Jessie Gussman

USA Today best-selling author Jessie Gussman writes sweet and inspirational romance from her farm in central Virginia. Having attended, but never graduating from the school of hard knocks, Jessie uses real life on the farm to inspire her cowboy, rural and blue-collar fiction.

When she’s not chasing kids, cows and the occasional roll-away haybale, Jessie enjoys wading in Naked Creek and not cleaning her house. Most of the time her main goal is to keep from catching herself on fire…again.

If you enjoy fun stories with vivid characters showcasing strong families with a ribbon of faith tying everything together, you might enjoy Jessie’s books.

The Just Man Falleth Seven Times, yet Riseth Again

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This past week, we separated the last of the spring calves from their mothers. My middle daughter was in PA and Watson was with friends, so Julia and my youngest daughter and I got the herd moved into the corral behind the barn ourselves.

Once we got the bulls out, which was a little touchy, it wasn’t hard work to separate the calves.

I love working with my daughters. We laugh and have a good time. They’re considerate, and there’s never any argument about who’s doing more work. In fact, we kind of compete as to who can do the most. We’re still relaxed and don’t get crazy about stuff. It’s fun. : )

I did miss one calf—all my fault—and it started back out toward the pasture with a group of cows. Julia and my youngest daughter both said later that they didn’t realize I could run that fast, and I have to admit I didn’t realize it either, but I did catch the calf and managed to get him back so we didn’t lose him in the pasture.

We worked steadily and finally got all the steers in one pen and all the heifers in another with all the cows back out to pasture.

Once we had that done, we took a little break. The girls stood with me, leaning against the fence, hot and sweaty, but smiling and agreeing that it had been a really fun morning.

I love that when you do it right, work is fun, and I honestly enjoy that family time more than game nights or movie nights and almost as much as ice cream on the porch. : )

When Watson was ready to head to PA, he backed the trailer up to the chute and we ran the groups of calves through.

The chute is about 2-1/2 feet wide. Wide enough for a full-grown, one-ton bull to squeeze through. The calves we were working with were between 400 and 600 pounds, so there was a little wiggle room as they went up the chute.

My youngest daughter and I were pushing the calves into the chute, then she closed the gate behind me while I stayed behind the last calf, urging him to keep going.

Watson was at the trailer, running the end gate and keeping the calves on while also keeping them from turning around at the elbow at the end of the chute—the only place wide enough for them to turn.

Julia and Ethyl stood outside of the chute to the left, pushing the front calves up. Ethyl got a little carried away and bit a calf’s leg, which offended that calf and he kicked back. He missed Ethyl but hit Julia through the gap in the boards.

She’s not gotten kicked much, and that was a tough one—right on the knee. It’s swollen and black and blue, but she assured us she was okay and kept working.

The first two batches of calves went on without any other incident.

I was running the third batch up when Watson couldn’t keep the calves on the trailer and also keep them from turning. One got completely turned around and came back down the chute toward me.

There’s not much room to grab a toehold, but I managed to get up—one leg on each side of the wall of the chute—but not high enough.

That calf barreled down, went under me, and knocked my feet out backward, so I fell facedown in the mud.

Now, I don’t know if you all watch bull riding, but if you have, I’m sure you notice that when those guys get bucked off and land flat out on the ground, they don’t stay down. I’m not sure how old I was when I learned when you fall down, you get up immediately, but I’m glad I did.

I was at least standing when the second calf hit me.

I didn’t have time to get up on the sides of the chute, but I was very thankful for that little bit of wiggle room. It would have hurt a lot worse if it had been a cow trying to squeeze past me. I slapped against the boards but not hard enough to break anything.

Have any of you ever gotten a bruise on the callouses right below where your fingers join your hand? I never had before, but I had a nice black one, almost a rectangle, there from holding onto the rough-cut lumber when my feet were yanked out from under me. In my opinion, my bruise wasn’t quite as nice as Julia’s knee. Although to hear us both moaning and groaning later, I think we hurt equally bad. ; )

Thankfully, my youngest thinks quick on her feet, and when the first calf came back, knocking my feet out, she had opened the gate behind me, letting both calves back out into the holding pen, so they didn’t trample me again. : )

We brought those two up a second time, and they went on the trailer with no problems. I guess they just needed a practice run.

Anyway, Watson left, and that evening, the girls and I sat on the front porch and watched a beautiful sunset. We talked and laughed and discussed what makes working with someone fun, what kind of character it takes, and how giving grace when someone makes a mistake is right, since it’s what you want others to do to you (even if they don’t).

I have always loved picking out lessons from real life and “teaching” them to my kids as I make a statement that maybe is a little “off” according to what the world believes, but it makes them think more deeply and consider what the Bible says.

We actually talked a little about Nana as Julia mentioned that she was surprised that none of us were more upset at her death considering how close we all were to her.

We talked about how having God as Someone to run to only works if you actually have a relationship with Him to begin with, since a person never wants to run to a stranger for comfort.

How daily devotions and time with the Lord pay off when “something big” happens.

How Christians can be happy, even joyful, in the midst of sorrow, and how she kind of understood why people might need to turn to alcohol or drugs or other addictions to numb their pain if they couldn’t find succor in the Lord.

Deep thoughts, but fitting in that afterglow of hard physical labor. In the satisfaction of knowing you worked through fear and pain. The comfortable companionship of bonding through danger and working with people who make something that could have been hard fun. Something that could have been an odious job they couldn’t wait to be done with into something you can’t wait to do again.

With smiles and laughter and that happy glow that seems to mark the very best memories.

Somehow, all that seems to cultivate a desire to grow and be better. Not just for yourself, but because you get a glimpse of how good life can be. Of how knowing God and of how following the way He’s shown us makes a big difference in how much we enjoy everyday life, even work.

And as the moon shone down brightly and the stars came out and the night breeze brought all those sweet nature smells, it was simple and good to be filled with that happy, warm feeling when you’ve done a hard, dangerous, and necessary job and done it well with people you love.

As I write, those are the feelings I try to bring out in my books – the hard work, the fun and the feeling of satisfaction and pride in helping to feed a nation as the sun goes down on another good day, and you just feel the goodness of the Lord settle in your soul.

Thanks so much for spending time with me this week.

A Day in the Life of Jessie

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The question I get the most from people is “How do you find the time to write?” I’ve also been asked what my day looks like. So, I thought today would be a good day to post this newsletter essay I wrote a couple years ago:

I thought I would just let you know what I did yesterday. It was kind of typical, in that there is no typical, if that makes sense. Although Julia wasn’t home all day, and that’s not exactly normal. Also, I had off from packing eggs.

Well, I slept in and I didn’t get up until after six. Normally my writing hours are from four to six-thirty or so.

I was not completely dressed when my husband sent me a picture of a newborn calf.

 

Okay, so I can tell from that pic that 1) We had a newborn. 2) It’s a bull. 3) It’s up in the pasture field by the feeder, cold and wet and muddy. What you can’t tell from the pic is that it was drizzling and close to freezing, and the calf was shivering.

So, yeah. I had just put clean clothes on, but I knew they weren’t going to stay that way for long.

First, we went over and bedded the barnyard – the part that’s covered. We had a calf that’s sick and two more cows that we’re expecting to calve any day, so we checked them out while we were there.

Also, my daughter-in-law came over with some scraps for our pig.

Now, I know I’ve not talked much about our hog. He’s a friendly fellow, and he enjoys being petted. However, he also, apparently, enjoys eating fingers, and the first time I petted him, he tried to eat mine. This shouldn’t have surprised me, but the pig snapped its head around and had the ring and middle fingers of my left hand clenched between it’s teeth before I could jerk my hand back. I took umbrage at that breech of trust, balled my right fist up, and hooked a hard right on the left side of his snout, just below his eye.

He let go of my fingers and they healed up just fine. I don’t get angry too often, and I wasn’t angry then, but I do have a tendency to hold grudges, I guess.

So, I don’t pet the pig, although sometimes I do go over to his pen, lean against the gate and say, (in a very cheerful and happy tone – because, hey, I don’t want to be bitter) “What’s shakin’ bacon?”

Also, I don’t usually say this to males, but I will sometimes tell him he has some fine looking hams on the backside, too. Just saying.

I guess the point of that story is Jessie gets a little testy when someone tries to eat her fingers.

Anyway, my husband thought he’d call the cows down from the hill and put a bale of hay in the feeder on the bottom side and that would draw the new mama down.

I knew it wouldn’t, but I saw an opportunity to go eat breakfast, so I encouraged him in his endeavor, and took off for the house. Except…

He reminded me that we had a meeting with our accountant later in the morning and he’d (finally) gotten the numbers I needed to finish the P&L and they were on his desk.

So, breakfast was a nice idea, but it didn’t happen quite yet, because I stopped in the office and started working on accounting.

The nice thing about this was I knew I didn’t have to go to the accountant meeting, since Julia had plans with a friend for the day and I was driving her to town.

btw, Julia can drive, and has her license, but she has depth perception issues as well as some visual processing problems, which made homeschooling an interesting challenge for me and an exercise in frustration and perseverance for her.

She can see now, looking back, that those struggles shaped her for the better, but there were some hard years in there.

Anyway, I answered some emails and messages while I was waiting for our computer, which was running slow (because who goes fast that early in the morning, right?) and I could see the cows walking across the hill and down to the barn, although I didn’t see our new mama.

She never walked by, the computer never ran faster and I decided my time would be better spent foraging for breakfast than answering emails, when my husband texted me and asked if I was ready to go get the calf.

Now, it is probably a thousand (muddy, and in some places, deep muddy) yards from where the calf and cow were to our barn. It’s mostly down hill, but when it’s muddy, sometimes that’s a bad thing. And often times newborn calves don’t walk well and need carried.

Anyway, I texted him back that I needed to put my boots and coat on, then I’d be out. One minute. What I left out of the text (for brevity’s sake) was that I was also going to eat breakfast first, too. ? (I know, how does he put up with me, right?)

So, anyway, I was almost to the refrigerator when I saw he was already up on the hill. I knew my butt was going to be in trouble if I didn’t get up there with him, so I open the door and yelled up that I’d be there in a minute (hoping that he’d not notice that I’d already told him one minute ten minutes ago). Somehow that morphed into an argument about how we were going to get the calf down (we were only shouting because we were so far apart).

He wanted to take it down through the pasture (and mud) and I wanted to take it around out of the pasture where there was no mud because I just KNEW we were going to end up carrying it, and where my husband is like a mountain goat and also NEVER gets dirty, I’m basically a klutz and figured I was going to end up on my butt in the mud.

I lost the argument, but I did decide to grab my phone (because I wanted to have great baby calf pics to show you all). Normally I do not take my phone with me to the barn. I think all of us have dropped our phones in the water trough at least once, and some of us (the slow learners, I guess) have done it multiple times.

Anyway, I shoved my phone in my back pocket, put the coat and boots on (again) and hopped over the fence. (Okay, I climbed over the fence, but hopped sounded so much better. : )

This was one of the many times I was wrong because the calf actually did walk the whole way to the barn by itself and I didn’t fall once. It took a while though, because newborns don’t walk fast and the mama didn’t want to go where we wanted her. Finally, after zigzagging around and trudging through the mud, we got them down, under roof and had the gate shut. Perfect time to take a cute calf pic. So, I reach in my back pocket for my phone…but it was gone.

Gotta laugh, right?

So, by this time, the hubs is late for his accounting appointment, I’m not going to have Julia’s friend picked up on time, one of our boys is waiting for us because there was a problem at the (boy’s) chicken barn and our ex-bad boy truck driver is standing in the barnyard with a delivery (and he’s just cooing for all he’s worth over the calf – he’s never seen anything like it)

So, my youngest daughter goes looking for my phone (still laughing over that; this is why there are NO CUTE CALF PICTURES), I throw the numbers in the computer, but can’t get it to print, so I use the hub’s phone to take a pic of the screen and print THAT, then run my daughter to town (never did get breakfast), come home, cook lunch (hot sausage sandwiches with peppers and onions) while I have my laptop on the counter trying to finish the stuff I had to do for the church, and also my phone (which my daughter found) because I have emails and messages to answer still, and I’m almost finished when my husband texts me:  You coming?

Me:  Yes

I have no idea where he’s going.

Okay, so I might take some flack for this, but I try to make my default answer to my husband a “yes.”

Anyway, I finished up the church stuff, delay the emails, got my daughter to finish lunch, and found out that we had a driver who was sick, so I was riding with my hubs to get feed. (On that trip I also ended up looking up some paperwork, emailing it, figuring out what to do about the issues brought up at the accounting meeting and grabbing some 1099s and basically doing my mobile secretary job.) I got home just in time to switch the laundry, put a basket away, clean the kitchen, empty the trash, and take my youngest daughter to pick up a friend who is staying here through Monday. I got home and worked on this newsletter for a half an hour until it was time to go pick up Julia. When we got back, she had a package to open, which kind of took a while, then the hubs wanted me to go over and check the calf and the other cows that are going to freshen, and we also had a goat that was kidding. We didn’t get there in time, and the second baby came out with the placenta wrapped around its head and suffocated. ? My daughter and her friend decided they were going to sleep in the goat barn, so I helped a little with that and told them to please come down if they felt like they were going to freeze to death. (Since I didn’t want to have any awkward conversations with her parents about bodies and funerals, not to mention, they probably wouldn’t let her stay over again.) At this point it’s after ten. I never did get breakfast, and I think I’m just going to put that on my list of things to do tomorrow. : )

I think, when I started this, I was answering the question, when do you find time to write…I don’t know, honestly. Hopefully God doesn’t let me sleep in tomorrow.

 

Thanks so much for spending time with me today!

Jessie geeks out on her Christmas carol : )

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Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have been enjoying a great, healthy and happy holiday with family and friends.

I had a nice, quiet Christmas on the farm with my girls. It got pretty cold on Christmas Eve, and we had some frozen pipes and some equipment that wouldn’t start, but all of the people and animals made it through. God is good!

I’m going to talk about a Christmas carol today and I just gonna warn you now, I can really geek out on hymns. Like, I might be going to embarrass myself. If you really want to see that, keep reading. : )
My mom was a music major and church organist/pianist. I play a bunch of different instruments, but the piano is my favorite and one of my very favorite things to do is sit at the piano and play through the hymnbook.
Hours fly by and I don’t even notice.
Unfortunately, I can’t sing (one of the things I am most looking forward to in Heaven is finally being able to sing in key – I am going to be in that choir and sing harmony at the top of my lungs. When I die, that’s the picture you need to have of me – singing with a huge smile on my face for my Jesus!)
So, I don’t sing words out loud, because I love my family, and I want them to allow me to keep living here, but I always sing every word of every verse in my head. Sometimes I repeat verses because I love them so much. (I told you I was going to geek out and embarrass myself!) I won’t say I have the entire hymnbook memorized, but…that’s mostly because I collect hymn books and have a ton of different ones.
Anyway, one of the reasons I love hymns is because there is so much doctrine in them.
Christmas carols are full of scripture as well and the carol I wanted to talk about today, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, is brimming with Bible.
Written by Charles Westley not long after his conversion, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing is brimming with scriptural references, and, maybe because of his recent conversion, it also has a strong message of salvation.
I absolutely love this carol. It has so much more meaning to me now than it used to as I’ve read the Bible through over and over and recognized the phrases I have memorized from this hymn and realized how closely it lines with scripture. Almost every line is actually a Bible verse that Mr. Westley put into his own words…or not!
Let me show you!
Luke 2:13-14 says:And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!

And here are the first four lines of this carol:

Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”

Wow. Do you see how closely the first four lines follow that scripture? (I do want to point out that the Bible says the angels were SAYING. There’s no mention of singing. That’s not to say they weren’t singing, but the Bible does not say they were.)

Then we have these four lines:

Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With the angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

They are a paraphrase of these two verses in Luke 2:10-11And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Read this verse from Matthew 1:23 and see how closely verse 2 aligns with it:  Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;

Christ the everlasting Lord;

Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.

Also, I Timothy says:  God was manifest in the flesh.

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

Isaiah 1:6 says:  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

And then we have verse three:

Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!

Okay, and I admit, these next two lines are two of my favorites.

Malachi 4:2 says: Malachi 4:2, KJV: But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; 


Light and life to all He brings,
Risen with healing in His wings.

Incidentally, if you love hymns too, you might know that The Comforter is Come also has a stanza based on Malachi 4:2.

We have these two verses from Corinthians and John:

I Corinthians 15:54 This mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 

John 3:7 Ye must be born again.

And Mr. Westley writes: 


Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

In Haggai 2:7 we read, And the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory,

And the song says:

Come, Desire of nations, come,

Fix in us Thy humble home;

Genesis 3:15 says, And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,

Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

I Corinthians 15:45-47 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,

Stamp Thine image in its place:

Second Adam from above,

Reinstate us in Thy love.

And, of course, those last few lines are showing salvation, talking about the old man – in the likeness of Adam – being removed, and “stamping” (don’t you love that?) Jesus on us instead. When we trust Christ and are “born again” God doesn’t see our sin anymore. When He looks at us, He sees the righteousness of Jesus. And all of it – the birth of Christ, His death and resurrection, was because of God’s great love for us. Such a fitting ending to a song that is basically Bible verses in poetic form. Be still my heart. : )

Just a beautiful hymn of doctrine and salvation, celebrating the birth of our Lord.

If you’ve made it this far, I suppose you can tell that hymns are one of my great passions. What a joy to get to talk about such a doctrine-rich carol with you today.

I wish you all a beautiful and prosperous New Year!

It’s time for soup!

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I think I’ve mentioned before my parents are frugal. We always had a big garden and did a lot of cooking and canning, and we got meat from the farm. (Mom called it “over home.”)

I’m sure they bought food at the grocery store, but I don’t recall ever going as a kid. Pretty much everything we ate was homemade.

That didn’t change at all as we got married and left home. There’s really nothing my mom loves better than having the family over and cooking a big meal.

My husband and she didn’t really get along well before we were married (she taught school, and he was the kid that almost made her quit. : ) , but now she likes him better than she likes me. Seriously.

Anyway, one day back when the kids were younger, we were at their house for chili and mashed potatoes. Everything is homemade, of course.

You all have probably heard of bay leaves…my mom always told us they’re poisonous, although that’s not exactly true. They just break up into sharp pieces that can cut your mouth or pierce the lining of your stomach or intestines. It’s not likely to happen, but it’s possible.

People cook with them, using them for flavor, you just have to pick them out.

I never use them. I like the flavor okay, but it just seems weird to put something that you know could hurt you in the food that you’re serving your family. I’m funny that way.

But my mom uses them in chili, although she normally picks them out before she serves it. Still, she’ll set the pot down and announce, “I think I got all the bay leaves, but if you find any, don’t eat them—they’re poisonous.”

On this day, my children were little, and Nana had a band-aid on her finger, which caught their attention. “What happened to your finger?”

She put her spoon down and held the finger up—the tip of her pointer finger was wrapped in the band-aid, and I could see that blood had soaked into the pad. Whatever she did, it had bled for a while.

My mom held her finger close to my kids so they could ooh and aah over her boo-boo.

“I was chopping onions for the chili, and my finger got in the way,” she explained to my kids, who had stopped eating. It’s not every day that Nana wears a band-aid.

Chili is one of my husband’s favorite meals. He had a big bowl in front of him, and he wasn’t going to stop eating just to look at my mother’s finger.

My dad, sitting at the end of the table, said, “We’re going to have to call the plumber over that eventually.”

That didn’t make any sense. “What are you talking about?” I asked, nudging my husband who was still shoveling food into his mouth.

My mom said, “I cut my finger, so I stopped chopping the onions and put a band-aid on it to stop the bleeding.” She waved her finger around. “That thing really bled a lot.”

My husband was still eating embarrassingly fast, and since nudging him wasn’t working, I figured I’d join him. I picked my spoon up.

Mom kept talking. “I finished chopping the onions and put them in the chili and went to rinse off my hands and the cutting board. I guess I must have lost the band-aid in the sink. But I couldn’t find it, so it must have gone down the drain.”

Just then, my husband nudged me. I thought he was being smart, since I’d been nudging him about his lack of table manners, but when I looked up, he was holding his spoon in midair and staring at it.

HIs spoon was full of chili, but something looked odd. I thought at first it was a bay leaf that Mom had missed. I reached over (when you’re married, you can do this, right?) and went to pick it off the spoon.

It wasn’t a bay leaf.

I held up what was in my fingers. “I don’t think you need to worry about a plumber, Dad.”

So, yeah. “Onions in the Stew” or my mom’s version: “Band-aids in the Chili.” : )

Ha. That story happened years ago, but our family still jokes about finding a Band-Aid in my mom’s chili.

This is the time of year, here in the Northern Hemisphere at least, when we start craving warm, comfort food like chili and soup.

My youngest daughter loves chicken noodle and vegetable soups. (I always cook a roast in the crock pot and put it in with the veggies, so the name is a little deceiving.) Julia loves sausage tortellini soup, and my all-time favorite is a tie between roasted eggplant, tomato and quinoa soup and mushroom pumpkin soup. : )

What’s your favorite kind of soup?

Jessie Uses Soap

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Last fall, we had to vaccinate our fall herd and treat a few cows.

We did that two years ago, and I talked about it a little. I was chasing cows, got knocked around a bit, and at one point, I was pinned against the fence and ended up pretty sore with a lot of shades of blue on my body.

This time, our oldest son came down and took the beating for me. : )

We started before dawn, because we wanted to get finished before it got super hot out.

He helped finish up the garage work in PA around 11 pm and rolled into our place in Virginia around 3:30 am on Sunday morning.

He was sleeping on our couch when I came downstairs around 5ish.

He just turned 25, so he’s not a kid anymore, but I still admire that kind of work ethic. He’s done a lot of work on farms out west, and he has a great pride and respect for the salt-of-the-earth people and the work it takes to grow and produce the food that feeds our nation.

I’m a little tempted to go off on a tangent there, but I’ll try not to.

Anyway, he helped me chase the cows and gave me all the easy jobs—meaning I stood on the fence while he got the bull out. : )

We separated the cows from the calves—we weren’t weaning, but the chute is long and narrow, and if you try to run calves through with the cows, the calves will get crushed.

We’re not really set up for the calves very well and don’t really have any place to hold them.

Our son ended up getting in the chute with the calves and pinning them against the side of the chute while we gave them their vaccinations and wormer. Some of the calves were topping three hundred pounds, and he definitely had his work cut out for him.

If you can imagine being in a small, enclosed space with a terrified, young, and strong animal that is desperate to escape and find his mama and that weighs twice as much as you do, and if you can imagine trying to wrestle that animal into submission…forty-four times…that’s what our son did.

Our son was in a motorcycle accident earlier this spring, and I have a feeling that wrestling the calves wasn’t quite as bad as the accident, but he definitely earned his bumper sticker.

We started early, but it was still hot and humid. We’d gotten some much needed rain the day before, and so it was muddy too. We weren’t complaining, because we were so thankful for the rain. But we were all pretty filthy.

There was one noteworthy thing with the cows.

Maybe some of you remember the story I told a while ago where a cow was supposed to be running behind me while I stood with my back to her at the fence, but she charged me and rammed me into the fence instead. I was dazed and hurting, but I still turned to follow her out, because, you know, you do your job. It took me a second or two to realize that she’d stopped, turned around, and was coming back for me. (At this point, I always think that if I hadn’t lived this, I would never believe anyone who told me that a cow charged her—twice—for no reason.) Anyway, I might have been dazed, but I made it to the top of the fence pretty quick.

That cow was 16.

We can get about eight cows in the chute, but they’re pretty squished. About the fourth group we had in, we had a cow who just wouldn’t move forward and was keeping us from being able to shut the gate. No matter how we pushed and prodded her, she wouldn’t budge.

Her ear tag was in the opposite ear, but I finally got a look at it and realized it was 16. Ha.

Anyway, we just made do, got that group their shots, and opened the gate to let them out.

They started moving out of the chute and into the funnel to the pasture. I was working on getting more vaccine mixed and ready for the next batch, and Julia was beyond me with her notebook, when one of the cows, rather than going straight, made a U-turn and came charging down the narrow aisle where we do our work beside the chute and where I was standing with Julia further down.

Someone yelled. I glanced up, and it only took a half a second for me to see which cow it was.

“It’s sixteen!” I yelled, and I dropped the needle and vaccine I was working with and leaped for the fence. I hit it about the third rung up and was on the top before the word “sixteen” was out of my mouth. I can be taught.

I think Jules made it to the top of the fence before I did.

We hung there until 16 got herself turned around and our son poked her from the other side of the chute and chased her out.

My knees may or may not have been shaking as I jumped down.

Watson was laughing, of course, and he pointed his finger at me. “She wants YOU,” he said, like I didn’t already know it. LOL.

I really don’t know why she has a thing against me, but I seriously do keep an eye on her when I’m in the pasture. She chased me around the Gator once (that was a couple weeks after she’d slammed me into the fence) and now this. I’ve offended her somehow, I guess, but I’ll be dipped if I know what I did.

I’m not sure why we’re keeping her. (Watson says she has nice calves, but I don’t care. I think she’d make nicer hamburgers.)

All right, we finished up in good time, and just in case there were any lingering feelings of suppressed annoyance toward our cows, we told our son we’d treat him to a steak dinner. He certainly earned it.

But we all had to get showers.

I let the girls go first because it takes them longer to get ready.

Watson and I rode to check the other herd while the girls and our son showered. By the time we were done, we were both stiff from sitting. It’s funny how your body stiffens up, and the walk to the house was painful. LOL. We’re getting old.

We were done well before noon, but honestly, it’s hard work and we were all exhausted.

Now, I don’t want to gross anyone out, but my feet and jeans were covered in cow manure up to my knees, and I had it up both arms and on my face. My shirt was soaked with sweat, and my hair was wet with it, too. I definitely needed a shower.

But there were no clean towels.

I’d put a load of laundry in the washer before we’d gone out that included the two towels Watson and I use. We’ve had guests at our cabin who walked off with towels, and we’ve kept replacing them with towels from our house. I have one extra towel, and I’d given that to Julia.

Not taking a shower wasn’t an option, so, don’t tell my mom, but I got a roll of paper towels out and decided I was going to dry off with them. (If you absolutely have to tell my mother, please make sure that you mention that I wrung them out and reused them repeatedly.)

Anyway, I have my paper towels, and I’m all ready to get in the shower, except, when I turn it on, there’s not enough water pressure left to push the water up through the showerhead. Just a little stream of water coming out the faucet.

The plug in our tub doesn’t work.

Still, this chick needed a shower. So, I’m kneeling, my tired, sore body scrunched down in the tub, using the little trickle of water and twisting and straining to get my whole head under it to wet my hair. I reach back for the shampoo. The bottle is empty.

I admit I leaned my forehead on the tub and tried not to criggle. (Which is a half cry, half laugh.)

Ha. So, yeah, I used soap to wash my hair, paper towels to dry off on, and at least I was conserving water by only using a trickle, right?

Just an endnote—at dinner, the kids laughed at how 16 has a thing for me. During the meal, they came up with a new name for her that even has an acronym: AKEM. Her name is a bit unwieldy: Attack, Kill, and Eat Mom.

sigh

Thanks so much for spending time with me today!

Is your family weird?

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We did get some rain after a long summer of none, so things are greening up. It also made things a little slick, and I couldn’t get the hay truck out of the bottom pasture after I took bales down to the cows, so I left it there.

When Watson called to see how his cows were doing, I mentioned the bald tires (because it’s the truck, not me, right? LOL) and the rain and the fact that it might be still sitting in the pasture. (I walked home, just for the record, too.)

He said, “Just get in the truck, back it up along the creek, put it in fourth, and floorboard it. If you get a good enough run, it’ll go up the hill, no matter how muddy it is. Don’t cut the corner so fast you roll the truck over.”

I heard, “Climb the Empire State Building and jump off it.”

So, anyway, I decided if he wanted his (dumb, old) truck out of there, I would do it my way. (I actually had to get it out because the cows were getting hungry, and 16 is in that herd, and if they get out, she’s coming for me.)

Okay, I decided I really didn’t want to die, and I kinda feel like I’m going to if that old truck goes any faster than about 5 mph (I’ll go 10 if it’s empty and going uphill) just because the brakes aren’t the best and the steering is hard, and I’m always watching for snakes to crawl out of holes (and there are a lot of holes, just saying). (Have I mentioned the copperheads around here?)

I don’t want to be going so fast I can’t jump out.

Anyway, I have my youngest daughter get behind me and push me out with the tractor.

Julia was supposed to be standing by with her usual job, but she was busy taking pics, I guess.

It was okay, though, because it went off without a hitch. Pie did a great job, and no one died. (That reminds me. We had a cousin staying here for a while. She and Pie are the same age and have been best friends since birth. I think she had a really good time. At least she called her mom to ask to have her stay extended three different times. For some reason, she didn’t mind us putting her to work, the poison oak that swelled her eye shut didn’t seem to bother her—I let them eat ice cream and watch TV, which might have had something to do with it—and the last night she was here, they were swimming in the water trough until almost eleven. When she left, she gave Pie a hug and said, “I’ll miss you. Please don’t die while I’m gone.” IDK if that’s a normal farewell or if my family is just weird. I’m leaning toward the second.)

Actually, I know we’re weird! What about you? What makes your family weird? : )

Auggie

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This spring, Jules and I were checking on the cows, and we came at just the right time to see Auggie be born.

He came out the way he was supposed to—with nose lying on front feet first—but his mom was standing up. Now, this isn’t too uncommon, but I’ve not seen it much, honestly. Usually, the cow lies down and has her baby that way.

Still, Julia and I stood back and watched this little guy slip into the world and land with a thump on his nose.

We weren’t too far away, and we could tell he was okay—he was moving and breathing—but I was alarmed when I saw his face. My first thought was that he’d broken his jaw when he landed on his head.

After getting a little closer and examining him (not touching him, because, you know, mama was kind of protective), I realized that Auggie had a cleft palate.

Maybe you’ve seen or heard of this in children before, as I have, but I’ve never seen it in a calf. He has the top of his nose, but the bottom of his nostrils are missing. His mouth just closes on his nose, which is kind of flat. There’s really nothing to hold his tongue in.

I never said anything to anyone online, because I honestly wasn’t sure if he’d live. I didn’t think he’d be able to suck. Often with a severe cleft palate, there’s a hole in the roof of the mouth and normal breathing and swallowing is hard if not impossible.

Auggie’s cleft palate is pretty severe.

I hate it when I tell a story about one of our animals and they end up not making it. So, I waited.

I have to hand it to Auggie’s mom. She’s a sweetheart, and she stood patiently while Auggie nosed around, fumbling and clumsy, as he tried to learn to eat.

I never talked about the calf I killed (on accident), and I guess I don’t want to do that now, but Auggie was born this spring about that time. Let’s just say it hadn’t been a great week for me. Seeing Auggie’s mom patiently stand still while Auggie taught himself to eat was such a joy.

And he did it. He ate.

We were told he might be able to suck, but he probably wouldn’t be able to chew grain or grass.

Well, I can report to you today that he’s been eating grass for several months (and we don’t feed grain), and he’s not only surviving but thriving.

He’s one of our favs. : )

The girls had just watched the movie Wonder, and that’s where he got his name.

Augge is special to us, partly because we were there from the beginning. My absolute favorite part of farming is watching animals be born.

 

Have you ever seen an animal be born?

Jason’s Chicken : )

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We had a goat in the house this spring. A kid, actually. (Kid being a baby goat.)

 

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned here that whenever we eat, everyone who’s on the property at lunch time gets dragged to the table to eat with us. We’ve always done that since there are often parts people, repairmen, drivers, farm workers, neighbors and anyone else who might visit a farm or trucking company during the day. When we lived in Pennsylvania, it wasn’t uncommon for us to have ten or twelve people for lunch every day.

The goat being in the house prompted us to ask each other if we remembered about Jason’s chicken. We sure did.

Before we had 40,000 chickens we had a bunch of hens who were not fenced at all and the coop was beside the garage where the trucks were parked over the weekend.

Jason’s an old farm boy who drove for us, still does, actually, and parked his truck here like everyone else. One day a truck passed him and the guy came on the radio and said, “You know you have a chicken on your truck?”

Here is where I have to admit that this wasn’t too unusual. Sometimes the chickens roosted on the trucks, and if the guys left before dawn, they might have a passenger. Since we hauled to feed mills, we kind of chuckled about this, because if the chickens hop off at the feed mill, they’re not going to starve, right?

Anyway, Jason thanked the dude and kept going. When he got to his destination, he did his thing and didn’t think too much about it until he was ready to go and remembered about the chicken.

He didn’t see it running around, so he got to poking around on the truck. He found it where the trailer hitches to the truck. There’s some cross beams that come up and made a nice little box-like area for it, just big enough for it to set.

I think I mentioned Jason’s a farm boy, so he did a little more poking, and sure enough, she was setting on seven eggs.

I’ve often wondered what in the world made that chicken look at that truck and think, boy that looks like a great place to lay my eggs and hatch a family.

To finish the story, Jason drove the rest of the week and the next with that chicken on his truck. He said she’d jump down when he stopped and maybe grab a bite to eat and a drink, but she was always back up on her eggs before he left.

No one washed the truck (which drove my husband crazy), and finally, Jason took the truck home and tried to move the nest to a spot in his barn. That never works, and it didn’t in this case either – the hen wouldn’t set on the eggs once they were moved. But, Jason kept her, because I guess sharing an experience like that bonds you or something.

 

I’ve always wanted to put that in a book, but I never have.

 

Thanks so much for spending time with me today!

 

~Jessie

New release – Cowboy Walking Away

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Howdy! It’s so good to be with you today!

 

Usually I enjoy telling you all a farm story, but today I’m excited because my 70th book releases next week! And I wanted to share a little of it with you.

 

It’s set in the beautiful state of North Dakota and is very much an opposites attract story.

 

Now, I’ve mentioned my awesome narrator, Jay Dyess, before, and he and I are trying something a little different. We’re going to release the audio of my book, Cowboy Stealing My Heart, for FREE on YouTube BEFORE we release the ebook.

 

Yep. We’re a little crazy around here. : )

 

Now, the audio releases tomorrow, and the ebook releases this coming Tuesday.

 

Alright, rather than a farm story, I’m going to put a little excerpt of Cowboy Stealing My Heart in. Hope you enjoy!

 

Calhoun walked out, and Bellamy felt strangely bereft. She ignored that, put the rest of the bacon she held in her mouth, and walked over to the table, walking behind the boys’ chairs, as she had seen Calhoun do.

Noticing the little boy was wiggling even more, she said, “Are you okay, Cayson?”

“This is hard. I don’t want to do it anymore!” he burst out, making Bellamy want to laugh on one hand and cry on the other. She also wanted to ask why couldn’t you have said that three minutes ago when Calhoun was still in here and would have known what to say?

“Maybe I can help you with something?” She walked over and stood behind him.

“No! It’s too hard!” Cayson threw his pencil down. It bounced on the table, rolled, and fell off the other side. Crosby happened to be standing right beside it, and she picked it up and held it in her mouth.

“Crosby! No!” Bellamy said before she heard a crunching sound that was most definitely the pencil being chewed in their dog’s mouth.

“Crosby! Put it down!” Bellamy said, hurrying around the table to get the pencil, or what was left of it, from the dog’s mouth. She wasn’t sure what pencil splinters did to a dog’s insides, but she kinda figured a vet would probably have to be involved.

She dropped to her knees, shoving her hand into the dog’s mouth and hoping it didn’t all of a sudden decide to bite her. She pulled the pieces out as well as she could, setting the slobber-covered splinters in her lap so she could take them to the garbage can.

She pulled out the last piece, patting Crosby on the head and standing back up, making a mental note to make sure no pencils were left lying around on the floor. Looking over the table, she was dismayed to see that Cruz had completely stopped doing his work and was now wrestling Cayson, their arms locked together, as each one was apparently attempting to be the first one to knock his brother off his chair.

Calvin wasn’t wrestling, but his pencil was lying on his book, and he was no longer working but watching his brothers with a grin.

“Boys,” she said, not loud, but as firmly as she could, which didn’t sound very firm to her. She’d never dealt with children before. Funny that she’d been married five times, but never long enough for her and whichever husband she was with to think about kids.

Thankfully, she supposed. Although, the idea of having a normal family was something that elicited a longing in her chest.

But, while Calhoun had seemed to have complete control, in the short ten minutes he’d been gone, she’d lost it, because the boys ignored her word and continued wrestling.

“Cruz. Cayson. You boys are not doing your schoolwork.”

“Cayson said it was too hard. And mine is too,” Calvin said while the other two boys kept tussling.

“Why didn’t you tell Mr. Calhoun that when he was here?”

“Because it wasn’t too hard then,” Calvin said like the answer should have been obvious, his eyes never leaving his brothers.

Cruz seemed to be on the verge of knocking Cayson off his chair. Calvin shoved his own chair back and hurried to help his brother. Grabbing a hold of Cruz, he and Cayson threw him down to the floor. They cheered, which caused Crosby to start barking and dancing all around them.

Cruz yelled, and Bellamy was sure he’d broken something with the way he landed, but thankfully he popped back up, grabbing a hold of Calvin in a headlock, trying to jerk him down, apparently getting the upper hand by catching Calvin off guard.

Cayson took the opportunity to yell and try to grab hold of the dog and run around the table, avoiding Bellamy who reached out to try to grab either the boy or the dog, she wasn’t sure. At this point, either one would have been fine.

She missed both, coming up with just a handful of hair, while Calvin body-slammed Cruz to the floor. Cruz didn’t pop up quite as quickly that time, and Calvin yelled, beating his fist on his chest, then laughing as Cayson and the dog ran by him.

He turned around and started chasing them. Rather than going around in a circle, they cut through the living room, stepped over the coffee table, ran over the couch, and used the end table as a jumping-off point, with Calvin following along behind, only when he got to the end table and jumped, he ducked his body and did a flip, landing on the back of his neck on the couch. He shouted then grunted before rolling over.

Bellamy almost swallowed her tongue. She thought for sure the kid was going to break his neck.

But she realized that somehow the entire box of new pencils had spilled to the floor, and when she’d grabbed at Crosby, she’d dropped all the pieces she’d just picked up, so now there were slobbery pencil pieces on the floor, along with brand-new pencils rolling everywhere. There was also paper scattered over the table, she wasn’t sure quite when that happened, and boys running everywhere, along with the dog, and it felt more like four boys. Or twenty.

She was supposed to be in charge of this chaos.

She wanted to cry. She had no idea how to stop everything.

If you can’t beat them, join them.

She wasn’t sure where that advice came from, but she’d heard it somewhere before, and it seemed very applicable now.

So she ran over to the steps, yelling, “Watch this, boys!” as she jumped up five steps, then turned around and jumped down, realizing as she did so that the last time she’d done anything like this, she’d been a teenager, and it had been a lot easier.

She barely missed the last step and fell forward.

But the boys didn’t notice. They cheered and piled on the stairs, each of them trying to jump from higher and higher up.

Every time they jumped, somehow they managed to land on their feet and do a running turn around the dining room table. Every once in a while, they took a detour into the kitchen and grabbed a piece of bacon off the dwindling pile on the plate on the counter, and then they’d run across the couch in the living room, pass the coffee table, jump on the end table, and Calvin and Cruz would do flips as they landed on the couch before they went back to the stairs.

So far, Cayson hadn’t managed to do a flip, and he wasn’t quite able to go up as high as the other boys could on the stairs.

Definitely joining them was easier than trying to contain them, and Bellamy realized after a while she was actually having fun. She was also able to lead them, in a roundabout way, which gave her an illusion of control.

But they were soon bored with jumping on the stairs, so she grabbed the four corners of her bedsheet and held it in one hand while stepping over the railing at the top of the stairs with the other.

Calvin had suggested jumping off of the railing at the top, and she wanted to say it was too dangerous, but then she decided she could just go first and try it out for them.

Cruz was the one who suggested a parachute. That’s why her bed things were scattered everywhere, over the railing and partway down the stairs, as she held the sheet in one hand, the railing in the other, and looked down at the floor which seemed strangely farther away than it should.

There were two seconds of silence while the boys waited for her to jump with baited breath, and that’s when the door opened and Calhoun stepped back in.

Bellamy, hanging onto the railing with one hand, holding the four corners of her bedsheet with the other, one toe dangling over the open air, froze with wide eyes.

Cruz was right behind her, on the other side of the railing. Calvin had just finished a jump and a flip and was lying on his back on the couch looking up, waiting for her to jump.

Cayson was munching on a piece of bacon and was standing on the table. He was the only thing on the table, and Bellamy honestly wasn’t quite sure where the schoolbooks had gone.

Crosby, as though aware that possibly their antics weren’t going to be met with approval, and possibly having experience in that very thing, slunk down the stairs, her tail between her legs, her butt wiggling back and forth as she went to greet Calhoun.

Calhoun blinked twice, opened his mouth, paused, then slowly closed the door behind him, ignoring the dog, his eyes sweeping the room, then landing back on Bellamy.

“If you’re giving a lesson on gravity, I suggest using an apple.”

 

Alright, Jessie here again. : ) If you’d like to listen to Cowboy Stealing My Heart, you can find it here tomorrow morning after 7:00 am EDT: https://www.youtube.com/c/SaywithJay

 

And, if you’d like to preorder the ebook,  you can do that here: https://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Stealing-Coming-Western-Romance-ebook/dp/B09W7BZ6FG?tag=pettpist-20

 

Thanks so much for spending time with me today!

 

~Jessie

Ducks vs. Chickens (Watson and I have a small argument)

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Most of you all know that we have two laying houses in Pennsylvania. There are 20,000 birds in each of those houses.

We started out our chicken journey when the kids were little with ten Rhode Island Red hens and one rooster. Goodness, that was twenty years ago.

Over those twenty years, people came to our house, and we gave them our extra eggs, and eventually we started selling them, and…yeah. We ended up with a lot of hens. : )

But then we moved to Virginia.

All of my chickens were in PA.

Now, I had plenty of eggs, because Watson brought flats of them down every time he came. We supplied our neighbors with them (and with beef and pork), and they gave us things in return, but it just wasn’t the same.

One of the best things about having animals is watching them. If you’ve never sat on the porch and listened to cows munch grass, you are missing out. There is just something so relaxing about their languid movements, their easy calm, and the satisfying tear of the grass as they rip it up and chew. Even the scent brings the nostalgic, no-pressure days of my childhood back, pushing the cares and responsibilities of being an adult away as dusk deepens and the darkness of evening falls down.

Now at that time of night, the chickens would already be roosted, but there is just something I love about hearing a rooster crow in the morning and listening to hens cackle their “I JUST LAID THE MOST BEAUTIFUL EGG IN THE WORLD” cackle, then watching as those industrious hens scour the yard looking for bugs and worms and all kinds of yummy things to eat.

It’s such a joy and pleasure to look out your kitchen window, hands buried in dishwater, kids chattering behind you, loads of never-ending work forgotten as the hens go about their “daily grind” with a cheerfulness that I often envied but always tried to emulate. If my chickens can have a good attitude, I can smile and be happy too. Right?

More than watching the chickens, I admit I have never lost my absolute love and fascination for gathering eggs.

From the time I was little, braving the pecking and blood, sticking my hand under a hen’s warm breast feathers and feeling around for those smooth, beautiful eggs, to my time in Pennsylvania in the laying houses packing, literally, millions of eggs. (We ship a quarter of a million eggs every week.)

Okay, lean in close because I’m going to say something I haven’t said to too many people and you probably won’t hear me say again: I don’t like eggs. I eat them anyway, because, you know, we have 40,000 chickens, but they make me sick. Not even kidding. But I LOVE to gather them. Always have.

Ha.

In Virginia, we had no chickens and no eggs to gather, so the day we moved in, I said to Watson, “We need to get some chicks.”

Yeah. That didn’t go over well. He reasonably replied, “We have 40,000 chickens in Pennsylvania.”

“But I like to watch them, and I’m in Virginia.”

“You can go to Pennsylvania anytime and watch the chickens to your heart’s content.”

So that was that. No chickens and no egg gathering in Virginia for me.

Earlier last spring, Watson needed feed, so the girls and I rode along to the feed store with him. On the way, we saw some ducks in a pond, and one of our girls said, “Oh, those ducks are so pretty! We should get some for our creek.”

Watson: That’s a great idea!

Me:

Me: ?

Me: Wait! She gets ducks, but I don’t get chickens? (Okay, I know that’s a childish argument, but seriously, how are ducks any different than chickens?)

Watson: If you want to see chickens—

Girls: (finishing his sentence) …go to Pennsylvania and look at them.

Ugh.

Me: But green egg layers would be so much fun! (The only thing better than gathering regular eggs is gathering green eggs. Trust me on this. I speak truth.)

And so the rest of the way to the feed store, Watson explains why we are NEVER getting chickens in Virginia and how I don’t need chickens and how ducks are different and how I need to be happy with no chickens or go to PA, blah, blah, blah.

Bottom line was this: NO CHICKENS IN VIRGINIA. NOT NOW. NOT EVER. End of story.

I know he’s right, and I kinda thought when I started that argument that I was going to lose it, and I can be a gracious loser (ha), so as we pull into the feed store, I say, “Fine. No chickens. We’ll get ducks instead.”

Watson: No ducks, either.

So, anyway, we park, and the girls and Watson get out. I get my Kindle app up and start to read. (I only go into stores if forced to do so. I really don’t like to shop.)

You know how you get lost in a book and you kind of lose track of time and suddenly you look up and realize that a LOT of time has gone by and your family should be back and maybe you should be worried?

So that happened to me just before the girls opened the door and got in the pickup. I’m relieved, so I turn around to greet them and ask what took them so long when I see that my two youngest are both carrying little boxes with handles and small round holes in them.

Then I hear chirping.

Yep. It’s the week before Easter, and the feed store is selling chicks. Would you believe the only

kind they had left were female Ameraucanas? (Ameraucanas lay green eggs. I’m not even kidding.)

I guess the girls were charmed, and Watson, who likes to act all tough, is just a big softie, and he bought me…um, the girls, ten chicks. (Along with a waterer and feeder, because all our chick-raising equipment is in PA.)

So, this was totally an impulse buy. We have no place on the farm that is secure enough to keep baby chicks. Everything eats them, they have to stay warm (under a heat light warm) and dry, and we just don’t have any place that will keep out the predators—snakes, owls, cats, skunks, rats, coons, possums, etc.

I remember years ago back on the farm—and I’m sure some of you do too—when the box of chicks came from the feed store, it got set in the kitchen right next to the woodstove, and that’s how we kept the chicks warm.

I always loved walking in the kitchen of the old farmhouse and crouching down by the box, just hunkering there and watching the busy little chicks.

Well, I got to do that again, kinda, since we put our ten chicks in an empty water trough, along with their feeder and waterer, and attached a heat light to a board across the top, and put the whole thing in my library.

I wrote Me and the Sweet Snowstorm in my library while the chicks chirped and played beside me. Super fun. They kept me smiling for sure.

(Just a little dose of reality, because nothing is perfect, right? Back on the farm, I don’t remember the kitchen smelling bad, but I’m sure it did with the chicks in it. In my library, it was fun to watch, fun to hear, but it smelled terrible, just saying.)

Okay, I know it’s kind of hard to believe, but I do write books, too, and right now I have a big, ten-book box set on sale for just $.99! You can check it out here: https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Water-Western-Cowboy-Romance-ebook/dp/B09YQK2L1R?tag=pettpist-20/