Month: May 2024

Preparing for Sumpter Flea Market

It’s that time of year. I’m headed to Sumpter, Oregon for their annual Memorial Weekend Flea Market. Author Mary Vine asked me to join her at the Flea Market almost ten years ago and we’ve been going ever since on both Memorial weekend and Labor Day weekend. It will be interesting to see how things go. The event has been given to a new person to run.

Hubby pulled the book trailer out from under the lean-to and we discovered the tar we’d put on the roof last year didn’t weather the winter well, even being under cover.

Which meant I took a wire brush to it, to get the worst of the flaking tar off.

Then I painted it with a rubber sealant. We’re hoping this will do the job and still be there after this winter.

Not only do I have to get the trailer ready, cleaning it out- lots of dead flies- and making sure the things we need are in it, I have to get the books ready to go.

I have at least three copies of every book I have in print except for, of course, Murder of Ravens. I need to buy a whole box of those because I am constantly running out. I’m waiting for an order to show up before we leave tomorrow. My fingers are crossed it is a box with Murder of Ravens in it, since they shipped two boxes with one coming today and one tomorrow. If the books are in the one today, I hope the other one shows up before we have to leave, otherwise, I’ll load up on book two, Mouse Trail Ends.

I’m taking my laptop and the beginning of the next Spotted Pony Casino book, Down & Dirty, to work on if I’m not to tired each night. The new person in charge wants us at the booths by 8 am and leave at dusk. That means longer days than before. So we shall see how much writing I get done.

Nia is also going with me. She enjoys meeting all the people and being with me rather than left alone in the house when hubby is farming and can’t take her with him.

Mary and Nia

I’m excited to tell you that you can pre-order the ebook of Cougar’s Cache, book 12 in the Gabriel Hawke Novels. And if you would like a print book, you can order it from my website and I’ll ship an autographed copy to you as soon as I get my copies.

This double cold case and current homicide have Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Trooper Gabriel Hawke calling in favors… and exploring a childhood he shoved into the deep recesses of his mind. 

While patrolling on the Snake River in Hells Canyon, Gabriel Hawke’s dog digs up a human bone. Hawke is confronted by an aunt he doesn’t remember, and he finds a canister of film when the rest of the remains are excavated. The film shows someone being killed and a rifle pointed at the photographer.

Going through missing person files, Hawke discovers the victims of the decades-old double homicide. A person connected to the original crime is murdered, giving Hawke more leads and multiple suspects.

Attending a local Powwow with his family, Hawke discovers more about his childhood and realizes his suspects have been misleading him.

https://books2read.com/u/bQGkXw

What Does May Have in Store?

Wow, I’m kind of leery of what May has in store for me. On May 1st hubby called saying he was being taken to the ER. He’d left early that morning to drive a cattle truck for a ranch. I asked what happened and he said a bull kicked him. Great! By the time I arrived at the ER he was all stitched up. three layers worth of stitches. They had a hard time getting some arteries to stop bleeding. He has a four-inch gash in his head with stitches and staples. But luckily, he moved out of the way and didn’t get the brunt of the kick, so he didn’t have a concussion or any other head injury. He told me he has a hard head.

Then on May 5th in SE Oregon four inches of snow came down and the power was out for five hours. A skiff this time of year isn’t unheard of but the 4 inches came down all at once. My poor horses were freezing after being rained on and then getting snow. I blanketed them up since I’d curried a good chunk of their winter hair off the week before thinking spring was here! Mother Nature fooled a lot of us. The good thing that came out of the power outage, it gave me time to finish a book I’d been trying to get read. 😉

Today the morning started pleasant with blue sky and puffy clouds. Hubby said he needed help unloading irrigation pivot pipes he’d picked up the day before. So the morning was spent, thankfully while the sun shone, unloading the pipes. I was the lucky person in the backhoe following directions. 😉

This coming weekend is our 45th anniversary. May 12, 1979 is when we were married in a church in Lostine, Oregon. My mom when to great pains to make it beautiful. She made my dress, and they remodeled the kitchen and dining room so it would be better for hosting the reception at the house in the back yard. The apricot trees were in bloom and it was a sunny day. That’s about all I remember of the day.

Anyway, for our anniversary we’re going to the coast for one night after I sell books at the Comic con in Redmond, Oregon. Which is about the halfway point from our house to the coast. We’ll stay two nights with my mother-in-law and then go on to the coast for a one night stay before loading up calves and alfalfa seed and coming home.

It’s a little bit better than our honeymoon, 45 years ago. We were headed to the coast from clear across the state. Lostine is in the NE corner of Oregon. So we had to travel the full width of the state. And at the halfway point, which was close to where we were living, the car started acting funny. We limped it home and never made it to the coast for our honeymoon. As soon as we arrived at our house, the phone rang and hubby agreed to haul a load of something to pay for repairs on the car. Since then, we try to go to the coast or somewhere we both want to see on our anniversary, but it doesn’t always work out since it normally ends up being Mother’s Day weekend. Something we didn’t think about when we picked a month between our birthdays.

Before I go, I want to let you know that because May 5th was MMIW Awareness Day, I have my book Stolen Butterfly on sale through the month May for $1.99 in ebook or audiobook. The proceeds from the sale are donated to the MMIW movement.

https://books2read.com/u/baZEPq

While I’m sharing good deals on audiobooks, I wanted to pass along that I also have an audiobook on sale with the Indie Audiobook Deals. You can get Murder of Ravens in audiobook for $0.99 until May 15th. IndieAudiobookDeals.com 

I hope the month of May will be kind to you. Be happy and enjoy life!