Cows Settle into Mowing, Visitors Come and Go

Some rain this week. No, it wasn't predicted - but was brief. Cows were moved up toward the house, with daily fencing improvements. More to come. Strategic clearing areas nearest the house - for now.

Hi,

Thanks again for being here and opening this. For being part of this community.

You are the reason I keep going with these. Yes, you are. You.

(Note: this is officially too long for email, and so may cut off. In such case, there’s a link at it’s end to read all the verbosity online — and get the bonuses at the end...)

Too many emails? Too few? Go here to adjust your settings.

• Farming News - One more paddock to introduce the herd to up by the main house.

• Homesteading - Now that the visitors have left, we’re busy re-aligning to getting that foundation built.

• Writing News - The L’Amour-Hondo dissection continues - learning more every week..

• Fiction News - Started a cozy dystopian-horror-satire. With its own romantic story arc.

  ---

Farming News

Still pushing the herd to graze up by the main house. The front yard will be their next. And one more paddock after that.

We’re still at 18 calves arrived. Here’s the 15th one:

Another bull calf.

His momma is named “Shorty” because she is a Dexter, which is a smaller breed. She was gotten to the farm in order to be a “nurse cow” in case we had extra mouths (like this year) but to do that, she needs to have her calf and a supply of milk before everyone else.

She’s doing fine on her own, and I’m happy we have enabled her to have a forever home with us. Her own momma lasted 24 years (twice what the average beef cow lasts) and so we expect to have her for quite a while more. As well as her heifers.

---

I’ve been working solely on getting the herd moved up through a couple of paddocks nearer the main house. So they’ll mow that down. I’m late doing this move for this year. But the rain has allowed me to shift back to conventional grazing as the grass has been growing with abandon.

Got the fence fixed by making it simpler (a straight line) and added a second line below the top one. Somehow they respect this more.

This also includes our newly-rebuilt small pond, which has become a nice wading pool for them, along with it’s grove of low-hanging Russian Olives, which are great for brushing flies off and back-scratching in general.

It was so good to see the tail lights of departing guests. It was a couple of weeks of just getting ready for them - days I didn’t invest into our homestead build. But people remarked about the new gate and the re-built glider bench.

Oh - here’s a picture of that glider:

It’s going to need some staining or painting, so I’ve got it under the carport until that can happen.

The orphan calf is doing well. Gaining strength and size. A twice-daily chore of love. They were waiting to be fed last night - a nice turn of events.

---

Tiny Homesteading Progress

Wife was away at her own family reunion last week while I was here prepping the farm for our visitors. A lot of relatives came in and thankfully, most didn’t visit the farm.

I am busy enough running herd on my cattle and other livestock than having to deal with the attitudes others bring with them. Many are great. A few - well, families are like that. We somehow get along - and those that don’t come around the farm much seem more difficult to deal with. About the time you’re “used” to them again, they are gone.

I guess putting up with them for a few days out of each year are worth it.

So now, it’s simply back to three things - cattle, homestead, writing.

I’ll get my wits around just putting that floor foundation together this week. The weather should be cooler now, even though it’s still August.

---

Donations Welcome

Meanwhile, in spite of these bargains we’ve gotten on our appliances, there are some steep bills to this, even while my labor is one of love. It will take just under $30,000 to build this 20x48 foot tiny home - The wood beam foundation itself is down to about $2500 (from several thousand) and finishing with insulation, plumbing, electrical, and other necessities may cost five figures more than what we’ve already pinched and saved.

It’s just under 960 square feet. All building with only our retiree incomes, plus my book sales. Yes, that’s a real trick. While I’m working to improve my book marketing and sales, your donations are welcome. It’s another way to join this adventure and journey.

This “buy me a coffee” link works for probably any amount…

I imagine I need to set up some sort of “Give Send Go” page and promote it more. Stay tuned…

Writing News

All that’s put my publishing off again. But that is now back to front burners, with the cattle doing well and the visitors gone.

I’ve got my hours every morning to work on my books as well as other writing. Compressing my writing, publishing, and marketing into a couple hours daily limits what I can get accomplished. But I work at these daily and so there is incremental progress.

What’s coming up is:

• Finish the hexalogy.

• Slog out the weekly lessons on Mondays, plus the dissection on Wednesdays. About 4 weeks to go on the Forgotten Bestseller Secrets, although I have another six chapters to post on the subject of revisions.

I just sorted out the Dissection lessons, which got a bit confused as I passed the 12th lesson, while going backwards through the 12th chapter in L’Amour’s Hondo. But these have been updated and corrected. And by the time this is published, we’ll be onto the 14th lesson, which takes up Chapter 11.

There are 10 more lessons after that, a total of 24. And the Hondo book fits into that time frame well.

• That dissection is building the spine for the year-long training event I’m building.

For Patrons (Founding Members), I’ll be building a training event that takes us through all these 24 lessons (plus the material on story polishing) with hands-on writing assignments. Reduplicating the same as the original 1938 Campbell OU course. As close as we can get it, anyway. The point is to learn the simplicities of writing and develop the habits that make it into a successful lifestyle choice.

• We’ll have a Kickstarter to pick this up, along with the release of the Hexology. And that promotion will be happening in the spots of time after the lessons and dissections are all posted.

• And that will have to happen between now and Thanksgiving - so, about 8 weeks of promotion, then two weeks of the Kickstarter itself. And plenty of books to publish between now and then and afterwards.

Again, I’ll get this data to you here - as it develops.

---

That’s enough for now. See you next week. (Or follow me on the Substack app.)

(PS. Don’t forget the six books I’ve included below - for a limited time…)

---

Also published this week (ICYMI):

Writerpreneur Lessons

Fiction Posts

Pro Writing Lessons

---

---

Thanks for being there, opening this.

Sharing is caring. You’re who I do this all for. I value your input.

Leave a comment if something strikes your fancy.

I hope your life is not too interesting to be overwhelming, but sufficiently engaging to keep you amused. (Like some of us here...)

Robert

PS. Again, you can always email me about anything.

PPS. And you can always buy me a coffee…

---

Bonus:

This week, until later notice, the complete Writerpreneur series is available at author-direct discount - of Pay What You Want.

• Authors Survival Guide - 221 pages plus one mini-course

• Forgotten Bestseller Secrets - 222 pages plus three mini-courses

• Copywriting for Authors - 212 pages plus one mini-course

• Basic Formulas of Fiction - 209 pages

• Lost Books Anthology - 210 pages plus 3 mini-courses

• Direct Sales Handbook - 555 pages

These six books total over 1700 pages, most in beta versions:

Available for limited time as pay-what-you-want…

Paid subscribers have instant access to these ebooks - see below: