author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

My session at the farm today was relatively short, and it was all about sunflowers: removing the protective layers of agricultural cloth from each freshly cut seed head and assessing the seeds therein for maturity. (These sunflowers were being grown for planting-seed, not eating-seed. By the end of the session, my thoughts about sunflowers had fallen into orbit around two basic themes:

1. Sunflowers are huge. I mean, I knew they were big, but it's not often I get to hold one up and compare it to the size of my head.

2. I'm not entirely sure how commercial growers manage to have a crop. I mean, most of these seed heads were picked bare. The agricultural cloth that was supposed to protect them was pecked right through in multiple places. I suppose commercial growers must either grow their sunflowers in a covered space, to keep it bird-free, or maybe they spray everything with magic bird repellent. Or maybe they are eternally vigilant sharp-shooters, I don't know.

So that's the field notes portion of the post.

In the writing world, I appear to have acquired followers on Wattpad whom I don't actually know from my existing writing community circles. They don't appear to have actually read the Friday Fictionettes I post there, if the statistics on each work are to be trusted--but that's OK. I came into this knowing that Wattpad, for the most part, is not about posting teaser excerpts in hopes of attracting readers willing to chuck a buck at my Patreon. The community, by and large, is said to be excerpt adverse. So I totally understand. Read or don't read; totally up to you. No harm, no foul. I'm happy to see the "Followers" count go up for just about any reason. So: hooray for people following me who don't already know me!

However, I can tell you without hesitation what one of those reasons not covered by "just about any reason" is: Apparently, one of these potential future friends who began following me, who clearly hoped I'd reciprocate by following them back and reading their stuff and loving it enough to vote on it... is a plagiarist. No, seriously, I went to read their most recent work, and it was an in-their-own-words retelling of the first chapter of Maggie Stiefvater's YA werewolf novel Shiver. Have you read it? I'll understand if you haven't--in my conversational circles, the novel rather suffers from looking like trying to ride the Twilight popularity wave. Also, in the first few chapters, there are some real factual howlers. That said, it didn't strike me as badly written, and I was actually kind of intrigued by the idea of lycanthropes for whom temperature is a factor.

Anyway, you can read the first two scenes for free. It'll take you all of two minutes. Done? OK. Now, realize that this Wattpad user of whom I speak essentially retold those two scenes in her own words, gave the two characters the same names, and even included the detail that the girl was on a swing in her backyard when the wolves dragged her away. And, look, it's a popular book--it's not like the user ought to have had any illusion that they'd get away with it. *facepalm*

I'm not naming the Wattpad user, mainly because I've already used appropriate channels to report them to Wattpad HQ. (I have also shown my displeasure to them personally by leaving a comment, un-following them, and "muting" them.) And even if Wattpad HQ takes no action, I don't see it as my job to lead an anti-plagiarism campaign against them. I expect they aren't the only Wattpad user trying to get unearned praise (and votes) by plagiarizing popular fiction.

However, they are the first plagiarist I know of to have specifically followed me in hopes I'd follow them back. So I thought I'd just take a blog-style snapshot of the occasion for posterity.

Awww! Baby's first plagiarism experience on Wattpad! How sweet!

Today was all about potatoes. I love harvesting potatoes. You dig in the dirt, and you pull up treasure. Well, first you need someone on shovel duty, to stick a shovel under each potato plant and lift it up, hopefully without slicing a potato open. (The farm worker on shovel duty today seemed to be having a splendid time.) But then you get to scrabble about by hand, and I think that's the fun part. It's especially satisfying when you think you've gotten 'em all, but you scrabble around with your digging stick (you do have a digging stick, right?) just to make sure, and up pops another big beauty.

If I remember correctly, we pulled up six different varieties of potato today, in three different colors: Red Dale, Red Pontiac, Chieftain; Cal White, King Harry; and Purple Viking.

Last year I had a potato plant that I started early in the season. I basically just stuck an old, sprouting potato under the ground to see if it would grow. Then I forgot about it until late in the fall when I started turning the soil in the big containers in order to work in some compost, and my spade sliced right into a Yukon Gold. Buried treasure! Agricultural alchemy! One rotting potato goes in, an armful of gorgeous new potatoes comes out! Instant transmutation: just add water. And soil. And time. (OK, well, not exactly instant.)

The potatoes took up most of the morning. When we were done, the harvest weighed in at about 400 pounds (or so I overheard), and we still had another half hour or so to go before lunch was ready. So we also harvested calendula. It smells nice, it has a pleasing bright orange color, it's good for burns and other skin ailments, and its stem is sticky as a honey comb on a pine tree coated in molasses and rolled in tar. We weren't a quarter of the way done before I was obliged to throw each blossom into the bucket with force--I couldn't just drop them anymore, because they stuck to my fingers. I had to wash my hands four or five times before they were fit for dining with.

And then I came home and did All Of The Things. Oh, so many things got done. Yay! A successful Monday!

I hope your week is off to an equally cheerful start. (If not, try adding potatoes. It can't hurt.)

The fall harvest season brings with it a series of exceedingly homogenous Farm Mondays. At other times during the year, my Monday morning shift might consist of several tasks, a miscellany of Things What Need To Get Done. Culling seedlings, filling seedling trays with potting soil, weeding the berm, watering the potted trees, whatever. I'm an extra pair of hands. I'm handy when the high priority items prevent the core staff from getting to the items of slightly less high priority. But during the fall, my whole shift tends to be taken up with that day's great big harvest task.

Three weeks ago, it was beets. Last week, it was peppers. Today, it was tomatoes.

Tomatoes for seed: identify the plants whose fruit consistently demonstrates the desired traits; collect only from those plants, and only those fruit that best demonstrate those traits. Tomatoes for food: gather everything that's neither rotten nor green, pretty much. Tomatoes for snacking on while en route to the next tomato: I fully except my mouth to break out in sores tomorrow from the overdose of ascorbic acid.

The tomato plants grow in round tomato cages. Their branches bust out all over. To get to all the tomatoes, you have to dig and tunnel your way through the foliage. Your arms turn green and yellow from the juices in leaf and stem. And sometimes the tomatoes--especially the cherry varieties--especially the Washington Cherry reds--are so ripe and ready to go that the moment you touch them, let alone jostle the foliage in order to reveal and reach them, they fall right off the stem. It's like playing some weird arboreal version of KerPlunk.

So that was my Farm Monday.

After that came a roller derby shopping pilgrimage. I'd heard good things about Skate Ratz, so when John decided that learning how to skate would be part of learning how to coach, I suggested we check them out. That's how we came to spend most of the afternoon and evening in Loveland getting John equipped for derby. Not only that, but it turns out that Skate Ratz keeps on hand a sample Bont boot in every size from 3 to Something Huge, expressly for fitting. They also had an Antik boot in my size so I could make an informed choice between those brands.

So I have finally ordered the Bont Hybrid in leather, color black, size 3.5. This will replace my current pair of Riedell R3s, which are two and a half years old, and one of which, for a couple of months now, has only been holding heel and sole together by an army of denim strips (cut from old jeans) and veritable gobs of Loctite Flexible Adhesive.

We celebrated our life-changing purchases over dinner at the Pourhouse, which is the best house.

And that was my Monday.

So you know that moment when you're out in the field picking relleno-type chili peppers, and you go to pick a great big red one--huge, like two inches wide at the shoulder and a foot long from stem to tip--and you ready your clippers, and you grab that sucker, and it turns out that the dang thing is rotten, and one of your fingers just sinks right through the skin into the putrid soup inside? And then the whole thing disintegrates and drips all over your hand and your pants and your shoes? And it stinks to high heaven, and you realize you just aren't hungry anymore?

You know that moment?

Well, honestly, for your sake, I hope the answer is "no."

I now know that moment. And there is no unknowing it.

On the bright side, we picked upwards of 300 pounds of huge, ripe, red chilis this morning, and they weren't rotten. And my appetite returned in time to sample one. It was delicious.

It had been three weeks since I'd been to the farm, thanks to being sick two weeks ago and being given the day off last week. And I probably won't make it in next week due to a late Sunday night in Colorado Springs. Circumstances today seemed intent on making up for all of that absence, though, because today was the start of the Big Beet Harvest of '14. Four beds full, with one still in the ground when I left. Three different varieties: Red Ace, Touchstone Gold, and Chioggia with the candy stripes inside. Pulling 'em and clipping off their greens and washing 'em and sorting 'em by size. Baskets and baskets of beeeeeeeets.

Also beets for lunch, and a jar of farm-pickled tarragon beets for everyone to taste, and a bag of beets for me to take home and enjoy.

Personal notes for next time: When clipping the greens off, don't struggle so hard with the snips. That way lies frustration and also very sore hands. Ow. We had vague plans to do some painting around the house today, but working a paintbrush seemed a little daunting after working the beet set. So that's been put off for tomorrow.

And that's all that I've got to report today.

Today is my podcast debut! A few months ago, Tina Connolly bought my flash piece "Other Theories of Relativity" for her podcast Toasted Cake. This week, the podcast episode featuring that story is live. Because it was very short, she paired it with something else that is very short: "Mon pays c'est l'hiver," by Amal El-Mohtar. The two stories go together very well, I think; the main character of one is reevaluating what it means to be family, and the main character of the other is reevaluating what it means to return home. Tina reads both stories very beautifully. No surprises there; Tina always reads beautifully. I've been listening to episodes of her podcast on my drive to roller derby practice, and I've thoroughly enjoyed both her selection and her narration. (Her reading of Paul Hamilton's "Corkscrew" got under my skin and will stay there for a very long time.)

That was the bright spot in my day. The not-so-bright spot was waking up to confirmation that I had indeed caught the crud my husband brought back from Gen Con. I suppose I wasn't so bad off that I couldn't have been a functional member of the Monday farm crew, but, firstly, it's hard to deal with a runny nose when your hands are full of dirt, and secondly, if I've got a cold, should I really be handling other people's produce? "I'm staying home and keeping my germs to myself," I texted to Steph, the volunteer coordinator. "Much appreciated," she responded. "Feel better soon!"

And so I did. John came home in the afternoon with a new box of 12-hour pseudoephedrine. Shortly after that I felt functional enough to go out into the wild and return with take-out from Spice China. Better living through chemistry! Not everything my husband brings home is bad. (He also brought home all the booze remaining from his traditional Gen Con scotch and whiskey tasting. I just sipped my way through a shot of the Balvenie Single-Malt 14-Year Caribbean Cask.)

"Are you still going to roller derby practice tomorrow? Do you think that's wise?" he asked me.

"I have to. It's bout week."

"Then you should wear a face mask. I'll paint a fleur-de-lis on it for you!"

All right. I'll wear a mask. And I'll bring my hand-sanitizer, and reapply frequently. I need my practice, but I don't need to get my Bombshells sick. As things stand, I'm fortunate to have come down with this cold early enough in the week that it should be done and gone by bout day. I don't need to pass it on to someone else such that they'll be still feeling the effects into the weekend.

Tomorrow, in addition to roller derby practice and the usual Tuesday writing schedule, there will be--if all goes well and no unexpected delays are encountered--the project completion walk-through at our home. And if that happens, we'll get to check out of the hotel Wednesday morning and move back home. Keep your fingers crossed.

It did not take me until 5 AM to get "Snowflakes" ready for submission Friday night/Saturday morning. (Thank goodness.) It only took me until 2 AM. I continue to ask myself, why do I do this to myself? But that's not the important question. The important question is, which of my many remaining unfinished short stories shall I work on this week?

For the answer, tune in tomorrow!

September inches closer. Today and yesterday, my very brief task toward launching the Friday Fictionettes project (oooh! It has a name now!) was to choose the story-like objects which will provide the raw material for the first two Patron-locked offerings of September. Meanwhile, the first freebie is ready to go. My intent is to do everything a month in advance. That way I have a huge margin of error before I fall behind my promised schedule.

If I can get this month-in-advance process down cold, that'll be a huge step toward "implementing important changes in my time management strategy which lead to a much healthier relationship with writing and with deadlines."

Meanwhile, waking up in a hotel in Louisville meant a half hour drive to the farm this morning rather than the fifteen minutes it usually takes from home. Only it was longer than that, because I had to stop by home anyway and pick up necessary things. Watered the plants, too. And our home was at that time in stasis between stages of repair, the abatement procedure done and the restoration not yet begun. Most of the large furniture was shoved, stacked, and stowed in a sort of cube formation roughly in the kitchen and dining area. To get at the kitchen sink, I had to sidestep an upended sofa, step on the edge of the coffee table, and step over the back of the futon, sometimes with a full watering can in tow. To get into the refrigerator, I had to shove aside a bookshelf that was standing right up against the fridge door. To get a shirt out of the bedroom closet, I had to wedge myself behind a trio of bed components, all leaning upright against where the door would be if that closet still had a door. In any case, that's the state the house was in at 6:45 this morning. Given that the restorations began at around 9 and I haven't been back since, I have no idea what configuration the furniture is in now.

By comparison, the farm was very simple. Rake up loose beet leaves, hoe the beds in preparation for sowing cover crop, pick all the purple string beans, pick the best of the green string beans. No climbing over furniture involved. And now I have about a half pound of fresh-picked string beans in the fridge. (The hotel fridge, not the fridge I needed to wrestle with a bookshelf to get into.) Given my propensity for snacking on them raw, I predict that none of them will see the hot side of a stove.

I have been awake since just before six, and I am feeling it. Time for bed. Niki out.

Each week's farm work has a lesson to impart. Today's lesson was about maintenance, the importance of, for use in taking control of one's future or at least exerting control over the shape thereof. In other words, weeding.

We spent all morning in the herb garden. The goal was to harvest a bunch of variations of thyme and also the winter savory, but first a lot of weeding was needed. And it's amazing how the weeds just take over. You think you're keeping up with them, but suddenly they bolt, and now you've got a four-foot ragweed stalk shooting up out of the center of your mother-of-thyme like it thinks it belongs there.

It has always struck me as particularly unfair that the crop you want always seems to grow slower than the weeds you don't want. Thyme is a ground cover, right? In addition to being an herb? And lemon balm is a species of mint, which is known for getting out of control. And yet, if you leave the crop bed to its own devices, you will eventually find your mint, thyme and savory drowning in bindweed and thistle and lamb's-quarter and ragweed and ouch did I mention the thistle? Yes, well, I only mention it because a pile of it is what I sat in just now.

So before we got to harvesting, we had to pull up or slice out a bunch of weeds.

Then there was harvesting itself, which is also a lesson in how important it is to deliberately maintain. Best practice with leafy herbs is to keep them from flowering just as long as you can, forcing the plant to put all its energy and growth and aromatic oils into its leaves. Once the plant starts blossoming, seed-time can't be far behind, and before you know it the leaves have diminished markedly in flavor. Also, if you don't cut them back often, herbs like thyme and savory start changing from soft green sprigs to stiff woody stems that don't make for a high-quality harvest. So there's that.

We made up for a lot of lost time today and harvested a heck of a lot of thyme. And I brought home a few flowering sprigs of savory for that corn chowder I intend to cook any day now.

My daily routine is a lot like that, too--without deliberate maintenance, the stuff I want (good habits) tends to drown under the stuff I don't want (bad habits). Working with HabitRPG has been a big help, but even when I click my way to a perfect day there are loopholes to slither out of. Like, yes, I did my Morning Pages even on a Monday, but did I do it right when I woke up, or did I snooze away my before-farm time and leave it hanging over my afternoon? Yes, I checked voice mail on the land line today, good for me, but did I do it as part of my arrival home, or did I only remember to do when I saw that the corresponding HabitRPG "Daily" task was still not checked off? When I put in my five hours writing on a work day, did it go towards meaningful progress on my career goals or was it just busywork? Did I get right to my daily writing tasks, or did I putter around, reading forums and blogs, playing jigsaw sudoku and Puzzle Pirates, until finally, late in the afternoon, I finally and grudgingly gave in to basic arithmetic, recognizing that if I didn't start now it would be chronologically impossible to clock five hours for the day?

Well. As for today, damn straight I did my Pages before I went to the farm. And when I got the call that I wouldn't be needed until 45 minutes later than usual, I did my CTC29 too.

That's what I call daily weed-pulling!

Still, I'm sure that by tomorrow they'll be making a vigorous comeback. Hopefully I'll be up to the task of knocking them back again.

Today was all the tired. The pre-lunch session at the farm was weeding crop beds thick with bindweed; the post-lunch session was pruning tomato plants. I came home with a blister from the hula hoe, my arms neon yellow to the elbow from tomato foliage, and the small of my back sunburned quite dramatically from the sagging waistline of my Carhartts utility jeans.

And this the day after we got home from the weekend. Oh, Wyoming. You are so vast, so sunny and hot, so very without shade. Driving across you very nearly made my brain melt and our car overheat. That latter isn't hyperbole; we stopped to change drivers in Wheatland and discovered our radiator fluid was boiling over. That was special.

Saturday morning was relaxing, though. The joy of away bouts is, I'm not responsible for helping set up the track. I'm not expected to help tear down the track and reassemble it on Sunday at our practice location. So I got to sleep late, have a leisurely breakfast, and even take a little reconnaissance walk from the hotel to the afterparty location just to make sure I was familiar with it before I tried it at night, post-bout and post-alcohol. Walking from the Days Inn to Mingles, I went one block too far and found myself at the corner of Wyoming and E-Z Street. I had no idea that Easy Street was in Wyoming. That, also, is special.

You are probably antsy to know how the bout went. I will tell you. We won! The score was 323 to 70, which doesn't begin to tell the play-by-play story. The thing about roller derby bouts is, no matter what the score, every single jam feels like the game depends on it. Every single time you're out there, the intensity is high and the heat is on. Besides, the bout was at an ice hockey venue, using a hockey scoreboard, and there is no hundreds digit on a hockey scoreboard. I had no idea what the score was until it was all over.

("The score is always zero to zero," as my coach will tell you. "Don't even look at the scoreboard until the game is over.")

Also, the track was super slick. We were skating on the polished concrete surface that holds up the ice when the ice rink exists. It made it harder to stop, harder to slow, harder to turn around, and harder for our jammers to push on walls of blockers. Slick floors make for sloppy skating, which makes for more penalties too. Which means each jam was even more of a struggle for dominance, no matter what the scoreboard said.

Now, understand, we're the B travel team that went to Gillette this weekend. Our league's travel teams are filled by twice-yearly try-outs. At try-outs, we're each scored on our skills according to specific metrics. The skaters with the highest scores fill the slots on the "All Stars" A team (our WFTDA charter roster, who, by the way, are going to Division 2 Playoffs in August, and you have the power to help them get there). The next bunch get slotted onto the "Bombshells" B team. Once that fills up, everyone else is placed on the Shrap Nellies C team. At least, that's my understanding of how it works--I don't get to see the scores or the numbers, I just go to try-outs and then practice where they tell me.

I'm explaining this so you'll understand that I was, by actual objective standards, nowhere near the best skater on the track. Our roster included A/B crossover skaters--skaters who skate for both the All Stars and the Bombshells. Our roster included skaters who used to be A/B crossovers but are now full-on All Stars, but who came with us because a week simply isn't enough time to get the new post-try-outs roster ready to bout. I was often on the track with a line-up full of All Stars, and I'm more grateful for it than I can adequately express, because they have taught me so much about how to work with my line and how to communicate and how to hold the jammer and how to be immovable, stable and strong. I've learned so much from them, and I still have so much to learn.

The point is, when the bout is over and the teams come out of their post-bout huddle and announce who they've decided to give the Most Valued Player awards to, when the opposing team says, "And we'd like to give the MVP Blocker award to..." I do not expect to hear my name.

Which is why I stood there like a fool, eyes wide, asking, "You mean me?" And then there were hugs, and congratulations, and pictures, and me crying a little on John's shoulder because I was so stunned and delighted. ("Don't worry," he said. "No one can tell those are tears. You're too full of sweat.") And, oddly, relieved.

I've often said, there are few joys greater than getting to do what you love, than getting better at doing what you love. But I don't always feel like I've got a handle on how much I've improved, or whether I've improved at all. Despite knowing that I can now execute maneuvers I couldn't do last year, and that I'm more stable and have better pack awareness than I used to, there's still doubt. Mistakes often stand out more than triumphs in my head, not least because few of the mistakes go without comment from coaches or teammates. So there's always this half-conscious fear that I'll never be better than mediocre at the game, despite how much I love playing.

But I didn't really understand the extent of all that until Saturday night, when my interior reaction to the award was a huge, overwhelming, and unexpected sense of relief. "Oh, wow, I really am getting better, I really do have the potential to excel at this sport I love playing. Oh, thank goodness." Only then did I realize how much constant background noise of doubt and insecurity I'd been living with.

I'll be attending make-up try-outs this week, having been out of town on the original try-outs date of the 13th. As usual I'll be going into it nervous, aware that I'm capable of screwing it up, and holding no higher expectation than that I simply demonstrate improvement over my results from six months ago.

But maybe this time I'll go into it with somewhat less self-doubt.

Most weekday mornings, my Mom gets together with her friend for an hour or so of either 1) swimming laps and other aquatic exercises at Mom's place, or 2) tending garden at her friend's place. Now, I'm not certain of all the details involved in 2). When I'm in town, I don't go with them to the garden. I just visit with them at Mom's place when they've finished swimming and I've finished stumbling out of bed. But I hear them laughing about "Muddy Mondays" and "Weeding Wednesdays," so I can guess.

Back here in Colorado, it was a very Muddy Monday at the farm, and a 100% Weeding Weekday. It was muddy enough that everyone else pretty much gave up on their boots and went barefoot. And the weeding went on at every level: speeding through and between the peppers with the hula hoe, or carefully picking and pulling by hand the jungle of weeds that were drowning the delicate parsnip sprouts.

It's depressingly easy to accidentally uproot a delicate young parsnip sprout when you're pulling up a three-foot-tall lamb's-quarter. The key is to pull the weed sideways, then stick your hand in the mud between its roots and the tender crop you're trying to save. And even then a few experimental tugs may only demonstrate that it's time to just cut the weed's stem rather than risk such a soil disruption.

I'm sure there is a very clever writing metaphor here, but it probably won't occur to me until I am actually writing.

Usually we end up taking a break for an early farm-cooked lunch around 10:30 or 10:45. After lunch, there's usually time for me to put in another hour or so before taking my leave at 1:00 PM. But today I left pretty much at lunchtime in order to do something about my pre-travel stress. I'm getting on a train tonight, heading down for San Fermín en Nueva Orleans. All weekend I've been stressing out about getting myself ready to go along with taking care of some other very necessary housework. I figured if I gave myself a couple hours extra after the farm today, I'd be in better shape.

And so I am. I got packed up, I did the household accounting, I took out the compost and cleaned the fridge a little, I watered the plants, and I did not at all hurry through the very necessary time spent soaking in the tub after getting home from the farm.

And I made you a blog post, 'cause I love y'all.

Tomorrow's blog post will come to you from somewhere in downtown Chicago, though it will likely be drafted on the train because I aim to be virtuous. Virtuous! With discipline and a work ethic! In the key of Ragnarok!

Speaking of virtue, here is where I offer my sincere apologies to certain Chicago-area friends that I plan on keeping my layover all to myself rather than spending it on visiting with y'all. Maybe we can catch up on my back? But tomorrow I'll need to go nose down in various obligations and not come up until they are done.

In half an hour I head out the door. In about an hour I'll be at the station. In about two hours from now, barring unexpected delays, I'll have boarded the train. And that is when I will get to relax, because once I'm on the train, ain't nowhere else I have to be until the train gets where it's going.

But for now, pre-travel stress continues for just a little while longer. At a lower level than it might have, though. And also with less mud than earlier.