Mary Connealy~Real Life Petticoat Ranch: May 2008

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Calico Canyon ~ First Chapter On-line

I found a blog featuring the first chapter of Calico Canyon.

If you'd like to get a taste for what's in the book, the title of this post is a link that'll take you to

F.I.R.S.T.

Fiction In Rather Short Takes.

It's part of an alliance of over one hundred bloggers,

many of whom may feature Calico Canyon in the next couple of months as part of a Wild Card Tour.

http://firstwildcardtours.blogspot.com/2008/05/calico-canyon-by-mary-connealy.html

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The history of the gun

Sam Colt

Inventor of the Colt Revolver

“Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal.”

Winchester '73

The gun that won the west

I'm on Petticoats & Pistols today writing about the history of the gun.

This is a topic with so many details I could have written ten blogs. It's very interesting research subject.

If you'd like to read a quick overview of the history of the gun, click on the title to this post and it'll take you to Petticoats and Pistols. Or go here: http://petticoatsandpistols.com/2008/05/28/the-history-of-the-gun/

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Creeping Phlox

This is my favorite time of the year at my house. My creeping phlox are just gorgeous. I didn't plant them. A green thumb is so NOT my thing. But I have helped them spread and I haven't killed them. So I get some credit for that.

This house was built by my husband's grandfather about ninety years ago. So we live on the ancestral family home. that sound so much more grand than, we bought the only empty house near our farm, which is also true.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Buffalo Gal

Inspired by the Edit Cafe blog...the title of this post is a link that will take you there...I decided to do something I've been MEANING to do forever.
I drove over to a buffalo herd near me.

Yes, there's a buffalo herd near me.

And took some pictures.
I just love the way buffalo look and I've driven by them a zillion times and stare like crazy because I find them fascinating. But I never pull over and just take a real look.

I'm especially interested in them because I've got a book coming out in October called Buffalo Gal. In fact it might be the other way around. I think my fascination with those buffalo is what inspired the book. I just think they're the coolest, weirdest creatures. The longer you look at them the stranger they look. The way their heads are so huge and their back ends are so slender, completely at odds with their heads.

It's like God was just having a good old time when he created them.

Anyway, today I did it. Pulled over. This herd is just outside Winnebago, Nebraska on the Winnebago Indian Reservation.

Look how close this guy is to the fence. I could have gotten really close to them.

Instead I just used the zoom lens.

This fence looked pretty sturdy and there's an inner electric fence,

you can kind of make out the two thin strands of it.

I'm sure the whole time the buffalo was smashing through it he'd be going,

"Ouch, ouch, yowee, yikes, that smarts."

Then he'd be through and CHARGE!

I just kept flashing on a headline in the Omaha World Herald.

Woman gored to death by buffalo
Mary Connealy, while photographing a buffalo walked right up to it and it killed her. Duh! ***

Yes, the World Herald would put DUH in the headline.
You know they would.
How could they resist?
If the buffalo hadn't taken me out,

I'd personally insist they carve DUH on my tombstone.

EVERY PERSON who read that story would think....
"Good riddence, get someone that stupid out of the gene pool."

I WOULD THINK THAT, TOO! I ADMIT IT!!! So I hung back!!!

They might hunt down everyone related to me, just on principle.

***(Disclaimer...the above headline is fake. I am alive. The World Herald has never...to my knowledge mocked a person killed regardless of the stupidity of said dead person's actions)