Author: Karen GoatKeeper

Karen GoatKeeper loves to write. Her books include picture books, novels and nonfiction for science activity books and nature books. A recent inclusion are science teaching units.
The coming year has goals for two new novels, a picture book and some books of personal essays. This is ambitious and ignores time constraints.
She lives in the Missouri Ozarks with her small herd of Nubian dairy goats. The Ozarks provides the inspiration and setting for most of her books.

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Lawn Mowing

Spring is a busy time of year. Everything suddenly needs attention. And you find you are walking through ankle high grass. It is lawn mowing time again.

pineapple weed lawn mowing obstacle
Pineapple weed may be non native, however, it is a pretty flower. It grows along the edge of the driveway and the lawn mower somehow misses many of them.

Lawnmowers

As soon as my siblings and I were big enough, we were introduced to the task of lawn mowing. At that time, we had a reel mower.

This type of mower is a real challenge to operate. First, it requires a level yard. Second, it requires and builds arm and leg muscles. Third, it punishes you if you don’t mow regularly as it works best on short grass.

We graduated to a mower with a motor to turn the blades. The mower still required leg power, but it wasn’t as finicky about the level lawn and length of grass.

Power Lawnmowers

Our so-called lawn here has slopes and holes. We did use leg power to mow for a time, but age made that difficult. The mower became a self propelled one.

This worked well as we have odd plantings scattered about. And there are wildflowers we want to watch bloom. But age keeps moving along.

There is now a small riding mower for the large areas. It makes mowing easier, but lawn mowing remains challenging.

Daffodils

There are people who mow over their daffodils as soon as the flowers are gone. They wonder why fewer of them come up the next year. The time after blooming until the leaves yellow is when the plants store up food to maintain the bulbs until next spring.

We mow around the plants which can make us mow a maze.

Near the barn is another stretch of lawn. It is presently approaching knee height and I can’t mow part of it yet. The milkweeds are coming up.

Milkweeds

Each day new stakes are put in to mark the outer rim of this year’s milkweed patch. Common milkweed is a perennial, but it has an underground stem that shifts one year to the next. The patch comes up in the same area, but not in the same place.

Maybe next week I can start the annual weekly task of lawn mowing that section.

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GKP Writing News

Building a World

Any writing endeavor leaves an author building a world. This is true for nonfiction as well as fiction. It is true for any genre.

New England asters building a world
There are half a dozen lovely asters that bloom in the fall. As I put together pictures for “Exploring the Ozark Hills”, I chose this one as I built my world for the book.

Nonfiction Too?

Nonfiction is set in a real place. It is someplace you can see pictures of or visit. Except that isn’t the place you are writing about.

The author is writing about a place the author sees. It may be based on reality, but the author sees it according to the author’s point of view.

When I wrote “Exploring the Ozark Hills”, I chose the topics. I went out and took the pictures framing them to illustrate what I wanted to write about. It was the real world, but it was also the world I wanted to see.

Real World Fiction

Novels set in the real world, past or present, are like the ones for nonfiction. They may be based on real places, but they are written about as the author sees them.

Plot events influence what is most important in a setting description. Flower kinds and colors don’t matter much during a chase scene. During a romantic scene, these may help enhance the feeling the writer is trying for.

Fantasy and Science Fiction

No matter how hard a writer tries to create an imaginary world, it will relate to what is familiar. We may write about being telepathic, but it is not based on experience. Instead we write about what we think it would be like.

Building a world with strange plants and animals is the same. We have a mental picture of what an animal is, what a plant is. The imaginary ones will conform to these ideas to some extent as we can’t relate to something totally out of our experience.

Melding Truth and Imagination

As I struggle with “The Carduan Chronicles: Ship Nineteen”, I must meld the reality of nature with my point of view of these places with the point of view of these small people. The plants and animals are those I am familiar with. I must see them differently to make my writing feel real.

Building a world for any writing project is challenging. It takes time and thought. In the end, this world begins to feel real and that lets it feel real for a reader.

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Garden Tub Greens

Spring is here in the Ozarks. It could still frost, but days are warm. It’s time to start those garden tub greens.

Snow Peas in Raised Garden Bed
Although I do grow some taller snow peas in the ground with a trellis, I have much better luck with these shorter purple pod snow peas in the raised bed. Raised beds are a big version of a garden tub.

Which Greens?

There are several to choose from. The big question is whether or not frost will still visit. That takes bok choi off the list for a couple more weeks.

Thumbing through my line of seed packets, I take out Napa cabbage, beets, kohlrabi, green onions, red and green lettuces, tatsoi, red and green mizuna and carrots. These should take a light frost.

Savoy Cabbage in raised bed
Savoy cabbage gets too big for a tub container, but is fine in this long raised bed. The mesh is some voile I found on sale. It isn’t real sturdy, but works well to keep cabbage moths off and is light enough to rest over the plants.

Why Garden Tub Greens?

My garden soil is still cold. The tubs sit out in the sun and warm up. All of the greens I’ve chosen may like cooler weather, but they don’t like it cold and damp.

The one disadvantage is the size of the tubs. Some of these do get big, so I can’t plant very many. My other option is pulling some like beets early for just the greens.

Another consideration is how long these take to mature. Ozark springs can be long and cool. More often they are short and become summer almost overnight.

Planting the Tubs

My garden tubs have mulch on them. Most of this mulch needs to stay or the weeds will have a party.

So I clear a ring around the tub a few inches inside. Seeds are planted in this ring.

The weeds will still have a party. At least, they will try. But it will be a small party.

Succession

About the time these greens are ready to harvest, summer will be moving in. I can still grow greens in some of the tubs, but ones that can take some heat.

Most of the tubs will have peppers, eggplant and other summer crops to fill them until fall cools things down again.

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GKP Writing News

Photographic Illustrations

My first illustrated books used photographic illustrations. This seemed the easy way to do them. Reality set in quickly.

Page from "My Ozark Home"
Photographs were the best way to illustrate “My Ozark Home”. Chicory grows along the road. It is a favorite of the goats and groundhogs, so it doesn’t last long in the pastures.

Types of Books

My science activity books use photographic illustrations for the simple reason that these show what I am talking about. They show the steps of the Investigations.

In “The Pumpkin Project”, I have pictures of people with their prize winning pumpkins. A drawing wouldn’t work.

When I wrote “My Ozark Home”, I was showing the hills and pastures of my home. Drawings, no matter how good, wouldn’t be as good.

Photograph or Drawing?

I am not the best photographer. Some of the pictures for my books took many, many tries before I got them right.

This is a problem with using photographic illustrations. Wind blows plants. Animals take off. Investigations need too many hands to do the work and take the pictures.

Drawings might be easier as the illustrator can plan them out. That raises the question of how good the artist is.

“For Love of Goats” had all the text done. So did “The Little Spider” and “Waiting for Fairies”. These books needed drawings, not photographs.

Desperation

I hated seeing these books sit there. Some books will never get done as they aren’t good enough. That wasn’t the case with these.

Armed with the knowledge I am a goat keeper, I decided to try doing the goat illustrations. Only those who know goats, can really draw goats.

Doing these illustrations gave me enough confidence to illustrate the two picture books. What I found out is that each book needed a different approach.

Melding Watercolor, Camera and Computer

All of my illustrations begin as photographs or watercolors. None of these is ready to put straight into a book.

Photographic illustrations must be cropped, maybe enhanced, definitely resized. Watercolors are also cropped, mistakes corrected and resized. The end result is a book illustration.

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GKP Writing News

Do You Read?

“Reading Is Fundamental” goes one slogan for one program. Accelerated Reading is another program. These are aimed to get young people to read. The important question is: Do You Read?

When I was growing up, there was an antismoking slogan: Do as I say, not as I do. Parents would smoke and lament when their children took up the habit.

It applies to reading as well. If a parent doesn’t read, why should their children? How do you convince a child reading is important, if it isn’t important to you?

cover for "Capri Capers" by Karen GoatKeeper
This is a novel you can read for fun.

Why Does Literacy Matter?

Imagine you are going grocery shopping and can’t read the labels. You must depend on pictures on the labels. Sometimes there are no pictures. Other times there are several choices as in canned fruit: heavy syrup, light syrup, fruit juice. How do you know the difference? There are labels with pictures promoting scents, not what is in the containers.

There was a television program many, many years ago in which Johnny Cash played an illiterate man. He had many work arounds for filling out job applications and getting others to read directions for him. Ultimately, he was always found out.

Getting Information

There are many places purporting to give you the news. How do you know which ones are real news versus opinions about the news? If you can’t read, you can’t even read the headlines.

If you look up directions, you could find a podcast showing the directions. How do you know it’s right? Are there other methods that would work better for you?

Excuses, Excuses

There are learning disabilities making reading difficult. And there are other ways of reading such as audio books. A disability is not a good excuse.

“I don’t like to read.” Such a favorite excuse. There are books on all subjects, at all levels. Novels come in age levels and numerous genres. Some are graphic novels done mostly in pictures. Somewhere there are books to interest you.

Do You Read?

Literacy is the basis of a democracy. Reading lets people know what is going on. Finding out more about the many sides of an issue let’s people make good decisions.

Do you want to make our country great again? Read!

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Lost Cud Emergency

High Reaches Valerie had been sick with a case of worms. I dewormed her. The next morning, I went into the barn to hear her giving that plaintive cry saying she was dying. I had a lost cud emergency.

lost cud emergency for Nubian doe High Reaches Valerie
It only takes a couple of days for a goat that isn’t eating to look like a skeleton. Nubian doe High Reaches Valerie is normally thin, but now she was weak and I could count her ribs.

What Happened?

Dewormers, more commonly called wormers, are poisons. The label lists the kinds of worms the poison kills.

Poison does not read labels. It kills whatever it can. Poor Valerie’s rumen bacteria were killed. A lost cud means a dead rumen and kills a goat.

lost cud emergency donor Nubian doe High Reaches Lydia
Pictures taken in a dark barn are difficult. Of course, Nubian doe Lydia was in the darkest corner happily chewing her cud and waiting for breakfast. Little did she know I was in search of a cud.

Rumen Bacteria

A very young kid will eat dirt along with chewing on everything it finds. It is not teething. These things have bacteria on them and this goes down into the developing rumen.

A rumen is the first compartment of the four part stomach of a ruminant. All the hastily chomped leaves, grass etc. goes into this big place. Only bacteria can break down the cellulose of plant walls to release the nutrition.

Once the plant matter is mixed with the bacteria, a goat regurgitates a mouthful and chews it thoroughly before swallowing it into the next stomach compartment for digestion. This mouthful is called a cud. Relaxing goats lie around or stand around chewing their cuds.

Lost Cud Emergency

When the bacteria in the rumen die out in an adult goat, dirt is not on the menu. If no bacteria remain, the goat does not eat and starves to death. Even if the goat does eat, the food does not digest.

Valerie’s only hope was if I could get bacteria back into her rumen. Time was running out for her.

Rumen Bacteria Sources

There are commercial remedies. As this rarely happens, I don’t have them here at home as they would sit on the shelves for years. On a weekend, I can’t go into town to get them because the feed stores are closed.

My first remedy is yoghurt. Wormer does cause a bit of a problem this way in some of my goats, even if dosages are carefully followed. Usually a dose of yoghurt solves the problem.

I mix about two tablespoons of yoghurt with enough milk to liquify it. A big dosing syringe works well for drenching the goat.

Valerie improved slightly. Yoghurt wasn’t enough. My next remedy is challenging. I steal a cud from a healthy goat hoping my fingers don’t get crunched by molars.

The stolen cud is mixed with water. The water is given as a drench. I let the cud sit in water in a warm place for a second dose.

Valerie is now on the road to recovery.

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GKP Writing News

Writing Drabbles

Most of my short written pieces are my posts for on the website and run 300 to 400 words. When I wrote “For Love of goats”, I wrote shorter pieces around 150 to 200 words. Now I am trying my hand at writing drabbles, one of them anyway.

cover of "For Love of Goats" by Karen GoatKeeper
Although I wrote the various letter stories in “For Love of Goats” primarily for alliteration, many of them are short stories in fifty words or so.

Writers Digest

No writer knows everything about writing, even if some of them think they do. And there are new ideas and reminders about writing. Where do you find them?

One place is by reading a wide range of books. My reading list runs from picture book concept books through juvenile, some young adult into adult. It includes fiction and nonfiction.

As I read, I decide what I like and what I don’t about the book. The things I don’t like are things to avoid in my own writing. Things I like might change how I write.

The other place to find out new things is in magazines. Writers Digest is one of them. It mentions new authors, writing advice, agents and more. One of the other things is a writing contest.

Writing Drabbles

First there is the question of what a drabble is. It is a story in 100 words, not counting the title.

When a word count is so limited, every word counts. It is a story, so something does happen and has a result.

The Contest

There is a picture. Writers are to write a first line or a story based on the picture. The latest one is to write a drabble.

Usually I look at this and turn the page. The pictures are of things I have no or little clue about. And there is the doubt I can do this to begin with.

Inspiration

I just finished a book called “Cowgirls”. And I have always loved horses. There was that picture of a girl up on a horse.

I do have a drabble draft. Actually it is the second or third one. No title yet. Is it a real drabble? I’m not sure.

Will I submit it? I’m not sure about that either.

Writing it is challenging and fun. That is a reward in itself.

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Spring Ephemerals

Wildflowers are blooming. The spring ephemerals are only out for a short time. My camera and I are trying to get out looking.

spring ephemerals toothwort
Toothwort is one of the first Ozark wildflowers to bloom. It is a member of the Brassicaceae or mustard family. I find it in moist woods. The flowers are replaced with long seed pods, then the plant vanishes for another year.

What Are Spring Ephemerals?

Trees are bare in the early spring letting sunlight hit the forest floor. Lots of plants grow up quickly, flower and seed, then die.

These are the fleeting flowers I need to find now or wait another year to find them. My Dent County Flora is missing many of them.

spring ephemerals Pale Corydalis
Pale Corydalis grows where the soil is moist. It gets about eight inches tall with lacy foliage. The yellow flowers have a crest on top of the tube section. Finding it down along the river was a surprise as I usually see it along the road and in the front yard.

The Plan

Dent County has seven Conservation Areas plus a state park plus a federal riverway. I have visited a couple of them and know I need to go back as there are plants I found, but didn’t get all my pictures of.

This year I am trying to visit all of them. Last week I stopped in at Short Bend. This is on the upper Meramec River like the one up the road from me. The flowers were the same. It is crossed off my list.

Next weekend I will drive out to white River Trace. This has prairie so I will be sure to take a hat. Maybe it will be cloudy.

spring ephemerals Spring Beauty
Spring Beauty is just that. A member of the Portulacaceae family, Down near the river the plants with their single pair of leaves spread across the ground. They like moist places and will grow in lawns. These are among the first Ozark wildflowers to bloom.

At Home

I do keep finding new plants around me, so I do try to keep walking the hills, roads and ravines. So far all I’ve found are old friends.

There is a bluff and a glade to visit. The bluff has a very, very steep approach which makes me a bit leery. The glade is up a hill.

spring ephemerals Yellow Violet
Not all violets are blue. This one is yellow, but has the usual flower look and heart-shaped leaves. Unlike the common blue violet, yellow violets are ephemerals, only around for a short time in the spring. The flowers normally point toward the ground.

Finding Time

This is always the hard part for me. I look around and see so many things needing to be done. It’s that never ending list.

There’s writing, animals, garden and errands, so time is fleeting for me. The only solution is to make time to go searching for the spring ephemerals. Besides, it is nice to take time away from all the chores.

Nature essays about a variety of Ozark wildflowers with photographs are in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

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Chicks Love Greens

At a month old my chicks think they are ready to get outside. One reason is the chunk of chickweed I put in each morning. My chicks love greens.

New Chicks

February is not a great month to have baby chicks. Cackle Hatchery does have warming pads in with them so they arrive safely. But it’s too cold to put them outside at my house.

That means I have chicks in the house. Since the heat lamp is on all day and all night, it’s hard to sleep. The one good thing was how quiet this tiny flock of twenty-one chicks was.

My two cats ignore them. Mira is jealous of the attention they get. Besides, they are invaders in her house.

Chicks in house box
The way I learned to put baby chicks in a box with a heat lamp, was to set each one by the water fount and dip their beak in. These chicks were thirsty.

Moving Out

The weather improved. The chicks started getting feathers and spreading dust all over. I set up the outside house and they moved out.

The chick house is by my garden. There is one big patch of weeds right by the gate. It’s mixed, but mostly chickweed. Each morning I dug up a big handful and set it in with the chicks.

Chicks love green as snacks
The cold weather stuck around into March. However, chicks become a problem in the house after a couple of weeks. So, I moved them out into my chick house. They enjoyed having more room. And I could bring in handfuls of chickweed for them to enjoy for eating and scratching.

What Is This?

The first day the chicks retired to the far walls of their place. Only one or two were brave enough to check out this strange lump.

The second day more chicks came over. A few even took a few pecks at the leaves.

By the third day, this lump of chickweed was popular. Chicks love greens and they now knew this was what they loved.

chicks love greens in their yard
Warm weather arrived. The chicks feathered out. I opened the chick house door so the chicks could get outside to bask, eat greens and stretch their wings.

New World

In front of the chick house is a small yard. Every year I try to get grass to grow in it. Every spring some grass and lots of chickweed do come up getting thick and lush.

A nice day arrives, warm and dry. I open the door to the chick house. Chicks line up to look out at this new world.

It might take a day or two, but chicks love greens and that yard is full of greens. They come out and attack.

After the chicks leave this baby yard behind, I will start spreading grass seeds in the bare dirt. Next spring will bring another batch of chicks and grass needs time to grow.

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GKP Writing News

Making Setting Real

When I watch a movie, the scenery goes by like speeding by city blocks in a car. It isn’t real. Instead, it’s just scenery. Part of the challenge in writing is making setting real, not just scenery.

gravel county road in winter
What aspects of this road might fit into a novel’s setting? The trees are bare indicating winter or very early spring. Gravel covers the road making walking difficult except in the clear spaces left by passing vehicles. If the weather is cold or a cold wind is blowing, would this road be pleasant to walk along?

What About Setting?

Think about a walk through your home. If you only saw this in a video, it would only be scenery. Well, maybe a bit more because it is a place you are familiar with.

Now walk through you home. This is more than visual. There are sounds. Aromas drift by. Your attention might focus on a favorite item opening up memories. Your home is a real place.

Which experience would give you as a reader greater involvement in the story? Which one would make the story seem more real?

Making Setting Real

In writing a rough draft of a novel, setting usually is just scenery except for times when the plot depends on it. This is fine. The main foci for a rough draft are usually characters and plot.

Then comes the rewrite. This is where setting comes into its own. Perhaps your main character is making bread. The dough has a smell, a feel, a look both as it is mixed and as it is kneaded. Later comes the aroma of baking bread. This changes as the bread gets closer to done.

Perhaps you main character is going someplace. If it is a city street, there are city sounds of people, vehicles, activities, smells. If it is a walk in the country, there is the feel of the dirt, smells, sounds of wind and animals, weather.

Adding some descriptions about these or other aspects of your setting brings the reader into the story.

How Much?

Just as too much backstory can put the brakes on your story, too much description can do the same. The idea is to add just enough to enhance the story.

Going back to a road. Does the road meander down a valley? Perhaps it is a straight highway through a desert. Is heat shimmering above it? Just a mention of this influences your driver. Are they paying attention or looking out the window and getting into trouble?

Getting It Right

This is where actually being in a place really matters. How can you add the sensory details if you’ve never been there? You can’t. How can you know what details really catch attention if you’ve never been there.

Even if all you do is take a walk through a similar place, it let’s you get it right. The reader can tell.