Watching my grandson run around here this week in shorts and Bogs(waterproof boots) reminded me of helping my parents and grandfather change irrigation pipes when I was a child.
We had two hundred acres and half of it was in hay and grain. This was back before all the automated irrigation equipment. My brothers and I were taught at an early age to help and would ride to the field then trudge along with the adults either to stand as buoys in the tall wheat or oats so the adults could find the end of the pipes or to help one child on each end of the pipe moving them.
Because it was summer and warm, I would inevitably want to wear shorts with my tennis shoes(we weren't fortunate in the finances for kids to have rubber boots) In fact, Mom even wore tennis shoes, only Dad and Grandpa had rubber boots. But I would wear shorts and then complain about the mosquitoes biting me.
I'm not sure which is most vivid in my mind helping my mom unlatch and latch pipes or the itchy, lumps that stayed with me throughout a summer. What I know did stay with me is the work ethic instilled in me as a child. We depended on the crops off the fields and it was up to us to make it grow and harvest it.
That's how I feel about my writing and books. The stories in my head won't get written if I don't sit down in a chair and write. And no matter how many other things tempt and pester me, I'll still put the words on the page. Because after publishing one book and picking up readers, I now have them depending on me to give them two books a year and that's what keeps my work ethic in place.
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