My Nurse Hal Amish Series book two - The Rainbow's End excerpt-and Gardening

My blog post today is an excerpt from my book The Rainbow's End which is book two in the Nurse Hal Among The Amish series. The series is set in the rolling hills of scenic southern Iowa on an Amish farm outside of fictional Wickenburg.

This excerpt takes place in the spring when Nurse Hallie Lapp is given gardening lessons by her step daughter Emma Lapp.



After lunch as Hal put a handful of silverware away, she asked, “Emma, what are we going to plant in the garden?”

“This family likes many different vegetables,” Emma said. She opened a drawer and took out a worn, frayed notebook. She handed it to Hal.

“What is this?”

“Turn to the last page that is written on. You will see where I have drawn lines for rows. Beside each row is the vegetable or flower’s name we will plant this spring.”

Hal opened the book on the table. The two of them leaned over it as Emma pointed out rows labeled peas, beans, beets, carrots, turnips, potatoes, lettuce and more. Around the edges, she planned to plant orange cosmos and yellow marigolds. The very back row nearest the house, Emma saved for her tall green cannas that bloomed a red flower. She had a basket of dried bulbs stored in the basement.

“I didn’t realize a garden took so much planning,” Hal said, mystified by the thought Emma had put into her garden.

“It is important to rotate the crops so I do not grow a vegetable in the same spot too long. If I keep track each year, I know that will not happen,” Emma told her.

Hal heard the restless shift of feet. She looked up to find John leaning against the doorway with his hands in his pants pockets. He had been listening to them. The smile on his face and the beam in his eyes told Hal he was proud of his daughter’s friendship with the woman he planned to marry.

He said, “Are you two about done planting garden in here?”

“Jah, for right now. We are going to continue for real soon enough.” Emma said, putting her notebook back in the drawer.

In another chapter -

Holding a handful of garden seed packets, Emma interrupted Hal’s revelry. “If you are not busy, want to help me plant some garden?”

“Sure. Looks like no one needs my nursing help this afternoon.” Maybe the fresh air will revive me, she thought.

“That is gute,” Emma said.

Hal opened the door and followed Emma out on the porch. “Where is the garden?”

Emma nodded toward the road. “That bare spot.”

“I wondered why there wasn’t any grass there, but I kept forgetting to ask. Why did you put milk jugs in the garden?”

“There is danger of frost until in the middle of May. The jugs protect the cabbage and tomato plants I set out,” Emma explained.

Hal couldn’t remember seeing vegetable sets in front of the feed store or at the tree nursery. “You bought sets somewhere this early?”

“Nah, I raised them from seeds.”

“Why do you have the garden along side the road?”

Hal could tell that sounded like a silly question to Emma. “Why not?”

“No reason. It’s just that my mom had her garden back behind the tool shed. It was sort of out of sight,” Hal told her.

“Why would I want to hide my garden?” Emma seem perplexed by the idea. She dropped the seed packets at the end of the garden. “It is of interest for Plain people to see how their neighbors gardens are doing when they drive by. Even English like to see what kinds of vegetables and flowers are planted in them.”

Changing the subject, Hal said, “Nothing better to eat than fresh vegetables from the garden.”

Emma nodded agreement as she went down on her knees. “We have to raise enough to can for winter. You want to learn how to preserve food?”

“Yes, I do. If you think you can stand trying to teach someone who is as dumb as I am about such things,” Hal said sincerely.

“Oh, Hallie. You are not dumb. Now we are going to start by planting radishes and lettuce,” Emma said, sorting the seed packets. A distant rumble turned her attention to the western sky. “Looks like a rain is coming. Dark clouds are banking up. If we hurry maybe we will have some of the planting and my chores done before the storm. I have been trying to start chores early so I can look for Zacchaeus.” She handed Hal the seeds before she picked up a hoe she dropped in the grass earlier. Giving the mellow dirt a whack with the hoe, she walked backward, making a small trench.

“What do you think happened to him?” Hal asked. Opening a packet of radishes, she bent over and dropped the seeds in the furrow.

“If he decided to roost out, a coon, skunk or possum could have got him. Maybe even a coyote. But he never does that,” Emma declared. “I think my brothers had something to do with his disappearing. It is a joke on me.”

“I can’t believe that Noah and Daniel would do that to you,” Hal said, opening the package of lettuce. She followed Emma as the girl made another row.

“Remember the duck eggs under my brood hen?”

“Oh.” Hal didn’t have a defense for that.

Absorbed in what they were doing, Emma and Hal forgot about the approaching storm until large, crystal clear drops pelted them. Emma dropped the hoe. A gust of wind caught the pile of seed packets, causing them to tumble over and over across the garden. Emma and Hal scrambled to gather up the remaining packets.

After Emma chased down the last packet, she yelled, “This is it. Run for the porch.”

Leaning against the porch wall, Emma closed her eyes and turned her face toward the sky. “Ain’t it something how a spring shower keeps up making down. Smell the clean air and wet dust.”

Hal stood beside her and looked out over the hayfield and pasture. The shower draped the fields in a silver veil. She took a deep breath. “As clean as the smell of fresh washed clothes drying on the line.”

“Jah.” Emma’s tone changed. “Oh, no! I forgot to bring in my clothes,” she cried. As an after thought she giggled. “Oh well, too late now. They will have to dry over.”

As quickly as the downpour started it ended. The overcast sky suddenly changed to sunshine. The sun caressed the earth and both of them with its light and warmth.

With excitement in her voice, Emma pointed. “Look a rainbow!”

The ethereal jewel-tone mist arched in the pasture just beyond the barn. “How lovely. As a child, I was told if I could find the end of the rainbow I’d find a pot of gold,” Hal said.

“That’s an English tale,” Emma scoffed. “The rainbow came about because God made a promise to Noah. He said, “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.” She paused, studying the rainbow, before she continued. “If they feel the need to make wishes, English people should not wish for something that has to do with wealth.”

Hal learned early, on once she got to really know Emma, she should listen to this wise girl’s thoughts. She was so very perceptive. Her insight into Amish life would be what was going to help Hal fit in. “What kind of wish, Emma?”

Emma paused to think before she spoke. “This could be many things. Maybe you should wish at the end of your rainbow to find happiness or health.”

“Happiness. I like that wish. For quite a long time now, I've felt as if happiness is just out of my reach. If I wish on that rainbow, I’m going to have to wish really hard if I expect my wish to come true,” Hal said softly.

Emma answered sagely, “Hallie, wishing for happiness does not make it happen. You have to work to get and keep happiness in your life. Now come with me. We have eggs to gather.”


This excerpt came from the second book in the series so to be properly introduced to Nurse Hal and the Lapp family you should start with A Promise Is A Promise book one. If you want to learn more about Nurse Hal and her life with the Lapp family my books and ebooks can be found in the Amazon and Kindle stores in English and several foreign languages, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble. I sell all the books I've written on my website http.www.booksbyfaybookstore.weebly.com. The site has my blog and so does Author Central on Amazon. You can find me on Twitter and Facebook if you want to follow and like me.

I haven't mentioned much about my books this summer so it's time I refresh everyone's memory. I'm an author of thirty books as well as a gardener. My books have a lot of my life experiences in them. A wise English teacher once told me to write what I know about. That's what I've been doing. I write the books I like to read with humor in them. My books are meant to entertain and for the most part be light hearted and easy for the readers to relate to the characters.

The books are written in 12 font which make them reader friendly, and though not advertised as large print, the books are easier to read. I used the larger print because I have elderly relatives that like to buy my books. I've since found the same easy reading that worked for my relatives is appreciated by other readers.

I'm busy this time of year taking care of my garden produce much like Emma Lapp so I can relate to her gardening techniques. My mother and the generations of women in my family before her grew up knowing how to plant, care for and preserve vegetables, berries and fruit for the long winters. They had large families in the Missouri Ozarks and very little money during the Great Depression. What they bought at the store was items like flour, sugar, and coffee. Their garden and meat they raised.

This year and last we've seen dry summer in central Iowa. That means watering the garden if we want it to produce. We're lucky to have a deep well. Not everyone can afford to use their water for fear of running the well dry.

We plant two gardens a year. The first one is in early spring, and when spots where we raised potatoes are cleared off, we plant a fall garden in late July or early August. After last year's fall garden didn't do well even with watering, we debated putting in another one this year. But we are eternal optimists. It had rained almost every day in Iowa during this spring. Rivers and creeks flooded around us several times. So maybe the summer's dry spell wasn't going to last. We planted. Maybe because it is in my husband and my DNA to keep sowing seed.

Picture is of radish rows when the plants were smaller.

So now we are reaping the harvest of lettuce, spinach, radishes and a late crop of tomatoes. Perhaps, we enjoy the fresh vegetables even more when we have to work so hard to keep them hydrated.

Throw Back Day Every Day Here

I'm a fan of Good Morning America so today I'm watching as they discussed Throw Back Thursday. The topic was how much the set had changed from thirty years ago. It occurred to me that I just posted a picture on Facebook that might fit in a Throw Back Era except it's from last week. The picture is my husband, Harold, mowing hay in our acre and a half hayfield. Let me make myself clear. I don't consider him the throw back. Just the hay making equipment. The machinery he uses works for our small hayfield. He often recalls sixty years ago in Arkansas when he ran the dump rake for his grandfather. He was small and the lever to release the hay clump was hard to tromp on so Harold had to stand up and use both feet to release the hay. He considers the equipment he uses today much easier than what he remembered as a kid.

Most of what we do around our acreage might seem like a throw back from another era. A while back I put another picture of my cherry pitter on Facebook. There are newer pitters on the market, but I didn't know that when I found the pitter in an antique store. Before I bought it I spent hours pitting the cherries by hand. Even then it took me a year to decide the pitter was worth $20. We were visiting my Aunt Bonnie near Cabool, Missouri when I first saw the pitter in a small country shop. I backed off. It had been a few months since I pitted the cherries in the spring. Guess my memory was short. The next spring, we had a large crop of cherries again. All the time, I pitted I imagined that pitter laying idle on a shelf hundreds of miles away. So on our annual visit to the Ozarks my aunt said where would I like to go. First stop I wanted to make was that antique store. Aunt Bonnie reminded me it had been a year. The pitter was probably gone. She wasn't about to dash my hopes. Oh, please, can we go look? I have to know for sure. We entered into the rather dark shop interior, and my aunt said, "Okay, where do you think the pitter was?" "I know exactly," I said and walked right to it. I grabbed it, paid for it and laid it in the closet until the next spring. Harold set the table up out in the yard, and the ripe berries squirted on me, the table and the ground. Hey, I was happy. I saved so much time with my throw back pitter.

We've lived on this acreage for almost twenty five years. When we moved in, we planted all kinds of fruit trees. The advantage to having our own place had been to raise all the food we could eat and then some. For two recent springs, a freeze killed any chance of having fruit. This year we are blessed with crops. That means if I don't want any of the fruit to go to waste I must freeze or can the excess so we can enjoy eating our apples, pears, cherries, plums, and peaches during the winter. Forget about the peaches. We only had ten on our very old tree so I made a pie. That will be gone very soon. Two small peach trees are growing fast so my hope is for a good crop of peaches in a year or two. Plus, I saved the peach seeds to start another tree.

The plum tree has lost several limbs lately so the plums are up high. I used the apple picker to reach what I could. To make preserving plum sauce quick, I've cooked the plums whole. Next I wait for them to cool and take out all the seeds by hand so I can put the plums in the blender and make sauce out of them. I've canned a six pints. Not as many as other years, and I worry the tree won't be alive much longer so I saved seeds to plant. The tree came from an older tree in town near my brother-in-law's garden. I suppose the variety is damsel. I know I like the size and flavor of this plum so want to keep from losing it.

A few days ago I canned pears. We've heard that fruit isn't ripening as fast this year because of the dry weather. I picked the pears on lower branches that were about to touch the ground. It took a week for them to soften in the house. Since that worked, I had Harold pick more. I'm waiting for them to ripen. The pears left on the tree seem to be growing yet. I like the idea of larger pears to eat fresh. By the time we eat the two quarts I put in the refrigerator, a pint in Jell-O, the bowl full on the table and the pie that is now gone, I will be ready to can most of the rest.

I wonder how many women in this area preserve their food or have a large garden and orchard like we do. It happens to be in my DNA as they say these days. My earliest memories in the fifties are of my mother with her pressure cooker hissing on the wood cookstove in Missouri. Hot humid days made for miserable work with no air conditioning and not even a fan. The house stayed hot forever after canning season began. Jars filled with vegetables, fruit and meat replaced the empty ones in the root cellar. We had a top notch root cellar, cool and sometimes a black snake's retreat in the summer heat, but the safest place to be during tornado season.

Before pressure cookers were cold packers. I still use one of those, too. Back in my grandmother's day, the cold packer took hours to preserve vegetables and meat, but the wood cookstove was on all day anyway. Grandma Bright had nine children so she kept a large pot of beans or stew simmering all the time. Before cold packers, women put a zinc lid with a rubber seal on the blue jars. They probably thought to smell the food when they opened the jars to make sure it smell safe to eat. Rule of thumb was boil any canned food hard for fifteen minutes. Between poorly processed canned food and leaving left overs on the table from one meal to the next because there wasn't refrigeration, food poisoning happened often. It was sometime in the forties before canning flats and rings became popular in our area.

My filled jars go on shelves in our basement. A couple years ago, we had our hot water heater replaced. The repairmen were amazed at the amount of food I had preserved. In the winter, I don't have a very large grocery list. No need to get out on a snowy or frigid day. Between, my freezers, my basement shelves and my bread maker we can hibernate. My food preservation is a source of accomplishment made easier by having air conditioning. This is our second year with a cool house during a very hot week. Once upon a time, I froze vegetables in the blanched stage and thawed them out to can in the fall.

Today I've canned four quarts of downfall apples. The tree is loaded, but not as ready as I'd like them and the downfalls don't seem to ripen like the pears did. I've always been interested in older recipes so I kept one for apples probably from a Capper's. Most of my older recipes came from relatives or older canning books. This Canned Pie Apple recipe can be used to put in Jell-O, too.


Canned Pie Apple

1 quart of sliced apples

¼ cup sugar

Using the above ratio, fill a large nearly air tight container with apples. Mix the sugar slightly into the apples with each quart added. When the container is filled and packed down add the cover and let stand on the counter overnight. In the morning, pack the apple slices into jars and seal. Remember to pack the apples down in the jar to avoid a lot of shrinkage.

Cold pack in water no longer than 10 minutes after the water comes to a hard boil. Apples will stay very white. Treat as fresh apples for a crisp or pie.

Bullock Family garden near Schell City, Missouri from 1948 - 1961 in the fall when the weeds had taken over. All the vegetables were in the root cellar by then in jars.

Is This How A Squirrel Feels In Fall

Is This How A Squirrel Feels

Have you noticed when the temperatures began to feel like fall, the squirrels stopped chasing each other and started their search for food to bury for the winter?

I get the same urge though I don't bury food. I've seen how forgetful the squirrels are when it comes to finding their food supply. In the spring, their acorns and walnuts sprout in my flowers. I would be just like the squirrels if I tried that except my tomatoes or cucumbers wouldn't come up in the spring to remind me where to look. The safest place for what Harold brings in from the garden is going into jars stored in our basement or baggies in our freezer. That way the food supply is centrally located for me to get at when the ground is snow covered. Perhaps, that is a suggestions the squirrels should try. Pick one spot, dig down and bury all the nuts there to make it easy to find. The idea works for me. I wouldn't have so many tree sprouts to pull up in the spring.

We are fortunate to be able to raise our food. Gardening is good exercise and a safe way to have healthy food. We have a large garden, but there are times we wonder if it's going to hold all that we want to plant. We like a variety of vegetables so we plant our spring garden as early as possible, and when that has finished producing, we start over with a fall garden. Just like last year, we're now carrying water to the plants. Our new lettuce, radishes and carrots are up and growing, but some of the other veggies have yet to sprout. The seeds are dormant under the soil. What we need is a good soaking rain and soon.

Picture is of radish rows in what was the potato patch. Wire rolls are old fencing I use to discourage the chickens from scratching my plants out of the ground. I've tried so many recycling ideas to get rid of varmits in the corn patch and berries that one of our neighbors says our garden looks like a land fill. Beyond the radishes is the strawberry bed.
Preserving all the good foods to eat this winter really limits my time on the computer. I'd like to spend more time working on a new Amish story right now, but I console myself with this winter when I'm making lunch with quick to cook dishes from the freezer or jar, I'll be writing more.



Right now my writing project is a special one. If you remember I just finished publishing a book written by a cousin about his time spent in the Vietnam War - 199th Light Infantry Brigade Redcatcher M.P. Now I'm soon going to publish another book for a dear sister-in-law that lost her battle with cancer recently at age 60.



The two of us started out in the late eighties thinking we would like to write a book. I signed up for a six weeks summer writing course in the back of the library. That was a very helpful course and fueled my fire to some day be an author. The next summer the course was offered and both of us signed up. There was only a class or two before the classes were canceled. We were on our own again, and life seemed to get in the way. After that, our conversations weren't on a possible book. Though I kept working on my skills every time I had a spare moment, the sister-in-law didn't. Her possible book was placed in a metal box for safe keeping until she had the time to finish it. She didn't get the chance. The metal box surfaced recently and brought back memories of our bright hopes to be authors.



So now I'm going to make her dreams come true by publishing her book. The story is a romance. It needs much work and an ending which I've already figured out. So the day will come when I'll be able to share the book with the author's name on the cover. What a special legacy for her to leave her children and grandchildren. This woman lived her life with courage. She embraced her life with humor and bravery in the last fourteen years all the way to the end. She enjoyed the few remaining years and then months and days she had left and always kept in mind ways to make it easier for her loved ones to live life with her and without her. We were sisters with a common dream. If the situation was reversed, she'd have done the same for me.



Now time to get busy again. On my list of to do today, as a reminder that this is still summer, is making homemade ice cream from an aunt's recipe.



Pudding flavored Ice Cream



4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 small bowl of Cool Whip

2 3oz. boxes of instant pudding or one large (any flavor) We love Butter Pecan. Doesn't come on the grocery store shelf anymore, but can be found in bulk in many of the Amish stores. I buy a supply just for ice cream.

½ gal. cold milk. (I've been using Silky soybean milk.)

1 tsp flavoring to match pudding or use vanilla. Can even omit since the pudding makes the ice cream's flavor.



Beat eggs in large bowl. Add sugar and pudding. Beat thoroughly. Stir in cool whip and flavoring. Pour in freezer can and add milk to the fill line. Freeze.

Summer Fun In The Country

Summer is showing off its best in Iowa right now. Pleasant temperatures, warm not real hot, during the day and cool at night. This makes for a perfect time to have company come enjoy our country place. My husband keeps the area mowed like a park. The lawn chairs are in the ash tree's shade. My flowers are blooming bouquets of red, pink, purple and white. The multitude of cats laze about in the sunny driveway or hide for a nap in the butternut tree or the grapevine, seeking shade and solitude. The goats wander back and forth from the cool darkness of the barn to the tree groves or pasture to graze. The free range chickens are busy scratching in all the wrong places, the garden and my flower beds. The two red and black roosters proudly crow and strut around their domain until they find some eatable morsel, an ant hill, hidden small black beetles, Japanese beetles or the biggest ripe tomato in the patch. That excites the roosters into a clucking tune that calls the hens to come to dinner.

All this activity that we take for granted is a natural wonder to our city relatives, especially the children. My husband's niece reminded me about when she and her cousins were small they each used to spend a week with us in the summer. Our son had a different playmate every week for most of the summer and his cousins got a taste of country life, because I put them to work doing chores. That's what made for wonderful memories for this niece. She wanted her children to experience a taste of that. So one day this week four generations, my husband's mother, his sister, her daughter and two children, came for the day. My husband grilled brats and hot dogs to go along with the rest of the meal. I made sure to have everything prepared before they got here including my strawberry freezer dessert which cuts like cake and reminds me of ice cream with a crumb topping.

We ate lunch right away so the tour began as soon as possible. My husband is in charge of tours. I take pictures. We're raising six turkeys this year so they were a new sight. Also new was the birth of eight chicks in the hay loft which was a total surprise, but one we expected since it always happens to us in late summer. There is always a hen or two that out smarts my husband with a well concealed hiding place. We set three hens on purpose in early summer, and they hatched twenty chicks which we thought was enough for this season. My husband gave all the chicks to one hen. I told the children she was like the old woman in the shoe who had so many children she didn't know what to do. At that time, the temperature was cool day and night. Most days were rainy. Mother hen had to worry about fluffing out her feathers enough to cover so many babies. As the offspring grew covering them became impossible so some of them roosted on the hen's back for warmth. What was even more vexing to the hen was when the chicks began to wander away from her to explore on their own. She clucked sharply, but that never did work. They ignored her so she'd wind up running after them to gather the chicks back into the brood, forcing the remaining chicks to keep up. Since the chicken room is in the barn loft, we hear the loud tromping overhead and all those tiny feet sound like a herd of elephants.

The children and their mother made a quick trip to the rabbit room. Nothing very exciting there. A black and white buck and doe sat at the back of the cage. One white doe hid in her nesting box, and no babies to report yet this summer. Since the rabbits are my husband's project I don't ask for an explanation. You see all of the above had been my domain for many years while my husband worked. He took over what we call chores several years ago. Though I still do the vet work, the rest of the time I stay away from the barn as much as possible. I tell him I'm retired.

 The doe goats are very friendly this year as long as the kids stayed on the outside of the pen. They came to smell hands extended through the gate in case the children had something good to eat and remained long enough to be petted. Once in awhile, they took a nibble of a shirt sleeve. In another pen, the smaller buck

goats circled around out of reach except for one. When he's called he still holds out hopes of getting a bottle. Most of the time I consider him a pest when he's underfoot like a dog or pressing his head against my leg to get my attention, but this once, I was glad he came for the children's attention.

Last was the tour of the garden and flowers which was given for Harold's ninety two year old mother benefit. She has always been a lover of all plants. She still has a large garden and appreciates the effort that goes into a well weeded and productive garden. Now our fall crop of veggies, radishes, lettuce, spinach and peas, can be seen in the rows hidden among the spring crops that are producing so well. Harold's mother has made it her goal through life to try to get as many different varieties of flowers as she can, and from my inexperienced viewpoint, I'd say she succeeded. I know I can always go to her for advice on flower plant care so it's always fun to show her my efforts.

That was the last of the tour as far as the grownups were concerned. We were ready for a break, but the children kept exploring.

The kitten napping in the butternut tree is tame when he wants to be. Lizzy and her grandmother petted him until he decided he'd had enough of these strangers. He jumped down, thinking he'd escape to the barn. Lizzy followed, convinced the kitten she was as friendly as Uncle Harold and carried him around for awhile. Her love of animals has her thinking that she'd like to be a veterinarian. Her mother says she should be at our barn on the days I am doctoring the animals. Her mind might change. I wouldn't bet on her mind set changing as far as loving animals goes, but she does have plenty of time yet to come up with what she wants to do as a profession. In the meantime, it never hurts to have this one option. I love animals. Maybe I and my husband contributed to Lizzy's passion for animals. At least, we've given her good childhood memories to look back on when she's grown just like her mother.

Exploring A Small Town Celebration

July 27th would normally be a scorching hot day in Iowa. We expect that, after years of experience. Hot temperatures go hand in hand with a summer town celebration or a county fair. Not this time. Thanks to a cold front, Canadian air fanned Iowa today. Low dark clouds hid the sun, keeping the temperature in the sixties.


My husband and I went to Dysart, Iowa, about thirty miles from us, for their Iron Days celebration. As a writer, I'm always looking for details, humorous or otherwise, that might work in a story that includes a small Midwest town. Dysart is small with many older, large homes and enough trees to be designated City of Trees.

At 9 a.m., we started by walking from an uptown parking place to the park. I noticed the thermometer near the community center said 63 degrees. The antique tractor displays were nearly all gone out of town already on a tractorcade parade. We looked at the few they left behind. One refurbished tractor, with a glossy, green paint job, had a cute sign on it. This tractor is just like the neighbor's wife. You can look but don't touch. We circled around the remaining tractors and headed toward the Craft show.

First stop was Witt's Garden and Lawn Crafts. I took pictures there to use in my blog. Witt's Crafts belongs to my husband's sister and her husband. As long as I was taking pictures, he asked if I'd email him the pictures so he could use them for advertising.

We left the craft show and walked through the park. At the other end, a car honked at us. Turned out my husband's brother had the same idea we did. We retraced our steps back to the Craft show so he could say hi to the Witts. This time we took time to look at the antique and flea market items on the other tables. After that, I was ready to go uptown and look in the shops. I always think I don't have room for anything else in my house, but I love looking. We stopped in an antique shop called Orphan Annie's. The name comes from the fact that orphan trains used to stop in Dysart as they traveled through the Midwest. There are citizens in town today that have ancestors that got off the orphan trains in Dysart and found families.

Bouquets of balloons bounced at us, tied to items on the sidewalks in front of stores to catch our attention. A woman, with a purse full of chocolate candy, stopped shoppers to ask if they would like to try a piece. We aren't big candy eaters so we said no. Later, the woman was on the other side the street asking shoppers to try the chocolate. She forgot she'd already talked to us so I asked if she had a candy making shop close. She looked puzzled as she pulled a wrapped chocolate drop from her purse to inspect it. She actually didn't know where the chocolate came from. Perhaps, it hadn't mattered as long as the candy lasted until I asked. She hustled across the street, hailing another woman down to find out what she knew about the candy she was told to promote.

We stopped in another Antique Store. Most store inventories are alike with kitchen utensils, old pictures, scared up hutches, tables and dressers. One thing I found interesting was the wine collection labels when I heard one woman ask if the Hussy Heifer was a sweet wine. I didn't hear the answer, but when I came back along I was curious enough to glance at the three bottles. The first one in line was Farmer's Daughter. Maybe a person would want to drink that bottle first and next try Hussy Heifer next. Not that I know since I don't drink wine. The other bottle was turned away from us. I couldn't get close enough to see the name. The woman and her friends were having a wine tasting party in front of the inventory, sampling a bottle of Hussy Heifer. Looked like they might be going to drain the bottle before they decided if they liked the wine.

We headed back to our pickup at eleven a.m. The thermometer registered a whole degree warmer at 64. At least the pickup felt warm when we were sheltered from the north wind.

Next we went to the county seat, Vinton, Iowa, to take in the county fair. It was almost noon so we stopped at the pork booth and had a pork loin sandwich right off the grill. Very good sandwiches. We visited with people we knew checking out the exhibits just like we were. It's fun to see all the clean, curried animals that normally would be happy in a dirty barnyard. The buildings with 4-H projects and the garden and flower exhibits are always interesting.

As soon as we exited the last building, I was ready to go home and put on the coffee pot. Wouldn't you know, as we drank our cup of coffee the sun came out of its cloud cover, warming up the late afternoon hours now that we were done exploring for the day.

A Summer Time Book Review

This is the first book in seven from my fun historical mystery series titled Amazing Gracie Mysteries. To get to know the mischievous Gracie Evans from Locked Rock, Iowa and the rest of her friends in the Moser Mansion retirement home it's best to read the books in order. Now having brought up reading I must admit there are many outside activities in the summer to take up our time instead of sitting indoors reading a book. After all, warm weather is much too short and winters in Iowa seem extra long, and this last one was stretched out by a cool, rainy spring.


However, for those who enjoy air conditioning after being out in the garden in this super hot summer time, or those that go for an early morning walk and take a break with a second cup of coffee afterwards, you need something to occupy the cool down time. Pick up a book and read a chapter or two before you go back outside.

My stories are written like the books I want to read. Recently, I published a book with a Christmas theme - Leona's Christmas Bucket List. Now I'm working on another holiday book - Christmas With Hover Hill. I must admit at the slow rate I'm going it may be Christmas before that book is done. When the weather is rainy or cold then I don't mind staying at the computer, but during this hot, dry spell, I've not been anymore creative than the summer heat.

I do sit down at the computer but with my eyes on what's going on outside. The robins are hopping about trying to figure out where the night crawlers disappeared to in the hot grass. Young barn swallows sit on the electric wires, singing their sad cheeps now that Mom has abandoned them for a new batch of babies. Whoops! The little goat is out again. He's headed for my in full bloom, red candy striped ivy geranium with the intention of grazing on the blooms. I bought the plant for its beautiful blooms not goat feed. By the time I'm out the door, bare foot no less because I didn't have time to put on my shoes, my plant has one less bloom, and he's licking another. Now you see what happens to my concentration.

That doesn't mean my readers should give up on seeing another book by author Fay Risner since we all know fall and winter will be back all too soon. What I want to share with you is the following post by a reader on Linkin. When I see a review like this, it reminds me that there are readers that like the same kind of books that I do. Mainly, the genres that makes you smile and entertains. I really appreciate being reminded of that once in awhile. It energizes me to keep writing.

Details of the Recommendation: "I have read most of Fay's books. Fay has a variety of work. Some books are full of history and detail. Other books are funny and light hearted. Fay also has a mystery series that has wonderful characters solving all sorts of crimes. She has another series about an Amish family. These books are great books for fun filled relaxation."

Service Category: Writer/Editor

Redcatcher MP 199th Light Infantry Brigade - Vietnam War

It turns out I'm not the only author in my family. Years ago, Aunt Lois in Nevada, Missouri showed me one of the spiral notebooks in which my cousin, Mike (Mickey), hand wrote his story of three tours during the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1970. At the time I didn't know how to get the book published. One big drawback was the manuscript consisted of over 100,000 words that had to be typed into manuscript form before it could be sent to a publisher. I glanced inside the notebook and handed it back to my aunt to lay on the other three in her quilt chest. We covered the notebooks with quilts and I forgot about them.


A few months ago, Mickey Bright passed away. While his two sisters and I reminisced about Mike, I remembered seeing his notebooks. Whatever happened to them? Times have changed. We aren't at the mercy of publishers anymore for a year or two waiting for a rejection. Independent authors publish their own work. When the idea hit me, I was excited. Not knowing what kind of work I was getting into I offered to publish Mike's book for the family.

What a pleasant surprise it was when I started reading the first notebook. Mike had talent. That made my job easier. A few pages into the first notebook, I decided to type as I read. In no time, I was wanting to see what happened next so I read ahead in the evening and typed the next day. One of Mike's sisters sent pictures I added to the book. I'd kept letters sent from the Vietnam War by Mike. I used one of those in the front of the book. By the time I had a cover made, the book was done in about five weeks. I sent a proof to Mike's sisters for approval. They are fast readers. Didn't take them long to tell me they liked the book.

My only regret is I waited so long to ask about the book. Mike would have been so excited to see his words in a paperback book. His parents have passed, too. They would have been so proud of Mike and his book titled 199th Light Infantry Brigade Redcatcher MP by Mickey M. Bright of the 152nd MP Platoon.

Here is the back of the book

Mickey put his heart and soul into his book about his three tours in the Vietnam War. He brings to life the men he served with and treasured as friends as well as the Vietnamese people he grew to know and respect. He describes everything he saw and felt about the country in vivid detail. That includes the horrors of war as well as the men's feverish efforts to block their worries and fears in their off duty hours. Mickey's humor comes through when he writes about being invited to supper at a Vietnamese Police Officer's house and finds he's eating dog meat. Or when he becomes really nervous on patrol alone and thinks he's going to confront VC in a village cemetery only to find he's face to face with the harmless village bum.

Men felt pressure and stress all the time. They didn't know where the enemy was. There wasn't a front lines or a safe area even on base. They could never fully relax. The horrors of this war led many soldiers into a fog of drugs just to cope. Smoking marijuana was as popular as smoking a cigarette. The young men were drafted during the hippy drug era. Many of them had tried drugs, marijuana and drinking alcoholic beverages in the states. In Vietnam, drugs were cheap and very accessible. Beer was cheap at the PX and kept under the bunks by the case. Most times, it was consumed warm. The camaraderie between the men in their off time led to addictions that had to be faced when they went home. For many, drugs became a way to sleep in a stupor without fear and nightmarish images of death haunting them. The years that Mickey Bright was in Vietnam, statics show that more men went to the hospital because of their addictions than those with wounds.

At the time, his war stories wouldn't have been wise to write about in letters to his worried family. We see the standoffs as Mickey describes them and get a feel for what his duties were like as a military policeman. Often something about Vietnam reminded him of his family and home in Nevada, Missouri. It's only when he was midway through his third tour of duty that he felt he'd had enough of this strange land and war. With new men coming in all the time, he dwelt more on the friends he lost, and the ones that went back to the world that he missed. Then there were his memories of Lei, the pretty Vietnamese girl he loved. When she was killed during a fire fight in Saigon, Mickey didn't have a reason to stay. He was ready to come home.

If you're interested in learning what it was like for a good many of the soldiers in the Vietnam War, this book will enlighten you about addictions many of them had when they went to Vietnam and struggled with when they came home.

Look on Amazon for the book and the Kindle store for the ebook. Barnes and Noble's Nook store will have the ebooks soon. Smashwords.com have the ebooks available now. As more venues open up, I'll let you know.