The blog on this page is about me as a writer, insights I may glean about the process, observations on the writing life and news of my books.  Today, I’m going off message and I’ll talk about my “real” life.

One of my annual endeavours is to exhibit at the Saanich Fall Fair.  I love this fair.  It takes me back to my farm roots.  I hang out in the cattle area and test my judging skills against the professionals.  I walk around the horse barns, patting those enormous beauties until I smell like a horse.  I giggle at the exotic assortment of hens and roosters.  Do you know there is a hen that lays blue eggs?  And I marvel at the magnificent display of dahlias and giant mums and the heaviest apple and the longest bean and the weirdest carrot.

I also enter.  It began small.  Just a sweater or a scarf.  Then I noticed the rose display was no better than the ones blooming outside my window.  So I entered a rose or two.  I won.  I was lost.  I now spend weeks fretting about the rose bushes, pruning, coaxing, watering, breathing on them — all in attempt to have the blooms at perfection on the day of the fair.  Alas, the weather rarely cooperates.  For two years running, we’ve had a heat spell in mid-August that brought all the blooms into full flower — ahead of the fair.  The buds that were left, the ones I counted on to open to exhibit standards, remained closed up tight and stubborn, when the heat gave way to cold and rain, seven days before the Fair opened.  More fretting.  More anxious blowing on a rose bush.  All to no avail.  Mother Nature will ripen a rose in her own time and nothing I can do will change that.   Yet, despite having fewer roses to exhibit than I had planned, I took what was passable to the Fair, — and I won a best in show!

I’m thrilled — which it really silly, because what did I do, really?  I fretted.  I turned on the water.  I cut and trimmed the blooms and washed the mildew from the leaves.  The rose bush, God, the sun, the earth — they did the real work in growing a prize-winning blossom.  Yet, I get the ribbon and the praise.   Duh!

I met some friends who exhibited jams and jellies and sweaters and cross-stitch and marigolds and tomatoes.  In true farmer style we looked at the results of this year and immediately laid plans for next.  A sign of hope or a symptom of insanity?  On the other hand, isn’t that what writers do too?  We work hard on a project, we send it out, we watch the results, and we make plans for the next one.  Are we hopeful or insane?

My answer changes from day to day, but for now, I’m going to admire my ribbons and bask in the glow of success.

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