Curmudgeons and Sheep

July 28, 2018July 28, 2018 / Lisa / 6 Comments

While traveling recently in Scotland, we were invited to a sheep farm to watch how sheepdogs work. I’ve seen sheepdog trials many times and have also watched a friend’s dogs work. I’m always amazed at the intelligence of the dogs and the bond they have with their shepherd.

This visit sounded interesting though. Our guide told us to not get upset by the shepherd, a man named Neil. He has won many titles and awards, and his dogs have won even more. People come to him to have their dogs trained, or to purchase dogs from him. But we were told to not get upset if he came across as abrupt or curt. He showed people how dogs work sheep on a regular basis but it was clear that humoring the public was not part of his agreement. He didn’t like people much, we were told. He preferred dogs over humans.

Hmmm…sounds like someone I live with. My kind of non-people people. I liked him before we even got there.

When we arrived he was out in a pasture, holding a young dog, with several around him poised for action, knowing what was coming. The sheep were also poised in a flock, knowing what was coming. Our arrival was slowed slightly by my not paying attention (too busy watching the dogs and thinking of my favorite border collie, Jax) and tumbling to the ground in a grand entrance. But once we were gathered, Neil sent out the dogs.

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He explained each whistled command as the dogs worked, herding sheep out into the pasture, bringing them around, and singling one to return to Neil. The young dog he’d been holding was let loose to work. The pup was rough around the edges but very game.

I sidled closer to Neil.

I asked politely if I could ask him a question.

His eyebrows shot up.

I asked him how he knew a pup would be a good working dog.

It was like he was suddenly illuminated in the brightest of lights. He told me all about blood lines and parentage.

I then asked if there was a dog that had been the best to work with. And we were off on a long, wonderful story about a ‘soft’ dog. He sang the praises of this dog, who had lived to be quite elderly. Soft with lambs and puppies and children but spot-on dedicated and focused when working.

See the focus of the dog by the wagon? She’s poised with a low horizon to not scare sheep, waiting for the whistle.

Others sidled closer.

I then asked about the worst, or hardest dog. Again the stories poured forth of a young dog brought to him for training, whose confidence was destroyed before he arrived. The poor dog tried and failed repeatedly, with extreme lack of self-confidence. Neil said he refused to continue training because he couldn’t stand seeing the dog’s heart broken every time he came in from the pasture after failing yet again. The dog became a family pet instead.

Two young ones more interested in playing with wool than playing with sheep.

After the stories, Neil abruptly left. Our guide said she was shocked at how talkative he’d been, and suggested we head back. But here he came around the corner of an outbuilding. And lined up in his arms was a row of tiny, ten-week-old puppies. Coming right up to me, he handed me squeaking and grunting fat puppies, talking about their blood lines and telling stories about their parents.

When we left, I thought about the contrast between what we had been warned to expect and what we’d found. And it was obvious what made the difference. Who wouldn’t light up when someone asked questions about the things they are passionate about, and love deeply? I didn’t do anything extraordinary. I think others would have asked similar questions if they hadn’t been intimidated by the guide’s warnings.

Me? I simply wanted to hear the stories.

And what wonderful stories they were.

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It Was an Accident!

July 14, 2018 / Lisa / 3 Comments

A friend recently fell off a ladder while attempting to trim a tree with a chainsaw on a pole. She ended up with a hairline fracture of her leg. She hobbled around a bit and then tried to make the fracture a full-on break by slipping in cat vomit.

While she had my sympathy initially, when it got to the cat vomit part all she got was laughter.

Another friend trying not to faint after trying to break her hand

Then I thought about all the stupid things we do as our instinct screams ‘you idiot!’. When you know better, but go forth anyway in the hopes of conquering in spite of your common sense.

Like the time my husband climbed a ladder to rescue his kitten while wearing only a bathrobe and a slippery pair of wet Crocs. Both survived.

Or the time my mother dislocated her shoulder chasing a rooster. She fell over the cage. The rooster escaped.

During my years on a fire department I saw many, many accidents. After a while you realize that pretty much everything in life is just one big accident after another. Think about it. Car accidents. House fires caused by faulty wiring or a tea kettle left simmering too long. Mistakes at work. Taking the wrong turn and getting lost.

The girl whose dog knocked her down inside an old growth tree stump where she was stuck, feet sticking out, until we showed up.

What could go wrong? Well, actually, nothing. He’s pretty safe.

I wonder how many times my parents fell for the line, ‘but it was an accident!’.

Followed by ‘I didn’t mean it!’.

Followed by ‘it was her fault!’.

And then followed with, most commonly, spankings.

My first trip to the hospital: learning how to ride a bike without training wheels and thinking the bike would magically stop if I pulled up to a curb. After all, that’s what cars did.

Nothing was ever the fault of these two siblings, not even this hike that scared my husband so bad

There was the time I swallowed a ring and was scared I’d get in trouble so I didn’t say anything. For days I could feel it in there every time I swallowed. Eventually, I assume, it…passed on.

Of course not all accidents result in bad things. I met some wonderful friends because I didn’t understand the distance between two points while wandering in northern Scotland.

Every day tiny decisions are made that take us through life in ways we never foresee. Where would I be right this moment if I’d been running late this morning, or early? Would I then have been in the car accident instead of driving by? Millions of tiny decisions all throughout the day impact us and most of the time we aren’t even aware of them.

If you think about this too much you’ll never get out of bed. So instead I’m going to remind my sister of the time she brilliantly thought she could swing out on a rope tied to a tree growing out of a steep hillside, and land without breaking any bones.

Broke her ankle

We’ll ignore the part where the siblings who shall remain nameless told her ‘you go first and test it’.

Followed by ‘but it was an accident!’.

Unloved Books

June 30, 2018June 30, 2018 / Lisa / 3 Comments

Sorry, I know I just posted here, and I try to avoid flooding people with blog posts, but I just saw something that fascinates me. I’d post about it next week, but I’m going to be away from the Internet for a bit.

Goodread’s Facebook page just asked people to list what one book everyone else likes, that they don’t.

Wow, so many responses! I kept scrolling through more and more comments, and then started seeing a theme.

A lot of the same books were listed over and over. 50 Shades of Gray and Twilight were at the top of the list.

What fascinated me enough to want to blog about this, though, were the reasons. Even though we can never make all people happy, writers want to know why someone likes a book, or doesn’t. That knowledge gives you something to strive to avoid.

A lot of people listed classics like Grapes of Wrath, Moby Dick, etc. The almost-universal reason was ‘it’s boring’. That makes sense to me because the classics were written for a different era and a different generation of readers. Back then, the world we lived in was much smaller. People didn’t travel like now, and the internet wasn’t there to open the world for us. So books tended to have long passages of narrative description to show the reader that world. These days a few sentences of description are all that is needed for most readers to ‘see’ the setting.

Some responders wrote that they hated a book so much they threw it against the wall when they were finished. I kind of want to read those, because for a book to cause such a strong reaction, there must be something there. The reader may hate the book, but obviously a few nerves were touched.

Most responders though, had similar reasons for not liking a book. Boring. Flat characters. Unrealistic plot. Unlikeable characters. Stupid protagonists. No change from the beginning to the end (in other words no character growth). Condescending to children. And just plain bad writing.

Those are all things writers strive to avoid and learn how to improve upon.

So how would you answer that question, and most importantly, why? Show us writers what to avoid.