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  My Life in Words        

 
​With Chickens editing

Rhino Attack!

6/26/2019

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An author was on trial for using the same opening sentence as one already in a published book.

The lawyer won the case with one sentence:


“Once Upon A Time.”

Once upon a time, there were no cell phones.

What did people do?

They sat in front of their televisions.

Once upon a time, there was no television.

What did people do?

They sat around the radio.

Once upon a time, there was no radio.

What did people do?

At night, after the cares of the day were handled, they encircled a campfire and told stories.
I have the talking stick and I’m telling a story: “I’m standing in the jungle, see, and two white rhinos are running full bore towards me. Their hoofbeats are shaking the ground so hard, it’s like we are having an earthquake.

Every cell in my body screams, “Run!”

Stop!

Think again.

Rhinos have poor eyesight, but great hearing and smelling. They are after me, not because they see me, but because they hear or smell me. They will definitely hear if I run. I will end up with severe piercings or dead.

What do I do?

I take my chances on their poor eyesight and my morning bath.

I stand stock still.

The rhinos come within a few feet of me and stop.

They retreat, but have second thoughts and come again.

Again, I stand still, and they stop within feet of me.

After they wander off, I beat-feet out of there and I’m here to tell the story.

A while later, a fellow tribesman is in the bush and what does he encounter?

A rhino.

That beast the size of a small freight train engine begins to charge.  My tribesman turns to run, then remembers the story. Rhinos do not see well but hear very well.

Don’t run.

That smart fellow stands still.

He is saved.
​
This is the way we learned to survive, by stories. By people sharing their experiences and mixing them up into a story so that people will listen and remember.

The desire for story has been built into us over the millennia.

Hollywood will invest millions on a good story if they think it will sell. And that is before any customer spends a dime on it. (A dime? I remember as a kid, a movie cost a dime.)

June tells a good story. June is my 96-year-old friend.

My daughter videotaped her last week with the intention of querying her about what she ate growing up.

Her answer? “Whatever I could get my hands on, and that was mainly fruits and vegetables.” This was during the great depression, and as the grocery displayed fruits and vegetables outside his store, that made them an easy grab for a hungry kid.
I was more interested in her attitude. She’s 96-years-old remember? She must have done something right.

She lost two mothers and attended 13 schools before she was in the eighth grade. Her father abandoned her and her two brothers, she was shuffled around by family members, and by choice ended up in a girl’s school. She joined the WACS (military) when she was twenty-one, and while there met the love of her life. They married and loved for eight years until he was killed in a plane crash.

Not an easy life huh?

Yet June is the most positive person I know. Daily she awakens and tells herself “I am strong. I am healthy, and I love life.”

I tell more about June in the second module of https://jumpin.blog when I get my website to take it.  I’m still trying.

Love your life,
Jo
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murder in the back forty

6/4/2019

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I left the truck after spending the last couple of hours there since I couldn’t sleep. Now in the light of day, I saw white feathers at the rear of the property and went to investigate.
​
While I was in the truck, or maybe it happened earlier, for I heard nothing, Chick-a-dee, my Margaretta-drinking-chicken, was murdered. 

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I was in shock, and sad. She was our pet. More of a pet than I knew chickens could be. After losing her sister, she adopted us. One day she sat on the table beside Daughter Dear and stole French fries, and I had mentioned many times how she was a free-range hen and preferred to roost on the back porch. She would have been safe there, but since I wanted a clean porch, I put her in the pen.  

She was in the old pen where she liked to roost on the roof of the little chicken house there. She and her sister had been safe there for a year. We have a run between the two pens, and the other chickens were in the other house.

I saw where she was dragged under the fence.
Maybe I subconsciously knew mayhem was happening and thus couldn’t sleep. However, I wasn’t clear enough to go check on the chickens.

While I lost one bird today, I saved another. A little bird was caught in the plastic bird netting I have over the pen. She was so tangled that I had to make numerous snips with the scissors to free her while she took numerous snips at me with her beak.

 She is free to fly another day.
​
Chick-a-dee was menopausal and was not laying eggs this summer. I wondered if the murderous critter took her instead of the others, to preserve his food supply. Now I suspect it was he who stole a couple of eggs.
 
I had gotten up at 3:30 this morning and since I couldn’t get back to sleep, I tip-toed out of the house to the truck where I jacked up the heater and settled down to read my book on my phone via Kindle.
Yep, I bought a Kindle version.

The Frog’s Song is a bargain at any price, the $12.95 paperback or the Kindle version. (I have both.) Don’t let those throw-away books give you the wrong impression that books ought to be cheap. They are losing money on them--poor souls.
​
The Kindle version only cost me a little more than the latte I bought this morning when Dutch Bros finally opened. Kind of a shame to spend that much on coffee, but what the heck, I couldn’t sleep. The book will last infinitely longer than did the coffee.

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infinitely longer than did the coffee.

“With great amusement…” I had to laugh, that doesn’t sound like me, but it was in my book.

Once in a while, I will find phrases that sound like my editor, not me, but she spent hours editing it, her publishing company typeset it, created the cover, printed the whole kit and caboodle, and sent me three copies. Talk about a bargain. For that, I can tolerate the whisperings of another voice stuck within my pages occasionally. Jaynie of Regal Publishing “The House That Jaynie Built” is awesome.

But I haven’t shut up now that the book has ended. I’m continuing with a blog on https://thefrogssong.com (more pictures there.) which I consider to be a Chat Room in the Wilds such as Hot Dog Guy had on the Island.

He set up the cleanest best hot dog stand I’ve ever seen at the Y in the road, and people stopped to chat whether they bought a hot dog or not. On rainy days, which often happened on our side of the Island, he put up a canopy so people wouldn’t have to wring out their hot dogs or themselves. But here you’ll stay dry. Unless, of course, you’re outside, or your roof leaks.

Want to know why his hot dogs were the best?

It’s in the book.

Want to know what it’s like to live off the grid?

It’s in the book.

I’ve reached a moral dilemma regarding blogging and book writing. With a book, I’m asking people to plunk down their hard-earned money to buy it and hopefully to read it. And I know from blogging that a large page of text is intimidating to people.  (I have a very literary publisher. who has, herself written a novel.)

 I’ve asked people to help me sell at least 200 books, so the publisher won’t drop me.

And it’s embarrassing if you know me—you might not like it. That’s the reason I hesitated to read it. I was afraid I wouldn’t like it either. It had, after all, been out of my hands for two years minus two months.
Things change. People change. I’m not the same person I was two years ago. How about you? Do you feel that way?

Regarding a blog, I figure it ought to supply information or be something someone is looking for. It ought to be of service somehow, if it’s not of service, then what’s the use of it? (Entertaining is of service.)

My book is my personal experience. It’s an adventure. Is it entertaining? Does it provide value? I don’t know.
Okay, here I’ll offer some advice. You know I’m not afraid to offer free content. People have asked me about blogging, and what site I use for travelswithjo.com. There I use WordPress, and it requires a learning curve.

Some site carriers will advertise: “Create a blog in 5 minutes.”

Right.

How about a week?

Some carriers are easier than WordPress, but WordPress is great once you get the hang of it.

I spent the past week putting together The Frog’s Song, not that it looks complicated, but I totally screwed it up, changing the themes, losing pages, scrambling content, not having the blog work. I was embarrassed if anyone saw it. Finally, I found a plugin that would place the site on “Maintenance.” However, since my computer knew me, every time I checked to see it. as unpublished, it showed me that it was, but only to me. It was playing with me. (Rather like Pele on the island.)

Usually, I want people to read my blogs, but not during that week. But when I was finally satisfied and decided to publish it. Nada.

I finally got it by removing all the plugins.

More than you wanted to know right?

My advice to bloggers? Hang in there.

Now, excuse me, I’m going out to buy a live trap.

How was your day?

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    The Frog's Song by Joyce Davis
    For more information on The Frog's Song, I invite you to click on https://thefrogssong.com

    About Joyce  

    Joyce's travels have taken her beyond the shores of her native continent, but she's back where she started, in Oregon. 

    They say once you have Oregon mud between your toes, you will return.

    She is a mom of two girl babies--now grown-up women.

    She's a grandma to two boys trumped by video games.

    Boots, her childhood horse (Shown on the first page) led her on a path of love and adventure and the belief that that animals are guardians of the Sacred Path.  

    When, on the first day of a Freshman Biology class the Professor yelled, "This is the study of life," Joyce signed up. She majored in Biology, but has since found that life reaches beyond what can be easily observed, classified, and named.

    "There is more to heaven and earth, Horacho, than is dreampt of in your philosophy." --Shakespeare
    ​
    She is Into spirituality, but is not always reverent as you will find. 

    She loves the green of Oregon, family, animals, flowers, books, movies, travel, walks in the forest, good friends, a warm fire...

    Who are you?
    ​
    ​

    My name is

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