Injustice – it can display itself in many ways. Some we read about, some we witness, and that’s what I want to talk about today. The injustice that is weighing heavy on my heart is how some people treat their dogs…as was witnessed recently at the campground I took two of my granddaughters to for a vacation. Imagine you’ve woken from a nice afternoon nap, my granddaughters are in the cabin reading (new generation who prefer to rest inside)…anyhow, a new neighbor has arrived and backed the vehicle up to unload their belongings for their stay. I currently have my camp chair turned in their direction so I can stretch my previously injured (two years ago) knee out on the porch. Two ladies, oblivious to my watchful eye get out of the car. One gal takes the little hip hugging child and one about two, maybe three, to the cabin. The other gal opens the back hatch of the vehicle and within ten seconds slaps one of the dogs across his face…twice. This particular dog is a black lab, while the other is an older white longhaired breed of which I don’t know. She has both of them on a leash and pulls them out of the car, only to immediately yank on the leashes and smack the black one telling him to sit. Both of these dogs are not trying to leave, they are not rambunctious or in any way trying to escape, yet she yanks on the leashes regardless. When the black dog doesn’t sit, she first smacks him in the head and then kicks him in the stomach hard enough to cause him to yelp in pain. She gets him to sit at this point and within a few seconds yanks on both of the leashes as she attempts to unload items from the back of the vehicle and when this causes the black dog to get up, she immediately uses her foot to try and push his butt back down. At this point, I am on my feet making it clear, without having to say a word, that I am watching. She takes both dogs to the porch railing and hooks them up…no wiggle room there, barely enough leash to sit comfortably let alone lay down.
I was upset and went into the cabin and broke down. My granddaughters needed an explanation for my tears…and I cried more. You are probably thinking, why didn’t she just go over there and stop the abuser. Well, here is my reasoning – I’m here with two precious babies and if this woman turns out to be a nut case I could find a gun to my head or find us helplessly trapped in a burning cabin. Any scenario I can imagine does not give me warm and cozy feeling when I have the safety of two other lives in the balance. I thought about reporting them to the ranger service, but didn’t know what they would do, and again retaliation is foremost in my thoughts. So, when my husband called, I took my phone in the cabin and again broke down into tears telling him what happened. He suggested I go ahead with talking to the ranger and get a number I can call to report the incident. I did just that, doing my best not to shed tears in front of the ranger. He wasn’t happy about what I was telling him and assured me he would get a number I could call.
So, here I sit by my campfire, listening to one of the dogs (owners put them in the cabin before leaving for somewhere) bark, whine, and cry…possibly for dinner. I hope the ranger helps me out. If not, when I get back home I will file a report with someone. I obtained their vehicle plate number and with the cabin/campsite information; hopefully, they will figure out who it is that is guilty of this crime. Once I know my granddaughters are safe, then I won’t be afraid to do the right thing.
It hurts me so bad to see people abuse a child or pet that trusts them to care for them. Whether a parent, owner or whoever is in control of caring for another should be held accountable for their actions. The famous saying of “do unto others as you would have others do unto them”…so be it. There is so much ugly stuff in the media…be it candidate bashing, shootings, murder, and rape, bombings and the like, we should all realize that love goes a long way to fixing this world…and it starts at home.
Injustice – it can display itself in many ways. Some we read about, some we witness, and that’s what I want to talk about today. The injustice that is weighing heavy on my heart is how some people treat their dogs…as was witnessed recently at the campground I took two of my granddaughters to for a vacation. Imagine you’ve woken from a nice afternoon nap, my granddaughters are in the cabin reading (new generation who prefer to rest inside)…anyhow, a new neighbor has arrived and backed the vehicle up to unload their belongings for their stay. I currently have my camp chair turned in their direction so I can stretch my previously injured (two years ago) knee out on the porch. Two ladies, oblivious to my watchful eye get out of the car. One gal takes the little hip hugging child and one about two, maybe three, to the cabin. The other gal opens the back hatch of the vehicle and within ten seconds slaps one of the dogs across his face…twice. This particular dog is a black lab, while the other is an older white longhaired breed of which I don’t know. She has both of them on a leash and pulls them out of the car, only to immediately yank on the leashes and smack the black one telling him to sit. Both of these dogs are not trying to leave, they are not rambunctious or in any way trying to escape, yet she yanks on the leashes regardless. When the black dog doesn’t sit, she first smacks him in the head and then kicks him in the stomach hard enough to cause him to yelp in pain. She gets him to sit at this point and within a few seconds yanks on both of the leashes as she attempts to unload items from the back of the vehicle and when this causes the black dog to get up, she immediately uses her foot to try and push his butt back down. At this point, I am on my feet making it clear, without having to say a word, that I am watching. She takes both dogs to the porch railing and hooks them up…no wiggle room there, barely enough leash to sit comfortably let alone lay down.
I was upset and went into the cabin and broke down. My granddaughters needed an explanation for my tears…and I cried more. You are probably thinking, why didn’t she just go over there and stop the abuser. Well, here is my reasoning – I’m here with two precious babies and if this woman turns out to be a nut case I could find a gun to my head or find us helplessly trapped in a burning cabin. Any scenario I can imagine does not give me warm and cozy feeling when I have the safety of two other lives in the balance. I thought about reporting them to the ranger service, but didn’t know what they would do, and again retaliation is foremost in my thoughts. So, when my husband called, I took my phone in the cabin and again broke down into tears telling him what happened. He suggested I go ahead with talking to the ranger and get a number I can call to report the incident. I did just that, doing my best not to shed tears in front of the ranger. He wasn’t happy about what I was telling him and assured me he would get a number I could call.
So, here I sit by my campfire, listening to one of the dogs (owners put them in the cabin before leaving for somewhere) bark, whine, and cry…possibly for dinner. I hope the ranger helps me out. If not, when I get back home I will file a report with someone. I obtained their vehicle plate number and with the cabin/campsite information; hopefully, they will figure out who it is that is guilty of this crime. Once I know my granddaughters are safe, then I won’t be afraid to do the right thing.
It hurts me so bad to see people abuse a child or pet that trusts them to care for them. Whether a parent, owner or whoever is in control of caring for another should be held accountable for their actions. The famous saying of “do unto others as you would have others do unto them”…so be it. There is so much ugly stuff in the media…be it candidate bashing, shootings, murder, and rape, bombings and the like, we should all realize that love goes a long way to fixing this world…and it starts at home.
Hello, to all my Indie Author friends, and anyone looking to publish their work. I thought I would share my copyright experience with you. Maybe you already know this, and I’m the last to get on board after publishing three books, but this is my experience and I hope it helps.
When you apply for a copyright, and you choose “unpublished” and upload your manuscript – you will get a certificate. If you choose “published” – you are required to send in two published copies of your work, with me so far? Both are copyrighted, so, what is the different?
– If you choose to copyright as “unpublished” and someone plagiarizes your work, you take them to court and win, your attorney fees are your responsibility.
– If you choose to copyright as “published” and someone plagiarizes your work, you take them to court and win, the guilty party is responsible for your attorney fees.
– You can copyright both ways, but you will have to pay twice. Unless you copyright the unpublished work, but change your mind, and want to copyright the published work, and they (copyright office) have not completed your application they will allow you one change without payment…so don’t waste too much time deciding, or it could cost you.
So, there you have it. Either copyright will hold up in a court of law, but to protect your pocketbook a bit, you might want to be sure and copyright your published work. Plagiarizing is a real threat to anyone who strings words together to create a piece of art. As starving (at least some of us) artists, it’s important to protect what we have created and make these thieves pay for any wrongdoing.
Until next time…happy reading, happy writing, happy life…
So, I’m back home after two plus months of traveling, and was it ever busy. I’ll give you a rundown, but it’s the special moments I really want to share.
Buckle your seatbelt, here we go…I flew into Colorado on April 29th and was picked up by my husband, Dan, who had driven there two weeks earlier. We spent a couple of days with my stepdaughter and family. Next stop was Shawano, Wisconsin for one night with more family, the Murdock’s (not blood-related, but we love them as if they were), then to Gladstone, Michigan for three nights with my sister-in-law, Bev, and her husband, Steve. Next stop was Newaygo, Michigan, where we stayed one night with Jack, a dear old family friend. Then headed to Brunswick, Ohio for my stepdaughter, Jessica’s, college graduation, which you can read about in my blogged posted 5/19/16, titled From Tragedy to Triumph. After a week we headed back to Escanaba, Michigan. However, while in Ohio I picked up a virus, and with a temp of 101.5 I slept for over ten hours straight while Dan drove us to Escanaba. I think he was silently rejoicing that he had many hours of quiet after a busy week of visiting…lol. When we got to Escanaba, he visited with his brother, Joe, and sister, Bev. Since it was only one night we camped at Walmart before heading back to Shawano, Wisconsin. We spent a week in Shawano, then back to Escanaba for a week, back to Shawano a week, back to Escanaba for a week, then Shawano for a week, and then wrapped up our trip back in Colorado……whew, are you tired yet? After three days in Milliken, Colorado, I was back on a plane heading home. But with all that driving, packing, and unpacking, hugs and laughs, some highlights shine in my mind.
During our time in Michigan (back and forth), there were the nights of laughing over card games with my sister-in-law, Bev, and her husband, Steve. If you’ve never played “Buffoon” or “Sevens” you should give them a go…so much fun. We parked and set up our pop-up camper on our property that sits on the Escanaba River since we’d be back and forth over the next few months. We had great visits with Dan’s cousins Tim and Tom Arbour, along with a couple of their boys, who came up to stay on their river property for Memorial weekend. Then enjoyed a big family BBQ at Bev and Steve’s for the holiday. Back on the property, Dan and I staked out where our future cabin will go…not an easy thing to do. There were time I simply watched Dan and his brother, Joe, interact over what to do and not do for the building process. More than once we had a deer watching Dan drawknife logs on our property…literally twenty feet away. We went with Bev and Steve up to Munice, Michigan for the best pasties ever at Muldoon’s Pasties & Gifts, took a stroll on the beach of Lake Superior where there are balls of weeds (I guess) scattered about the beach. They look like balls of yarn…amazing what Mother Nature creates for us to enjoy. We ended the day stopping at a couple of water falls…amazing. There was one day Dan and I drove to Crystal Falls, Michigan where they have a Catholic church built in 1890…a thing of beauty still. At lunch we ate at Barb’s Café in Florence, Wisconsin on our way back to the property…such good food.
While in Wisconsin, we drove to Appleton to meet Dan’s cousins, Geri Petersen, Geralyn Budde, and her husband, Dan. Visiting through memory lane filled with lots of laughs, along with a few tears over lost lives. Another stop in Appleton, for a visit with Dan’s oldest sister, Maryanne, and her husband, John. Back in Shawano, my Murdock family took us to the Sun Drop Museum. This soda pop is only distributed in Wisconsin. If you ever get to Shawano, Wisconsin, stop for a visit, it’s free and worth the time. They even have a flavor tasting room…so many different ones…loved it. I watched Jen Murdock’s three girls play their last soccer games of the season (only one child, Jordon, got a bad bonk on the head). Two of her daughters played against each other while the youngest played in the field next door…it was so much fun going from one game to the other. There was the Flea Market to visit filled with amazing antiques and goodies. Not to mention the huge Green Bay Farmer’s Market where Dan’s cousin, Tom Arbour, had a booth for his Chiropractic practice. Another day I watched silage mounding for cattle feed…that’s quite a process. We watched goose banding where they corral the geese into a large pen. Each goose is checked for sex and age (mature/immature) and banded accordingly…it’s quite a process too. There was the trip to the strawberry fields where we drove through a town called Embarrass…had to get a shot of that town sign. 
There was the morning I went off by myself to Main Street in Shawano and spent a couple of hours visiting with the owner, Cindy Van Belkon, of Anew Tea Emporium. If you ever get a chance, please stop by…she is awesome, and so is her store. It’s not just teas; she has wine, olive oils, balsamic vinegar and more. Then there were the times spent watching Trevor and Jen’s house building project (the main reason for us being in Shawano).
Of course, what would a traveling vacation be without mishaps…we had another trailer tire blow…which, mind you, is so powerful that it rips the fender right off and sends it sailing down the road…scaring the you-know-what out of me. We took two wrong turns heading back to Colorado from Wisconsin. Who manages those highway signs anyhow (insert frustrated face here). But I’ve saved the best for last, so here it is…the morning we were going goose banding, I felt something in my rubber boot. Mind you we had to get up at 4:30 am for this experience, so I wasn’t quite awake. Anyhow, I put my hand in my boot and yelped as my fingers came in contact with something quite swishy and mushy…YUCK!!! Once I recovered, I was able to pound my boot enough to have a tree frog pop out. Yes, that is the little guy there in the photo. 
He usually is around the outdoor shower we use while staying at Todd Murdock’s…yes, an outdoor shower where you not only enjoy the fresh air while you suds up, but you get to look over acres of beautiful land. Well, I hope you enjoyed my journey; it was a very adventurous time. I’ll post other photos on Facebook as time allows.
So, until my next blog, check your boots my friends…you never know what might be lurking there.
That’s me…sixty-six and sassy. As another year came to an end, whether I liked it or not, my mind seemed to go into memory overload. I found my somewhat sleepless nights leading up to my birthday filled with memories. I was forced to reflect on my life. Some memories good, some great…and, of course, some not so great. No matter what memory was flooding in at the time, I tried to focus on the positive areas of my life. Bringing beautiful children into the world has been my greatest joy, my hardest job, and the most rewarding for sure. I look at their faces and know the world is truly better because they are in it. I have loved a few men in my days…two of which fathered my children, and though love was lost I look at what I gained, my babies. The husband I share my life with now has been the one to teach me what marriage is all about…the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the good, bad, and indifferent. If I had only know younger in life what I know now…but then I wouldn’t be where I am today, and that I cannot imagine.
It’s hard to push away the memories of bad choices I’ve made, but I try to learn from them. Because without mistakes, mishaps, or whatever you call them, I wouldn’t have the strength to try and do it better next time. Life is all about learning…and I continue to learn daily. It doesn’t matter how small or how important what I learn each day is…it’s about learning. I try to share my “old age” knowledge whenever possible. I figure someone, besides me, should gain from my mistakes. Whether they take that advice to heart, or not, is up to them.
So for all the joys, all the fun, and all the tears shared with those I love, here’s to another year passed and a new year to explore what life has to offer.