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. 

Were we filming a documentary about cow poop for the RFD Channel? Nope, just setting the scene for a picture to use on my book’s author bio page and for our 2012 Christmas card. My vision was for Bill, our golden retriever, Cricket, and I to stand in front of a barbed wire fence with our cattle grouped behind the fence. That vision also included props—cow pies on the ground around us. We selected the spot we wanted to use for the picture, then set off in the mini-truck in search of photogenic mounds of manure.

We had already identified some good prospects on our walk the previous evening. The tricky part would be to move the cow pies to our photo shoot area. For that chore, we brought along a shovel and sheets of tin for transport of the pies.

We found our first prospective pie and unloaded the tools. Bill carefully worked the shovel under the cow pie, gently lifted it onto the piece of tin and slowly pulled out the shovel blade. The pie slid smoothly, but not too cleanly, off the blade. We carried the tin with the pie back to the truck, loaded it in the bed and went in search of the next cow pie.

Oooh! This one was huge and perfectly shaped—symmetrical and nicely domed. Well done, whoever laid this one down! I just hoped it would stay together during transport. As the cow pie slid off the shovel blade onto the tin, it started to crack. Bill slowly finessed the blade out and the pie remained intact.

The next cow pie was not as sturdy as it appeared. As Bill pushed the shovel underneath it, the structure collapsed. He turned the shovel over, dumped out the inferior pie, wiped the mess off the blade with grass and we drove on to the next one.

Once we had six cow pie props, we headed back to our photo site. We carefully unloaded the sheets of tin, set them on the ground and Bill used the shovel to lift the pies and put them in position. The scene was set!

For the picture, I wore blue jeans, blue chambray shirt, gumboots and held a red hay hook. Bill was dressed similarly, but without the gumboots and hay hook. Cricket wore her usual big smile. The cows and calves stood quietly behind us, munching on the pile of range cubes Bill dumped on the ground. Our photographer, thoroughly amused by the whole scene, focused and clicked a dozen times. The Hilbert’s, Cricket, the cows and their calves, and the photogenic cow pies were preserved for all time!

"Under the Cow Pie" is a collection of the back stories of my book—little-known entertaining tidbits that became adventures or funny experiences during the writing and publishing process. But first, let's explore what is really under a cow pie.

One evening on our walk, I noticed dried up cow pies that were flipped over. I asked Bill who or what was responsible for exposing the underbelly of a cow pie. He responded that wild turkeys flipped them over to hunt grubs and other forms of mini wildlife found underneath. Grubs are the larva, or infant, stage of the Green June Beetle ("June Bugs"). 

So, my namesake insects grub around in cow pies in their infancy. Hnh!

By the time we see flipped cow pies on our walks, the grubs are long gone. They've either provided a delightful meal for the turkeys or burrowed into the cow pie or the ground. They can move about as fast as a naughty human two-year-old when it doesn't want to be disciplined by a pursuing parent!

So I strapped on my camera and went on a little cow pie flipping excursion as part of my evening walk. These pictures aren't as gross as you might imagine because the underbelly of a dried up cow pie looks like dirt.

The picture below shows two grubs on the underside of a dried cow pie. See? Not so gross. Well, at least the flip side of the cow pie isn't gross!

Roly-polies sometimes live in and under cow pies. Smaller than grubs, these little tidbits are probably snacks or appetizers.

Earthworms are also found under cow pies. Happy is the wild turkey that can score one of these full meal deals!

Finally, what turkey can resist a delectable centipede for dessert!

Now you know about life under a dried cow pie and how fleeting it can be once a hungry wild turkey flips it over!