Blog Posts

Beautiful Beastly Bison

12/26/2021

For six months, almost every time I needed a break from writing, I'd want to go look at the nearby wildlife, and sometimes it was the bison. Often—it was the bison.

Living in an area where the herds were once plentiful, and efforts have been made to replace them, it's not that difficult for me to search out the thousand-pound beasts. Or drive right though a bison pasture.

I was surprised at how often their faces are dirty from wallowing in the mud, but in the summer, I believe it's one of their favorite past-times. Almost like a person might spray on insect repellant, the animals roll in the mud when it's available.

I'm fortunate so many people in the area like to preserve the heritage. Or maybe they just like bison—because the feed bill in the wintertime has to be hefty.

Photos: My own collection

Tempting a Reformed Rake

12/5/2021

I often write characters that I don't want to see go away. Stubby was that character for me.

The joke at my house is that he was named after our former cat, Stubby Duke. The cat had a naturally bobbed tail and thought he was a duke.

So, I used the name Stubby for a character. When I was writing the little boy, I saw him as a youngster who thought he was just as big as all the sailors around him, and the sailors had started calling him by the nickname, and no one could remember his real name.

Years ago, after finishing the book A Captain and a Rogue, I wanted to write more of Stubby, so I wrote a short scene which began in my mind as...a man walking into a tavern and there's Stubby waiting on him. I had no clue what either would say.

I expected the child to be finding his father, but my story went in a different direction.

Then, I put the tidbit aside and finished the manuscript I was writing.

One day, I couldn't wait any longer. i needed to find out what happened to Stubby, and I did in Tempting a Reformed Rake.

Autumn Colors

10/9/2021

When most people talk of autumn colors, they are speaking of the leaves. But closer to the ground, you'll also find the fall hues such as the one on this coneflower the bug is enjoying.

Even some of the butterflies seem more suited to autumn colors.

The grasslands near the Prairie Dog Village at Wichita Wildlife Refuge seem cloaked for the season.

This bison enjoying his lunch of crisp, dried grass, is likely "Old Ned."

In the Oklahoma plains, where you won't always find a lot of leaves to change color, the evergreens help make the ground seem more colorful.

Autumn is so much more than foliage.

When Nature and Man Create A Haven

8/29/2021

What I found near Sulphur, Oklahoma, surprised me. The place is called Little Niagara. This recreation area has small manmade falls created in the early 1900’s, at a time when the government created the project to give a job to people struggling to survive.

In the area I found a sign explaining travertine rock. I grew up surrounded by it and it was just limestone rock… Limestone was actually quarried from nearby. The following picture of a limestone creek bed was taken in the wintertime at my parent's acreage.

It was as if I were almost walking back into the outdoors of my past. Granted, the place wasn’t deserted on a low traffic day, but still, it gave me the serenity, the poison ivy and cooling water that I’d grown up taking for granted…almost.
I grew up near a place called Sulphur Hollow. Or “Sulpher Haller”. My dad took me to the mineral spring once. A small spring in the middle of the forest that had the rotten egg scented water seeping from it.

This protected land gave me a contented feeling.

When I returned from visiting The Chickasaw Recreation Area, a surprising side effect struck me that I never expected. Even though traces of my childhood accent have never truly left my speech, for a few days the accent returned as if I were back in my childhood home.

Not Everyone Is Allergic to Pollen

8/21/2021

Allergens are a real headache. But thankfully we have pollinators who do the job of transferring those little bits of irritation for us.

I'd never thought much about it until I saw the pollen attached to the bees.

But never approach a pollinator with anything but caution. They can be a bit irritable...almost as if they have allergies.

The Little Chapel Made With Love

8/7/2021

I really wasn't expecting to find a church in the middle of a wildlife area, but I did. Apparently, it's been there about a hundred years, but I didn't have a clue.

I'll never visit the Sistine Chapel, but I have this little chapel nearby. It's an example of someone taking the skills they had and using them.

Not every artist's work turns up in guidebooks, but using what we have can have as much significance to the people nearby as Michelangelo's art has to the people who view it.

Bison...At Home on the Range

7/17/2021

Bison are fairly common here. But they’re usually, willingly, in pens. I’ve heard that if a 1000 pound bison doesn’t really want to be enclosed…it’s difficult to argue.

Surprisingly, though, I’d never realized the difference between seeing a few of them in a pen, and seeing a herd of them in the wild. Besides the lack of fencing, the ground wasn’t littered with troughs—or barren because of over-grazing, They looked more peaceful, and unspoiled.

I imagine myself seeing a sight viewed centuries in the past.

Even the babies seemed more contented in the habitat.

But no matter how peaceful and serene everything appears...this is their home, and I'm a visitor. I wasn't invited by them, and I'm to take care. Or, as the sign says:

One spring, in a contained pasture, I did wake one up accidentally as I drove slowly along the road. It's best to let them sleep.

Photos taken near Pawhuska, OK at the Tallgrass Prairie Wildlife Preserve.

A Cinderella for the Viscount: Research

6/28/2021

A Cinderella for the Viscount started with an image of a man and woman dancing a waltz, and him being extremely bored with the event, and yet fascinated by the woman he held. But, I wanted a combustible beginning. I wrote the first scenes, and then considered them again.

I worried that my dear heroine would go up in flames if her lightweight silk dress caught on fire.

So, I did a little research*, and found some candles—not wanting to chance it with glassware and flammable liquids.

From unneeded fabric already in my home, I stitched together a fake dress, but wasn’t about to use silk…

The results changed the beginning of the story. I wanted to be certain that Rachael had plenty of time to be rescued, even though my research suggested that a woman in a heavier denim-type dress, with a candle falling against her, on a humid Oklahoma day, could have rescued herself.

*Don’t try this at home. This research was conducted by a professional and still had unsuccessful results.

Scamp and A Cinderella for the Viscount

6/25/2021

I didn't know the character of Scamp would be in A Cinderella for the Viscount, but the hero, Devlin is attempting to prove his reliability and gets a dog.

"Does he do any tricks?" Rachael asked.

"Just walking and barking." He looked at her. "And those are not always easy for him, but you cannot discount barking. It's better than whining."

"You've taken on a commitment to him. And you chose an animal that is in advanced years and you have added staff to care for him."

"I thought you'd be pleased." He scratched Scamp under his chins and the dog grumbled again. "That's his most pleasant noise."

"You have a companion that hardly demands anything of you at all. Just staff."

Previously, I wasn't sure about adding pets for my characters. But sometimes it seems to just happen. The same way you might step out a door and find a stray animal with no home—or, as I once did, two miniature burros who've wandered from their owner.

The two horses who meandered into my field had to be returned, too...in the snowstorm. And the five cows that visited...well...

And the beautiful dog, Maple, who showed up for a visit, was so endearing I had to force myself not to become attached, but she had to go back to her rightful owner, much like Scamp did.

Just as Rachael and Devlin found their happily-ever-after in A Cinderella for the Viscount, so did Maple, Meriwether and Lewis (the burros) and the horses, whose names I didn't get. The cows may not have had such a happily-ever-after, as they had a run-in with law enforcement. They escaped in a wooded area, and were not seen by me again—although soon after, another neighbor did visit and ask if we were missing a cow as he had found one.

Fathers With Wings

6/18/2021

From Christmas time until Memorial Day, I tried to visit the nearby eagle area once a week, not expecting that the end results would give me appreciation for how some fathers in nature take care of their young..

With the male eagle, I didn’t realize, at first, how closely he was watching over the nest. When it came time for the young ones to fly, he encouraged them by flying to the next tree, and then he returned, landing in limbs on the other side of the tree from the nest.

The young one hopped along the branches to be closer to his father, but as time passed, he began to take flight.

Seeing the parenting was unexpected, but rewarding.

Often the father would be nearby when I visited—and for all I knew, he could have been there every time. When he was motionless, it could be hard to notice him.

He usually didn't appear to hunt for food for the babies, yet I was told he would.

But in the end, perhaps the most rewarding part for me was to see how devoted he appeared to be to the eaglets.

A father's compassion for his children was a secondary theme in the first book I had published, Safe in the Earl's Arms. I didn't notice it until completing the last pages...

The heroine, Melina was mostly abandoned by her father, and Warrington is trying to find parents for a little girl who is his ward. Warrington feels he's found the perfect home in a devoted couple, but Melina also has a family unit planned for the little one. In the end, Melina enlists her collected family to show Warrington she would be a good mother, and he would be the best father.

Writing the resolution was uplifting for me. I wrote the romance planning for the underlying theme to be about the search for the statue of the Venus de Milo's arms, but for me, it turned out to be about parental love.

Seeing good parenting in nature made all the trips to watch the eagle nest even more worthwhile.

The male eagle's actions to his offspring were positive, and hopefully, next year, I'll be able to see the supportive parents return to the nest and have more young to raise.

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