Sunday, February 12, 2012

What can I say? I’ve been busy these past few months. I’m back!


The big dog roundup: Some of you know that for years I’ve been helping take care of and adopt out abandoned animals. No one pays me for this and I’ve lost thousands of dollars in caring for, feeding and occasionally paying medical bills. My personal motto is that I’ll never let an animal starve or be in need of medical care.

Two months ago, I discovered a few puppies running around near my barn. I left food and water for them. By the end of the week, I had ten puppies eager to please me. Two weeks later, I had seventeen puppies running around and eating (from two litters). I already had six six-month old dogs from a litter of eight. Add to this menagerie, my own two dogs; and I was feeding twenty-five animals. Yikes! Enter and angle into my life.

The local Chappell Nebraska Animal Control Officer, Terry, called me one day and asked how I was doing. I related my tale of woe and she promised to think about a solution. A week later, she called back with a plan to adopt all of the dogs out. Through her contacts, she found a place in Wyoming willing to take on all of the puppies and six-month old dogs. She brought over material to build a large enclosure with a gate. I set up their food bowls and water inside along with several cages. It took two weeks to capture all of the larger dogs and another day to pick up fifteen of the puppies. I brought them all to Terry’s house and placed them in her cages. The puppies were immediately taken to Scottsbluff Nebraska and last week Terry called and informed me that all of them were adopted out.

The older dogs are being spaded and neutered, given shots and wormed. Several of them have loving homes and one of them is learning how to heard sheep. I couldn’t be happier. The other benefit is that all four of my dogs are going to be spaded and neutered, shots…isn’t life grand.

Class is in session: I’ve always wanted to take an accredited course in reading, writing ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs. I signed up for a free course on the internet. This takes me about two or three hours each day and I spend another two-three hours writing the ending of my second book.

During this time, I’ve neglected my blog and now that I am working on time management (and have only a few dogs to tend to); I find that I can once again write a blog-post twice a week.

It’s nice to be back.

4 comments:

  1. What a moving story. And I must say, if the world had more people in it just like you, David, it would make for a much better place.

    All the best with your Hieroglyphs. You're braver than I, good sir :)

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  2. Hello Wendy,

    It's nice to hear from you again. Thank you for your wonderful comments. I am no braver than you are. Think of it. We both write, and that is a mark of bravery in my book. Our interests are varied and different. I am sure that some of the things you do/accomplish would equal or surpass me taking a class in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

    I had my first book professionally edited and now am working on a cover for it. How is your book doing? It's funny. I wrote the first book in thirty days and took five years to edit it. The second book is almost complete and edited as I wrote it. When it is finished, I'll send it to my editor and begin the final manuscript in my first trilogy.

    I will begin another round of agent submissions. If this fails I'll self publish it. Let me know what you'v been doing lately. I will visit your blog tonight...maybe the answer is there.

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  3. Wow. Just wow. You have my admiration, sir. Thank you for taking care of God's creatures. We've fostered (and adopted) several strays, but never anything on this scale. And yeah for learning hieroglyphs! Good for you. Can you speak Ancient Egyptian as well? That's got to be fascinating. Assuming that your books are historical, you should send them to the Historical Novel Review blogspot for reviews when you're ready. Thanks for the visit!

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  4. Thank you for your comments and link to the Historical Novel Review. My book is filled with ancient Egyptian history and mythology. However, it is still a science fiction / fantasy novel and uses some poetic licence. If you know of a Si-Fi-Fantasy review site, please let me know.

    No one knows how the ancient Egyptians sounded when they spoke. The old written Egyptian language omitted vowels when they were carved in stone, and we have to add them. For example, we might translate a glyph as 'imn'. Adding vowels it turns into the god 'Amun’. The glyph for "i" also has an "a" possibility.

    I enjoy visiting your blog and will do so again.

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