Kim Hampton
You’re my Winner!
You’ve a mail-order bride romance ebook of mine of your choice.
Contact me at authorkitmorgan@gmail.com so I can get your ebook to you.
Kit Morgan
An Old West Mailwoman and a Give Away!
Who doesn’t like Gary Cooper? He’s been in his fair share of westerns and I’m sure most of us have seen at least one of them at some time. But did you know, that when Gary Cooper was just a little tyke, he crossed paths with a larger-than-life figure? The year was 1900 when little Gary met Stagecoach Mary, a six-foot-plus powerhouse who could outdrink, outsmoke, outcuss, outfight, and outshoot any man around. As Gary put it, “She could take down any two fellas in the territory, and she had a knack for knocking back the hard stuff like nobody’s business.” Mary also went on to delivering mail. But before she got to that point, she had quite the life.
Mary was born into slavery in 1832. The Civil War eventually set her free, and she found herself working on the Robert E. Lee steamboat. She loved regaling folks with tales of her adventures, like the time the boat raced against the Natchez in 1870, with crew members tossing anything they could find into the boilers to keep them firing hot.
Later on, Mary landed a job with Judge Edmund Dunne, becoming a trusted figure in his household. When tragedy struck and the judge’s wife passed away, Mary was there to help, proving her mettle to the core.
Things took a wild turn when Mother Mary Amadeus Dunne, the judge’s sister, ventured to Montana to start a school. Mary followed, stepping up to nurse the ailing nun back to health and then sticking around to tackle whatever needed doing at St. Peter’s Mission. From hauling freight to fixing up buildings, Mary did it all, even if her language and rough edges rubbed some folks the wrong way.
Despite the occasional raised eyebrow, Mary endeared herself to many, earning nicknames like “White Crow” from Native Americans who couldn’t quite figure her out. And when trouble came knocking, Mary wasn’t one to back down, whether it was facing off against a skunk or settling a score with a disgruntled coworker in a gunfight.
Eventually, Mary’s path led her to become the first black woman to manage a mail route in the United States. Armed with her trusty rifle and a no-nonsense attitude, she tackled snowstorms, wolf packs, and even the occasional keg of spilled molasses with her trademark gusto.
After retiring from her postal gig at age 71, Mary settled into a quieter life in town, where she became a beloved figure among the locals. From free meals at the hotel to a new home built by the community after hers burned down, Mary’s impact was felt far and wide.
When she passed away in 1914, the whole town turned out to bid her farewell, a testament to the lasting legacy of a woman who blazed trails and captured hearts wherever she went.
Decades later, Gary Cooper, now a Hollywood icon, fondly remembered the indomitable spirit of Stagecoach Mary, celebrating her as a symbol of freedom and resilience in Ebony Magazine. As he put it, she wasn’t just another face in the crowd—she was a force of nature, as unstoppable as she was unforgettable.
I haven’t written any books about mail carriers in the old west. But I do have a lot of mail-order brides! I’m giving away one free mail-order bride e-book of mine to one lucky commenter! Just tell me a story about the mail, or mailmen or women. Funniest story I have is about the time our mother was supposed to be getting neighbor’s mail for them while they were on vacation. We also had to feed their goats and horses while they were gone. She set the mail on a stump and went to feed the horses, and one of the billy goats started eating the mail. Unfortunately, he ate the neighbor’s paycheck! Howard the neighbor, who worked for the forestry department, had quite the time explaining that one! Do you have a fun story? Share it in the comments!
Kit Morgan has a Winner!
Patricia Barraclough
You’re my Winner!
You’ve won a free e-book copy of Miss Penelope: The Brides of Fiddler’s Gap, Book 1
Contact me at authorkitmorgan@gmail.com so I can get your book to you.
Mail-Order Musicians
Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Mail-Order Musicians? Well, not exactly. I created a new series and the first book released this month. Miss Penelope: The Brides of Fiddler’s Gap. Yes, they’re mail-order brides, but when you have a town made up entirely of orchestra members looking not only for brides, but to increase the size of their orchestra, then yes, those brides are required to also be a musician.
Enter Penelope Smith, an heiress, and a flutist, who’d rather play her flute than her mother’s social climbing games. She’s twenty-two and considered on the shelf. So, her father takes it upon himself to arrange a marriage between her and one Leopold Wadsworh the third. Penelope isn’t having it, so when she sees an advertisement for a woman of virtue that is also a virtuoso, she makes a run for it. Unfortunately for her intended groom, all she cares about is joining the town orchestra. Little does she know that’s the whole town. All eighteen people. Here’s a little snippet from the book:
The stagecoach came to a jolting stop, making Penelope jump. “Oh!” She blinked back sleep, shook her head to clear it, then peeked out the window. The stage had pulled up in front of a general store. It was painted yellow with white trim and had a white sign with “Johnson’s General Store” painted in bold black letters on it. She smiled. “Finally.”
Before she gathered her things, the stagecoach door opened. “Hurry, Miss.” The driver looked this way and that, a nervous glint in his eyes.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Not yet, but if we don’t hurry, there might be.” He motioned her to disembark.
She frowned. “Whatever are you talking about?”
He helped her down, got her trunk off the back of the stage, then set it at her feet. She noticed he’d already tossed down a mailbag. Wasn’t he going to take it into the store?
The driver tipped his hat. “Have a nice day ma’am.” He looked around again, let loose a cackle, then breathed a sigh of relief.
Penelope was about to ask him why he looked so relieved, when two huge black dogs bounded out of the general store.
The driver let out a yelp and scrambled up to his perch atop the stagecoach. The horses reared when the dogs barked, and he gave the team a slap of leather.
Penelope’s jaw dropped when he left her in a cloud of dust. And a growling noise. She slowly turned to face the dogs that chased the stage partway down the street. They were looking right at her, one of them emitting a low growl.
“Great Danes.” She gulped as her eyes darted to the store’s double doors. Where was the dogs’ owner? She smiled at the animals as they slowly approached. “Nice puppies, perhaps you ought to go home?”
There came a trumpet blast from somewhere up the street. As if cued, the dogs ran her way, barking.
Penelope’s eyes widened as she dropped her valise and made a run for it. She ran up the street where she saw an older man step onto the porch of a small church.
The barking dogs were right behind her. “Help!” She held onto her hat as she ran, then let go to pick up her skirt and run up the church steps. Penelope hustled past the man on the porch into the church and tripped. The barking dogs reached her and… licked her face?!
“Oh, get off me!” One of the dogs ran his tongue over her lips while the other stuck his in her ear. “Someone help!”
“Mozart! Brahms! Get off!” came a man’s voice.
“Mozart!” A woman’s voice this time. “You ought to be ashamed!”
One of the dogs whined and laid on top of her! “For crying out loud, get this horse off of me!” Penelope wheezed.
“Oh, dear me,” came the woman’s voice again. “Brahms, now you know that isn’t polite.”
The Great Dane sprawled on top of Penelope gave the woman a happy bark. The other dog sat and thumped his tail on the floor.
“I’m terribly sorry,” a young, dark-haired man said. He grabbed the collar of the dog laying across her and pulled. “Mozart, come along.”
The dog whined and did as he was told.
Penelope lay on her back, her face covered in dog slobber, and looked at the faces gathering above her.
“Oh, my goodness,” an older plump woman said. “You didn’t happen to come here as a mail-order bride, did you?”
Penelope tried not to swallow. If she did, she feared she’d be swallowing dog drool. She opted for nodding.
The plump woman’s face lit up as she clapped her hands together. “You are? That’s wonderful! Oh Sheriff Cole!”
“What if she’s not the sheriff’s?” asked the young man that pulled the dog off. The beast looked like he still wanted to make a bed out of her. Mozart, or whatever his name was, pulled the young man in her direction a few steps before he managed to pull the dog back.
Penelope wondered if she had a cracked rib and tried taking in a lungful of air. Good, no damage there…
Another man’s face joined the others. His was handsome with dark hair and beautiful blue eyes. “Ma’am.” He offered her a hand.
She took it and let him pull her to her feet. “Thank you.” She took a handkerchief from her reticule and wiped her mouth first, then the rest of her face. That done, she gave the dogs the stink eye. “You should at least have the decency to look guilty.”
A fortyish looking woman with light brown hair had hold of one, the young, dark-haired man the other. The two looked like they were related. Mother and son, perhaps?
She looked at the dogs. Both were watching her, their tongues hanging out their mouths as they panted. Probably in anticipation of tackling her again.
The woman gave her an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry about Mozart and Brahms. They get a little excited around strangers.”
Penelope gave her a weak smile in return, then wiped at the dog slobber on the front of her traveling outfit. “Guard dogs?”
“Of a sort,” the woman said. She extended a hand. “I’m Clara Johnson and this is my son Taylor.” She motioned to the young man with the other dog. “We run the general store here.”
Penelope took a few steps toward her, never taking her eyes off the dog the woman held back and reached as far as she dared to shake her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Mrs. Johnson dragged the dog to the church door. “Go home, Brahms. You too, Mozart.”
The two dogs took off as soon as they were released and bounded from the church.
Penelope breathed a sigh of relief.
“Miss?”
She turned around. “Yes?” It was the handsome man that helped her to her feet. She peeked behind him to make sure there were no more dogs or anything else that could slobber all over her.
“I’m Sheriff Aubrey Cole. And you are?”
“Penelope Smith of Albany, New York.” Her jaw dropped when she realized who this man was. She absently pulled the advertisement from her reticule and looked it over. “You’re Sheriff Cole?”
“That’s right, ma’am.” he smiled.
Penelope gulped. “You?”
He looked to his right, then left. “Were you expecting someone else?” He glanced at the piece of paper in her hand. “May I see that?”
She handed it to him.
He read it, then held it up and smiled. “She’s mine!”
A cheer went up as the others gathered around him, slapping him on the back and offering their congratulations. What was going on?
She didn’t have time to ask. She heard growling outside, followed by a tearing sound. Penelope turned to the church door just in time to see her valise being ripped in two by Mozart and Brahms. “My luggage!” She ran for the door, intent on saving what she could. A petticoat fell out. One of the doges grabbed it and took off. The other hot on his heels. He got hold of the other end of the petticoat and pulled, ripping it in two. She didn’t care. She ran for the torn valise, spied her flute, and snatched up the case.
I’ve been a flute player for fifty years. And I’m a music major. One would think that after ten years of being a full time author, I’d have come up with this years ago! But, better late than never! And so we have a series of mail-order bride stories with a twist. This will be fun!
Do you love twists on the same old thing? A recipe, a book trope, a hair cut? I’m giving away a free e-copy of Miss Penelope to one lucky commenter!
Cowgirls in the Kitchen – Kit Morgan
Ever heard of Corn Flake Chicken? Of course you have. But if you haven’t (and even if you have) this scrumpcious dish is fun to play with because there are so many different variations on a theme.
My sister in law Kathy first introduced me to Corn Flake Chicken with her rendition of the recipe. Of course one needs a box of Corn Flakes, then the rest is up to you. Kathy’s version is made with corn flakes, parmesan cheese and a packet of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing and some melted butter. That’s it.
- Chicken Tenders or chicken breasts cut into tenders
- Corn Flakes (crushed)
- Parmesan Cheese
- 1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch Salad Dressing Mix
- Melted butter
Crush the cornflakes (you can either put them in a large ziplock back and run a rolling pin over them or crush them by hand. You don’t want to crush them into oblivion) then add a few tablespoons of parmesan cheese. You can add more or less depending on how much you want. Then add in a teaspoon or so of the Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix. This is also to taste. If you toss in the whole packet, it might be too salty for some. You can also add some pepper. Mix well.
Dip chicken into melted butter, then coat with corn flake mixture. Place in a 9×13 baking dish. (I always spray with Pam or canola oil. For a different taste, grease the pan with coconut oil. Bake at 400 degrees about 20-25 minutes. Could be longer if you cut your chicken pieces thicker.
That’s it… no, wait! That’s not it! You can do more with this recipe. Instead of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix, I love to use Capitol Hill. It’s a wonderful blend of sea salt and pepper, shallots, and herbs. It’s great on poultry, seafood, eggs, roasted veggies, potatoes, rice and I could go on, but suffice to say, it’s my go to seasoning. Alter the recipe by coating the chicken pieces in Best Food Mayonnaise. Yep, you read that right. Mayonnaise. Use the Capitol Hill Seasoning (about a teaspoon or so) in the corn flake mix and follow the rest of the recipe above. I like this version best. The mayonnaise makes the chicken turn out really tender.
You can make all sorts of variations of your corn flake mix. It’s fun to experiment with. Other recipes have you coating the chicken in an egg and milk mixture which works as well, but the butter and mayo are my go to.
You can find Capitol Hill Seasoning at Savory Spice
Enjoy!
Christmas Decor Crawl ~ Kit Morgan
I’m in California this Christmas, and so this isn’t the usual holiday for me. I managed to get a tree up and as that’s all I’ve managed here, I thought I’d share what the cabin in Oregon looks like instead, along with another place I can wind up spending Christmas.
In Oregon, we have a fourteen foot high beamed ceiling, so sometimes the trees are big! These are fun to decorate (so long as you have a ten foot step ladder which we do) but can take some time. Back in the day, we used to ride our horses into the woods, select a tree, cut it town, tie a rope to it and drag it back to the house. If the terrain was too rough, we had to hike on foot to get one.
My sister sent me a picture of this year’s tree. I think she got it from a tree farm. It’s too uniform to be a wild tree, and almost goes to the highest point of the ceiling.
I remember when my brother and sisters and I were little, Dad would lift us up so we could put an ornament on the tree. When you’re a child, the tree was so HUGE. Especially when you compare the tree to us little tykes. This picture is from the late sixties is my guess. And yes, that’s my brother and me. But look how big the tree is compared to us. My mother couldn’t get all of it in the picture! By the way, that’s our Great Dane Astro waltzing by when Mom snapped the photo.
We have a buffet that has been in the family for years. Sometime we put a nativity scene on it, sometime’s its food! Yes, that’s me in the mirror taking a picture of it in the second photo below. You get to see another Christmas tree too! Some years we get a smaller tree and put it in a corner of the room.
And then there was the year I spent Christmas in New York with my daughter and oldest son when they were there. There’s nothing like New York at Christmas time. But when you’re on the fourth floor of an old Victorian building that doesn’t have an elevator, one tends to get a different kind of tree…
I think Stasha, the Doberman my daughter was pet sitting over the holiday was bigger than the tree! And by the time we got the rest of the presents around it, a third of the tree could no longer be seen! But that was a fun Christmas.
So when you have your kids spread out around the country, you get used to a variety of decorations being put up. Decorating for the Christmas holiday is fun, no matter where you are. And of course, it’s the people you’re with that make the holiday special.
This year I’m spending Christmas with my middle son and some other relatives here in California. I already share this tree in the Petticoats and Pistols readers group, but it’s fun to share again.
I hope you’ve enjoyed a little peek into the different places I wind up decorating for the holidays! Here’s wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!
Cowboys & Mistletoe – Kit Morgan
(POST 3 of 3 for Tuesday)
Hi everyone! It’s so great to be here for this year’s Cowboys & Mistletoe! It’s Day 2, and I’m sure you’re having fun discovering some new books, and reading some of the other fillies’ two truths and a lie! Those are always so much fun! And speaking of fun, I love this time of year! For many of us the holidays are all about family, traditions, and of course fun! Those are also a lot of the reasons I like writing about them! I love Christmas books and have written quite a few, but the one I want to showcase is Christmas in Clear Creek.
Christmas in Clear Creek was the first Christmas book I ever wrote, so it holds a special place in my heart. I’d created my little town of Clear Creek, Oregon, and topping off my first series, Prairie Brides, with this book was fitting! It deals with a small town in the old west, an outlaw wannabe, and the effort he puts into being bad, when all along he has a gift of doing good! Here’s a little more about the book:
Bowen Drake had a gift. Unfortunately he didn’t want it. He even went so far as to do ‘bad’ in order to thwart the ‘good’ that seemed to follow him everywhere! For when HE needed it the darn thing didn’t do HIM any good at all! He tried drinking, he tried womanizing, he even tried outlawing, but nothing worked. Finally he stumbles into the little town of Clear Creek and there discovers why we’ve been given the gifts we have…
Elsie Waller came to Clear Creek after the death of her grandfather. She had high hopes for her life in the little town including looking for a husband. Imagine her elation when she happens upon the man of her dreams the very day after she arrives! Of course, the fact he was half frozen did put a damper on things, but once the townsfolk of Clear Creek thawed him out she endeavored to make sure Bowen Drake stayed around long enough to see she’d make him a mighty fine wife! The only question was, how?
Enjoy Bowen and Elsie’s fanciful tale of mishaps, miracles, and love!
You can find the book on AMAZON
I’ve giving away an e-copy of Christmas in Clear Creek and a $5.00 Amazon e-gift card to one lucky commenter!
Below you will find three statements, two are true, one is not.
Guess which is the lie in the comments to be entered in the drawings.
Winners and answers will be announced on Sunday 12/03.
I had a lovely apartment in New York for four years. Christmas in the big apple is the best!
One of my family’s kooky Christmas traditions is re-wrapping and re-giving the same CD of the worst music ever, to another family member, who then must do the same the following year.
My six kids are spread around the country, which makes getting them together for Christmas hard, but this also means I get to travel sometimes for Christmas, which is fun!
Kit Morgan has a WINNER!
Janice Cole Hopkins
You’re my Winner!
You’ve won a free e-copy of Love at Harvest Moon!
Contact me at authorkitmorgan@gmail.com so I can get you your book.
A History of the Corn Maze and a Giveaway!
Mazes and labyrinths, with their complicated designs and paths, have been around for a really long time. Like thousands of years long. There’s evidence of mazes in Greek and Roman art, flooring patterns on streets, and yes, even in the earth itself. Most scholars believe mazes were used for religious rituals and walk-through processions back then. But they were also used for decorations and entertainment, and many a maze could be found during the Middle Ages, in French cathedrals, Scandinavian labyrinths, and European gardens. There’s a huge, elaborate maze at Versailles that was presumably inspired by Aesop’s fables.
But what about the corn mazes we’re familiar with? Well, it might surprise you to know that the idea didn’t come along until 1993 when Don Frantz and Adrian Fisher created one on 3 acres with 1.92 miles of pathway – it earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world’s largest corn maze. This record was beaten by Cool Patch Pumpkins’ of Dixon California in 2014. Their corn maze spanned 60 acres. I’ve been to Dixon, but never to their corn maze. In fact, I didn’t know about it until I was researching mazes. Dixon also used to have a fantastic tea house that served high tea. The one time I was there it was full of bikers, all enjoying their high tea. But that’s a story for another time.
Back to corn mazes…
So, what’s the difference between corn mazes and conventional hedge mazes? The stalks are cut to form a pattern discernible from an aerial view, whereas a hedge maze usually follows a geometric layout. Yeah, I didn’t know that either.
Another nice thing about corn mazes, they provide farms a way to earn money by providing a fun time for young and old alike. I’ve only ever been to one corn maze. It was with an older group of singles from church. There was a chaplain in our little group, an architect, a civil engineer, myself the writer, a couple teachers and a few others. Surely with our combined efforts we could manage a corn maze with ease.
We were wrong.
We got lost, so lost.
In fact, we went over the time limit and wound up in the “evening” maze, which included zombies and other “creatures” hidden in the stalks.
We passed through a tunnel, and a zombie jumped out behind us. Well, the chaplain, who had to be in her mid sixties, jumped onto the back of the architect, screaming like a banshee. She scared the zombie (not to mention Don the architect) who took off running. So did Don. The zombie went one way, Don the other. I was left standing in the middle wondering what just happened.
So, certain mazes might be designed with a theme or story in mind; some take inspiration from books, films, or eras in history.
There can be trails leading off the main route that encircle the entire design of the maze. This may have been what happened to our little group and why it took us so long to find our way out.
Like many haunted corn mazes, ours came with actors whose goal is to scare visitors. Being the brave souls we were, (and remembering our blood pressure) we went to the earlier run through that guaranteed no zombies, or anything else. Getting lost wasn’t in our plan!
Some haunted mazes might have special effects, and scary soundtracks added for extra fear factor. Ours didn’t, just the actors jumping out at you and sending your blood pressure to the moon.
And of course, these spooky mazes open after dark when guests can really get into the eerie atmosphere. For us, half of us couldn’t see… sigh.
Moving on…
How is a corn maze made, you ask? Well come spring, corn is planted in a grid-shaped pattern through a field. Corn stalks need to be strong and tall so farmers use a certain strain of corn. They have to watch for stalk rot, which is caused by moisture stress, improper fertilization, or the sudden development of disease.
When the corn is at least six feet high, the maze pattern is cut out. After that’s complete, weed killer is applied to avoid any regrowth in those areas. This allows the rest of the corn to grow tall enough around the maze pattern. And then voila! You have a corn maze!
Have you ever been through a corn maze? Was it fun? Did it have zombies and whatnot? I’m giving away a free e-copy of my book, Love at Harvest Moon to one lucky commenter. Here’s a little more about the book:
Eva Brock’s mother was the most over-bearing, controlling, and opinionated woman she had ever known, and if she didn’t escape out from under her roof, she’d have Eva married off to a man not twice, but THREE times her age! Her only hope was to become a mail-order bride and marry herself off before her mother did.
Finn Mullany wasn’t looking for a wife, and didn’t want one. Or rather, he didn’t deserve one! He’d made some mistakes of late that cost his best friend his sight, and Finn was having a pretty hard time dealing with the aftermath. But what he didn’t know, was that sometimes forgiveness comes in many forms, and many ways, and Lorcan Brody, Finn’s best friend found a way to show him he’d forgiven Finn completely. But would the love of a mail-order bride be enough to help Finn forgive himself?
Kit Morgan has a Winner!
Lois Imel
You’re my Winner!
You’ve won a free e-copy of The Christmas House that releases in October.
Contact me at authorkitmorgan@gmail.com so I can get the book to you when it releases.