The Journal, Wednesday, 11/1

Hey Folks,

Wow. November already. For that matter, 2017 already. What happened to 1978? Just sayin’.

I failed to mention yesterday that we had a little visitor.

In the pre-dawn pitch, I was at my outside desk when I heard a sound that seemed not part of the usual early morning sounds.

I grabbed my torch (I like the Brit “torch” so much better than “flashlight”) and went looking for my kitten.

As I stepped past the southeast corner of the house, I shined the light to the west.

Toward the southwest corner of the house, something was sniffing at the base of the double doors that lead from my bedroom into the back yard.

When I shined the light on it, the head moved and a pair of eyes shone back at me. But it was too black to be my kit and it was too small to be Hannah, my wife’s cat. Besides, Hannah was still in bed.

Thinking it must be one of the neighborhood toms, I stamped my right foot and yelled “Git!”

It blinked a time or two, then stuck its fluffed-out tail straight up in the air and turned around to leave.

In that flash of time, the broad white streak up its tail filled the beam of my light.

At that point — and I am thankful — the story ends. The visitor wandered off to the west, the aroma around the back of my house no worse for wear.
***

Out east of my house where I usually walk there are a few planted cottonwood (grandfather) trees. Until recently, the man who owns the little strip of land on which they stand was keeping them watered with a buried PVC system.

But the PVC kept breaking, I guess, and leaks kept springing up, so eventually he turned off the water to the whole row.

The two nearest my house had become oases for local wildlife. But for the past week, they’ve been dying.

At first I thought they were simply going dormant with the advent of autumn. But when I started walking again, I noticed the ground around them was dry.

My landlady knows the guy well, so I’d meant to ask her whether she might ask him to turn the water back on to the few trees that are (maybe) still viable.

I hadn’t seen her until this morning. She said she would talk with him. Then she asked whether, for the time being, I could rig up something to run from her water source at the back of the corral. Maybe I could at least run water to the “big” tree at the corner. (This cottonwood is well over a hundred feet tall and very full.)

So instead of walking this morning I spent a couple hours gathering old garden hoses, inserting new washers, and running a system. As it turned out, I was able to run water to two cottonwoods, so we’ll see whether we got to them soon enough. I hope so.

Cutting off water to ANYthing out here is just counterintuitive, or should be. And that’s a very nice way of expressing the red-hot thought that’s usually in my mind on this topic.
***

Well, I wrote right at a thousand words in a crazed hour today, but the thing didn’t go anywhere. It wasn’t on the WIP. Not sure what’s going on with that.

Back tomorrow.

Of Interest

See “Indie Authors on Indie Authorship” at http://blog.smashwords.com/2017/10/indie-authors-on-indie-authorship.html. Frankly, I didn’t read this. I thought some of you might be interested.

Fiction Words: 1105
Nonfiction Words: 600 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 1705

Writing of Pulp Novel 5 (a Stern Richards novel)

Day 1…… 1080 words. Total words to date…… 1080
Day 2…… 2167 words. Total words to date…… 3247
Day 3…… 1370 words. Total words to date…… 4617
Day 4…… 1840 words. Total words to date…… 6457
Day 5…… 1193 words. Total words to date…… 7650
Day 6…… 1407 words. Total words to date…… 9057
Day 7…… 1180 words. Total words to date…… 10237
Day 8…… 2834 words. Total words to date…… 13071
Day 9…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX

Total fiction words for the month……… 1105
Total fiction words for the year………… 450547
Total nonfiction words for the month… 600
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 168663
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 619210

The Daily Journal blog streak……………………………………… 703 days
Calendar Year 2017 Novels to Date………………………… 9
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 27
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 4
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………………… 182