Time to regroup and go shopping at the mall--not one of my favorite things to do. First, I found a pair of hot pink stilettos at a major department store. Hmm…I actually liked the idea of using these more than red because the color was compatible with the background colors. Then, I found a pair of red stilettos at a small shoe store. Sensing impending cruel abuse, the bunion on my right foot began to throb like a three-alarm migraine headache. “Oh pipe down!” I scolded. “I don’t intend to try on or keep either pair.” I verified both pairs of shoes were returnable after the photo shoot.

Armed with two pairs of stiletto heels, my pacified bunion and my integrity that was about to become an endangered species, I scheduled another photo shoot.

The redesigned cover with the red shoe and a darker red-to-gray gradient was too bright, too stark and clashed with my olive drab gumboot. But the hot pink shoe with the original background gradient not only popped and sparked, it sizzled! The consensus was unanimous: This cover would sell books! 

I loved my new cover and my designer was anointed with rock star status in my life! But there was still the issue of my integrity. A copy of the cover with the hot pink stiletto replaced the now-tattered, boring-shoe copy in my purse. When I showed it to people and related the back story, which always ended with the statement, “I sacrificed a little integrity to sell books,” they chuckled and assured me my integrity would not suffer.

I returned the red shoes and received a full refund. But I kept the hot pink stilettos and use them in my book signing display along with the gumboots. 

This cover reaches out and grabs people at book signings! 

I didn't decide on a title for my book until late in the writing process. A couple of my ideas received a less than lukewarm response from my writing friends. Truthfully, I wasn't enamored with the ideas either. No pop, no spark. Then one day, the inspirational epiphany I’d been waiting for hit me: From High Heels to Gumboots, One Cow Pie at a Time.

Once I nailed down a title, the next step was design a cover. I knew three things:
1.      I would use the three basic elements of my title: high heels, gumboots and cow pie.
2.      I would not use the templates my print-on-demand publisher provided. Again, no pop, no spark. As a self-publishing, first-time author, it was imperative this cover SELL my book.
3.      I'm not artistically or graphically talented. I needed serious help.

I designed a crude concept using pictures of a pair of black high heels and olive drab gumboots. Bill took a photo of me wearing my gumboots doing a foot-plant in a big cow pie. I surrounded the pictures and title with a barbed wire border, saved the concept in a Word document, then presented it to a graphic designer.

We brainstormed and decided to use pictures of my own shoes, conservative navy blue pumps, and boots. I wasn’t really comfortable with the boot-in-the-cow-pie picture, deciding it was just a little too crude for the cover. New photos were taken and here is the cover image.

I was ecstatic! This cover popped; it sparked! The cow pie photo was a background image—still there, but not in-your-face. The designer used one of my favorite colors to create a gradient for the background. I printed off a copy and carried it in my purse, dragging it out to show anyone who asked how my book was progressing.

A few weeks later, when Bill received an order of cattle protein tubs, we showed the cover picture to the company rep who sold and delivered the tubs. He is also a cowboy poet and has recorded a CD of his work. His assessment of the cover was “Bor-ing! Won’t sell books. You need a fire-engine red, six-inch stiletto heel on the cover to reach out and grab potential buyers from across the room, not a navy blue low-heeled pump.”

I was crushed! My cover was fantastic! The colors all worked! Not to mention I had never worn stilettos, although I once owned a pair of low-heeled red pumps. I couldn’t use a picture of a shoe I had never worn. It wasn’t me! My integrity as an author would be destroyed!

Something I had missed earlier when brainstorming with my graphic designer was that she very tactfully made the same suggestion. So tactfully, in fact, it sneaked right by me. 

In my 2012 Holiday Letter to friends and family, when I announced my retirement from my day job effective at the end of the year, I listed a few of my retirement projects. One of those was to "probably get more involved in our farming operation." Then I noted "I am not retiring from my day job to become a farm hand!" Of course, I was kidding. I was already a part-time farm hand and looking forward to expanding that role. Although I didn't realize it at the time, that involvement would also provide fodder for my blog like it did for my book. (I love farm puns!)

I'm launching this new category with the post "Trailer Loads of Trees."

Trees.

Yes, I said trees.

I can now add "driving a logging truck and trailer" to my farm wife job description list. This list has grown by leaps and bounds since I retired from my day job.

Last winter, the county road department cleared out trees along the road by one of the pastures we rent in preparation for reshaping the ditch to eliminate a flooding problem. Bill and a friend spent several days engaged in serious chain saw activity, trimming off the smaller branches and root systems. What I was hauling home were the denuded tree trunks. Later, Bill would cut the trunks into logs and run them through the log splitter to make pieces small enough to use in the wood furnace.

OK. I have to maneuver this farm truck with a 24-foot trailer attached out of the driveway and onto the road without:
1.      Taking out the mailbox
2.      Doing a side-roll into the ditch
3.      Turning so sharp the gooseneck hitch breaks—a $4,000 catastrophe!

Yikes! Too many things to watch and try not to destroy. This will require multi-tasking, not one of my talents.

If you've read my essay, "I am a farm wife..." or the chapter "Hay-Fever—Not Just an Allergy" in my book, you already know I can drive the farm truck pulling the trailer loaded with hay bales without getting high-centered on terraces in the field. But someone more experienced always drove the truck and trailer from the field to the barn. 

Maybe I’ll just goof around and take a picture while I try to remember the earlier instructions about how to get this rig on the road. 

Cricket rides shotgun and provides moral support.  

Success! The mailbox remains unmolested; the truck and trailer are right-side up on the road; the gooseneck hitch is unscathed. 

We’re on our way to pick up a load of trees.

We arrive at the pasture two miles away. All "STOP" and road name signs are still standing at the corners along our route. Meanwhile, Bill moved the trees close to the road and stacked them in piles using his tractor and the bale fork attachment. I park the truck on the road parallel to the open gate. He’s ready to load. 

Once the trailer is loaded, Bill waves at me to head home.

“You’re not going to secure this wobbly load with chains or tie-downs?” I ask.

“Shouldn't be a problem. You’re only going a couple of miles and will only have two turns. I’ll follow behind at a distance and pick up anything that falls off.”  Bill replies.

Did he say “Shouldn't be a problem”? Okey-dokey.

We head for home. I navigate the truck and trailer wide through the first turn and check the rearview mirrors to verify my load is intact. No tree trunks in the road or the ditch. A few minutes later, I approach our driveway and execute another wide turn. Oops! My driver’s side mirror nearly executes the mailbox! Cricket and I make a pact to not tell Bill and seal it with her licking my face.

I make it into the driveway without any more close calls and wait for Bill. Molybolt, the cat, jumps into the truck cab to wait with us.

Bill arrives with an empty bale fork which means I didn’t lose any of my load. 

He gets in the truck and positions it where he wants to unload. He uses the tractor and bale fork to scoot the logs off the trailer.

Now we go back to the pasture for another load. Unfortunately, on this trip there’s a casualty during the loading process. Bill scoops up a couple of trees, one of which has several branches on it. As he drives toward the gate opening, the load shifts and the multi-branch tree falls partially off the bale fork and on the open tubular steel gate. The impact bends the top steel tube in two places, warps the center divider, knocks the gate off one hinge and bends the other. I didn't get a picture of the damaged gate hanging crookedly on one bent hinge, but here it is as Bill moves it out of the way with his bale fork.

Bill keeps the casualty from becoming a fatality by reshaping some of the bent pieces using the bale fork, and by stomping on the top rung. The hinges are straightened and we rehang the gate. We won't have cattle in this pasture until spring so Bill has plenty of time to get a replacement; but, for now, this will work.

When we took the second load home, we brought back a chain saw to remove branches and avoid any more casualties.

Side Note: Bill forgot to notify our pasture landlord about the gate mishap. But one of her family members noticed it and asked her about it. She called one day when we were both gone and left a voice mail message: "What happened to my gate?!" Bill returned the call and assured her he would fix or replace it before spring.

We finish this project with no more gate wrecks. All stop and road signs are still standing. Ditto for the mailbox. I didn't leave any trees in ditches or along the roads. Best of all, we have a huge supply of wood to burn this winter.

We send our 60 cow/calf pairs south for the winter because we aren't set up to feed that many head. We don't put up silage nor do we have enough hay. We can, however, accommodate 11 replacement heifers Bill selected from last year's calves, and one heifer bull charged with the responsibility of perpetuating the herd. 

Replacement Heifer 101:  A heifer brought into the herd to replace a culled cow, a/k/a hamburger cow on our farm. All of our replacement heifers now come from our own herd.

Heifer Bull 101: Not an oxymoron. A heifer bull has the genetics to sire slightly lower birth weight calves to reduce birthing difficulties with first-calf heifers. 

For the next couple of months, we become voyeurs of steamy bovine sex! We even keep binoculars handy to zoom in on the action. 

No, we aren't depraved! There is a perfectly logical reason for this scrutiny. 
Bill notes the date each heifer is bred by recording her ear tag number on a calendar so he'll know when to expect her to calve next fall. We keep close tabs on first-calf heifer births in case complications occur or a crash course in Motherhood 101 becomes necessary. The binoculars allow us to see the number from near the house so we don't enter the pasture and become intrusive. See? We really are decent people! 

Also, if a heifer we thought was bred comes in heat in three weeks, we know the breeding didn't take. If, after a second or third attempt she is still open, or unbred, it's unlikely she will ever breed and she's headed for the sale barn. Another scenario: If more than one heifer doesn't breed, the bull may be intermittently shooting blanks. Then he's headed for the sale barn.

Here are 9 of our 11 heifers. Two heifers bred early so were put in pens in the corral to provide female companionship for two bulls waiting to be hauled south in a day or two. Without the female distraction and calming influence, the bulls would engage in one-upmanship testosterone antics like bellowing bull smack at each other and head-butting the dividing panels between their pens. Boys will be boys!

Here's the bull. Doesn't he look happy with anticipation at what awaits him?