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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GKP Writing News

Designing Book Covers

There are two things a prospective reader looks at first: title and cover. The title must sound interesting. But designing book covers is a real challenge for me.

My Challenges

Since I do my own covers, the design must be one I can draw. Animals and plants are much easier for me than people.

Photographs are a good source of ideas for me. So I want a design that can be partially photographed.

Cover Considerations

People seem to like seeing people on a cover. Some genres seem to require having people on it. “Hopes, Dreams and Reality” should have Mindy on the cover.

Since I try to put a book out as an eBook as well as a print book, the cover must be easily seen on a mobile screen as well as on a big cover. This is more challenging than you might think.

cover for "Waiting For Fairies" by Karen GoatKeeper
This cover began as photographs of mushrooms and a white deer-footed mouse. This was sketched onto drawing paper for painting with watercolor. This was then uploaded onto a computer and darkened.

Designing Book Covers

Nothing is more irritating about a book cover than when it has little or nothing to do with the book. DVD covers are notorious for this.

Publishing companies have a staff of cover designers. They send over a synopsis of a book. An artist comes up with a cover. The author is stuck with it.

This doesn’t concern me as I self publish. The reasons are many and I might address them another time. It does leave me doing the writing, editing, illustrating and designing book covers, then trying to do marketing so readers will notice my little book among the thousands of other titles published each year.

cover for "Capri Capers" by Karen GoatKeeper
This cover began with a photograph as I really did have a baby goat in the house for a couple of weeks and she napped in a chair. The chair was old and ratty so I looked at a chair ad to redo the chair. This was sketched, painted with watercolors, uploaded on computer to add the background color and titles.

“Hopes, Dreams and Reality”

As with the title, I had to do a lot of thinking about the cover. It was so tempting to find a cover looking at a sunrise or goats or chickens. Anything but Mindy.

But Mindy needs to be on the cover. She needs to be fighting the storm.

That left me putting on a show out in the yard. Luckily we have no neighbors. I got to set up my camera on delay, press the button and race over to pose holding my umbrella as though fighting wind and rain as the sun lit up the yard.

I needed a rain slicker, but don’t own one. Oh, well.

Maybe I am now ready to take my fast sketch and do a real design. And the watercolors will get used again.

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Latest From High Reaches

Goat Gym Repairs

One thing about homesteading or farming or ranching, there are always repairs needing to be done. Presently I am working on some long overdue goat gym repairs.

Wood rots in moist climates like the Ozarks. What doesn’t rot attracts termites and carpenter ants. The goat gym is twenty years old or so and some of the wood is rotten.

Some Repairs Are Important

These goat gym repairs are very important. The goats run up and down the ramp, leap onto the platform and jump up and down the stairs.

Rotten wood can collapse under a goat and break a leg. Although broken legs do heal, they are a nuisance and, in this case, would be my fault.

The main part of the gym got repairs done a couple of years ago. Now the platform and ramp are falling apart.

I saw the boards collapsing a year ago and did nothing. I’m not much of a carpenter and this was obviously a two person job. I am one person.

What Happened?

The goats came in from pasture the other day. The kids raced up to play on the goat gym. And the platform and ramp were gone.

A friend came over to help me get started and we demolished these. We also cut the long pieces needed to rebuild these. There is a pile of old oak pieces to take nails out of and cut to length for stove wood next winter.

platform for goat gym repairs
It might be tempting to just drive a nail through those boards. Seasoned oak won’t allow that. The C clamps hold the board in place so the drill can put in the nail holes. Not using those clamps is a sure fire way to break the drill bit. Then the nails can be driven in. Ten boards take a long time, but the platform for the goat gym is done. The goats tried it out and approve.

New Goat Gym Taking Shape

The new pieces are cut. Now I’m putting the pieces together. I’m working on the platform first as one end of the ramp sits on it and it is flat, easy to work on.

With help, the long runners are together. It does take two people as seasoned oak requires drilling holes for carriage bolts and for nails.

Why am I using oak? Oak lasts a long time. Seasoned oak is tough enough to withstand goat assaults. And oak is available here, cut with a band saw sold several years ago.

How Long?

The goats want their playground back soon. I am slow as my carpentry knowledge is limited. And the goat gym repairs take care to be done right.

I finished the goat gym platform. The ramp? That depends on my figuring out how to cut the top and bottom angles.

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Latest From High Reaches

Farmers Market Preparations

Gardening is a great hobby for lots of reasons like exercise and good food. Lots of good food. More than we can eat. That’s where farmers market preparations come in.

Many people don’t garden for one reason or another. Some neighborhoods won’t allow food gardening. Many people live in apartments and haven’t heard of container gardening. Others have small children who destroy seedlings.

These people are potential customers for fresh vegetables.

What’s Growing?

Farmers market preparations begin with seed selections. Some vegetables sell much better and for better prices than others.

I like spinach so I grow spinach. It wouldn’t sell well at the market. The same goes for turnips, beets, kohlrabi, Jerusalem artichokes and others.

Tomatoes are a big hit with customers. They are a favorite with market gardeners too. So the supply outruns the demand for much of the summer.

farmers market preparations include growing vegetables like these snow peas
Peas don’t stand much of a chance in the Ozarks. The taller varieties barely get grown before temperatures are in the eighties, too hot for peas. This year I’m trying a short variety of snow pea, only two feet tall and hoping it will win the race so I can enjoy some peas before the heat arrives.

Rule of Thumb

If you won’t eat it, don’t grow it. Some, maybe a lot of the produce taken to market goes home again.

That leaves the grower trying to use it up in some fashion. I freeze a lot of produce, especially peppers and tomatoes, to use over the winter. This last winter I enjoyed pureed summer squash as soup stock.

Competition

The worst competition comes from people who give produce away to their neighbors. It’s not a bad thing as the produce is used, usually.

However, it does mean fewer people coming to the market buying the produce being offered. Since the seller pays for their booth and spends time and labor to produce their crops, this hurts. Some of these sellers stop bothering to participate.

Getting Ready

My pepper and tomato seedlings are up. Onions are growing in my containers. Snow peas are several inches tall and trying to beat the race to summer temperatures.

This year I will attend a vendor’s meeting for the first time. I’m hoping to be a more serious seller this year.

However, my farmers market preparations are like my garden, subject to time and weather considerations.

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GKP Writing News

Writing Projects

How many writing projects in progress at the same time are too many? I’m trying to find out, I guess.

Writing Projects List

At present I have two science projects going. One is rewriting “The City Water Project” as teaching units. The other is writing units for “The Chemistry Project”.

There are also two novels. “Hopes, Dreams and Reality” is being looked over by some friends before I do a final rewrite and edit. In the meantime, I am brainstorming cover ideas.

And I am trying to finish the draft for “The Carduan Chronicles: Arrival” Since I haven’t worked on this one since last October, this entails reading through seventy pages of manuscript trying to not do a total rewrite to get back into the story.

Then there is the idea for a picture book. I have the idea, the setting, possible characters and the perfect candidate for a character model in mind.

bloodroot flower for writing projects
This bloodroot flower is one of the first Ozark wildflowers to bloom. Even though the Dent County Flora page is complete, I still enjoy seeing them and can’t resist taking another picture.

Is This Enough?

I don’t think so. It is wildflower season once again. That means the “Dent County Flora” books are again open.

Already I’m trying to get out walking and have even completed pictures for a plant to enter into the “Dent County Blues” book. Another tree, a new one, has bloomed and I only need to get some seed pictures and the tree picture to complete it.

Virginia bluebells flower picture for writing projects
The Virginia bluebells page for the Dent County Flora is done. But I saw this plant in bloom and loved this view showing the side of the flower as well as how the flowers staart out one color and usually turn blue as they open. I have found plants whee the flowers stay pink.

Getting Books Off the Writing Projects List

The only project close to being done is “Hopes, Dreams and Reality”. If I can keep to schedule – and I’ve already overshot it, the book will be published in May.

cover for "The City Water Project" by Karen GoatKeeper

“The City Water Project” teaching units are supposed to be done in May. I will get them done as it is mostly just adjusting the book into pieces and changing some explanations.

The problem with these units is setting up yet another account, this one with teacherspayteachers, to sell them. Since I am already juggling accounts with Amazon, Smashword, IngramSpark, Goodreads, Pinterest, NaNo (National Novel Writing), iNaturalist and Flickr (also new), my five to six hours a week of internet time is spread very thin.

Justification: I’m not bored.

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GKP Writing News

Finishing Novel Drafts

“Hopes, Dreams and Reality” is finished. Or is it? Finishing novel drafts is tricky.

The first rough draft is only an outline of a story. It allows the writer to create characters, try out plotlines and subplots and follow the story to an ending. My rough drafts are often a mess and only expand on my novel idea.

Enter the First Draft

That leads to a rewritten draft. This is my first real draft. By now I know my characters fairly well. That means I know how they will react in a given situation which can totally nix a plot.

If the plot won’t work with these characters, I have two choices. I can create new characters for the plot, if I like the plot. Or I can rewrite the plot to suit the characters, if I am happy with them.

One way or the other, I am finishing novel drafts to this point. And this draft may sound really good. Maybe good enough to keep?

Probably not. And the truth is in writing a second draft. This is not a carbon copy of the first draft, although they may be very similar.

finishing novel drafts like for "Hopes, Dreams and Reality"
My new novel seems to finally have a title:”Hopes, Dreams and Reality”. The draft is done and only needs a final read through. Finishing novel drafts is more a decision to stop tweaking than a lack of things to tweak.

Going For That Second Draft

My method is to make a copy of the first draft. Then I retype this draft one chapter at a time.

As I retype the draft, I think about it. What’s missing? Description? Explanation? A scene?

What doesn’t work? Is there too much description? Does something not make sense?

Does the ending belong? Or is it too over the top? Is all the groundwork laid for it?

Finishing Novel Drafts

How many more drafts will I write? Any after the second one will probably be pretty close to that one. Should I stop?

No matter how many drafts a writer does, there are things to change. A sentence sounds rough. The grammar stinks. These go on and on appearing with each reading.

I am to that point with “Hopes, Dreams and Reality” now. This is a new type of novel for me so I have asked a couple of friends to look it over. Then I will read through it once again.

In the meantime, I am returning to Cardua. Then I can look at this novel with fresh eyes.

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Latest From High Reaches

Goatkeeping Nightmare

Goat kids grow up too fast. They want to go out to pasture with their mothers. That can be turn into a goatkeeping nightmare.

There are four kids here. The oldest ones are close to a month old. They are lively and their mothers want to go out to graze.

One Consideration

Later in the year I would not let them go out as the grass blooms with stalks taller than they are. They get lost in the grass.

These stalks are so tall, only the ears of the adults are easy to see. Hunting for a lost kid is close to hopeless as I have to almost step on the kid before I can see it.

Second Consideration

One evening my herd came in minus two kids. The grass wasn’t very tall yet, so that wasn’t the problem.

Kids, even when they know me and my voice, will often not answer me when they are lost. So I put a lead rope on their mother and drag her back out to where I think the kids might be. It is important to know where the herd went that day.

We went out across the bridge and up to the hill pasture. The doe was bellowing and Nubians are very loud.

Reaching the edge of the pasture, we stopped to look around. I looked down and those two kids were curled up sleeping totally oblivious of their mother’s bellows from three feet away.

Goatkeeping Nightmare

This last week one of the four kids did not come in. I’d noticed earlier he was missing and had been out looking. I didn’t find him.

I dragged his bellowing mother out. We went to the areas I thought the goats had been. We heard and saw no sign of her kid.

That evening I went back out looking and found nothing. It was starting to rain.

This storm continued through the next day dropping six inches of rain. The temperatures dropped to forty, not real low, but dangerous for a young, wet kid.

Goatkeeping nightmare of a lost kid
The little black Nubian buck, the friendly one, the one that stands on me (not good, but cute) went out one morning and didn’t come in. The debris is from the small flood from the rainstorm he was out in.

Surprise

This kid was lost. I had no ideas where to look and thought he hadn’t survived.

As I mentioned, Nubians are loud. I heard a kid calling. It kept calling so I went to investigate.

My lost kid was standing at the pasture gate. He was hungry, but fine. His mother was glad to see him. So was I.

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GKP Writing News

Writing Dialogue

I like using dialogue in my writing. It seems to move the story along well and reveal lots about the characters. But writing dialogue has challenges.

My new novel, tentatively titled “Hopes, Dreams and Reality”, has a couple of dialogue challenges.

Only One Character

The entire novel revolves around Mindy. For much of the novel she is alone. Her phone is dead and she is in a dead zone for cells. That leaves only her cat and the animals to talk to. And they have no answers.

That leaves me floundering. She can remember things others have said. She can make up conversations with absent characters. If all else fails, she can talk to herself. This last can reveal a lot about her attitudes and inner conflicts.

Language

My biggest challenge is language. Cussing and swearing are commonplace in today’s books and media. I do know quite a few of these words.

However, I grew up at a time when such language was not commonly used in public. And I find its ubiquitous use annoying. It robs these words of their impact and language of its richness by reducing the vocabulary used.

When writing dialogue, I avoid using these words.

cover for "Capri Capers" by Karen GoatKeeper
“Capri Capers” has some dastardly villains in it as well as some would-be villains. The decision to use no cussing was easier for this book as it was a take off on a 1930s movie serial. Such language would have been inappropriate here.

Should I Use Some?

One of the novel scenes is a big argument. Both characters are upset, furious. I’ve written it without using any cussing or swearing. Does this rob the scene of impact? Would it be more realistic to use some of these words?

The decision is mine. I don’t want to use this language, so I have chosen not to. This is my personal choice due to my background.

Finishing the Novel

As I edit the novel draft, now complete, writing dialogue will be part of that edit. It will be a challenge as this novel has been a challenge.

Will my choices work? I rarely have others read my novels as drafts. This one will be an exception. Their opinions will hopefully answer this question.

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Latest From High Reaches

Spring Flowers Coming

Last year I spent most of the spring and summer collecting plant pictures. As spring flowers start opening this year, I am again going out with my camera.

Dent County Flora

There are so many plants growing wild in Dent County. I keep trying to track all of them down. Last year I added fifty plus new plants and completed nearly as many more.

Still, I’m only around four hundred plants completed out of nearly two thousand. I have a long way to go.

first of the spring flowers
These little wayside speedwell flowers greeted the New Year. That makes them the first of the wildflowers to bloom this year in the Ozarks.

Time Constraints

For several reasons last year, I abandoned nearly every writing project to work on the plants. I don’t plan to do that again this year. It’s tempting as the plants are straight forward to do.

First I spot a plant. Then I take pictures of the flower, the back of the flower, the leaf, the stem and the plant. For most plants I have to come back to get pictures of the fruit or seed pod which is when I have problems.

Finding Plants a Second Time

Once spring flowers start opening, all plants start growing. Even a week can make an area look very different.

The plant which was so obvious is now tucked under other plants. Its flowers are gone. Even if I mark the plant, I sometimes can’t find it again.

hoary bitter cress heralds spring flowers coming
Spring flowers are starting to bloom in the Ozarks. Most of the ones I’ve seen are not native although daffodils are international as are dead nettle and henbit. The yard has numerous little white flowers like these which are hoary bitter cress, another transplant from Europe.

Adding Plants

The pictures are transferred to my computer. The plants are identified. Pictures are selected and put on the Dent County Flora page. The plant is marked as completed.

That is how it is supposed to work. Sometimes the pictures aren’t good enough. Some plants are difficult for me to identify and I must seek help from guidebooks, the internet and iNaturalist. And there are those plants I don’t get all of the pictures for.

Spring Flowers Start Opening

Already I’ve missed one flower I needed. There are a few more I know how to find. I have a list of plants with missing pictures.

The hills are calling. So are my writing projects. So are the goats and garden. It will be a busy spring and summer.

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GKP Writing News

Author Website

When I finished my first book, “Goat Games”, I wanted very much to sell a few to help pay for the time and printing costs. I was assured that the key was to have an author website.

Having tried to play by the rules all my life, I dutifully started an author website. I didn’t know much about having one, wasn’t online at home (still aren’t) and I made lots of mistakes.

As the number of books increased, the number of pages increased. The backlist of blog posts went up. The number of visitors crept up. Book sales didn’t.

cover for "Goat Games" by Karen GoatKeeper
When writing this book, my first one, I traveled in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri to meet goat owners of different breeds to write breed pages. It took months to devise all of the puzzles. And the information pages and trivia had to be researched and added. I queried publishers and was turned down as goats are a niche topic, one that doesn’t make a lot of money. So I published and printed the book myself, something that is expensive to do.

Getting Noticed

It seems I am woefully behind the times as this is most of my online presence. The only social media I’m on are Pinterest and Goodreads. I do have author pages there and on Smashwords and try to update these monthly.

All these various accounts take a lot of time I don’t have. Since I am not online at home, my internet time is about five hours a week at the library. It doesn’t go very far.

So Get Online

That’s not simple here in rural Missouri. My home is surrounded by hills blocking signals. Therefore, the nearest cell service is a quarter mile hike away.

Internet service from the phone company or satellite services is barely above dial up. There’s lots of talk about better service, but every notice I’ve seen indicates it will be expensive for service inadequate for running a website.

My Author Website

Maybe this site will attract some of the visitors I used to have before my last hosting service had so many problems with my site. I am slowly getting the site organized.

I’ve had contact with computers since they ran on stacks of punch cards. That doesn’t mean I know much about them. I don’t. And learning about new things with so little time is difficult.

The new Contact Page is a case in point. Each week I negotiated my way through another step. It has left me with an account for running email campaigns I don’t do, a cloud account I don’t use and spam cluttering up my email. It would help if I could limit my contacts to English.

At least I do have an author website. And I will be adding a new book page soon as my new novel has a complete draft and is in edit.

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Latest From High Reaches

Kids Grow Up Fast

Baby goats are so cute. Nubian kids are especially cute with their long ears. But kids grow up fast.

Spring had her doe kid only two weeks ago. Already this doeling is leading the herd in the pasture. Spring has other ideas as she takes over to race the herd to the top of the hill for some perceived threat.

kids grow up fast as Nubian doe leads the herd at two weeks old
On her first day out to pasture, this two week old Nubian doe kid from High Reaches Spring kept up with the herd as they roamed around eting fresh spring grass, climbed a steep hill to browse at the top, came back down to explore the creek banks and then was still trotting along as the herd came in for the night.

This perceived threat was me. I wanted to take a couple of pictures of her little one on her first day out in the pasture. My chance came when the herd was coming in that afternoon as I didn’t want to chase the herd up the hill.

Playing Games

The two little bucks are too busy having fun to go out with the herd. This is a big disappointment to their mothers. They want to go out to graze on all that new spring grass.

All the kids like playing on the goat gym, but the little bucks are the most enthusiastic. One of their favorite games is standing on my shoulders if I sit down on the bottom step. This is only fun until they are about a month old and too heavy.

kids grow up fast and can soon leap up their own height
The goat gym may be old and worn, but kids still love to jump up and down the steps These two Nubian buck kids are only a week and a half old, but can already get up and down steps as tall as they are.

My kids grow up fast as they will be big goats. I’ve read about the goat yoga and know my kids would be a disaster by the time they were three weeks old and twenty pounds.

New Little Darling

Drucilla had a little doe. I can’t keep her and it hurts. She is gorgeous and polled. Her mother is a good milker, one of my best all time milkers.

Nubian doe kid
Born the night before this picture, this Nubian doe kid is already wanting to explore and is spoiled rotten. Her mother High Reaches Silk’s Drucilla stays next to her all the time. This will wear off in a week or so. By then this kid will off on her own much of the time.

For now this little one is my little pet. I have three months to cuddle and spoil her.

And then I will mourn that these fun kids grow up fast as they will be sold and leave with someone else.

There are several books about goat on this site. I would expecially mention “Capri Capers” and “For Love of Goats“.