From Hot and Wet to Hot and Dry, Homestead Outfitting Starts Early

Two more calves this week, despite the heat. And, yes - they're cuties.

Jun 26, 2025

∙ Paid

Hi,

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

(Note: this is probably 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…)

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

Farming News - Calving season continues. And annual processing gets closer.
Homesteading - Access to my library is getting started. While we start outfitting.
Writing News - Dissecting classics continues, improving - more ebooks behind the paywall for paid subscribers, along with TOC’s.
Fiction News - Now we’re moving on the next chapter of a new serial, from Book One of Hooman Saga
Expectancy Factor - A new Nightingale classic essay on writing.

Farming News

We’re now at 16 calves arrived. Here’s the mysterious eighth one.

The mystery we had was that this calf was born just about a day after her sister.

Twins. But we didn’t know that. We thought some other cow had that calf. By the time we tried different momma’s, and fed her colostrum, we finally saw our error - but by that time, the momma wasn’t letting her suckle. So this one was added to my daily chores — now I’m mixing milk replacer and bottle feeding her twice daily. (Lesson - you have to get both twins with their momma and keep them there.)

Now we know. Our next action is getting our “nurse cow” up with this calf, so she can take over my chore and give him the probiotics and nutrients that no milk replacer can. Unfortunately, I waited a little too late and she had her calf, so now I have to get our nurse cow and her calf across the farm to our bottlefed one.

Got the “left to arrive” list made up. Looks like about 5 more at this point. We’ll see…

Tiny Homesteading Progress

Still waiting for the fiber optic to get installed. It’s not as fast as the first roll-out. Three stages - construction, splicing, and installation. Days apart. Fortunately, this isn’t mission critical.

Meanwhile, my wife re-discovered the Marketplace section on Facebook. That’s full of local bargains. One person’s discards becomes another person’s treasure. Of course, the best deals go fast. And we ran out of storage space on our farm, but found a low-cost rental (yes, I had an eye-roll at the “necessary” investment) to store what we need for a few months until the house proper is “dried in” with its shell. But this storage is on a main highway, so we can drop things off as we get them.

All this to make our homestead become actuality.

I still need to continue removing the rest of all that old wood from the frame, salvaging what we can. Time spent driving to pick up the outfitting items — on top of the demands of checking cattle in this heat — then keeps me away from getting the floor joists built. A/C in vehicles keeps us going meanwhile.

I’ve also had to free up some trailers to make it possible to get larger appliances picked up. Rolling a washer/dryer up a ramp into a trailer on a dolly is simpler than grunting it up and down out of a pickup bed.

The point again is to save money where we can. And not too oddly, we’ve found older model appliances that run better than these new wi-fi and bluetooth enabled ones. (Even a washer on Lehman’s that is hand-powered and does a better job with less water and no electrical at all…)

Again, there are 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 - and outfitting may cost half again as much more. Which will require additional funds. It’s just under 960 square feet. All bulidng with on 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…

Writing News

[Still needing to get print proofs for that pentalogy of books (my five Writerpreneur books). I keep this sentence here to remind myself.] And I reminded myself that my income from the book distributors mostly relies on printed non-fiction paperbacks…

Dissecting L’Amour’s “Gift of Cochise’ work is moving along. We’re now down to the last three installments of this - covering scenes 6 and 5 this week. And our review lesson is about “Writing Straight Ahead” after your research is complete, setting aside your notes.

L’Amour averaged three novels a year, for the most part. Hondo became his sixth.

We’ll soon be able to continue our dissection through the Hondo book, chapter by chapter, and aligning these lessons currently being released (ones on Compelling Characters and Riveting Storytelling.) We are building a simple three-part training program for authors. And it’s both an adventure and a journey. Right here in these newsletters (or live on the Substack app.)

All to shorten our writer-craft learning curve and increase our income from book and story sales. Yes, I’m on this same ride along with you.

Many Irons in the Fire

I’m pretty well done with cobbling Tables of Contents together. That includes updating and regimenting my series with orderly titles. You can find them on my site under Table-Of-Contents All so people can find that I produced earlier.

This makes the newsletters I write into a clearer offer. Most of my posts recently have started including ebooks for paid subscribers, as well as one-off direct sales through my Gumroad backend.

Yes, I still have to compile that book on sales I mentioned earlier. That, and the Expectancy Factor book, plus getting my paperbacks out. Again, priorities count. Vital gets done before Important.

My foray into homesteading, updating Maurice G. Kains’ Five Acres and Independence, has taken a second-fiddle spot. Hopefully start getting back to this in the upcoming week. There is so much I’ve been telling you in this newsletter and through my Substack Notes (on the that app) which he covered in Kains 1935 classic. This will probably expand into a homesteading starting-library - stay tuned. Again, as I find time to get to it. For now, you can get his original book below, paid member or direct.

I do plan to get my collected library of books in this area on offer soon - through direct sales and for paid members. Maybe a series of book reviews?!?

I keep all these going by allotting time to these five newsletters. Tricky, somewhat - and it keeps me from collaborating as much as I’d like to. (But I’m opening up an idea of a private collaboration offer below…)

With all I have on-going on the farm and in my Tiny Home construction, time seems tight. Focus on the vital things is key.

Once the Characters and Storytelling lessons have completed, along with the Hondo studies, my time on newsletters should free up some. But at one lesson a week, that’s some eighteen weeks off - nearly five months. My studies continue, and these always then bring more writing, which means more books (and mini-courses.) But I do need to spend more time at collaborating to build more community. And there are some Kickstarter events to run…

Time remains a fluid state of affairs.

And yet, there’s more…

When I discovered what Campbell had written in his four text books, I realized I was sitting on a gold mine. Then I added Foster Harris’ contemporary books to that hoard. Along that time, I found an old lecture of Dwight Swain and now had the original material which made Campbell’s course legendary.

Adding in the three following instructors who ran the course subsequently has just compounded and proved the core materials Campbell released originally.

I was over looking at the current course and found that it has now been made into a four-year degree study, along with a two-year Master’s course. It’s no longer as simple to take a single course or three in order learn the author craft. Yet the original basics are retold through these instructors works. This is the point of hiring authors who made their own success and only then were hired as instructors. For them to then write their own book on the writing craft preserves all this for we who come later - and have no need for investing another four years in expensive college courses when we simply want to know what we’ve been missing all this time and can practice on our own.

So: I’m planning to revive this original training. Taking a few students on personally to help them improve their craft by studying these Masters.

Somehow, some way.

It’s going to be work. Lots of practice, lots of writing and publishing. Behind closed doors - just as the original 1937 work Campbell did - but with the advantage of a blazed trail and accurate hindsight from himself and his instructors.

To cover my costs in this, it will be put in the Founding Member area. (I’ll have to work out how to make a special discount to start with.) We’ll set up our group there, and everyone will be writing to practice what they’ve read about. And my own private library of references will be opened - as well as my time in reading and reviewing and editing your work. So we can bootstrap ourselves into true professionals. But I can only work with a few.

If you’ve read this far, then respond to this email to get one of the limited seats. There will be a short questionnaire to pre-qualify you.

And we’ll set up some sort of place we can chat, asking questions and helping each other. Just us few.

Again, it’s a “many are called, few are chosen” scene.

I’ll keep working this out in the coming weeks. Which is another reason to get your Substack app. I figure this is a year’s effort. Which is the other reason for setting it up in the Founding Member area. Even though a year’s subscription is small compared to the benefits, when you pay in advance for a course of training, you tend to stick with it and get everything you can out of it.

That’s enough for now. See you next week.

Also published this week (ICYMI):