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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Latest From High Reaches

Raising Bottle Kids

When I first started raising goats, all the books I found about it said raising bottle kids was what you should do. So I did.

That left me heating milk, washing bottles and nipples several times a day. My does were unhappy. The kids didn’t care so much as they played together.

Forget the Bottles

I worked full time. Bottle schedules just didn’t happen. I let the kids nurse their mothers. Everyone was happy, except me.

Kids, especially buck kids love milk and will drink as much as they can. That didn’t leave much for my refrigerator. However, the kids looked great and got big fast.

Bottles Can be Necessary

It seems triplets happen every year. Goats have two teats. That third kid gets shoved out and doesn’t get enough to eat. I have a bottle baby.

Some kids are born small. Some are born with problems. Sometimes a mother rejects a kid for her own personal reason. I am left raising bottle kids.

Raising bottle kids like this buck kid's sister
When a doe has triplets, she rarely can raise all three. Little buck kids like this one are usually more aggressive than doe kids and take more than their share. With two big brothers, my little doe is a bottle baby.

My Method

Since I raise few bottle kids, I have a casual routine. All my kids are bottle kids the first day. It’s often much easier to bottle the colostrum than it is to get a kid on a teat to nurse. Once the kid has had some milk and is up and active, it much easier to show them how to nurse.

If I am raising bottle kids, the kids are not shown how to nurse. If they are active enough, I do leave them out with their mother and siblings. She will often take care of that third kid even though it isn’t nursing her.

If the kid is small or weak, the kid moves into a box in the house. A heating pad wrapped in a plastic bag and old towels is in the bottom for whenever necessary.

The bottles I use are plastic soda bottles. I like them because they don’t break if I drop them and are easily replaced when they won’t clean up well.

The nipple is a black lamb’s nipple. I’ve used the lamb bar nipples and like them, but don’t often find them at the feed store. They are easier to put on the bottles.

Milk or Replacer?

I prefer to use goat milk. However, I do use kid milk replacer if goat milk is in short supply. I usually work up to almost half a gallon of milk a day.

The kids get bottles every few hours for several days, except for a stretch overnight when the kid is in the barn. This settles to four a day for a month, then three for a month, then two. The amount of milk goes up each feeding as the number of feedings goes down.

Raising bottle kids is time consuming. The bottles and nipples need to be washed out every time. The milk must be warm enough. And the job continues for close to three months to result in big, healthy kids.

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GKP Writing News

County Fairs

When I first moved to the country, county fairs were important events. Actually, I remember going to the fairs in southern California when I was young.

Off to Pasadena

Late August was the time for the California State Fair in Pasadena. Later it became the Los Angeles County Fair. It meant a long ride over the hills to spend the day wandering around.

This was a big event with lots of big barns filled with horticultural exhibits, machinery, livestock, vendor booths. The goat barn was a favorite stop.

County Fairs begin with parades
My 4-H Goat Project was a hit with the Carroll County Fair, Berryville, AR, the year we had a goat cart pulled by two young wethers in the parade.

Rural County Fairs

My small town in northwest Arkansas had a fair in August. It wasn’t a big affair, but did have barns for poultry, cattle and pigs. The fair book included goats and sheep, but no one brought any.

I had a 4-H goat project. We wanted to bring goats to the fair. So I got permission and set up half of the hog barn for the goats.

We borrowed a pair of pigmy goats for the few days. One had her kids and was the hit of the fair.

We had five breeds of dairy goats there. And a goat breeder came to judge a small show for us.

cover for "Mistaken Promises" Hazel Whitmore #3 by Karen GoatKeeper
Hazel may be like lots of rural people raising pullets for the fresh eggs. However, it’s always fun to take your pullets to the county fair and show them off.

“Mistaken Promises”

Because of my past associations with county fairs and my local area in Missouri still held them, one fit into my novel as Hazel could show off her Buff Orpington pullets. It also was a good place for the final showdown in the novel.

Times have changed. The main participants in my area are the 4-H and FFA members now. Livestock now centers around cattle, hogs and meat goats.

My memories of county fairs make me wish people still loved participating in them. It seems people are too busy now to enjoy such simple things, especially ones that take months of preparation with only ribbons to show for their efforts.

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GKP Writing News

Writing “Mistaken Promises”

Writing “Mistaken Promises” was like writing an epilogue for “Old Promises.” Epilogues and prologues are usually discouraged in writing advice. This is because they are often used as ways to put in lots of world building and backstory rather than as part of the story. Used well, these can both open up the story and close the story, things I’ve done.

Writing an Epilogue

When I wrote “Capri Capers” there were lots of story lines not really completed, only hints of what the endings would be. However, the plot itself was over, so stringing it along would drag the ending out, not make it better. The same was true for “Hopes, Dreams and Reality”.

For these novels, I added a single chapter called Epilogue. This completed those story lines, endings that happened much later than the original story. It gave closure to the story for the various characters.

As I write “The Carduan Chronicles”, I’ve used a Prologue to set up having two space ships involved in the story. The original Ship Nineteen is stranded in an ice storm in an Ozark ravine. Ship Eighteen is stranded in space in a race against starvation and running out of fuel as they attempt to reach the Ozark ravine. Their link is through Sola and her son Tico.

cover for "Mistaken Promises" Hazel Whitmore #3 by Karen GoatKeeper
Although I began “Mistaken Promises” as an epilogue for “Old Promises”, it soon took on a life of its own.

“Mistaken Promises” Was Different

As I finished writing “Old Promises”, the novel didn’t feel done. There had to be fall out from the big mess at the end. Too much fall out to just add a chapter called Epilogue.

So, writing “Mistaken Promises” dealt with that fall out. Basically I was writing the epilogue to “Old Promises” when I wrote this novel. As I wrote it, it became more than an epilogue.

Hazel was finding new ways to adjust to living in a rural community. She joins the 4-H, raises some Buff Orpington chickens, competes in the county fair. She starts to leave many of her city ways and ideas behind.

Lucy, too, is branching out. She is learning to be more out going. As a teenager, she is seeking out her own identity.

I enjoyed writing “Mistaken Promises” and seeing how my characters were adjusting and moving on with their lives. Perhaps, someday, I will want to return to Crooked Creek and see where these people have gone.

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Latest From High Reaches

Searching for Witch Hazel

A few wildflowers, international travelers like wayside speedwell and dead nettle, bloom even in January thaw. But I’m searching for witch-hazel, a native bush that blooms in February.

Hard to Find

Witch-hazel used to be common in gravelly stream beds. Now it is hard to find. Unfortunately for it, people want the inner bark to make herbal tinctures.

Although it is possible to buy seedlings and grow this plant, many herb diggers go searching for witch-hazel in the wild. As they have no real investment in the plant or property, they strip the plant. Some plants survive. Some don’t.

Herb Diggers

Many native plants are similarly attacked. Ginseng, golden seal, bloodroot are a few.

I met someone who dug golden seal. This person had never seen it bloom as he dug the plant up before it could reproduce.

Other herb diggers strip flowers from plants like elderberries and wild plums. These plants are not difficult to cultivate and seedlings are available from state nurseries every year for very little money.

searching for witch hazel
In Dent County, MO, the witch hazel blooms in February down in creek bottoms. At least it does if the herb diggers haven’t found it. A friend knew of this large patch so we went searching for witch hazel, hoping it was still in bloom. It was still blooming as were the many black alder bushes.

Recovery

When we moved to this place in the Ozarks, there was very little golden seal or bloodroot or echinaceae. We did our best to keep the herb diggers away.

Now I go back in a ravine to find a field of bloodroot in bloom. Another hill has a wide strip of golden seal which is scattered in other places too.

Very few people are invited to see the lady’s slippers blooming in other places. This plant, too, is popular for people to dig up and move to personal gardens where it soon dies.

Lucky Year

I mentioned searching for witch-hazel to a friend as I need pictures to include in my Dent County Flora. She happens to know where a patch of it grows. Another friend has some planted near his house.

Pictures of the plant in the wild are preferable so my friend and I will go visiting that patch. But, if I need to get a better plant picture, I may visit my other friend’s plants as they won’t be tucked into a wild community making the plants hard to see.

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GKP Writing News

Choosing Self Publishing

Lately I’ve been reading the magazine “Writers’ Digest” with its many hints and interviews for authors and wishful authors. Some always seem to be about choosing self publishing.

Common Reason

The reason I see most often for choosing self publishing is keeping control of the book. Traditional publishers can change the title which may or may not be for the best, assign the cover design to an illustrator who may or may not be able to read the book before designing it and determine royalties and other payments for the book among other things.

This is not my reason.

Problems With Self Publishing

Although serious authors do the necessary work, when an author self publishes, no one insists the book be carefully edited. There are editors for hire, but they charge for their services. As this is how they make a living, it is understandable.

Those on a strict budget may skip hiring an editor and do it themselves. Sometimes this works out well, if the author has a strong English grammar grasp. Other times the resulting book is a disaster for readers even if the story is good.

Marketing is another problem. Traditional publishers do have more contacts and do put out new books to places a self published author may have difficulty getting to. They may place ads for the book. However, they do insist that the author do a lot of the marketing such as social media on their own.

cover for "Goat Games" by Karen GoatKeeper
Although this book began as a lot of pencil puzzles about goats, it grew with goat trivia, breed pages, information pages and lots of photographs of goats.

Why Do I Self Publish?

When I wrote my first book, “Goat Games”, I dreamed of being published. I researched publishers and found one where I thought my book would fit. A comparable title, although about horses, had additional material in it, so I enlarged my book to include much more about goats than the many pencil puzzles I started with.

I thought the book was ready, so I queried the publisher. The editor wrote back she liked my book, but wouldn’t accept it. My book was for a niche market, with, in her opinion, no big market and wouldn’t be a viable addition for their company.

Many of my first novels had a lot of goat information in them. They would all fit into this niche market. So I found choosing self publishing was the only way to get my books printed.

Now there is another reason. Time. I am old enough to not want to spend possibly years getting a book published.

Marketing and cover design do sometimes make me wish.

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Spring Promises

It’s still February. Officially, spring is a month away at the vernal equinox. So, what is it with spring promises wrapped up in warm temperatures and singing birds?

Garden Fever

My cabbage and leek seedlings don’t mind as they get to spend the day outside in the sunshine. Grow lights may work, but sunlight is so much better.

Snow pea seeds are planted. I’ll have to cover them, if frost threatens. The plants can take some frost, but the seeds don’t germinate well when they get too cold.

Tomato and pepper seeds need to be in pots to be ready for the garden in six weeks. Mine normally take eight as they must share the one grow light. Spring frost dates here are in mid April and may is a wise choice for tomatoes, peppers and squash.

chickens deliver on spring promises
Fancy, an Old Arcana rooster, is dressed in his spring finery and showing off for the hens.

Sure Sign of Spring

Spring promises are easy to find in the hen house lately. The chickens have started laying.

Chickens are long day birds. They generally stop laying in the fall when days get shorter. About six weeks after the winter solstice, the feathered ones start making deposits in the nests again.

I do try to use lights in the winter to keep at least a few eggs arriving every day. This didn’t work out well this past winter. Now, eggs are on the menu again.

Standard cochin hen
Feathers is the last standard cochin hen in the flock. She is over five years old, but still lays an egg now and then.

Winter Promises

February is too early for winter to leave. The spring promises may become nightmares in another week when winter moves back in, laughing at those who fell for those lovely warm days thinking winter cold had gone on extended holiday already.

Impatience

The Ozark weather is famous for its changeability. I’ve lived here long enough to know this.

In spite of the spring promises, I will start seedlings at the usual time, set up the garden at the usual time, tell my impatience to settle down. Spring will get here when it gets here, when winter finally does go on holiday.

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Birds Are Showing Off

February is still winter. The days are getting longer, but cold rules. Yet the birds are showing off for spring nesting.

Male blue jays are bright blue. Male cardinals glow red. Bird songs sound on the hills.

birds are showing off and need food for energy
Male cardinals are easy to identify by their bright red plumage, crest and black mask. The female goldfinch is harder. Her color will change to more greenish later in spring. The black wings with wing bars are my tip off.

Watching the Bird Feeder

All winter flocks of birds come to raid the feeder. It is wall to wall birds with others waiting to swoop into any opening.

There is an order. Blue jays come first. Morning doves come second. Cardinals are third. Titmice, chickadees and nuthatches slip in to grab a sunflower seed and take off with it. Juncos and sparrows search the ground for any seeds knocked off.

In February only bad weather brings in such a crowd. The feeder has a few birds come by at a time.

Juncos are snow birds
Juncos are winter visitors in the Ozarks. They spend much of the year far north of here and come here for warmer weather, more food over the winter.

Squirrels Were Gone Too

All winter the squirrels have been nuisances at the bird feeder. At times two gray squirrels will be in the feeder with another one hanging on the edge. Red squirrels eat alone.

These interlopers were mostly gone. They were pairing off and starting families. Now they are back scarfing up sunflower seeds.

squirrels raid feeders
The feeder may be put up for the birds, but the squirrels love sunflower seeds too. This was one of four gray squirrels to visit this day along with at least one red. If there’s a way to keep them off, we haven’t found it yet.

Woodpeckers

Red-bellied and downy woodpeckers are regulars at the bird feeder. This is even more true now.

Woodpeckers nest early. They dig out their nests in January. Drumming resounds through the woods. Now these parents are eager to eat the suet cakes for that extra nutrition.

Migration Begins

The first summer birds are arriving. The vultures circle over the pastures. Purple finches and goldfinches are stopping by the bird feeder.

These birds are showing off for spring too. They will nest up on the hills and along the roads soon.

February is still winter and tries to drag it out. But winter’s grasp is slipping. Spring is still months away, but it is coming. The birds will be ready, hiding their nests in the trees and bushes up on the hills.

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GKP Writing News

How Many Drafts?

When I wrote “Broken Promises” the first time, it was a disaster now long erased. The second draft became the novel. How many drafts did it take? Two or three, I think.

“Old Promises” also took one draft. Then I rewrote and edited for two or three more drafts to finish the novel.

Both of these were rewritten again to add the recipes Hazel used in the book.

cover of "Old Promises" Hazel Whitmore #2 by Karen GoatKeeper
This novel took only a few drafts before I decided it was ready to publish. Even so, I reread it and noticed a few more things I might change, if I redo the novel.

Life’s Rules

This novel is different. The first rewrite happened even before the rough draft was written. In fact, I’ve never completed the rough draft.

This last is not really true. I’ve completed the draft in my head. That’s not really the same as I add lots of details, dialogue and more when I write down what’s in my head.

How many drafts so far? I’m on the third rewrite now. It seems I needed to draw some maps and rewrite some of the draft.

The problem with rewriting a partial draft so many times is that part of the novel gets set, edited and polished while the rest is still in need of many things. I tend to focus on actions, plot and dialogue in my first drafts.

The characters are in my head. The settings are in my head. I can see them, hear them, feel them.

A reader can’t see inside my head. That means yet another draft adding descriptions of characters and settings. Those things I can see need to be visible to the reader through my words.

The Carduan Chronicles

How many drafts does this one make for the Carduan Chronicles? I’ve lost count. At least this draft has straightened out two major problems.

Ship Eighteen is journeying to Cardua. With this draft the journey has some semblance of timing. And my missing six passengers are now included in the draft.

This part of the novel will need one more rewrite to add details about the characters. My problem now is that I don’t really see my characters yet.

Ship Nineteen needs to be rewritten as well. How many drafts for it? I don’t know. But I will have a better timeline and know what some of the problems are for tackling this draft in April.

Both Life’s Rules and The Carduan Chronicles: Arrival should be done this year.

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GKP Writing News

Upper Middle Grade Writing

When I wrote “Old Promises”, I was writing for an upper middle grade reader. Over several years I found writing upper middle grade novels and science books was what I was comfortable with.

cover of "Old Promises" Hazel Whitmore #2 by Karen GoatKeeper

What Is Upper Middle Grade?

In school years this would be sixth to eighth grades. In age this covers ten to fourteen.

The main characters are in that age range. The plots are more complicated than in children’s novels, but not as adult as young adult is.

This was why I enjoyed writing upper middle grade novels. Although I touched on young adult themes, it was not edgy or specific or filled with teenage angst. These things didn’t interest me then or now.

Writing Series

“Old Promises” was the second novel about Hazel Whitmore. As I wrote it, I considered writing a series. All the possibilities are there.

Hazel is the namesake of another Hazel in the past. I based this on an old photograph of a lovely woman I know nothing about. Who was this woman?

picture for writing middle grade novels
Who is this woman? I don’t know. Someone probably died and this picture was hauled to the dump and thrown away. I remember my mother spending months identifying people and places in her mother’s pictures after my Grandmother died. They were our history, where our family came from. Something so many young and not so young people don’t seem to care about any more. That is a shame. We kept this picture as she looks like such a nice person, someone we would want to know. When I wrote “Old Promises”, she became the model for Hazel’s Great Aunt Hazel for whom she was named.

Crooked Creek lends itself to several ideas as well. Although the name is probably for a nearby creek that meanders, it could pertain to some less than honest inhabitants.

Then there is Hanging Rock. One interpretation is the bluff overhanging the creek at the edge of the school yard. Another hints at an unsavory past.

And there is Linda. But she is more part of the end of the trilogy than this second novel.

Series Problems

The biggest drawback to writing a series for me is being locked into a certain cast of characters, a certain place, a particular genre. Plots must revolve around these. Extensive notes must be kept so character names stay the same, setting names stay the same, plots don’t repeat.

I’m not that organized. There is one further consideration.

Writing upper middle grade novels is not where I want to be now. A number of things have changed in my life over the last few years. These have changed the focus of my writing as well.

Will I revisit Hazel? I don’t know. At present I am immersed in Life’s Rules and The Carduan Chronicles and plan to stay there for now.

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Electricity Wins

Over the last couple of days, we’ve been watching a battle between nature and electricity. Nature loses. Electricity wins.

Battle Causes

Plants want to grow. Trees grow tall anywhere they find a place with enough soil, light and water. Electric lines are not a problem to them.

Storms make the trees sway. Branches hit the lines. Treetops snap off and fall on the lines. Whole trees get uprooted and fall taking the lines down with them.

Electricity wins over this tree
This tall honey locust was a danger to the electricity lines. So the tree trimmers took it down.

Electricity Demands

When we lived up north in the Michigan Upper Peninsula, we had no electricity. We used gas lights in the evening. It was cold enough to not need a refrigerator. We brought jugs of water from town.

The wood cook stove had a tank for melting snow which was plentiful for six to seven months. It kept the room warm along with a wood heating stove. The radio ran on batteries.

After moving to Missouri, we got electricity. Running water in the house is so convenient. Lights coming on at the flip of a switch are luxury. Electric appliances are nice too. Add being able to watch movies in the evening.

Most people also have cell phones, internet, freezers. Some have electric cars, fans, heat and ranges. Electricity is the underpinning of our lives.

The Choice

When the electric company came by wanting to clear the trees out of the right of way, we agreed. It isn’t that we don’t value the trees, some of them old and beautiful. We do. It’s that we value electricity more.

If our electricity goes off, we do survive. We remember the old ways and adapt. But it is not something we enjoy doing.

nature loses
This machine has blades in the front roller. These pull in branches, up to six inch trunk trees and tall weeds. Shredded mulch is left behind.

Nature loses. Electricity wins.

Watching the large equipment was amazing. The long boom with a saw at the end sheared off branches fifty and sixty feet up. Chain saws were not needed.

Then there was the mulching machine. It ate its way through six inch trunks turning them into wood shreds. Smaller branches were pulverized.

The big boom carried a man up to trim a tall tree with a chainsaw.

With equipment like these machines, nature hasn’t a chance. Electricity wins every time.