did it all again with a smile, but…I didn’t. Instead, I open up the closet and…dump my husband’s clothes on the floor before I slam the door shut.

Right. You know how you feel guilty about something even as you’re doing it, but you just can’t stop?

So, anyway, that night, the girls made me watch the movie, I Still Believe. I know it’s been out for a while, but I’ve never seen it. Has anyone who’s seen it watched it without crying? LOL. So, I’m sitting there while a trio of sobs is sounding from the girls, and I’m saying to myself, “I will not cry, I will not cry, I WILL NOT CRY.”

I’m not sure why it is so important that I not cry during movies, but it’s a thing for me. So, I don’t cry, but through the whole movie, God keeps reminding me about the clothes on the closet floor and how I should be grateful for what I have rather than being a brat about what I don’t.

That’s really not what the movie is about, but it’s funny how we see the lesson we need.

So, yeah, the girls go to bed.

I go upstairs and pick up the clothes from the floor of the closet, fold them, and put them away neatly.

Then I get my computer, sit down on the floor, and Google dryer vent hose.

After I’m done with that, the internet is (surprisingly) still working, so I watch a couple YouTube videos on replacing window and door screens. Even though it says quite clearly in our marriage contract that Watson is also responsible for fixing the screens (okay, it doesn’t say that, either), I’m still working on this kindness thing (that I’ve been working on for decades) and why in the world should I be getting annoyed about the dryer and screens when I’m quite capable of fixing them myself [I think : ) ]!

Anyway, I left off with Watson and I staring at the bull.

While Watson is probably never going to fix my dryer or screens, have I mentioned that he is a fantastic driver?

He managed (somehow) to get us out of there, without falling into the creek, without either of us having to push, and Mr. Bull only got a little bit of mud slung on him. I eventually got my fingers pried off the door handles, and eventually (several days later), Watson quit grinning.

Alright, I’m having a huge party in my Facebook Reader Chat this week and I would just love for you all to join me here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/jessiegussman

Thanks so much for spending time with me this week!

Crazy Insurance Claims: A Cow Attacked My Four-Wheeler

 

Okay, so have you ever heard of those drivers who, instead of saying, “I ran into a deer,” they say, “A deer ran into me”?

You kind of laugh about that, right? (Actually, a couple of years ago, my son had a dent in his truck, and when I asked about it, he said, “A tree hit me.” Not kidding. LOL.)

Anyway, I’m joking a little, but I know those things happen, right—where the deer just runs into the side of the car or the tree just happens to fallas you’re driving by. People get killed that way.

So, this past week, Watson was in PA [the best stories start with that phrase, right? ; ) ] along with the little girls, and it was just Julia and me on the farm in Virginia.

I have a picture somewhere on Facebook of Charlene, one of our Akaushi cows who freshened—she had a chunky little bull calf.

Now, I’ve talked about Angus and how protective they are. Our Akaushi are even more so, if that’s possible. They’re really tame and laid-back in the pasture before they calve, but after they drop their calves, they are quite aggressive, if you can get close to them. They also like to hide their calves.

The Akaushi are kind of our pet project, and we’re pretty invested in making sure they’re healthy, so while Watson was gone, he asked me every day how they were.

So, early Friday morning, Julia and I are riding the four-wheeler around checking our herd.

We have a Brown Swiss [my favorite breed of cow : ) ] Hereford cross, Bessie, who has a calf who somehow broke its leg in the pasture. Bessie is an excellent mother—she raises a big, beefy calf every year—and we’ve been trying to baby her little heifer along, hoping her leg will heal and she’ll be okay.

Bessie is just such a great mom, and her calf is growing, gaining weight, but the calf has gotten an infection in her leg that we just haven’t been able to treat. I think we’re going to lose her, and I don’t usually mention the ones that I don’t think are going to make it, just because the world is depressing enough, right?

Anyway, the calf hasn’t been able to get herself up for the last week, and when we do get her up (she’s heavy!), she can’t walk. Also, we’ve drained the infected area (and I could go on here and really gross you out, but some of you read this over breakfast, so I won’t), and the drain is still in, so as you’re handling her, you get pus and gunk (the scientific word) all over you, and it reeks.

It’s not a pleasant job, especially first thing in the morning, but I always take my time and give her as much help as I can, because the little girl just has such a big drive to survive. Some calves just really don’t seem to care, and you put your heart into helping them, and they just don’t put any effort into surviving themselves. But this little girl…she’ll hobble on her two and a half legs (one back leg is broken, and she’s somehow twisted one front leg, so it’s swollen and painful as well and is why she can’t walk) to get to her patient mom to eat.

Julia and I drive by Charlene (whose calf is not with her, so I make a mental note that we’ll have to go look for it later) in order to work on Bessie and her calf. Charlene stops eating and comes running after us.

She follows us to Bessie and hangs around us while we work with her and her calf.

When we’re finally done, we hop on the four-wheeler and talk for a bit about where we think Charlene’s calf might be. A newborn calf is EXTREMELY hard to find in a pasture without its mom. I know that’s hard to believe, but trust me, they curl up, and you just don’t see them.

We decide to check down by the creek at the other end of the pasture. Charlene runs after the four-wheeler the whole way down to the other end.

It’s not there, so we drive back. Charlene follows us.

We stop and talk about what we’re going to do, and Charlene stops and stands right beside the four-wheeler.

I’ve never had a cow do this before, and I’m kind of eyeing her. I’ve seen cows do some pretty crazy things, and I say to Julia, “So, do you think we ought to get off the four-wheeler and let her drive it and we’ll walk?”

It’s what she’s kind of acting like she wants to do.

Anyway, the other end of the pasture kind of narrows down to a small area with some trees on a hill, and navigating in it and turning around can be tricky. I really don’t want to get stuck in that area with a cow who’s trying to get on our ATV with us.

We decide not to go the whole way to the end so we’re not trapped, but we start to motor slowly along the fence, thinking that with the way Charlene is acting, we must be close to her calf. Charlene walks along beside us.

I go a little faster. Charlene comes a little closer—almost touching—and starts to trot.

I glance over, don’t like the look in her eyes, and I let off the gas. Charlene swerves. I stop. Charlene stops right in front of us, the rack on the front of the four-wheeler against her side.

She’s blocking us from going any farther.

Maybe I read too many newspaper articles when I was younger, but at times like this, I always think about what could happen and what headline I would be: “Farmer killed on Four-Wheeler by Fresh Cow.”

“Cow Attacks Farmer on ATV.”

“Farmer’s Daughter Strangles Farmer Because Farmer Won’t Take Hint From Fresh Cow.”

Maybe it’s just me.

So, yeah, Julia and I back up, turn around, and start heading toward the house. Charlene allows us to leave and doesn’t follow us.

Just on a whim, we turn right instead of left and motor along the fence, figuring we might as well look there for the calf, although I doubt it’s there since Charlene has lost interest in us which usually means we’re not close.

Julia sees him before I do, snuggled down in the weeds along the fence, sleeping. Adorable. Charlene is nowhere in sight.

Julia says, “You know, cows have big heads, but their brains must be about the size of a walnut.”

I love cows. I really love cows who protect their babies. (I’m serious about that. I respect that.) Actually cows are my favorite animal. But I do think Julia is right.

What is your favorite animal?

Cowgirls in the Kitchen – Jessie Gussman

 

Hey, Everyone!

 

I’m so excited to get to do this with you all! I spent a lot of years of my life cooking big meals. Every day of the week, anyone on our farm and trucking company property was expected to stop what they were doing at noon time and come on up to the house to have dinner, and yeah, that’s what we called it – dinner.

 

To those of us on the farm, dinner is the big, noon meal, and supper is a lighter, smaller meal you eat, often leftovers from dinner, after the chores are done for the day and you’re inside for the night.

 

At any rate, our big meal was at noon, and I was often responsible for cooking for anywhere from seven to twenty people. We have a big table that stretches out and we can put boards in, and, if we grab our picnic table benches from outside and use my piano bench as well, we can seat twenty people around it comfortably. It makes for a fun time.

 

Honestly, there have been times where I didn’t even know the names of all the people who were sitting at the table with us. We just grab them, sit them down and feed them!

 

Once, my friend who was going through a hard time, was there with us along with her five kids – a daughter and four little blond-haired boys. Real cuties. We also had two men from Chiapas, Mexico eating with us as well, one who had just arrived in the US for the first time.

As we ate, the new fellow spoke to the man sitting next to him in Tojolab’al, the language the native people speak in that Mexican providence. While we understand a little Spanish, we didn’t understand Tojolab’al and we asked the fellow he’d spoken to what was going on, since the man had pointed at the children and had seemed amazed at something.

 

The man we’d asked grinned a little and said in halting English, “He no has seen such white skin. He no can believe they are very much pale!”

 

We laughed at the fun of it – a Mexican sitting at a table in Pennsylvania talking about the little Italian boys who happened to be sharing a table with him. Kind of funny when I think about the culture that has sat at our table.

 

Hospitality is a trait that the Bible commands, and, while I love for my home to be clean and everything in its place, hospitality is less about having a perfect house and all about making the people who grace your home and table feel comfortable and welcomed and loved.

 

Food is a big part of that. I always tried to make hearty meals that would “stick to the ribs” and keep my growing, working boys and the men fulfilled and satisfied the rest of the day.

 

I also tried to make things easy on the girls and myself and keep things simple. We had some favorites that were a little complicated – lasagna and chicken pot pie – but a hearty chili or simple roast beef sandwiches and gravy were often on the menu.

 

I’d like to share two simple 5-ingredient recipes with you today that I often used during those times of feeding a bunch of people simply, on a budget, but still wanting to give them hearty meals that kept them feeling full for an afternoon of working outside.

 

Jessie’s Pizza Casserole

  • 1 16 oz box of pasta
  • 1 20 oz jar of spaghetti sauce
  • 6 oz pepperoni (or more ; ) sliced and cut into quarters
  • 2 cups mozzarella cheese
  • 2 pounds of hamburger, crumbled and browned

 

Directions:

  1. Cook the pasta and drain.
  2. Cook the hamburger and drain the fat.
  3. Mix everything together and serve.

 

*Notes from the farm: I typically served it with garlic bread and peas or broccoli, depending on what I had in the garden. You can also add mushrooms and onions and peppers – anything you’d put on pizza. I often threw it together and left it in the crock pot on low for several hours so the guys could feed themselves if I had to be gone over lunch.

 

Jessie’s Favorite – Creamed Dried Beef Over Toast

  • 2 1 oz containers dried beef, chopped into small pieces
  • 2 sticks of butter
  • 3/4 c flour
  • 8 c milk
  • 2 c sour cream

 

  1. Melt the butter in a cast iron skillet.
  2. Chop the dried beef and add it to the butter.
  3. Put the flour in and mix it up.
  4. Pour the milk in and stir continuously until it bubbles.
  5. Add the sour cream.

Serve over a loaf of French bread, cut long-ways and toasted in the oven.

*Notes from the farm:  You can chop up leftover ham and use that in place of the dried beef. If I use ham, I don’t usually use as much sour cream. You can also use sausage in place of the dried beef. French bread was what we aimed for, but sometimes I used toasted hamburger or hot dog rolls – whatever bread we had is what we used. : )