Writing the Ride: Candace Carrabus Rice, Author

I love my dogs, I really really do. Almost as much as I love my cats, and I really really REALLY love my cats. But this is about dogs. Being doggy. Sometimes, they are SO doggy. Like when Carlo, our black Lab puppy, goes out and eats everything he can find that smells and looks nasty. Like cat poop and dead frogs.

So, yesterday, just as Rianna’s bus was pulling in and I was taking Carlo out for his latest foraging adventure, this huge commotion erupted under our front deck. Dogs on the attack. Growling, yelping, snapping, and that deep-throated snarl that is impossible to misunderstand–the one that means something is about to be killed.

I knew Emily, our chocolate Lab/Pit Bull mix, was under there as well as Lucy, who is a long-haired Doxie/Tasmanian Devil mix. Really, we don’t know what Lucy is, but she’s quick and agile and has a certain edge about her that I like. Emily, of course, is big and powerful, and has no use for wild animals invading her territory. And rarely are any stupid enough to do so.

My first thought was that Lucy’s edge had somehow set Emily off. That they’d been playing and gotten carried away as dogs sometimes do, with fatal results. I ran to the deck and stomped on it yelling, “Emily, Lucy, NO!” to no avail. This deck is close to the ground and there’s no way I could see what was going on where they were. I yelled to Rianna to grab Carlo and the phone while I ran for a shovel, all the while fearing the worst.

I started digging, but the ground is hard and full of rocks, and there was no way I could get to them fast enough. Rianna was crying, I was crying and sweating and calling to the dogs. There was no sound of Lucy. Rianna fumbled the phone a couple of times, but reached our neighbor who came tearing down the road to help in any way she could. I’d forgotten she was watching her two young granddaughters, but they came along, no strangers to dogs and the trouble they can get into, especially in a rural area, like ours.

Rianna ran to watch the kids while my neighbor ran for the hose to try and break up the fight, but I had reached under the deck and put my hand on something dead, still warm, but limp and gone. It was too late. The ruckus had subsided to Emily’s heavy breathing, but still, I could see nothing. I kept digging and calling anyway.

I saw a tail. Too dark and bristly to be Lucy, but I wasn’t sure. I sent Rianna to the back yard to call for Lucy in case she was hiding from all this under one of the other decks. It never occurred to me they might have cornered a cat, but it wasn’t a cat’s tail either, and finally, I got hold of a foot, and it was definitely not a dog or cat foot. But Emily dragged the body back before I could see more, scraping her hard tooth over my finger as she did, cutting it open.

Finally, Lucy stuck her face where I could see it, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t about to play tug of war with Emily over whatever it was, but she eventually released it, and a fat muskrat slipped into my hands. The dogs crawled from underneath the way they’d gone in, excitedly out of breath, tails wagging, tongues hanging long. They wanted their catch, but I took it to a far field where the coyotes would deal with it later.

I felt bad for the muskrat, but its death was probably quick. I’ve seen Emily deal with possums, and she doesn’t waste time. If the creature was stupid or arrogant enough to think it could get away with living under our dog’s nose, then it needed to be removed from the gene pool.

I love my dogs, I really really do. Sometimes, I could wish for them to be a little less doggy, but I understand their essential nature, especially when they live in a place that presents them with such opportunities.

It was a long, long 20 minutes or however long the episode actually lasted. When it was over, I smelled like I’ve never smelled before. Between my own adrenaline and sweat, and that of the dogs, not to mention the muskrat, well, ’nuff said. I took a long bath.

But before I went inside, I found a few of our cats sleeping on the table and chairs of the back deck, completely unconcerned with this drama that did not involve them, dreaming, perhaps, of their own catches–birds and mice and the occasional snake.

Do you have dogs? What doggy things have they done? I’d love to hear your stories.

The cows.
Good friends of ours have an organic dairy farm. I get to drop by with a couple of gallon glass jugs just about whenever I want to buy raw organic milk straight from the tank–almost straight from the cow. We drink it, and use it in our cereal and coffee, and I make yogurt from it. Delicious!

When I stop in, Tim is always up to his neck in some kind of work, if he’s not milking, which takes 8 hours of every day. That’s 4 hours two times a day. He milks over 120 head.

The mixer.
Today, he was mixing timothy and alfalfa hay together. Organic hay, of course. He uses a Bobcat to lift big round bales into a giant Kitchenaid mixer. Okay, it’s not a Kitchenaid, but that’s sort of what it looks like. The mixer chops the stiff hay stems up and mixes the two together to balance the nutritive content. He says if he didn’t do this, the cows would eat only the alfalfa, and that wouldn’t be good for them. He knows a LOT about nutrition and hay and feed and fertilizer and chemicals, and can spout percentages of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, and calcium like I conjugate verbs.

They’ve been transitioning to organic for a few years. I asked him what the toughest part of the transition has been. He said feeding the herd. He had to start buying organic feeds — much more expensive than non-organic — but he had to still sell his milk at non-organic prices. And, you guessed it. Non-organic milk brings much lower prices than organic. Making ends meet for the last couple of years has been hard.

The hay mixer at work.
In retrospect, he said he should have sold his entire herd and bought cows that were already considered organic so that he could start selling at organic prices right away. The easy part was switching the pasture. All he had to do was start using organic fertilizer. He’s looking forward to the grass being high enough that he doesn’t have to mix hay every day. But then there will be other chores.

By the way, here’s a couple of interesting facts: milk is measured and sold by the pound. One cow produces 45-70 pounds of milk every day. Many of Tim’s cows are Jersey. Their milk has a higher cream content.

I can get more details about life on an organic dairy for anyone interested. Next time you pick up a half-gallon container of organic milk at the store, think of Tim and all those hours on his feet, reaching between the hind legs of his cows, disinfecting their bags, and attaching the milking machine to their teats.

Makes it taste even better, doesn’t it?

No, Spongebob isn’t dead, but a large portion of our TV channels went bye bye this week taking Nickelodeon and Spongebob and his gang right along with them.

Yes, like many Americans, we’re tightening our belts. And one place in the budget that was easy to cut was cable. We went down to the minimum available programming. DH gave up a number of news channels plus HBO, I lost Veria among others, and daughter lost SpongeBob. This is not a big sacrifice for what it saves us every month.

DH blurted the news to daughter at supper with no preamble, nothing to soften to blow. He simply didn’t think it would be that big a deal. But as soon as he said we’d see a big difference when we turned on the TV, her face clouded over and she said, “Spongebob?”

“He’s gone, baby,” I said. Just like I’d told her when my old horse died a few years ago. And how I’d said it when when one of our cats died. And when my mother died a year and half ago and more recently when my stepdad passed. And in the same week, right before Christmas, when her own little dog was killed. Yeah, the kid’s sustained some losses of late. We all have.

She started to cry. No, it was a wail. “Not Spongebob!” Dinner forgotten, the keening and gnashing of teeth went on.

“Well, maybe not, we don’t know for sure,” my husband backpeddled.

I knew for sure. But I comforted her as best I could. “I love Spongebob,” she cried over and over. While I went out to feed the horses, and daughter got ready to take a shower, DH snuck in to the computer and brought up Nick.com to see if they had Spongebob videos online.

The grieving continued through the showering and drying and getting on of PJs and brushing of teeth. Then, reasoning kicked in. “Can’t we just have Nickelodeon?” she pleaded. We attempted to explain the network “packages.” This did not satisfy her.

But by the time I’d returned from letting the horses out, she was sitting on her daddy’s lap at the computer, tears drying. There on the monitor was Spongebob’s latest episode.

Whew. Life can go on.

It was more grief then she’d showed for anyone or anything before. Perhaps an accumulation of it all. I couldn’t help wondering what it meant. I like Spongebob. I know people either hate him or love him. I see him as an optimistic, loyal, and cheerful character. He works hard and for the most part, lives in the moment. He makes mistakes and gets carried away sometimes, and says he’s sorry when he hurts someone else. A good example, if not exactly a role model. I like his family of choice, too. His goofy friend Patrick, who Spongebob never judges, his crabby neighbor and co-worker, Squidward, who Spongebob is determined to cheer up, and his sometimes insane boss, Mr. Crabs, for whom Spongebob would work for free because he loves his work so much.

Hey, who hasn’t had a goofy friend we loved in spite of their goofiness, or a crabby neighbor with a hidden heart of gold, or a sometimes insane boss who would die if we ever quit?

No wonder she loves the show.

I’m glad we’ve cut back on the channels we can watch. Sometimes too much choice is just too much choice. We will be better off watching less and facing each other more–talking and playing games, going outside to ride our bikes.

But I’m also glad she’ll be able to catch Spongebob Squarepants at her convenience on the computer, ’cause I’ll be watching, too.

Today’s ride was our trusty Ford 5000 tractor. It needed a jump from my car before it finally roared to life and belched a cloud of gray diesel fumes from its stack.

I needed to finish harrowing the horse pasture and wanted to get it done before the rain that was predicted. I love harrowing, actually, love just about anything that gets me on the tractor, whether it’s brush hogging, mowing, raking, and baling hay, or towing kids around in trailer full of sweet-smelling straw.

The horse pasture is special fun, though, because, well, the horses are there, and they always manage to position themselves right where I need to be, then suddenly take off at a gallop as I approach. As if they didn’t hear or see the tractor coming. But they grow bored with this game pretty quick, especially when there’s minty-green fresh spring grass to be had.

And then there’s the sense of satisfaction. I know not everyone can relate to the joy of seeing big piles of dried manure broken up and spread across the field in tiny pieces, but well, there you go. When you’re a farmer, even a part-timer, like me, you learn to appreciate the little things.

As you can see from the picture, our tractor is an old, no-frills model. Some days, like when its 90 degrees out and the sun is baking my head and my eyes sting from the sweat, I wish for an enclosed cab and AC. But most of the time, I like being out in the air, moving at a civilized pace, my ear protectors firmly in place to drown out the worst of the noise.

It is time to think, or to drift, and create new stories.

Unexpected Twist: Fiction Reading Is Up
Survey Shows Reversal Of Longstanding Trend

By Bob Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 12, 2009; Page C01

There’s good news about reading, says the National Endowment for the Arts in a report the agency is releasing today.

For the first time since the NEA began surveying American reading habits in 1982 — and less than five years after it issued its famously gloomy “Reading at Risk” report — the percentage of American adults who report reading “novels, short stories, poems or plays” has risen instead of declining: from 46.7 percent in 2002 to 50.2 percent in 2008.

“Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy” is the triumphant headline on the new report. In a preface, outgoing NEA Chairman Dana Gioia called it a “turning point in recent American cultural history” and emphasized that “the most significant growth has been among young adults,” the group previously showing the biggest reading declines.

Yet the survey contains bad news as well.

The percentage of American adults who report reading any book not required for work or school during the previous year is still declining. It fell from 56.6 percent in 2002 to 54.3 percent in 2008.

Meanwhile, no one can say why the number of Americans reporting what the NEA calls “literary reading” rose — though Gioia didn’t hesitate to suggest an explanation.

“Over the past six years there has been a new sense of urgency in the United States about the cultural disaster represented by the decline in reading,” he said in an interview last week. As a result, “millions of teachers, librarians, parents,” politicians and others put their energies into reversing the trend.

Gioia said he likes to think that the NEA’s surveys “played a catalytic role” and that NEA programs such as the Big Read — through which the agency encourages American communities to sponsor the reading and discussion of a single book — have been important.

What are concerned reading advocates, accustomed to hearing that the literary sky is falling, to make of this news?

Fielding questions in the chairman’s office in the Old Post Office Pavilion, Gioia and NEA Research Director Sunil Iyengar tried to clear up any possible confusion.

When considering the category in which the turnaround occurred, it’s important to know that “literary” isn’t meant to imply “highbrow.” The NEA survey includes all fiction genres, including thrillers and romance novels. Mysteries emerged this year as the most popular genre.

It’s also notable that the gain came entirely from prose fiction. The percentage of adults reading drama and poetry declined during the period studied.

But what about prose nonfiction? Why did the NEA decide to single out the “literary” category in the first place?

“Because we’re the National Endowment for the Arts,” Gioia said. When the agency did its first survey, in 1982, it excluded nonfiction from consideration, and that’s the long-term database it has to work with. Questions about overall book reading were added later, but the data don’t go back as far.

This is understandable, but the result is confusing. It means, for example, that reading Barack Obama’s “Dreams From My Father” won’t get you counted as a “literary reader” by the NEA.

The confusion is only made worse by the decline the NEA found — but chose not to emphasize — in the percentage of adults reading any book.

Why wasn’t that the headline?

“We’re not interested in the format of this, we’re just interested in the activity,” Gioia said. But it’s true that “the literary reading seems to be going up, and the general reading seems to be going down.”

The rise in literary reading, Iyengar pointed out, was the first really significant positive trend the NEA had seen in five surveys done over 26 years. The spike was “aberrational to us,” he said. “We were like, ‘What’s going on with this?’ ”

One possibility is implied by Gioia’s point about format. Could an increase in online reading — or in the reporting of online reading by survey respondents — be a factor? After all, the new survey asked specifically about Internet reading for the first time, and nearly 15 percent of adults said they read literature online.
ad_icon

It’s not a question the NEA numbers can really answer, Iyengar said. But he pointed out that the overall reading question was asked early in the survey (as it always has been) and thus the later query about online reading would not have influenced responses.

The spike in reading in the 18-24 age range being so high — it accounted for nearly 40 percent of the overall growth in reported literary reading — raises another question: Was the “Harry Potter” phenomenon a major factor? The final volume of J.K. Rowling’s series came out early in the 12 months covered by the survey, and in the years since the first “Harry” arrived, the young-adult sector has become one of publishing’s main growth areas.

Maybe. But Gioia pointed out that Potter books were in stores when the NEA’s literary reading rates were still tanking. He was happy, however, to spread around credit for the fiction-reading uptick.

“It’s ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Twilight’ and Oprah and the Big Read and the Internet,” he said — though he’s not planning to declare victory as he returns to the private sector later this month.

“We’ve turned around a war that we were losing,” Gioia said. “But victory is a long way off.”

Writers, if you haven’t checked out www.fieldreport.com, then you are missing something. This online writing experiment is fascinating, providing a chance for your stories to be read, reviewed, and rated by real readers, not some poor editor trying to please a greedy publisher. And if the real readers rate your story high enough, you can win real money.

For instance, my story, “A Farmer at Last,” was the highest-scoring in the Home+Garden+Auto category for the most recent review period ending October 1st, and I won $1,000. And that makes my story eligible to compete for the $250,000.00 grand prize which will be awarded at the end of the year.

And if that doesn’t qualify as real money in your book . . .

www.fieldreport.com/contests

Joy Wooderson, Donna Volkanannt and I at a “comforting” booksigning at Barnes & Noble. Each of us had stories in a different edition of the terrific Cup of Comfort anthologies.

My short non-fiction has appeared in A Cup of Comfort for Courage, Horse Crazy: Women and the Horses They Love, A Cup of Comfort for Mothers to Be, Sacred Fire, and A Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers. A Shoe Burning appeared in Sacred Fire.

A Shoe Burning

“The shoes burn at sunset,” I announced. “At the top of the hill in the field by the pond.”

A bemused smile creased my husband’s face. Of all the questions he might venture about this peculiar statement, he asked, “Why sunset?”

I had given this some thought. It was dead of winter, and night came early. “The wind settles then,” I said. “Plus, I want my offering to be visible to whatever gods note such things.”

Ever one to add an artistic touch, Robert fashioned a torch for me to safely light the pyre I had built, and he readied enough gasoline to ensure a good blaze.

“It’s a hell of a way to mark your fortieth,” he said.

I had decided to burn the shoes some months before. I wanted a ritual to celebrate turning forty. Setting fire to something from my past felt like the perfect transition from the frivolous pursuits of youth to the more pertinent matters of maturity—from heels and skirts to flats and slacks. For it was not any pair of worn-out footwear I intended to immolate, but the strappy, black snakeskin high-heels with tiny gold buckles that fastened around my ankles. When I was still willing to forgo comfort in the name of fashion, these shoes had seen a good deal of wear. My knees and back thanked me daily for giving up such foolishness.

The old me would go up in smoke and the new, wiser me emerge from the ashes shod in comfortable loafers—or in the case of a cold and snowy winter’s day—practical mukluks. Never again would I bend to someone else’s idea of who I should be. In future, I would be true to myself.

My fortieth birthday dawned clear and icy—common enough for January in the Midwest. Our farm straddles a ridge where wind slices across as if nothing stands between us and the North Pole but a couple of barbed wire fences. Undaunted, I built a column of glued-together cardboard boxes and affixed the sacrificial shoes on top like an overwrought cake decoration.

When the appointed time arrived, we bundled into our insulated coveralls and fur-lined hats and marched into the waning winter light, me carrying the tower reverently like the offering it was, Robert following with torch and tinder. Our black lab and six cats with tails held high completed the procession, but made for home when ice hardened between their toes.

At the top of the hill in the field by the pond, steady blasts of air had scoured the snow to a smooth, crisp finish that glowed softly with the muted violet and red of a dusky winter sunset. I met the western sky with eager eyes, seeing not the end of my youth, but the beginning of a future filled with promise.

I put down my gift and took a moment to admire the whole of it. The brown and tan boxes rose in mismatched symmetry from large to small, and here and there, gobs of glue dripped over an edge. My homemade alter was sturdy, not pretty, yet the shoes atop looked ready to step away. Part of me hated to lose them. Those spiky, impractical bits of leather appeared insubstantial, especially against a bitter January night, but they held memories of going places, of conversations without end, of dancing.

You must be willing to give something up, I told myself, and there is so much to gain. The shoes are a symbol. You do not want high heels on the path you now walk, nor do you need them to talk all night, or to dance.

The frigid breeze biting my cheek reminded me to move. Robert lit the torch; I held it to a lower box. We stood back and watched as flames coursed upward.

The fire burned hot and fast, melting the shoes from view quicker than expected, spiraling cinders into the purple sky. Heat seared through me and thawed a circle in the snow. Moved by the spirit of the moment, and perhaps to prove my point about dancing, I giddily spun around the blaze, waving the torch while my husband snapped photos.

During the jog back to our house, new buoyancy lifted my steps, as if I had crossed an invisible threshold from a weighted past to a lighter future.

Six years later, that fire still warms my inner world. Cleansed of old, restrictive thoughts, I go forward unrestrained, often barefoot.

And somewhere at the top of the hill in the field by the pond, or in a nest or burrow nearby, two tiny gold buckles remember, and glitter like miniature flames.

Poems come in fits and starts and when I am overcome with emotion. I wrote Unending Memory after Smirnoff died. He was a 31-year-old thoroughbred who had been my friend for over 25 years.

Unending Memory

I remember the sun’s warmth mingling
the aromas of sweating horse and oiled leather and
my breathlessness as we galloped and
the creak of saddle and boot and
the thudding rhythm of his hoof beats and
surging power beneath my hand and hip and
a streaming mane and that arching neck and
the oneness of being and nothing—
nothing but smooth paths and
unending potential.

I remember the sun’s warmth piercing
a cold winter’s day with stark shadows and
a sleeping horse with his nose in the dirt and
legs folded beneath belly and
me curling into the curve of that broad neck and
hands on his strong shoulders closing my eyes and
the quiet rhythm of breathing together and
inhaling strength and courage and nothing—
nothing but light breezes and
unending repose.

I remember the sun’s warmth igniting
my one-year-old’s golden curls and
her tiny fingers fisted in a black mane and
palms plastered against that sleek neck and
chubby legs wrapping an undulating back and
the steady rhythm of his walk and a contented sigh and
delirious hiccups and toothless grins and
the first utterance of giddyup and nothing—
nothing but carefree giggles and
unending joy.

I remember the sun’s warmth drawing
the musty scent of old hay and manure from
a shed at the end of a frosted field where
he stood stiff-legged and hunched and
still greeted me with a last nicker and
the uneven rhythm of labored breathing and
him collapsing with heavy head in my hands and
me sobbing into that still-warm neck and nothing—
nothing but flowing tears and
unending memory.

Raver
First place, Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel, Oklahoma Writers Federation, 2003
First place, Paranormal, Toronto Romance Writers, 2005

Winterlight (now known as On the Buckle)
Third place, Single Title Contemporary, Toronto Romance Writers, 2005

A Farmer at Last
Second place, Essay, Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, 2003

Woman
Third place, Poetry Unrhymed Short, Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, 2003

Unending Memory
Second place, Saturday Writers Poetry Contest

Cuivre River Anthology Vol. II contributors from left: Dianna Graveman, Julie Earhart, Diana Davis, Doyle Suit, Jerry Swingle, Candace Carrabus, Tricia Sanders, Joy Wooderson, Donna Volkanannt, Louella Turner.