After Breakfast With “The Girls”

Driver Cheryl & Guide Terry

I didn’t ask permission from the whole group to picture them on my blog, so you’re not seeing eight women here, but I was pleased to be invited out to breakfast with a group of our ghost town neighbors. We met at the Hitchin’ Post in Willcox and all had a real good time around the big round table. After breakfast came more fun, a delightful surprise, though not actually planned for my delight. Here’s what happened.

We were four in the car on the way to town, but Dorothy’s husband picked her up at the restaurant (they were driving down to Sierra Vista on errands for their B&B), which left Cheryl, Terry, and me to return to the ghost town together. While I was saying good-byes to other women I probably won’t see again this year, Cheryl and Terry were conferring in the car, and when I got in they asked, “Do you mind if we swing by the sale barn? Do you have time?” I asked what the “sale barn” was, thinking it might be some kind of rummage sale I’d somehow missed. No, it was the cattle sale barn, the Willcox Livestock Auction! Terry had worked there for years, first on horseback, working cows, and later in the office, and she needed to stop by to pick something up. As it turns out, the auction wasn’t set to start until 11 a.m. (which surprised me; I’d thought they would start earlier), but we took time for a short tour. I’d been afraid I wouldn’t get to the auction grounds this year at all (after a memorable time there in 2015) and had never been in the office area before, worth seeing for its signage. 

Two diff'rent fellas? 

I remembered the sale arena, with wrought-iron designs made by Future Farmers of America students marking the end of each row of seats. Terry pointed out the scale and explained that the whole process is much easier now with the scale in the auction “ring.” But there was no action yet in that area, so we quickly proceeded out to the pens and chutes, where gorgeous sights met my gaze — cowboys on horses, cows and calves of all colors and sizes — along with the incomparable, heavenly aroma of sweet hay and fresh cow manure. Ahhh! Cheryl and Terry kept asking if I needed to hurry back home, and I kept assuring them we could take all the time we wanted!

“Do you know how the auction works?” Terry asked when we were back outside. She pointed out the area where cattle for sale were unloaded and their ear tags recorded before they went by the state inspector who checked the brands on each animal. It’s a good system, protecting the ranchers from having rustlers steal and sell their cattle. I remembered that cattle are sold either individually or by groups, with prices offered per hundredweight, and I got the basic gist of the other rules and procedures but was somewhat distracted, honestly, because — well, what is better than the sight and smell of cows? You guessed it, right?

The big blond beauty had the sweetest horsey temperament in the world! At last, after three months in the Southwest, I get my hands on a horse! Was it love at first sight (on my part)? Another horse, a little paint, was a more appropriate size (for me) and had the prettiest little head, and it wouldn’t be right to have only one horse, would it? Horses are herd animals, after all, so if a person is going to have one, that person had better have at least two. And look at the pretty little mini-braids in the painted pony’s mane. 

As if this weren’t enough, further distractions (albeit minor in comparison) were provided by the presence of poultry wandering aimlessly wherever they pleased. Handsome roosters, aren’t they? “People just drop ‘em off,” Terry said. “One day someone dropped off ducks!”

Later, when Cheryl pulled up in front of Terry’s house in the ghost town, I understood the significance of the faux license plate on the fence. Terry not only worked at WLA but grew up on a ranch (as had three other women in the group around the breakfast table), and out here, on the ranches, it’s all about the cows. Well, and about the horses, too, even in these high-tech days, thank heaven! 

And thank you, Cheryl and Terry, for a wonderful surprise breakfast “dessert”!

PRAIRIE EVERS Will Be Here Soon

On my kitchen wall hang dreams

When I first got the ARC for this book, last year, word was it would not be released until September 2012, and I felt unjustly thwarted and hindered—very huffy indeed.. Everyone loved Ellen Airgood’s 2011 novel, South of Superior, and I wanted her new book for my summer bookshop season! So now, good news: I have my first copies on back order, and they should arrive before the end of this month. Yes! By Memorial Day, Prairie Evers should be in Northport.

This one is a middle-grade novel, especially appropriate for 8- to 12-year-olds, but I know many adults will enjoy it as much as I do. Yes, I am ten years old at heart. What of it? I’m presently reading Prairie Evers for the second time. More and more adults lately are reading YA novels in general, it seems. But I digress....

Don't you love this book cover?

Airgood’s new young character has always been home-schooled by a beloved grandmother, but when the family moves north to the place where her mother grew up, Grammy is homesick and decides to return to North Carolina. This is the girl’s first trial in her new life. Then they are the gossipers in the town diner, who think her father is nothing but a poor “dirt-poor hillbilly.” And these busy-bodies can’t even get her name right. It’s Prairie, not Meadow! Prairie’s parents plan is to make their living from the old farm, plus their crafts—quilts and birdhouses--and even Prairie can see that this will “take a lot of doing.” So her idea to cure her own homesickness and lonesomeness also involves making money. She decides she will raise chickens and sell eggs,

Then her parents throw her another curve ball, telling her she will be going to regular school in New Paltz. Can anything be worse than this? There is nothing about fifth grade that Prairie likes. Not the school bus, certainly, or the crowd of children, and especially not having to sit in a desk all day long.

Prairie Evers, like South of Superior, introduces ordinary people struggling to make ends meet and find their places in a community. Will life ever become “easy” for Prairie Evers? (Is “easy” a realistic or desirable life goal?) The course of this story, like real life, presents surprises and challenges for the main character, and the last pages, also like life, leave a few questions about Prairie’s future, rather than tying everything up in one big, tidy bow, and I like it all the better for that. The shape and trajectory are clear, and the conclusions satisfying.

“Crying don’t get the oil changed,” Prairie’s Grammy always said. You might say that Prairie’s year in fifth grade, with all its ups and downs, is one in which she learns a lot about changing the oil. And since it’s a lesson most of us have to relearn many times in the course of our lives, we chart her progress with sympathy and hope.

A beautiful breed

Yes, I love the chickens in the story, too. But you knew that, didn't you?

It's Going to Take Me a While to Catch Up

Eight days ago (a week ago yesterday) we were breezing over the Mackinac Bridge, heading north. Vacation! What a concept!

First stop--since we reached that stretch of U.S. 2 too late to find Lehto's pasty shop open--was my friend Mary's bookstore on Worth Road. It's hard for me not to envy Mary when we stop to visit: her bookstore is right next to her house, which is only a few steps from her butterfly garden and her vegetable garden, and her Rhode Island Red hens have the freedom of all these yards. Trying to keep my envy in check, I didn't photograph the chickens.


We hadn't phoned ahead. We took a chance. We were lucky.


While I browsed happily and selected my bookstore booty to buy, David and Sarah and Mary caught up in the garden. Sarah was good about the cats and the chickens. "Now I see that everything you say about Sarah is true," Mary remarked. "She's a real lady!" Our dog's good behavior was a joy to David and me.


Daylight was still in the sky when we arrived at our destination, beautiful little Grand Marais. End of Day 1 for happy bookseller on holiday with loved ones. I'm going to be selective in how many pictures I post, but it will take a few days nonetheless to give the true getaway flavor.

Northern News of Snow and Books

Sun on a metal roof causes the snow to begin to slide. When it freezes, caught at the edge, this is what you get.


In the morning, still frozen mid-fall, snow and ice from the roof frame the dawn of another cold, sunny day.


Here at the bookstore on a cold, Sunny Saturday, light reflecting from a windshield in front of the store took words from my window signage and threw them appropriately onto the correct wall. Can you see it?

There's big excitement in the future (rapidly approaching) for Dog Ears Books. In case you haven’t noticed my announcement in green over there in the right-hand column, a couple important bits of news are author events starring Ellen Airgood on June 17 and Loreen Niewenhuis on July 26. I’ll have more to say about these events as spring unrolls, but mark your calendars now. Ellen’s visit is on a Friday, and her book party, the Leelanau Launch (!) of South of Superior, will be from 4 to 6 p.m. Loreen’s later summer Tuesday in Northport will begin with an hour at Dog Ears Books, from 4 to 5 p.m., and continue with a slide show and talk at the Leelanau Township Library on 7:30. Signed copies of A 1000-Mile Walk on the Beach are already available at the bookstore now, so you don’t have to wait until summer to read about Loreen’s adventure, but I’m hoping to have good crowds for both of these talented Michigan writers when they come to Northport.

For right now, the chicken books are in! Chickens, bees, gardens! Plus all kinds of bargain-priced “new” used books on all manner of subjects, so what are you waiting for? Come on down, and let’s compare notes on our winter reading, shall we? We're open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to 4.

Reading vs. Working Out: Is This a Fair Contest?

One of the small reading groups in which I participate (How many will there be this summer? Will our Ulysses group choose another book this year? Will the small group willing to read something in French get it together to do so?) chose our next round of books last night, and it’s lucky I’m ahead of the game with two of the titles, because one of them is L-O-N-G! It’s Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy, which does not end until page 1,349. There are even family trees on the endpapers, sure sign of many characters and plot complications to keep straight. I must say, though, that right on the first page I was interested and entertained, and the first 20 or so pages move along at a lively pace. Our first assignment with this book was 100 pages, but I can see I won’t be stopping there.

Other books chosen were Wendell Berry’s Bringing It to the Table (my choice); Season of Water and Ice; An American Map; and People of the Book. Three novels and two books of essays this time around--should be a good year for that group, regardless of how far we all get with Vikram Seth.

The Leelanau Township Library book discussion group will meet next on May 26 to discuss The Town, third book in Conrad Richter's The Awakening Land trilogy, and to choose books for the next year’s cycle. Everyone brings one or two recommended books, and all books go on the table. The group circles the table, examining the books, and then people have a chance to give a pitch for each recommendation, after which the group circles a second time, to for books they would like to read. If I remember correctly, there is no rule on how many books a person may vote for, which may sound odd, but somehow the system works out just fine.

Soon Memorial Day will be upon us, and the bookstore will be open seven days a week until Labor Day. Yikes! All those days in the bookstore and all those books to read in the evening—when and how will the bookseller squeeze in cardiovascular exercise and muscle toning? No problemo, my friends, when one lives in the country! Besides hikes with the dog, there are gardens to tend and grass to mow, and behold here the apparatus of my summer home gym, also known in environmental circles as “appropriate technology.”



It is technology appropriate to the worker (moi), to the task and to the scale of the projects. I love the absence of gasoline engine roar and the way I never have to worry about my tools failing to start.

Perhaps you’re thinking that with such slow tools, my reading time is sadly compromised. It’s all in the pacing. Frequent breaks are the answer. My energy for mowing, in particular, seems to last only for short spurts, and then it’s time to switch to reading or weeding.



There is a rhythm that establishes itself with the back-and-forth, accompanied by many tall glasses of cold well water. And after all, I do still buy, sell and read books on paper, another quiet technology needing no batteries, so my reading and my exercise are all of a piece in that way, too.

More country living: A woman at the post office this morning was picking up her box of 25 live chicks! I could only see toes and patches of down through the breathing holes in the cardboard, but their peeping sounded happy and contented. New books in Dog Ears this season, by the way, include Chicken Tractor:: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil and Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens: Care, Feeding, Facilities. As always, we also have many used books in stock on natural science and agricultural topics. It is gratifying to me to see the increased awareness and interest in these topics, always dear to my heart.

“Grandma! I’m Home!”

BEFORE I BEGIN, HAPPY 95TH BIRTHDAY TO MY UNCLE JIM! He's my father's side of the family (oldest of four), but I think he would thoroughly understand today's post. Uncle Jim worked with the CCC and was the tree expert of my childhood, so we shared a great love of nature and the outdoors.

Okay, all day Wednesday I looked forward to six o’clock and the MSU Extension program on “Chickens in the Backyard.” (Actually, I’d looked forward to it all day Tuesday until I learned I had the date wrong.) After closing the bookstore in Northport, I touched down briefly at home, long enough to grab a piece of toast with almond butter and tell David what was in the refrigerator that he could put together for a dinner. Surprise! He decided to come with me!

Why is this so surprising? Because my husband has been seriously bird-phobic all his life. The first time we went to a fair together, he waited outside the poultry house while I toured the chickens. The first time we camped together on the shore of Lake Superior, before he brushed his teeth in the morning at the shoreline he handed me a towel, saying, “Flap this if any birds come near.” I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t. The last thing he ever wanted in his life was chickens, the scariest (to him) bird of all.

I, on the other hand, have wanted chickens for as long as I can remember, thanks to one blissfully happy month spent with my maternal grandmother when I was six years old. Grandma had chickens. She had a cow. Grandpa had an enormous vegetable garden and an acre of raspberries. Their backyard was an orchard: apple, pear, peach and plum trees, with a grapevine-covered trellis over the brick path that led from house to outhouse. Yes, outhouse. No indoor plumbing. But to me it was heaven. And I’ve been standing outside the gates peering in longingly all my life.


It was a pretty big crowd at the MSU Research Station on Center Highway last night. Pam Schmidt introduced speakers Heather Bardenhagen and Chad Jordan and kept things moving along. There were lots of questions, more than one funny observation, and a high degree of enthusiasm tempered with a certain amount of anxiety. The more information we got, the harder it was to believe the claim that “chickens are easier than dogs.” Incubating, watering, vaccinating, and on and on. Still, as one participant pointed out, the discussion by that time had gotten pretty far away from four chickens in the backyard. My grandmother had 100 laying hens and sold eggs from home and at the farmers’ market. Regulations (don’t get me started on that, either!) are much tighter these days, and I wouldn’t want to try to replicate my grandmother’s flock, but hat doesn’t mean that to have a little backyard flock you also have to have a doctorate in animal husbandry.

Near the end of the presentation at the Research Station, before we adjourned to Chad’s Delight of Life Farm down the road, Heather Bardenhagen addressed the question of meat breeds. She and her husband were very happy with Red-Bro, a breed developed in the U.K., but when Cornish crosses came into the discussion she said not to ask her because she couldn’t say much good about them. Everything she did say I had already heard or read elsewhere: bred for quick weight gain and heavy breasts, they are ungainly birds with a lot of leg problems. “They didn’t even look like chickens to me,” Heather said. “I told my husband, if that’s what we have to have, I don’t want to do it.” The Cornish cross is today’s industrial meat chicken. But there are plenty of other breeds—older, hardier chickens that have stood the test of time.

Down the road were Chad’s chickens, and he likes having different breeds. He also has four or five roosters and enjoys letting the birds mate across breed lines to produce hybrids. This farm was not a factory in any sense. I couldn’t stop smiling. Earlier, at the beginning of the presentation, when Chad opened with the question, “Why do you want to have chickens?” I thought that the most honest answer I could give, one I kept quietly to myself, was, “Because my grandmother had chickens.” There at the coop, as we went in five or six at a time to see the chickens’ housing, another woman sighed and said to me quietly, “This smell takes me back to when I was a child and my grandmother had chickens. It’s just like being back there again.” You, too! Me, too!

The real miracle of the evening, though, was that David went into the chicken house. He didn’t flinch, and he didn’t cower. He stood tall and took it all in with interest. He especially admired the largest rooster.

“What about coyotes?” someone asked, and another woman (Mary from the Business Helper) said, “Get horses. Horses will kill coyotes.” I completely loved that answer!


Back beyond the chickens and the seedbeds, Delight of Life Farm had four new little pigs, and they were the most appealing, drollest creatures imaginable. David liked the brown one best. The black one had a deformed ear but was still darned cute. One of the little pink guys, however, seemed to have the most curious, outgoing personality.





There are probably not pigs in my future. I’ll be more than satisfied if there are chickens.

When we got home, Sarah couldn’t stop sniffing me. When we went outdoors, she sniffed everywhere I stepped. Have you guessed? Yes, there was a little manure on the bottom of one of my shoes. Well, Sarah, I thought it smelled pretty great myself!

This morning when I woke up in our old farmhouse, still smiling, David and I were under the covers, and Sarah the Bed-Hog had scooched up between us on top of the covers, making it a tight squeeze in the little old double bed. Man by my side, dog on the bed, manure on my shoe, chickens in my future—what’s not to smile about?

I’ll be ordering a lot more books on homesteading topics this spring, for sure....