Ruthy

Happy Thanksgiving!

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I love Thanksgiving. I love the old New England version of Thanksgiving with the turkey and stuffing and potatoes and all the trimmings, minus green bean casserole. (No offense, green beans, but I don’t like them mushy!)

Cranberry and orange relish…

Eggnog.

Apple pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate cream pie, pecan pie, banana cream pie, cream puffs.

I love a great dessert table after a beautiful meal, mostly because we spend summer and fall living on burgers and sandwiches and whatever we can grab quickly because there’s little time for fussing. So it’s fun to fuss on Thanksgiving and there are a whole bunch of us helping.

Now we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday (today). We do the family Thanksgiving tomorrow so that my kids with in-laws aren’t split by two hours at one house, two hours at another, and then two hours at another. So today whoever is at our house baking for tomorrow will have Chicken French and Artichoke French and for the two fellows who don’t love those, we’ll throw a steak on the grill….

That picture is two years old, but you get the idea… All hands on deck for baking!

And then tomorrow, tradition reigns.

I love seeing family all get together, but it happens rarely with a couple of kids far away, so whenever it happens, we celebrate! It doesn’t have to be a holiday because anytime I’ve got my kids around is a holiday.  And that’s even when we’re grabbing bologna sandwiches during the busy farm season because we’re all doing this together. And together is what makes it special.

And if you’re at a stage of life where you can’t or don’t get together with family for Thanksgiving, then you can spend your day with the sweet Lord who offers life and hope. It’s fun to have family around, but I know it’s tiring, too.

God isn’t tiring. He’s inspiring and loves you to distraction, so whatever your day holds, I pray that it’s a warm, embracing day, filled with love near and far.

A day to just simply give thanks.

God bless you!

And yes, I’m giving away another copy of our Christmas anthology “Christmas at Star Inn”!

I love these stories!

Leave a comment about whatever you’re giving thanks for today… no thought is too little or too grand. It’s all good. And if you’d like prayers for something, well we’re happy to do that, too!

Happy Thanksgiving, sweet friends!

Ruthy

Summer on the Farm

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I don’t live in the West.

I love to write westerns (and other stories, too!) but I live in Western New York. I am in the “Eastern Woodlands” according to the Kratt Brothers (we love Wild Kratts!) but if it’s the western part of the state, that should count for something. 🙂

We grow pumpkins.

We grow other stuff too, but we’re a small farm (using about 22 acres of our fifty acres of land) and we sell everything from our front yard…. Which means come September and October, my yard is filled with all kinds of wonderful people!!!!

Hundreds of people. Big people. Little people. People who come to see all the cool stuff we grow and display.

 

 

Polar Bear pumpkins and my friend Becky…. Gotta have friends!
Display ideas for stacking pumpkins…. look at those colors! We grow pink, blue, gray, silver, tan, orange, white, yellow, green, red and orange pumpkins and squashes, many are old heirloom varieties that we teach folks about all the time! The pallets you see are for the 1500 chrysanthemums I grow to go along with the pumpkins….
Our September/October front porch photo op… folks can sit on the old steps or their kids can and take photos…. or we take a photo for them! We have several photo ops for people, where they can commemorate their visit with no fee attached. Folks love being able to have a farm-friendly visit at reasonable prices. And we love it!

 

Chrsyanthemums.… this is my venue. This and baking for the customers, cakes and cookies and breads to make everyone smile…. but the mums are a huge undertaking and I have some young friends who help me with daily watering and feeding….

Mums in so many colors…. 1500 of them and it’s an amazing thing to see how excited customers are when they see the gorgeous colors and display ideas of mums with stacked pumpkins and a bale of straw or hay.

 

So while I still write in the pre-dawn hours, the rest of my day is filled with farm work… the house is NOT clean…. and I don’t cook all that much, we eat a lot of sandwiches!!!… but in the end, the folks are so excited to come and see the new things, shop, have fun, visit the miniature donkeys (must love donkeys!) and spend some time on the farm, tucked in the country…

So while I don’t live in the west, I’m not afraid to help run a real-live farming effort with my husband and help from family and friends….

 

Just in case you’ve been wondering what I’ve been doing….. and then THIS HAPPENED!

Bestselling book from Waterfall Press, the 2nd book in my “Wishing Bridge” series from Amazon/Brilliance has been named a finalist in the “Maggie Award for Excellence” sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers! I was so excited to get this phone call

So that’s how my summer’s been going…. no complaints! How about yours? Do you garden? Farm? Work in an office? Tell me what’s going on this summer in your neck of the woods!

Ruthy

New Kid in Town!

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www.ruthloganherne.com

I AM A FILLY!

I’ve always been a girl… And then a woman/sister/mom/wife/daughter/sister-in-law/grandma….

But now I’m officially a Petticoats and Pistols filly and do you know why?

I write Westerns.

It’s not my fault.

IT’S NEVER MY FAULT!  (Just had to get that out of my system.)

But this time it’s true… Love Inspired asked me to be part of a Western continuity a few years ago and I was hooked.

#mustlovecowboys

#cowboysrock

I am over the moon and if that sounds overdone, trust me: it’s not. It’s facts, ma’ams, simply facts.  And huge thanks to the wonderful writers/cowgirls of Petticoats & Pistols for bringing me ’round the campfire. But how is writing a Western novel different from writing my typical novels?

BOOK ONE of the DOUBLE S RANCH SERIES AVAILABLE HERE!

That’s Colt Stafford on the cover. And  that cover is a clue. Western heroes are larger than life, regardless of size… Because it’s not the size of the man. It’s the size of the heart.

Real cowboys are strong enough to be gentle… They’re man enough to put others needs, including the horse, the stock, the wife, the kids… before theirs. They’re tough enough to find faith, even if it’s not for the first time. They practice “Cowboy code” and they’re proud of it.  Whether you’re the oldest brother Colt, pictured above…

Or the middle brother, Nick: (Nick’s book is a finalist in the Maggie Award of Excellence for 2017. It’s available here.)

Or the country crooner superstar youngest brother, Trey:

Westerns are different in lots of ways. The obvious distinction is setting, and that’s a big difference because the West prides itself on being The West… Movies and books chronicle the push west, Ken Burns did a whole documentary about Westward expansion, Western movies and television shows abound and there are high school and college courses done on the positives and negatives of that westward push. History books cleaned up some stories, while scholars re-painted those same stories with dark intent that sometimes went to opposite extremes.

In the midst of it all, a region was built, bought, separated, fought for, fought over, divided and maintained. The heartland became the opening segue into the American We. With land spreading west, north and south, new states, cities, towns, villages and ranches were born. People moved west, moved back east, and moved west again, pushing that invisible wall of separation until they hit the Pacific Ocean.

I’ve delved into the history of it to create a fictional town set in South Dakota, one in Idaho and one… romance in a soddy!… in eastern Nebraska.

I’ve written an award-winning, bestselling series about the contemporary west, and loved it.

Whether my stories are set in modern times or historical venues, they have one thing in common: Love. And strong, strong women.

I love strong women.

I love empowering women.

Women are the unsung heroes in so many roles in life, but not in a Ruthy book. A memorable hero is a wonderful thing. But I love a book that celebrates the strong overcomer in a woman. A book that champions HER as much as it does him…

Because I believe women are blessed with an amazing strength that gets overlooked too often. Hey, I’ve been in a labor bed… and at a bedside, holding a dying hand. I’ve been in an emergency room, watching skilled professionals try to save a life… and at a graveside, mourning when life succumbs.

A great Western is a story of strength… of hope… of love.

My joy in writing gets polished in all of my books, but my cowboy books grab a piece of my heart and don’t let go… Maybe it’s the hat.

Maybe it’s the setting.

Or maybe… just maybe… it’s that pioneer-loving side of me that will never take the American West for granted.

Hey, I brought some home-made ice cream and chocolate dipped cones… and strong coffee.  Join me inside and if you leave a comment, I’ll toss your cute name into a hat for the first Double S Ranch book “Back in the Saddle”. Let’s talk why we love romance