Anya’s Prospective-Catching Up

Yowza! It’s been a long time since I posted anything to this blog. I blame my Mom, and that’s all I have to say on the subject.

Anyway, a quick update on what’s been happening in my life.

This winter I went on a REALLY long trip that involved going all the way to North Carolina to spend some time with my mom’s youngest sister and my old buddy Cat.
After that, there was another long car ride that didn’t end until we reached what my mom calls the patriarchal farm which in the Upper Peninsula, AKA the end of the world. Once the car riding was over, I had fun there. Not only did I get to play with some new dogs, I met some interesting little kids, chased cows, and played in the snow.

FYI, there’s A LOT of snow in the Upper Peninsula.

Once we got home, life pretty much returned to normal. I played lots, slept lots, and whenever possible I helped my mom with barn chores.

We didn’t get much snow this year, but we made up for it by getting lots of rain. Do you know what happens on a farm when there’s lots of rain. You get mud. A ridiculous amount of mud. For the record, I hate the way mud feels when it squishes between my toes.

Now that it’s spring time, there’s more wildlife on the farm. A few weeks ago, my mom managed to get a picture of some deer that usually graze in the hayfields.
And, we have a new litter of baby foxes. I think they’re cute and would be lots of fun to play with but my mom, the partypooper, says absolutely no way.

That’s all for now!
Anya, The Farm Chiweenie

Straight From Anya: Walk/Write 5K Challenge

So, in addition to being a phenomenal, pint sized farm helper, I’m also responsible for supervising my mom while she writes. I got to admit, I’m not particularly crazy about the second part of my daily duties. Supervising the writing process … BORING!

Still, I do my best.

Needless to say, I rarely get excited whenever my mom has a writing thing planned, but this past weekend was different. This weekend the 10 Minute Novelist Group held their autumn Walk/Write 5K event. Basically in addition to writing 5K words, participants were also challenged to get off their duff and walk (or run) 5K. At last, a chiweenie friendly event.

Friday

The event kicked off on Friday. It was a little cool and a little overcast, but all in all, not a bad day for a walk. My mom and I headed to the local park where we spent about an hour and half rambling through the woods and taking pictures. Lots of pictures. The walk was pretty uneventful. We did hear a woodpecker and accidentally spooked a blue heron.

I did get into a little trouble when I tried to drag mom away from the lake, I REALLY don’t like water, but since she’s bigger than me, she had the last word and even made me lay still long enough to have my picture taken.

When all was said and done, we walked a little over 4 miles.

In addition to finishing up some freelance work, mom did pull out her manuscript, Shattered Glass, and picked at it a bit, but her word count for Friday was embarrassingly low. Still, even a few words is better than no words at all.

Saturday

My mom spent the bulk of the day outside or in the barn working on prepping stalls for the winter, which was just fine with me. The barn is loads more fun than her apartment. It did mean our walk started a little later than planned on. We took a different route, one I haven’t walked in a few months, and headed down to the local lakes. It was lots quieter than when I was last there, which is fine with me since I’m still not crazy about crowds, but I was disappointed to find that the little lakeside ice cream store was closed for the summer. I really like that place.

The sun and lake were gorgeous and it was a perfect evening to be out and about. We spooked another (or maybe even the same one) out of a tree, and spent some time watching the sea gulls and swans. My only complaint is that we got a lot closer to the water than I like. According to my mom, we’re going to work on my water phobia next summer. I’m pretty sure I don’t like the sound of that.

Anyway, we logged 4.1 miles on that walk AND fellow farm dog, Cougar got to tag along. This was great, partly because everything is better with a friend, and partly because Cougar gets in trouble more often than I do.

At the very end of the walk, we made a quick trip to the local Tractor Supply Company Store because it’s dog friendly and Cougar has never been there before. He was a little afraid of the automatic doors and was a little shaky the whole time we were there, but I bet that it won’t take many more visits before it’s his favorite place.

My mom’s word count for the day, 1282. I think she should have written more.

Sunday

Sunday was Sawdust Day in the barn. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but the end result was that the humans push a lot of huge wheelbarrows around, the stalls fill up with fresh sawdust, and my mom said she’d already walked more than enough steps (mind you, she failed to record the exact number) that we weren’t going for a walk later. Personally, I think this had more to do with the fact that she was way behind on her word count than anything else. Next year, I won’t let her get away with that and will insist that she hit the trails and bring me along.

Mom did spend the extra time writing. Her word count for the day was 3,431 words which bumped her total to 5,038. Not great, but enough to say she completed the challenge. Barely.