Stuhr Museum-Grand Island, Nebraska

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At the Stuhr Museum in Grand Island, Nebraska. An old, old, old car. did I mention it's OLD?

I love the log cabin farm place. The house, the barn, the fence-check out that fence. Seriously formidable, let those blasted bunnies try and get through there!

But the wild turkeys? How cool is that? They were just passin' through.


I love this fence. I'd never seen such a thing before. Did homesteaders really have fences like this? Unlike now, if a bunny ate your lettuce or a raccoon ate your sweet corn, you might STARVE so I suppose it WAS serious.

This is the barn. I didn't take a good enough picture here, but on the right there's an overhang-- a kind of porch roof, and under that were tools and barn-y kinda stuff so it must be a barn.

More turkey. More angles on the cabins. Love those log buildings.

A teepee. I'm not sure how authentic this is but the Stuhr Museum is trying to be very historically faithful so it's probably pretty good, huh?

This is an old buggy, probably pretty fancy for it's time, with red paint and black leather. Sadly, it's in better shape than the wreck I drive to work.

During summer hours all these buildings are staffed, so a man would be in this blacksmith shop uh...blacksmithing? Whatever that is? I know there's an anvil involved. Right?

A fair price. Please, buy a bath on occasion...I'm speaking to my forefathers. It's too late and I guess they thrived since ... HERE I AM. But still.........


I loved the look of this place. the wooden windmill, the red barn, the small grain bin...or is it a holding tank for water. I'll bet that's it. Then the house, which is in the background, would have water pressure. How GREEN is that? No electricity anywhere.

A closer shot of the farm place. House, barn, windmill

A bank. Why do I just feel this place waiting to be robbed? I'm a novelist, that's why. We need conflict, crime, trouble. Where's are story if everyone's getting along and being law abiding???
Some of these artifacts, buildings and details will definitely work their way into my books.

Mary Connealy

Clueless Cowboy-Inquiring Minds

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Here's your chance to read Chapter One of Clueless Cowboy.

It's this months release from Heartsong Presents, a sequel to last month's Buffalo Gal.

On the You've Got Books blog from the Christian Author's Network.

Go see what kind of trouble I got these two in.

And if you're not a subscriber to Heartsong Presents you can find info to buy Cluess cowboy on the Heartsong website as soon as it's available, which should be any day.

Husker Harvest Days

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I'll start by telling you that Husker Harvest Days seems like a really MANLY event. What with it being for farmers and ranchers, NOT a traditionally female-centric occupation, although there were a lot of women there and any farm or ranch wife will tell you it's a partnership.

Husband and wife are BOTH farmers and ranchers.

So, because it's a manly event, this guy struck me as almost ZEN-LIKE in his masculinity.

How secure do you have to be to walk around Husker Harvest Days wearing a purple back-pack. My goodness. Very impressive.

Below is a close-up.

Even more than the guy wearing his purple backpack, how about the guy NEXT TO HIM? How secure must he be to HANG with the guy with the purple backpack.



I really was impressed with this...a canvas building. It's like we've gone in a full circle and are back to living in tents and teepees. The guy selling this said the building in this picture above, is five years old and he expected it to last just as long as a steel or wooden structure. Seems like a good idea to me. Ought to be fast to erect, but who knows. Maybe not. Or maybe it springs out of it's carton, like one of those tents that just SNAP up, when you pull them out of the box. If it doesn't they ought to consider inventing that.



Now we're on T-Shirts. Click on these to enlarge them and read them. Very funny.

As a writer, I have always been impressed with brilliant use of words. Jokes really intrigue me, and comic strips, and greeting cards and well done commercials.

Because they're so short, a writer has to use words perfectly to get every ounce of nuance from them. I thought these T-Shirts were a good example of words being used very well.




Okay, this is just funny. I should have bought one, except for that whole "I don't drink beer" thing. But that's the ONLY thing that stopped me.

And this one above, is the truth, the whole truth and nuthin' but the truth. In fact my husband says we ought to repeal that pesky law about one man, one woman being married, make a 'polygamy exception' for ranchers. Because he says a rancher needs TWO wives working in town to properly support a ranch.

I'm not entirely opposed to that. I could use some help around this place.
And this was just nice. And I love that guy posed there. I want him.

Ummmmm....I mean........I want him on my BOOK COVER!!!!!!

Please, where is YOUR head at???

And now we get to the portion of Husker Harvest Days I call

SIZE MATTERS.

This (above) is a wagon.

And no, it's not a phony lawn ornament demo-wagon,

built to draw in the buyers like some twenty foot plastic ice cream cone at Dairy Queen.

They really sell these things.

Note the people walking past.

These are real people, full sized people, not children dressed up like people.

Not that children aren't people........well, moving on.

Big Belt Buckles. Honkin' big horse...

no idea why they had to bring a GIANT horse.

But this is Husker Harvest Days.

Size matters!

This is a tractor that drives itself. I think. The truth was never made clear. Not that I asked. who's got time for that? But the truth should have been out there. Like...on a sign or something. So this sign is on the tractor's window and it seems to infer (or imply? Yes, English is my first language, shut up) the tractors were driving themselves.

Isn't this how the Terminator Movie started?

The machines became self-aware?

And thus began the 'RISE OF THE MACHINES'.

Well, blame it on farmers when it happens because I've got the proof right here on my blog.

Once you get past the tractors that drive themselves, then you go on to the tractors that are bigger than buildings. Note the tent in the background.

It wasn't that small a tent.

Only compared to that tractor.




And this yellow thing...it's about the size of a small town.

It is a combine. With a bean head. It has it's own zip code. Based on the men staring at it, I decided it might have its own gravitational pull.

It's so big it seems like you'd only have to drive through the field once and you'd be done. Look at the guy walking past that combine. A full sized human being...I SWEAR.


Which brings me to the point of this blog.

(You had your doubts. I respect that)

I was kind of a big deal at the annual Husker Harvest Days.
If you'll note...I was featured prominently in the Rural Life Tent.






OKAY LOOK CLOSER
You're not even trying--look CLOSER

Here, let me help you.

Oh, for heaven's sake it's there. You're not even trying!

GET A MAGNIFYING GLASS IF YOU HAVE TOO!

As I said, I was kind of a big deal at Husker Harvest Days.

Nothing like that Cowboy Poet, though. (He's on the sign with me)
That guy seriously kicked my...um...what I mean is, he drew a huge crowd.

People were all, "When's the cowboy poet coming."


And at the end of my talk I'd ask for questions and they'd say, "We thought the cowboy poet was speaking, when is it his turn?"
And he was good, too.

They ought call him the Cowboy Show Off.
I thought about including his blog link and maybe one of his poems.

But I figured you'd all desert me and go hang around with him.......I base this on cruel experience. So, if you want to find the cowboy poet, I'll be darned if I'll help you.

My daily presentation was on how to make money online. Let me summarize my points here.

You can't.

Give up, get a job and commute like everyone else.

I didn't say it was a LONG TALK.
And I didn't say I was being asked BACK.
Whew, well, that's the story of my adventure at Husker Harvest Days.

Ya'll come back now, hear?
I'll sign off with my new official picture. Do NOT look at those four people sitting on the stage. Angela Hunt, Karen Ball, James Scott Bell and Brandilyn Collins.

IGNORE THEM.
Just because they got asked to sit up there and I didn't doesn't mean a THING.
Look at the jumbo-tron behind them, up-look up, no, up and to the left.
Maybe click on the picture to make it bigger.
Just forget it. I'll do it for you. I have to do EVERYTHING AROUND HERE!!!
That is ME on that Jumbo-tron. Pretty cool, huh?

This was in the Mall of America. So I'm ending this blog with my new official photo.

I'm gonna see if Barbour Publishing will put it on the back of my books.

And if someone wants to infer that Hunt, Ball, Bell and Collins had some part in my book, well, that's what inference will get you.
Let the buyer beware!
Mary Connealy
http://www.maryconnealy.com/

Christmas @ The Monona County Historical Museum

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I spent the after noon at the Monona County Historical Society Museum. It was their Christmas Open House, in Onawa, Iowa, and they're open tomorrow and next weekend, too. Otherwise they're mainly closed in the winter.

Click on any of these pictures and they get larger. I didn't do that because I'm a computer genius. It does it on it's own. I have no idea why, but I'm glad. Definitely click on the Rules for Teachers and read them. Pretty strict. Where was the UNION???

Possibly the most interesting thing in the Monona County Museum, to me, was a Hair Wreath

I got this info about Hair Wreaths from HERE. I just couldn't hardly stare at it long enough. It's amazing, intricate, true artwork, done with human hair.

From 1850 to 1875, one of the most popular forms of fancywork was the hair wreath.
Appealing to the tendency among Victorian women to incorporate the importance of friends and family into their work, hair served as a tangible remembrance of someone. Often, close companions exchanged hair as tokens of friendship. Hair was also sometimes taken after a person’s death as a means of honor and remembrance. For a woman whose local supply fell short, hair swatches could even be purchased from catalogs and stores. Hair wreaths were constructed almost entirely of human hair, which was manipulated to resemble a variety of flowers, floral sprigs, and leaves. The flowers placed together in a horseshoe-shaped wreath represent a common Victorian symbol for good luck displayed with the open ends up so as to "hold the luck inside."

Here's what I went in to look at---a doctor's bag. A doctor's bag figures prominently in my work in progress, which won't be out for a while so I won't bother to talk about it, except to say, I need to know exactly what a 1880 doctor bag looked like and what would be in it.

I loved this. I think you can tell I'm a writer because I found the stuff WRITTEN DOWN almost more interesting than the STUFF. I just love words. :) This is a recipe for soap.


And this??? A list of rules for the behavior and duties of teachers. Yikes.

Onawa, Iowa is the home of the Eskimo Pie...and you thought it was Juneau, didn't you.

No way.

It's a really interesting exhibit and lots to read so I'm happy.

Did you know Russell Stover got involved?

He made the chocolate coating work.

This is a beautiful display of an old table and an angel,

with the pretty greenery hanging for Christmas.

It was the annual Christmas open house today, (Saturday)

and they had hot cider and cookies and music. A nice day.

A saddle dated 1880 so my hero would have one JUST LIKE IT.

Except without the tree beside it, probably.

And here is a replica of the keelboat Lewis and Clark pulled up the Missouri River.

Click on it and look close.

It was SMALL.

And they dragged that thing against the current from St. Louis??

Of course the Missouri wasn't so deep and fast moving as it is now so maybe it was easy, huh?

Wanna bet???

LOVE WESTERN ROMANCE

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Congratulations! We are happy to inform you that the books, Calico Canyon and The Bride Bargain are contenders for Love Western Romances’ Best Western Romance of 2008 by being awarded a Five Spur Review

by Love Western Romance.com and published in the year 2008.

Starting December 1, 2008 visitors to Love Western Romances.com will be able to vote for the Best Western Romance of 2008 from the list of books awarded 5 spurs. The voting will run until January 11, 2009 to give fans plenty of time to vote. Each visitor can only vote once.

VERY special guest on Seekerville

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Melissa Endlich

Senior Editor in charge of Steeple Hill

is our guest today on Seekerville.

We are very thrilled.

TOP TEN MOST IRRITATING PHRASES

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Today is my day on Petticoats and Pistols

My post???

Bugged

Come on over :)

PERKS OF BEING OVER FIFTY

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1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
3. No one expects you to run--anywhere.
4. People call at 9 pm and ask, "Did I wake you?"
5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
6. THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO LEARN THE HARD WAY.
7. You can eat supper at 4 pm.
8. You can live without sex but not your glasses.
9. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.
10. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
11. You sing along to elevator music.
12. Your secrets are safe with your friends, because they can'tremember them either.
13. Your supply of brain cells are finally down to a manageable size.

I'm Doing a Guest Day with Erica Vesch

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I met Erica Vesch while doing my very first booksigning. We had the same agent and I was a lonely dork who didn't know how to talk to anyone who came by and she pretty much kept me from being the WallFlower Author of the week.

So I love her.

She just sold her first book.

YAY ERICA!!!!!

I'm so thrilled for you!!!!!!!!!

This is picture is of us, together, at the ACFW conference after awards night. And After she'd been given her contract. She won in the unpublished category and I won in the published with Golden Days. Now soon, she'll be beating me in the published categories, the brat!!! But I'm rooting for her.

Click HERE and see our little talk.

MOUSE!!!!!!!!

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it is no secret that I am terrified of mice, in fact, my soon-to-be-released cozy mystery, titled

Of Mice. . .and Murder

stars a woman terrified of mice and I can bring UTTER HONESTY to that character.

I mention that today because there's a live mouse caught in a glue trap in my office.

I am, of course, too terrified to get rid of it.

This is my own personal Close Encounters of the Furred Kind!

Oddly enough, I'm also too terrified to ask someone else to get rid of it because I know the people I'd have to ask and they seem CONGENITALLY UNABLE to dispatch a mouse without waving it at me to scare me.

I think that's something Adolph Hitler would have done.

So, I set something in front of it and now I'm all Scarlett O'Hara, "I'll think about it tomorrow."

I blocked my vision with a little free standing file holder.

Now I can't see my friend la petit souris. (that's French for little mouse, I looked it up as part of my obsession)

I'm playing a mind game.

I know der maus (german) is there but if I can't see it I can function.

If the horrible, disease bearing vermin was visible,

my eyes would be darting over to it constantly.

Oops, mice DART. I regret using that word.

But, while my mind jumps to the existance of it's wiggling little self constantly, I can go on...not perfectly, this blog and the fact that I'm writing about poco ratón (spanish-ick-sounds like RAT)proves that I can go on.

KNOWING is different than SEEING and I can fuction.

Sort of.

So this boils down to denial.

Denial that the long and winding rodent is really there.

(yes, I've given him/her a nickname)

I can completely see how someone could lie to themselves.

You could say: No, I'm not an alcoholic.

Or: Sure I smoke but I can quit anytime I want.

Or (here's a favorite of mine): I'm not FAT, my pelvic bones just spread during pregnancy

and have never come back to where they once were.

Anyway, I'd upload a picture of poco topo (Italian-HEY! That's what the online translation says is little mouse so shut up!)

to liven this blog up but if I did then

TADA

There'd be a picture of a mouse on my blog

and I'd have to set something in front of my computer monitor so I couldn't see it.

That'd be inconvenient.

So instead I stuck some pictures of my cozy mysteries up here,

and THEY have a mouse on them but

PRAISE THE LORD

it's a small cartoonish mouse. Which is still dreadful.

But even with the weinig muis (Dutch-I tried Russian, fuggedabouddit-they don't even use real letters!) I was able to touch the cover and hold the book and read it.

I wasn't sure how that'd work out when I was whining to my editor about the cover.

Her feeling was that I couldn't call a book series

The Maxie Mouse Mystery Series,

and set it in

Melnik, Nebraska,

The Home of the World's Largest Field Mouse

and not put Maxie on the cover.

So we did.

Eek!

The Bossy Bridegroom

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Michael Davidson is a Fixer

Michael Davidson knows the demise of his marriage was his fault and now, as a new Christian, he's determined to make things right.

When he finds his wife, he discovers she's given their child up for adoption.
And while she has new friends and a new life,
Michael can't stand the way those people take advantage of her.
So he steps in to help Jeanie get it right.

Jeanie has spent the last year rebuilding her life.
She knows God loves her and has forgiven her.
She is stronger in the knowledge every day--
until Michael arrives
and brings with him all the regrets and shame of the past

Will Jeanie ever be able to trust herself or her husband again?

Will Michael overcome his hurtful, controlling ways?

Only God, the True Fixer of mankind, knows the answer.

The Bossy Bridegroom, coming in December from Heartsong Presents

Cowboy Wisdom

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I got Of Mice. . .and Murder

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I got my hands on my first copy of

Of Mice. . .and Murder
I read it yesterday.
Pretty fun.

Different for me so I hope people like it.

If you aren't a member of the

Heartsong Presents Mysteries book club it's hard to get.

Join Here

If you don't join--then you wait.
Of Mice. . .and Murder will release next JUNE
in a book containing the whole series called
NOSY IN NEBRASKA
Buy it here
but it won't be delivered until JUNE.
Of Mice. . .and Murder
Pride and Pestilence
The Miceman Cometh


This book will be called Nosy in Nebraska because the books are set in a small Nebraska town that is obsessed with their town Mascot, Maxie-The World's Largest Field Mouse.


It's just real wacky, I had a lot of fun poking gentle fun at small town Nebraska, which is where I live and where I think EVERYBODY should live. The best people on earth dwell here. but they're not without quirks and, by the way, what quirks we don't have...I just made up. :)

Halloween

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I was all excited about Halloween for a few years.

Well, first we ignored it. I mean we gave out candy but when my oldest was born I spend about five years trying to keep the news of Halloween from her. Saved a lot of work for me.Then I bought this pattern for a kind of boring, floor length dress, long-sleeved, that had ??? four seams.Up the sides, curl around down the under side of the arms, then across each shoulder.

For YEARS I'd just make this in every larger sizes for my three older girls, and by changing fabric, I could make them a:

Witch
Pioneer Girl
Angel
(rotate)

I bought black hats for the witch,
made a bonnet (hardest thing I ever did, it came with the pattern) for the pioneer girl
Halo & wings
(rotate)
:)

Those were good years.
We had a lot of fun being pioneer girls. I read the Little House on the Prairie series to the girls every winter for years and it was wonderful, except for a while there they all called me MA and that got old.


Then, as for ugly scary costumes, well, I just got tired. Sure I started out all idealistic and unwilling to compromise with 'horror' costumes.

At some point thought, I'd let them be anything if they'd just leave me alone.

My gosh, there were a few years with daughter number 3 got on this kick of wearing a beige trench coat.

She'd put sunglasses on and carry a briefcase.

Every year.

She'd say, "I'm a FBI agent."
Next year,"I'm an accountant."
Next year, "I'm an IRS Auditor" (Nothin' scarier than that, admit it!)


Then the horror began

This was a great costume. Lots of work too. Only, look at her feet. Cheap white tennis shoes. It would have been fine...except for the BLIZZARD. Her feet got so wet and cold she ended up staying in the car. Poor kid. You know how much it takes to get a child to stay in the CAR on Halloween instead of running up and yelling Trick or Treat? Why didn't I just slap black boots (or pink boots, that's what we mostly had back then) on her feet and forget the look???

Anyway, it worked out because her sisters took her bag and asked for candy for her. Kinda like Linus and Lucy and the Great Pumpkin.

I remember fondly the year I found a white blazer, dripped 'blood' on it, (red paint) dangled a fake stethoscope around my daughter's neck, painted her face white and her lips red so it looked like blood was dripping out of her mouth, and put black around her eyes. Ratted her long blonde hair up wildly--A ghoulish mad scientist.


Only trouble? By the end of the day, the white paint had mostly worn off, the red lips were mostly gone, the hair had died down. the black around the eyes had faded a bit. She looked kind of like an intern who'd just put in a 100 hour week. But I was too busy (or lazy, you be the judge) to re-up her make-up so she just looked tired. Poor baby.


We hit bottom the year I let my youngest daughter go as DEATH. We found an old scythe laying around in the barn. A real scythe.

Plus, I just used that same long dress costume, with black fabric, and BOOM, she's DEATH.


Or maybe, The Grim Reaper would be another name for her.


She got to school and her teacher took the scythe away from her. Mrs. Miller considered a deadly weapon--which is fair.

But she looked pretty cool.

The next year?
DEATH again, only this time I bought her these horrible fake hands and a mask that was just ghastly. So she didn't just look like DEATH she looked like HORROR DEATH.


They get the same amount of candy regardless, in case you've never noticed.

Buffalo Gal

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Buffalo Gal releases Oct. 1st

“ When I realized you and your family could be
killed by the buffalo, I was so scared I would
have bet I’d never laugh again.”
Wyatt heard more in her voice than the worry of a rancher for
her neighbor. He heard the same thing he’d heard that morning
two weeks ago when she hadn’t liked finding him with Jeanie.
The same thing he’d heard behind every insult and apology.
There couldn’t be anything between them. . .but there was.
Without making a conscious choice, Wyatt reached for her
and pulled her into his arms. She looked startled, but she let
him drag her over to his side of the truck.
Wyatt, knowing every move was pure stupid, lowered his
head.
Lights in the rearview mirror jerked them apart.
Buffy scooted away from him so quickly, Wyatt thought
she’d been snagged by a lasso and hog-tied to her door.

This isn't the finalized cover, no title included, but it will look very much like this.

Mary