We’ll be doing three more in November. And yep, this is the butcher from Coop. A pleasure to watch him work. Plus there was some shooting of the breeze.
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We’ll be doing three more in November. And yep, this is the butcher from Coop. A pleasure to watch him work. Plus there was some shooting of the breeze.
But I couldn’t get it to upload.
This is when I really got rolling on the writing, finally. Just under three hours of sleep then it was up to fix the chicken coop (the original one, the one on the cover of this book), move the barred rock chicks out of the stock tank and into the repaired coop, clean the stock tank and move in the 50 fluffy yellow meat chicks that arrived today, then move the new coop and chicken fence, then put up pig fence. Never would have finished without the help of my pal Mills, a friend going way back to the “Silver Star” days. We spent the last 30 minutes fencing in a deluge, but got’er done. Yessir. Got’er done.
Now some more writing. And a heart-shaped thought for my wife, who is running the whole show in spite of my ridiculous hours, obsessions, and avocations.
A while back I talked about pigs with Yael Grauer of the food magazine Spezzatino. The entire interview is available here as a downloadable .pdf. Yael asked some good questions that led the conversation off into a few less-common corners.
Another interview for the Coop paperback tour, although we got delightfully off-track and managed to discuss Truck and Population 485 and the music as well. I like this blog radio business. I can yap all around the country while staring at my actual (as opposed to virtual) chickens.
Hadn’t thought about the bull for a few years…then I did this interview with the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel.
Thank you to Jim Fleming and Wisconsin Public Radio for the gracious reading of Coop. It’s a humbling honor to hear that coming out of the radio. And for two weeks I’ve been running into folks who’ve caught a listen. One of those things a guy never expected…and as a lifelong cheesehead, even more meaningful.
They’re reading a chapter of Coop on Wisconsin Public Radio every day from now until February 12. If you missed a segment, the five most recent chapters are available here: http://wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?Code=cad&repeats=no (not sure for how long).
Weekdays at 12:30 p.m. CST from now until February 12, Jim Fleming will be reading Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Chapter A Day.” Jim has a wonderful reading voice (I have learned he is a favorite of rural mail carriers) and you can listen to a live stream of the reading right here.
Missed a segment? The five most recent chapters are available here: http://wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?Code=cad&repeats=no
I’ll be on the “Back to the Farm” segment of To The Best of Our Knowledge this weekend. Find out where/when to listen here. I believe you can also eventually listen online here.
Back in the hotel room after spending the evening at the Midwest Booksellers Association Trade Show. I was on hand to say thanks for Coop being given a nice award.
I said thanks because the room was full of people who spend their every working day introducing readers to books, one by one, hand-to-hand. I would be nowhere without them. Above all I thanked them not so much for helping me tell my stories but for helping me share the stories of others…because it is in the unanticipated stories of others that readers seem to find resonance and – sometimes – a measure of peace. With these comments I had my brother and his little family in mind.
Before the event, I signed a mountain of books. This is only one stack. There were many more. Still, it seems easier than logging. Again, a tip of the hardhat to my brother.
After giving my heartfelt thanks, I used the remainder of my time to share critical insights related to bovine artificial insemination, because that’s what I think people expect at a literary gathering.
Most of all, though, I gawked. I love my mostly non-literary life. As in: I fed the pigs sour goat milk and old bread right before I left for this event (did shower first). And took the dang garbage out to the mailbox. But then a short drive later, I was listening to Neil Gaiman spin an effortless, wry, witty tale of how he came to discover he had accidentally become Midwestern – even as he spoke in his fabulous burbling English accent. I got to talk shop with David Wroblewski, a gentle man and engaging conversationalist. I was able to witness as Elizabeth Berg paid loving tribute to her parents. I got to hear Todd Boss read a poem that brought my father to mind and tears to my eyes. I got to look over three tables and think, “Holy shnikies, that’s Jonathan Safran Foer!“ I got to hear children’s book authors discuss the creation of books I’ve read to my own little girls. And I got to meet some of the people who put my books in boxes and ship them all across the United States.
In short, it was kid-in-a-candy-store time.
Finally, in the category of things a guy never anticipates when he’s in nursing school twenty-some years back, I got Twittered by Neil Gaiman. I would be a disingenuous fakey-fraud if I pretended that’s not the coolest thing since the new chickens started laying. Thank you, sir.
It was so windy outside that the poor reporter who came to write this story wound up having to interview me inside the granary. We each sat on a piece of firewood. She was not the sort of person to complain. The photographs are fun. Don’t let the smile fool ya, I don’t much care for them two roosters. Anyways, here’s the link.
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