Yikes! Has it been that long?

I’m sorry I’ve left you hanging without commenting on here.

May turned out to be filled with book events and June started with a trip to South Dakota for another book event.

After my trip to the Oregon Coast, I hurried home to get Captured Hummingbird published. It is now available in eBook, print, and audiobook. The Sumpter Flea Market, which I always attend during Memorial Day weekend, was a week earlier this year. I followed that up the weekend after helping with the NIWA (Northwest Independent Writers Association) book booth at the Beavercon in Redmond, OR.

Me at Beavercon

I was at home for a week, but in that time I also made a trip to Pendleton to take in Free 1st Friday at the Tamastslikt Museum. I enjoyed the new exhibit of cradleboards and wandered through the rest of the museum even though I’ve been there many times. The cradleboards are beautiful creations that serve as a clever way to keep the babies with their mother and siblings without them getting hurt.

June 9th, a friend and I headed to Deadwood, South Dakota. I can’t do long hours of driving anymore, so we cut the trip up into 2 1/2 days on the way over. We didn’t have to get up early and were in our motel early enough in the evening to have time to look around.

We stopped at the Craters of the Moon National Park. It has acres and acres of various types of lava from a multitude of volcanic eruptions. The area was used for 50 years by NASA to train astronauts.

The first night we stayed in Idaho Falls, ID. We had a view of the manmade falls on the Snake River.

The next day we went to Jackson Hole, WY. My friend had never been there and I wanted to show her what it was like. It was full of people! We finally found a place to park, took in some stores, took our photo with the archway of antlers, and had lunch before heading on to our stop for the night, Casper, WY.

We only had 4 hours from Casper to get to Deadwood on Thursday. That afternoon at the event, I gave a presentation on Crime Ficton/Mystery Research. That night at the Meet and Greet, we met author Calista Rains, her daughter, and her friend, as well as author Shalana Battles. We laughed and had a good time. In fact, they had to kick us out of the meet and greet room.

The next day, I had a presentation with author Lynn Cahoon. We talked about the woes of when a story does go the direction we’d anticipated or a character turns out to be the opposite of what we had planned. That night I read from Captured Hummingbird.

Saturday, I hosted a table at the breakfast and then spent the day selling books at the Book Fair. I was able to talk to a large number of people and sell some books.

On the way back to Oregon, we stopped at Big Piney, WY, spending 2 nights and a day with my high school friend and matron of honor at my wedding. We enjoyed our time with her and her husband and then drove the long 9 hours back home. We were both ready to be home, even if it meant a long drive with lots of stops along the way to stretch our legs.

A lake we saw while at Big Piney

I was home from that for 3 days and I headed to La Pine, OR, a five hour drive to help with another NIWA booth during the Rhubarb Festival.

I’m glad to be home for a while, even though I’ll have a couple more events in July. They are, luckily, local. The 4th of July in Sumpter and Miner’s Jubilee in Baker City.

If you don’t see a new post from me for a while, it’s because I’m trying to do all these events, write, and we are remodeling the house. So life at the moment is hectic.

I hope you are all having a great summer so far!

Running Behind

I would have to agree with my granddaughter, who I recently went to the Oregon coast with. She said, she needed a vacation to recover from her vacation. I was laughing at her when she said it, but after trying to play catch up for the last day and a half and discovering I forgot to write this blog yesterday, I might have to agree with her.

Last week my granddaughter and I house sat for my brother at Rockaway Beach. It was fun. We went thrift store shopping, met her brother and his wife for dinner one night, and walked the beach every day with our dogs. I didn’t get nearly enough writing done, but it was a fun week to hang out with her before she heads off to beauty school and starts her adult life.

The good news, Captured Hummingbird is available for pre-order in ebook at the usual places. My goal today is to get the print book formatted and off to the printer and get the ebook up on my website for you to purchase hopefully tomorrow at a reduced price.

Fish and Wildlife State Trooper Hawke has tracked killers through the wild—but this time the clock is his deadliest enemy.

When Hawke’s partner, Dani, calls with a desperate plea to find her newly married cousin and young daughter who have vanished without a trace, he can’t say no.

The trail quickly leads to the violent first husband—a drunk who knows the Idaho wilderness better than most men know their own homes.

Hawke finds the man’s remote hunting shack and makes a chilling discovery: the ex-husband is already dead.

Dani and Hawke uncover disturbing evidence. Corruption in the casino, exploitation in the sheriff’s office, and something more sinister that caused the mother and child’s sudden disappearance.

If he has to confront every ruthless person in a human trafficking ring, Hawke will find the mother and daughter before it’s too late.  

UBL- https://books2read.com/u/4Xy8P9

The ebook page on my website: https://www.patyjager.net/product-category/gabrial-hawke-ebook/page/2/

I’m working my way back into the schedule I had before I went to the coast. So it’s off to yoga, and then back here to work on the business side of writing so I can get back to the next Cuddle Farm Mystery book, Very Very Deadly.

Don’t forget to come over to my Author Paty Jager Facebook page to leave a comment and win prizes through the month of May. I’m celebrating 20 years of being a published author. Click here to follow and join the fun! https://www.facebook.com/AuthorPatyJager

Enjoy your day!

April is here with a smile.

I don’t know about where you live, but here in NE Oregon, the days have been mostly sunny and warm. A change from the normal for this time of year here. I’m not complaining. It made the final stages of our move easier.

I am now living full-time in our new home. Hubby is part-time since he is helping the person taking over his field manager job learn the ropes through this summer. I’m still trying to fit things from our nearly 2000 sq ft home into our barely 1100 sq ft home. Some furniture was given to family, and some to thrift stores, along with clothing and household items.

The photo is of flowers alongside the river walk that Nia and I do a couple of times a week. I love that I can go for a walk with my little chiweenie and not have to worry about coyotes, bobcats, or eagles making a snack of her. I also don’t have to watch for rattlesnakes! It is a learning curve living in town. The only time I lived in town was the 18 months I lived with a friend in a duplex in Bend after high school.

This move has put me behind on my deadline for the next Gabriel Hawke book, Captured Hummingbird. I do have the cover and blurb, just no pre-order or buy links.

Fish and Wildlife State Trooper Hawke has tracked killers through the wild—but this time the clock is his deadliest enemy.

When Hawke’s partner, Dani, calls with a desperate plea to find her newly married cousin and young daughter who have vanished without a trace, he can’t say no.

The trail quickly leads to the violent first husband—a drunk who knows the Idaho wilderness better than most men know their own homes.

Hawke finds the man’s remote hunting shack and makes a chilling discovery: the ex-husband is already dead.

Dani and Hawke uncover disturbing evidence. Corruption in the casino, exploitation in the sheriff’s office, and something more sinister that caused the mother and child’s sudden disappearance.

If he has to confront every ruthless person in a human trafficking ring, Hawke will find the mother and daughter before it’s too late.  

My goal is to have this up on my website to purchase by May 15th and out in other places by the 20th. But it all depends on my editor.

Don’t forget that I will be giving away lots of prizes next month, during my 20th Anniversary Celebration! Follow my Author Paty Jager Facebook page to see what the prize is each day and leave your comment to be in the running for the prize. I will also have a Bingo game for my newsletter peeps to play to win prizes. Use this link to join my newsletter. https://bit.ly/2IhmWcm

Sales!

This is my first of the month post about sales.

In April, you can purchase the first 4 Gabriel Hawke audiobooks at a reduced price on my website and on Kobo.

Murder of Ravens $0.99, Mouse Trail Ends $1.99, Rattlesnake Brother $2.99. Chattering Blue Jay $3.99.

Buy Direct: https://www.patyjager.net/product-category/gabriel-hawke-audiobook/

Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/murder-of-ravens-2

If you prefer to read the ebooks, they are on sale at my website for $1.99 each. https://www.patyjager.net/product-category/gabrial-hawke-ebook/

Next month is MMIW Awareness month. I’ll have my book Stolen Butterfly on sale in all formats.

Do follow my Facebook Page or sign up for my newsletter to be able to win prizes as I celebrate my 20 years as a published author next month!

A Fast and Furious Two Days

Last week, I set off to do research in the area of my current WIP (Work In Progress). It is book 15 in the Gabriel Hawke Mystery series.

I was at the halfway point and had used Google Earth, maps, and the internet to navigate Hawke in an area he wasn’t familiar with, and neither was I. After seeing some discrepancies in information, I decided to go there myself.

So I dropped Nia, my chiweenie, off at my daughter’s house and took off for Nez Perce County in Idaho. This county encompasses Lewiston, Idaho, as well as the lands the Nez Perce were forced to live on after the treaty of 1855. It is in north-central Idaho.

Front of the courthouse

The first place I needed to go was the Nez Perce County Courthouse and find the County Prosecutor’s office. I have Hawke visit there and wanted to make sure, since I was using a real place, that I had how it looked correct. Walking in, my first sight was a man in his late twenties or early thirties trying to get through the detector at the front entrance.

The man seemed to be with two women who were behind him. He had taken everything but his clothes off when one of them told him to check his back pocket, which was sagging his pants down. He pulled out a pair of vice grips! Which the guard handed back to him when he’d made it through the detector with it beeping.

I walked through with no problem. Then I walked to the elevator, saw it went to the third floor, where the county prosecutor’s offices were, but I wanted to see if there was an elevator at the back of the building, where I had Hawke enter on a Sunday. So I walked down the long wide hallway. Oh, they were still putting the siding on the outside of this newly constructed building which was one of the reasons I wanted to see it in person. All I could find online were photos of the outside and them working on it.

After going down the hallway, finding the back door, I wrote Hawke would enter, I realized there wasn’t an elevator, only stairs, which as I stood typing on my phone the vise grip guy came down the hall, opened the door and went up the stairs. I backtracked to the front, took the elevator up and then scoped out the hallway and where the prosecutors office was along with what it looked like walking into the office. Then I walked to the end of the hall, saw it was the same stair case to the side of the windows as I’d seen the vise grrip guy to through. So I opened the fire stair door and walked down, noting the sounds and new building smell. At the first floor, I crossed my fingers and hoped the door opened and I wouldn’t be locked in until someone used the stairs. The door opened!

I sat down on a bench, typed in what I’d discovered, and then I left the courthouse, headed to the Clearwater River Casino and hotel. That was where I needed to do some looking around next and spend the night.

At the hotel, I checked in and immediately realized what I hadn’t seen online. The hotel had a small hallway that connected it to the casino. I had my characters going outside the casino and back into the hotel. Now I knew the real layout. I also discovered that the cafe in the casino that I had them meeting at wouldn’t work and changed it to the sports bar.

In the hallway between the hotel and the casino.

Using Google Earth, I’d had Hawke parked in the casino parking lot instead of the hotel, and that changed where he let Dog out to relieve himself. I was glad I’d made the trip to make sure things were correct. I wasn’t happy that all night long the blasted TV kept coming on without me doing anything. It woke me up and upset me so much, I didn’t get very much sleep. When I checked out and told the receptionist about it, she made it sound like it was my fault for not calling the desk to have someone come fix it. In the middle of the night, all I wanted to do was pull it off the wall. I wasn’t thinking straight. She did tell me about places in Lapwai, my next stop that had breakfast.

In Lapwai, I stopped at Donald’s Diner and had a tasty breakfast of ham and egg while I listened to the locals visiting. An uncle and nephew were talking about a fishing trip and a man about my age was reading a paper at the counter and talking to the waitress about people he knew that were in the paper.

From there, I scoped out the tribal police station to see how my character would access the building. I had that wrong and fixed it.

Then I drove to where the victim’s house sat in my story and saw how to make the abduction work. Then my sister-in-law told me about a road from Lapwai to Lewiston. I didn’t have GPS or a map, and I couldn’t figure out what road to take, so I went to the Chamber of Commerce. A nice woman there gave me directions, but asked if I’d seen the heritage museum. I told her it was closed when I drove by earlier. She said it was open now, so I backtracked through the museum, then went back to Lapwai and passed it to find the road that led me to the top of the hill with residences and down to the main roads.

After typing in more information, I headed back home, enjoying the drive down Rattlesnake grade between Anatone, WA, and Enterprise, OR.

I’m closing in on the ending of Captured Hummingbird.

I wasn’t focused on taking photos as much as writing down what I saw.

This, That, and Some Audiobook Specials.

Today snuck up on me! I just noticed it is the second Wednesday of the month when I pop on here and post about upcoming events, new releases, and sales.

I should, fingers crossed, be ensconced in our new home in NE Oregon by this time next week. We have one more load to bring over and a birthday party to attend, and then I’ll be living in Baker City permanently. We’ll see how long I last living in a galley kitchen with a quarter of my cooking/baking things. Hah! I love to cook and bake and told hubby that if we purchased this house a remodel was in the immediate future. I can’t cook with only four feet of counter space. And I can’t fit all my fun dishes or even the food, for that matter, in the small amount of cupboard space. There aren’t any cupboards on the walls, only under the counters.

Anyway, I will make do until we get the remodel done, hopefully this summer.

This month, I have the first 5 audiobooks in my Shandra Higheagle Mystery series on sale through my Direct website store and at Chirp.

The prices start at $0.99 and go up to $2.99.

https://www.patyjager.net/product-category/shandra-higheagle-audiobook/

https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/double-duplicity-by-paty-jager

Today is the last day to get Poker Face, book one in the Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series in Audiobook for $0.99 at Chirp and my website.

I’m currently working on book #15 in the Gabriel Hawke novels, Captured Hummingbird. I’ll be making a research trip for this book next week. I set it in and around the Lapwai Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho. I’ve been using maps and Google Earth to figure things out and write. Now I want to go see things in real time to make sure I have things correct and to check out the casino outside of Lewiston, ID that also plays a role in the story. And I want to check out an area that I’ve not seen before, where I want to have Hawke find the suspect.

It is a cold, gray day today. After such a nice, sunny winter so far, it’s kind of nice, but I definitely have to keep moving to stay warm.

I’m still working on getting my office in the new house like I want it. Working with a sliding door and three doors on another wall is making my arrangement a bit more difficult. When I finally get things in a spot that makes me happy, I’ll share photos here on the blog.

These are kind of random thoughts, but as I said I forgot to write something ahead of time to post earlier in the day. So you get my stream of thoughts. 😉

Oh! In case you haven’t seen my posts on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/AuthorPatyJager) you need to follow my Author Paty Jager Facebook page. In May, I will be giving away a prize each day to people who comment on the question I ask. It is to mark my 20 anniversary as a published author.

This will be a fun event that will happen throughout the month. I’ve been collecting gifts to give away along with books. The mugs in this graphic are some of the mugs I’ll be giving away. I also have two travel mugs with MMIW on them, as well as some jewelry and notepads. So follow my Facebook page and join the fun!

That’s all for now. I’m hoping to get some good stuff for the end-of-month post during my research trip.

Bryce Canyon and other Adventures

While checking out Southern Utah for a winter get-a-way, Hubby, Mikey, Nia, and I did some exploring. One day, we drove to Bryce Canyon.

On the way, we had some beautiful views of snowy bluffs, freezing waterfalls, and snow.

snowy cliffs
freezing waterfalls
snow alongside the road

After the snowy drive, we came to Red Canyon. It’s on Highway 12 in Utah’s Dixie National Forest. It was a pretty drive with varying colors of red on the rocks and various types of rocks. It has hiking trails but we didn’t get off the road as we were focused on getting to Bryce Canyon. Here are some of the pretty sights of Red Canyon.

tunnel entering Red Canyon
The rock colors went from white to pink to red
The different textures of the rocks fascinated me.

At Bryce Canyon, we came in the north entrance and drove to the 1st/last? overlook. We were disappointed to see that dogs were only allowed on the upper concrete/asphalt walkways. We took photos and walked the dogs out to the point and back.

Viewpoint at the end

We drove to another viewpoint where you could actually walk down through the spires, but dogs weren’t allowed. We left them in the vehicle and walked along the edge, eyeballing the trail down into the canyon. I was willing to give it a try, but hubby wasn’t excited about the climb back out.

View at the top of the trail.

I decided to go partway down to get better photos. It only lasted three of the hairpin turns. I went around the third one looking in the distance at the spires and not watching where I placed my feet and the next thing I know, my right foot is sliding down the path on pebbles, making me do the splits, while my left foot is planted, and finally gives into the weight pulling on it and I skinned my left shin and bent the nail of my big toe backward.

View around one corner of the trail.

I pulled my extremities back together and slowly rose, brushing the dust off. I looked up and hubby waved at me. A quick look around, showed no one else had seen my splits. Making my way back up the trail, my toe throbbed, and my legs were wobbly. At the top, I asked if Hubby had seen me go down. He said, “No, only me standing there, brushing dirt off.”

As far as I got before doing the splits.

After Bryce Canyon we headed back a different way and came across a large field with Bison.

We also found a place that had a trail we could take the dogs when we were closer to Hurricane.

It was a fun trip, and we’re looking forward to going back next winter.

A new book, a sale, an audiobook, and “friends” I’ll miss.

I know after the last post I promised more pics of my trip to Southern Utah. Those will come on my normal end of the month, travel post.

Today I want to let you know that my latest book, Full House, book 8 in the Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series, is now available in ebook and print.

When the past knocks on their door, the future they planned begins to unravel.

On the brink of their wedding, Dela Alvaro and Heath Seaver’s plans shatter when a ten-year-old boy appears, claiming to be Heath’s son. The truth is even darker: the boy’s mother—the woman Heath thought died years ago at Pine Ridge—was an FBI informant hidden under a new identity, left to raise his child alone before dying of addiction.

As Heath wrestles with awe for the son he never knew and fury at the FBI’s deception, the past turns deadly. When the agent who lied to him is found murdered in Pendleton, the FBI shows up on Dela’s doorstep, bringing danger straight to their home.

With their future on the line, Dela and Heath must confront a web of secrets before it destroys the family they’re just beginning to build.

Unversal link: https://books2read.com/u/3LzAxJ or Direct from my website: https://www.patyjager.net/product/full-house-ebook/

By purchasing directly from the author, they receive more per book than when you purchase from an ebook vendor. Cutting out the middleman entices authors to keep writing because they can pay their expenses.

I have 2 audiobook sales going on right now.

You can purchase the audio box set of the first three Gabriel Hawke Novels for $4.99 at specific audiobook vendors by using this link: https://indieaudiobookdeals.com/ You will see other Indie author audiobooks for sale there. Or you can download it directly from my website: https://www.patyjager.net/product/gabriel-hawke-novels-box-set-1-3/ This sale only lasts until the 18th.

Join Oregon State Trooper Gabriel Hawke as he performs his duties with the Fish and Wildlife Division while finding a body with a wolf collar, tracking a lost child, and hunting down a poacher in the wilderness of Wallowa County. He not only upholds the law but also protects the land of his ancestors.

Starting today, you can download the audiobook, Poker Face, book 1 in the Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries for $0.99! This is only at Chirp and my website.

A contemporary Native American amateur sleuth murder mystery series

As interim head of security at the Spotted Pony Casino, disabled veteran, Dela Alvaro, needs to find out who killed a casino accountant or lose her job.

Chirp: https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/poker-face-by-paty-jager

Direct: https://www.patyjager.net/product/poker-face-audiobook/

And the new audiobook!

Merry Merry Merry Murder is now in audiobook! You can find it for a reduced price on my website.

Where comfort and cheer meet scandalous secrets—A holiday mystery set in a small town.

In the close-knit town of Auburn, Oregon, Andi Clark’s therapy animals bring comfort to the community, especially during the holiday season. When a young girl seeks solace from Athena, Andi’s therapy dog, after witnessing an unsettling scene behind the sleigh, it marks the beginning of a much darker holiday.

As the town gathers for the Tree Lighting Ceremony, a scream shatters the festive atmosphere. Cocoa, Andi’s loyal Border Collie, pulls her toward a chilling sight: a woman standing over the lifeless body of the girl’s mother, strangled with Christmas lights.

Determined to help the grieving girl and her town recover from the shock, Andi, her therapy animals, and her niece, a county deputy, take it upon themselves to investigate. As they uncover secrets and untangle clues, they stay one step ahead of the new sheriff and worry that the killer lurking in their midst could be someone they know.

Direct buy link: https://www.patyjager.net/product/merry-merry-merry-murder-audiobook/

My Friends

As I’ve mentioned, we are moving from our farm in SE Oregon to a house in a small town in NE Oregon. While I’m excited for this new change in my life, I will miss this property more than any place I’ve lived. My hubby always laughs and tells people that when we were looking for property here, this was the only place I got out of the car, and then I took off hiking up the hill.

I have loved this land for the vastness of heights, geology, animals, and birds. But I named rock formations and talk to some of them every day on my walks.

The first is Seal Rock. It looks like a seal to me. And while I don’t talk to it, I have watched over the years as the gap between the “seal” and the cliff has become wider.

Then there is Spirit Rock. I talk to this rock every time I go by. We discuss the weather, the creatures that may be sitting on him, and life. I even put my hands on him and give him a pat now and then. I believe it was ripped out of the cliff when there was a lake in this area. Because, beside it, there is an indentation in the cliff that resembles Spirit Rock’s form.

Then there is the “Woman in the Cave.” It is a pile of rocks under a rock and when looking at it, there seems to be a woman leaning over a rock or table working. I talk to her every time I go by as well. There are days when it’s gloomy and overcast when you can barely see the “woman” and others when the sun shines so bright it looks like she is smiling.

And the other rock I speak to each time I go by is “Head Rock.” It is a rock that sits alone on top of the cliff and looks like a head looking north. I had a signing with a Paiute man several years after we’d moved here. He had written a book all about the “head rocks.” They were put in places to show directions for Indigenous people.

These “friends” and the animals we’ve watched are what make moving a little harder than usual.

Hurricane Utah

Hubby and I as well as Nia and Mikey, our dogs, are in Hurricane, Utah for the week. It was Hubby’s idea to see if we liked the area during the winter to get away from cold and snow in Oregon. So far, in Oregon we haven’t had hardly any snow but the temperatures have been cold. We learned from people who live here you don’t say it hurricane, you say her-kin.

We were looking for an Airbnb around St. George where one of his friends lives. After looking for a dog friendly place and one that didn’t cost too much we settled on a house in what we thought was the outskirts of Hurricane. When we used the pinpoint you get when you first pick a house it looked like the house was on the edge of town near a cliff. We found out it was on the corner of a street at an interstection to a major highway and a well used street. The first night the traffic kept me from sleeping very well. Luckily, the traffic died down the next few nights.

OHV Sand Hollow

Our first day here, we drove around checking the area out. We saw signs to Sand Hollow State Park. But when we arrived and saw how much it cost to get in, we turned around and went up to an OHV area where there were about 20 Jeeps lined up and they people were having a meeting. We visited with a man there with an ATV and he said he’d been coming to those sand dunes since he was 12. He looked to be in his seventies. We walked out about the the dunes a little ways and then loaded back up into the car. We drove to St. George, bought some groceries, and returned to put the groceries away, then went out driving around looking for more places to explore.

Our second day we drove to Zion Park. First we drove up through the tunnel which was interesting. We couldn’t figure out why we saw what looked like a tunnel entrance in the side of a cliff with nothing leading up to it. After going through the tunnel, we realized it was a “window” in the tunnel to “light” the tunnel. After going through the tunnel we saw a small herd of Mountain goats. half a dozen people were parked or standing by the road taking photos of them.

Window to the tunnel.

It is the off-season so we didn’t have to take a shuttle and could drive our own vehicle up the Zion Canyon. The views were breathtaking but we were disappointed that all buy one trail didn’t allow dogs. Which meant we couldn’t get out and explore with the dogs.

Stream and cliff at Temple of Sinawava.
cliff in Zion Canyon

We saw deer on the drive as well as wild turkeys and of course the mountain goats.

The next day we spent the morning looking for Three Falls in the Hurricane area. We found the trailhead and had a short nice hike up Gould’s Wash, but we never did find the falls. When we followed the trail we discovered leveled tiers in the side of the hill where they had built an asphalt road and were putting in houses. So either we didn’t find the right trail or they covered the trail that led to the falls.

Entering the wash.

What looked like caves in the wash.
Walking through the wash.

End of the wash

That is one thing I don’t like down here. You see hundreds of houses that look a like in clusters all over in the valleys. They are building on farm ground. How are they going to feed all of these people moving in if they cover up the good farm ground with houses?

After that hike we came back to the house and walked to a historical museum down the street but even though the sign said open the doors were locked. so we wandered down to the Bonrue Bakery and had lunch then around the block and back to the house. We sat in the sun in the backyard watching the dogs until it was time to head to St. George to hang out with Hubby’s friend and his wife. They took us up Snow Canyon, then to check out Kayante, a community of houses that are four feet below ground level and keep the natural landscape. It was interesting but the houses felt claustrophobic to me. After that we had dinner in their community restaurant. The food was delicious.

Snow Canyon outside of St. George, Utah.

Today we are headed up to se Bryce Canyons. I’ll have photos of that in the next travel installment. So far this has been a fun mini vacation and we will definitely be back next winter.

Walking Keeps Me Active

I can’t believe how mild the winter has been so far. It almost makes me wish we hadn’t made plans to spend a week in Hurricane, Utah the end of the month. It was our idea to try out getting out of the winter weather when hubby finally, actually retires from farming.

We sold our farm in SE Oregon and bought a house in NE Oregon. There are usually harsher winters in the NE than the SE. We thought we’d take a short trip this year to see if we would like spending time in southern Utah to hike the areas there and in Northern Arizona to stay fit. If someone knows of the best trails to walk/hike in the Hurricane area, I’m all ears.

But so far, the weather isn’t making us want to go anywhere. We’ve only been below freezing a few days at a time. There’s been rain, but not much snow. Maybe by the end of the month when we are ready to go, we’ll be ready to get out of here.

No snow in December at all and warm.

Along with getting away from the weather, we have been back and forth between NE and SE Oregon, hauling our things to the new place and slowly getting moved in. I still have a room, two walls, and three closets to paint. I won’t do any more painting than that until we get the remodel finished, which won’t happen until next Fall, most likely.

View from our new home.

But I have lots of stuff to put away, especially books! I ordered way too many this past year, thinking two of the events I attended would sell more than they did. So I have totes and boxes of books that will go on my new rolling bookcases when we get them finished. When they are finished, I’ll have photos of my new office on one of the posts.

Nia loves chasing the squirrels in our yard, the park, and the golf course.

I’m excited to have a huge window to set plants in front of. I might be able to keep some alive now that they will get some indirect lighting instead of shade.

I think the biggest thing I like about the move are the walking trails Nia and I can walk on every day, as well as the golf course nearby, and I’m going to take a yoga class. I feel like this move will keep me moving and fitter now that I no longer have to go down and feed horses and cattle every morning and break water for them in the cold winters.

I’ll have fun posting for you when we are in Hurricane, so stay tuned for that one. I’ll also be making a trip back to Deadwood, South Dakota in June. I’m attending the Wild Deadwood Reads event. I attended the first one in 2017 and then the second one. After that I didn’t make it back. This summer, since I’ll be in NE Oregon while hubby is still in SE Oregon helping the people who purchased our farm and staying on to show the person taking on his manager job for the farm next door, I will have a lot of free time on my hands and decided I wanted to do the Wild Deadwood Reads again. A friend is going with me, and we are going to have a blast! Here’s the info if you’re going to be in Deadwood July 13th for the PBR Rodeo.

It is a multi-author, multi-genre Book Fair in the The Lodge at Deadwood. It starts off at 8 am with breakfast with the authors. At 9:30 the ballroom opens and the authors are there visiting and selling books until 3 pm. Check it all out here: https://wilddeadwoodreads.com/

This is starting to look like a great year!

2026 Goals

By putting this out into the universe, it makes me work harder to get it accomplished.

My goal is to write:

2 Gabriel Hawke books – Captured Hummingbird,  Nagging Mosquito

1 Spotted Pony book – Luck of the Draw

1 Cuddle Farm book – Very Very Deadly

Publish

2 Spotted Pony Casino books

2 Gabriel Hawke books

1 Cuddle Farm Mystery book

Other:

Keep pushing my direct sales in audiobook, ebook, and print. You can find them all on my website and sometimes for less money. https://www.patyjager.net

Get moved and settled in. We need to be out of our place in Princeton by April 1st. So in the first quarter of the year, I’ll be going back and forth between the old house and the new, moving in and getting settled while writing the next book.

At this time, I have fewer book events set up for the year, and I hope to do some traveling with my hubby and a friend.

Those are my 2026 goals.

Coming the end of the month is Full House book 8 in the Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries.

Tagline: When the past knocks on their door, the future they planned begins to unravel.

On the brink of their wedding, Dela Alvaro and Heath Seaver’s plans shatter when a ten-year-old boy appears, claiming to be Heath’s son. The truth is even darker: the boy’s mother—the woman Heath thought died years ago at Pine Ridge—was an FBI informant hidden under a new identity, left to raise his child alone before dying of addiction.

As Heath wrestles with awe for the son he never knew and fury at the FBI’s deception, the past turns deadly. When the agent who lied to him is found murdered in Pendleton, the FBI shows up on Dela’s doorstep, bringing danger straight to their home.

With their future on the line, Dela and Heath must confront a web of secrets before it destroys the family they’re just beginning to build.