"Maybe I can Learn..." by Cathy Shouse

When people talk about gardening, I have a feeling of envy. It seems I’ve nurtured my brown thumb my whole life. To be fair, working with the soil never held any positive impression for me from the beginning. I grew up on a small farm and my mom had a large garden. My main memory of being in it is standing there with a hoe when I was in elementary school, hitting the metal hoe blade against the rock-hard soil to keep the weeds out from between the plants. I’m not sure if it never rained in my childhood but the ground always seemed hard.

My paternal grandmother had a passion for plants, especially African violets. She had them everywhere, on racks with multiple shelves in front of her windows. On window sills. On her coffee tables. And they multiplied. All it took was one leaf plucked from an existing flower and placed into a small dish for her to start another violet, and she always had a leaf—or five-- starting to grow.

When I got my first apartment, which was in another city, she gave me violets, more than one, she had so many. She planted them in those small plastic butter tubs. They held on for a while. I did what she instructed as far as watering them. They came with pretty purple flowers but, before long, the leaves would be brown and it was downhill from there. I guess I just didn’t have a knack for it. When I would go home, I might bring one I had about given up for dead. She could nurse that thing back to health. She encouraged me, always giving me more violets to try. Eventually, I must have told her I would simply like to enjoy them at her house. I had given up. But, I had a good life, and it wasn’t the end of the world. I always enjoyed seeing hers, and my relationship with her was my favorite thing about discussing her plants.

I didn’t really think about my “relationship” with plants until my daughter was in the third grade. I had volunteered regularly and read to her class. At the end of the year, the teacher gave me a gift. It was a plant. In the hallway of the school, as we were walking out after the last class, my daughter looked at me without any intention to be mean and said, “She doesn’t know you very well, does she?” She had spoken the truth.

Year after year, I would hear people excited about what they were growing, though. I have aunts and cousins in the local garden club. Secretly, I felt I was missing out on something.

Fast forward to a few years ago, when I saw a poster at my library for a class that would be taught by a Master Gardener and attendees would go home with seeds they had planted. I thought, “Maybe I can learn.” The informal approach might not work for me but getting educated by an expert seemed to hold potential. I went to the talk, which I enjoyed very much, and felt as though I was part of something bigger. I was joining a club I had never quite belonged in and was excited. We went to different stations and were give the correct types of soil, and pebbles to put in the bottom of little pots, and told how to keep the seeds warm so they would sprout.

I brought mine home and used an oblong piano light to keep my pot warm. I watered as I was told. When my piano light’s bulb went out, I invested in another one. (This wasn’t cheap). I kept the lightweight plastic pot on the dresser in my bedroom, which was crowded a bit by the TV on it. After weeks of this, looking for that sprout that didn’t appear, I went in and the pot was on the floor, the dirt spilled out onto the carpet. It had accidentally been knocked off, not even realizing. I knelt down to put the dirt back in. There was absolutely nothing growing and I sifted through it all. My seed had apparently not grown and gone back to dust? I wasn’t exactly upset, but mystified. I might have even seen the humor in it.

In 2019 during the pandemic, I learned that a friend from years ago was married to a man who grows vegetables from seeds and sells the plants. I love tomatoes. I love her. It had been too much isolation. My daughter and I would visit her an hour away and I would have plants that were specially tended. What could go wrong? I bought some tomato plants (a plant of kale and pesto too.) Lo and behold, the tomato plants grew! To be fair, it was my husband who watered them daily. I had a tendency to forget. (Maybe this was the problem all along?) They produced wonderful, healthy tomatoes. At the peak time, I made instapot salsa from scratch, there were so many, some of them very large, weighing more than a pound!

In 2021, I bought tomato plants from my friend’s husband, and the result was pretty meh, (as my daughter, who was in college by then, might say). Bursting with confidence, I had changed strategies, putting the plants near the house so they would stand straighter. But there must have been too much shade, and the plants grew quite large, but didn’t produce many tomatoes.

This year in 2022 will be my third season of growing tomatoes. I got a late start and ended up having to buy plants from Costco. I know it’s a long shot, given my history. But I have high hopes! And my husband is watering them faithfully every morning. 

How do you feel about gardening and/or planting flowers? I’d love to know your experience. Just hearing from other gardeners makes me feel as though I’m in the club.

~*~

Cathy Shouse writes inspirational cowboy romances. Her Fair Creek series, set in Indiana, features the four Galloway Sons of Galloway Farm. Much like the characters in her stories, Cathy once lived on a farm in "small town" Indiana where she first fell in love with cowboys while visiting the rodeo every summer. Please visit cathyshouse.com for more information on discounts and new releases and to receive a free copy of the prequel, Her Billionaire Cowboy's Twin Heirs: Christmas in Fair Creek, in exchange for signing up for her newsletter.

A Fair Creek Romance

They were best friends in high school just beginning to date when he abruptly left. Now Wyatt Galloway is home to help on the farm and raise his toddler son, since his wife died in childbirth.

The last person Wyatt wants to see after sixteen years is Sierra Delaney. He hurt her once and never wants to again. But Sierra has returned home to save Delaney’s diner, which she inherited. She’s catering at the farm when she unexpectedly meets up with Wyatt.

In addition to struggling to keep the diner, Sierra faces a recent health issue that makes everyday life more challenging, and has her questioning her purpose. When Wyatt shares his reasons for leaving, and she sees a little boy in need of a mother, her attitude softens. Besides, he's also helping her to accept and even embrace her new normal.

As Wyatt and Sierra lean on each other and look toward the future, can they find their way back to one another?

PRE-ORDER NOW FOR 99 CENTS

Together in Spirit by Cathy Shouse

Cathy and Liz Isaacson

I definitely am a reader as well as a writer. When I created my debut short novel, I intentionally chose to put in what I love in a story. Cowboys. Babies. Diners. Christmas. 

In November, I went to a writers’ conference in Las Vegas. Liz Isaacson, one of my favorite authors, challenged us to publish a book by Christmas. She said lots of readers get gift money at Christmas and they buy books.

 I didn’t really have any book ready. In fact, I had been writing for years but had never published a novel. But a seed was planted. I decided to revise an unfinished cowboy novella. And why not turn it into a Christmas romance?  

It sounded simple enough.  

It turned out the manuscript was full of highlighted passages in different colors, all comments made by my mentor in 2018 when I’d started writing the story. I thought I’d deleted them after I read them. Sadly, my mentor had died unexpectedly in late 2019, and reading her words was bittersweet.

So I began to revise, following her advice, and it felt like she was cheering me on. She’d written “Good,” and “This is a very nice section,” and “cut this.” 

During one late night session, I reached this comment: “Cathy, hang on to this moment a little longer,

Cathy's mentor

with the right emotion, it could be pivotal.” I let that sink in and kept going, inspired by what she was telling me. I was still at the computer when the sun filtered in through the windows. After catching a few winks, I hadn’t been up long when there was a knock on the front door. This was weird. It turned out to be my mail person and she handed me a box addressed to me. 

My late mentor’s niece had sent a photo of her aunt, mounted on a heart- shaped piece of wood that read, “Friends are always together in spirit.”  

I finished the short book and hired an editor to go through it with me to help polish and make it better. I had a friend who had designed a cover and she agreed to add Christmas touches. On Christmas Eve, I published Her Billionaire Cowboy’s Twin Heirs: Christmas in Fair Creek.

If you’d like to read the book, or if you know someone who might enjoy it, I’m offering it for free over the next week or so. There’s a website that offers all books for free and mine will be on there for three days starting July 8th. The link is here https://hellobooks.com/  It’s currently free at all online bookstores.

What are some of your favorite things to read about in books? I’d love to know. I also really enjoy knowing what people are tired of reading about! ☺

All she’s ever wanted was another baby and he’s got two that landed unexpectedly in his life. He’s wounded by a bad break-up with someone only interested in his money.

Single Mom Annie York and eight-year-old Chloe live above the diner, where she works for her cousin. She’s given up on finding love and is hiding a secret. She’s a subpar housekeeper, in the extreme. When Annie has a surprise reunion with Caleb Galloway from high school, they must join forces to care for his sister’s twin babies.

He’s a guy with everything in its place. She has no idea where anything is. But seeing Annie with his niece and nephew has him wondering whether he belongs right next to her.

Excerpt:

Annie held her breath, turned the knob to let them in, and swung the door open. “Ta-da,” was all she could think to say.

Caleb’s eyes widened. His jaw dropped. She’d seen that reaction before and it was the reason she didn’t have people over. He appeared to arrange his face into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Maybe a dump truck to go along with that shovel?”

She let out a shaky breath. Two bowls with dribbles of milk and the cereal box sat on the large kitchen table, among papers strewn all over its surface. Chloe’s pajama bottoms were on the back of one chair and Annie’s T-shirt and jeans from last night’s practice were draped on the sofa.

Annie sprinted in, grabbed her sports bra that was snagged over a lampshade, and tucked it under a sofa seat cushion. More discarded clothes covered her one upholstered, yard-sale chair.

“To be honest, I used to kind of beat myself up about this…I mean, sure, I really wish things were neater right now. Who wouldn’t? But part of me sees some advantages to being impulsive. Spontaneity is good sometimes. She looked at Drew and then Ella, who wouldn’t be here with two adults caring for them if Annie hadn’t acted on impulse. “So I’ve gotta take the good with the bad. And sometimes I can’t tell the difference myself. I’ve accepted that I’d rather be flexible and messy than rigid and neat.”

She did a one-arm sweep with the papers layering the table, sliding them into a nearby chair. Then she gestured for Caleb to set the babies in their car seats down on the cleared table.

“So that’s what people mean by ‘there’s a fine line between a weakness and a strength,’ huh?” he asked

He had listened to her, really heard her. There was something really attractive about a man who paid attention.

“That’s exactly my point.” She was talking too much but couldn’t stop, like her life depended on him understanding.

~*~

Cathy Shouse writes inspirational cowboy romances. Her Fair Creek series, set in Indiana, features the Galloway brothers of Galloway Farms. Much like the characters in her stories, Cathy once lived on a farm in “small town” Indiana, where she first fell in love with cowboys while visiting the rodeo every summer. Please visit cathyshouse.com for more information on discounts and new releases or to sign up for her newsletter.