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To All the Horses I Have Loved Before is available for free on Kindle July 4th through the 8th. This is the unedited, unproofed version, likely to be the first edition. But if you want to read the book for FREE, check out Amazon Kindle: To All the Horses I Have Loved Before. While waiting for my proofs to arrive next Monday, which is forever, I am working on another book of short stories, tentatively called Me and Tubby. Here is a brief excerpt of what I have so far: The

I am waiting for the proofs of "To All The Horses I Have Loved Before. In the meantime, it is available on Kindle. This is the early edition, so there may be changes later :) It's a collection of short stories about families, rural Minnesota, regional humor, and farm life. This is a much smaller book. I hope to create a series, working on the next one, tentatively titled Tubby and Me. However, we are currently in the early stages of our summer declutter and clean-up. T

One of Mom's favorite expressions was "by guess and by God." For a woman who did carpentry and always told me, "Measure twice and cut once," she was amazingly laissez-faire about other measurements. Making a quilt: "Do you need more batting, Mom? I can bring some out." "Nah, I should be fine, I eyeballed it and figured by guess and by God I should have enough. "How do I make baking powder biscuits? How much flour do I use? "Just throw some in a bowl, by guess and by God

Mom and Dad never fight. Not once in front of their children do they raise their voices at each other. Even when they're chasing pigs, Dad never has a cross word for Mom. The rest of us are fair game, but Mom carries an invisible shield of protection. Mom tells me, “Well, your dad’s folks, Grandma and Grandpa Baumgart, used to have some awful fights. They would yell and swear at each other in German all the time, right in front of the kids. When we got married, your dad made

My high school friend got married during her senior year. That is not a scandal. The scandal is the day that she chose for her wedding. November 4th. Opening day of deer hunting season. Everyone at school is horrified. The concept is unbelievable, insane. She is a seventeen-year-old girl who should know better; she grew up around here. Her husband, twenty years older, should know better. Not surprisingly, the courthouse is empty on the day those two crazy kids get married.

It is springtime. Here in Las Vegas, that means temperatures in the 96–105-degree range. That is about the only difference. My poor, confused roses bloom in February. I can’t plant a garden; the summer heat will kill anything in minutes. We must put our hand on the sidewalk to determine if it is safe to walk the dog. Spring and summer blend into fall and winter here, with little change except the air conditioning bills. What a difference it was living on

When people ask me about my husband, where we met, how long we have been together, how long we have known each other, etc., I give them a few lines from my comedy routine. “When I met my husband, he was slim, trim, with long curly dark hair past his shoulders. He was a star football player, a straight-A student, and I didn’t stand a chance. The competition was all over him. But I am a patient woman. It took me thirty-two years, but I got him. Of course, h

Mom feared three things: heights, snakes, and drowning. She instilled those fears in me at an early age. Each summer evening, I walked behind Mom on the path to go get the cows from the pasture for milking. Being easily distracted, I would dawdle and mosey. Up ahead, Mom marched along resolutely, chewing her half stick of Double Mint gum and stomping in her yellow flip-flops. “AHH!” A piercing scream would rise from the path just beyond the corner. “Jesu

Sometimes, despite my better self, my parents slip out of my mouth. Fortunately, I recognize it and turn it into sarcasm as soon as possible. “What the hell were you thinking?” turns into “What the hell, we can’t have anything nice? Now you’ve ruined the whole trailer park chic I was aiming for, might as well cancel the company dinner.” I have heard counselors refer to something labeled “tapes”. The criticism that we hear in our head, the voice that chasti

The cows. Those big, gentle cows with the huge, sad eyes dominated our lives. It was always time to do something for or with the cows. Milking time was twice a day, at six in the morning and six in the evening. The cows must be milked. Then you fed the cows, cleaned the cow barn, and fed the calves that would become the future cows. We fixed the fence in the pasture for the cows and baled hay for the cows. Carried buckets of feed and water and fixed the drinking cups for

*Special thanks to Jimmy for being my muse on this one* I watch Lilly in the kitchen. As an adult, she is confident, throwing ingredients together with spices, then baking, roasting, frying, and sauteing. Being a vegetarian, she often cooks two or three meals at a time. Lilly won't eat meat, John won't eat vegetables, and I will eat anything. Sometimes, my heart leaps in my chest as I watch Lilly perform magic in the kitchen. Her graceful artist’s hands pause on a canis

Wired The internet has brought the world together, for good or bad. I met my first husband on Prodigy, an early-1990s competitor to AOL. Despite this, I continue to use the internet daily. It isn’t all bad. I reunited with John through an email. Somewhere on the internet, there is a video of Elvis walking me down the aisle, while John waits at the altar. Our beautiful daughter singing and dancing along with Elvis after the ceremony is my favorite part of the YouTube cli

Dad would announce, “Guess we better go to town,” with all the joy and inflection of announcing the Bataan Death March. Dad hated town. Too many cars, too many people, too many strangers, too many buildings, too many sidewalks, and too many paved roads. These were his thoughts on the two local towns, each with a population of 200 and 700 people, respectively. This was all I knew of a “town” for my first decade. My father’s sentiments fed my disdain for “to

As a single mother, I lived in fear of child protection services. Years earlier, I had laughed at my friend Julie's fear of child protection services. Julie was a single mother who had to care for a toddler while pursuing a four-year degree. Julie called me one night when her child was three. “I can’t do this anymore. She’s possessed! There is something wrong with her, and I don’t know what to do!” “Well, you’re the one going into child psy

I wanted Lilly to have a connection with Minnesota. I wanted her to have a sense of rootedness that I had for most of my life. Born in Reno and raised all over Nevada, Lilly had no knowledge of another culture or way of life outside Nevada. By the time she could toddle, she knew not to go near the slot machines when we went out to eat at the casino restaurant. Lilly didn’t blink at marquees, lights, and crystal chandeliers, showgirls, and waitresses in string bikinis. Li

White Trash Rising is still selling on Amazon! John checks my rankings in rural humor once in a while and tells me I am holding strong. It is odd that my childhood stories are rural humor; I thought for the longest time it was just life! Cousin Lyle is in the hospital, giving us all a scare. He's the last of the patriarchs in Butler. Made me think a bit about how much influence each member of our little community had on me. I wrote about all the horses I loved, but maybe

It’s been a rough week. A call from the Rez Nurse to tell me that Cliffy had passed away. Of course, she caught me up on all the rez gossip. My ex-boyfriend passed away four years ago, but she hadn’t called to let me know since she figured I wouldn’t give a damn anyway. The sad news was that his son had passed away a few years prior; the word was that he was a victim of the rampant drugs and alcohol on the rez. Rez Nurse and I must have spent over an hour

I had to buy a vehicle. I had been left with the van, which was gifted to us by the Bowling Ball’s mother and stepfather when they bought a new vehicle. It had transmission issues and would suddenly stop moving forward, then, with a lurch, jump out into traffic. There were fuel line issues as well, causing the engine to sputter and stop, starting again after a brief rest. Bowling Ball had left the van for Lilly and me, taking the newer working vehicle on his cross-country

As a single mother, I worried. My greatest worry was what if something happened to me? Where would Lilly go? What would happen to her? I thought of my own death, not out of fear for myself, but out of fear for Lilly. I was the only parent she had to care for her. I made plans with Greg, Donna, Gus, and anyone I could recruit to swear allegiance to Lilly and to protect and defend her if I could no longer do so. A wounded animal goes home to die. In my darkest hours, I l

All the Horses I Have Loved My housekeeper, a senior lady, had a relationship with a senior widowed rancher who lived in the valley just across the south range. One day, she invited me to bring Lilly out to the ranch. The rancher had retired there to build a house in the style of the old western movies. He kept with him a couple of his retired horses, a cutting horse mare, and his gelding roping horse. “Lilly can ride a horse out there. His grandkids used