Once, I lost a book my Grandpa Sonny showed me in Montana. He and Grandma Donna drove all the way from San Benito County, California to Helena, Montana when I was a junior in college. Sonny was a writer and often took deep dives into the historical stories that activated his imagination. He was influenced by authors he admired — Ivan Doig and James A Michener. Both wrote family sagas; Michener was famous for l-o-o-o-n-g family sagas. Sonny had a vision for such, beginning in Scotland with the defeat of the Jacobites when, according to mythology, seven McCanles brothers fled to seven different colonies.

The book he drove over a thousand miles to show me contained notes and research he did in North Carolina and eastern Washington with his niece. He enthralled me with his stories and idea for a saga. He was proud of the manly men in his tree. He was even proud that we had an ancestor shot by Wild Bill Hickock. I was intrigued. Before he left, we agreed to work together on his manuscript about an ’80s casino crime story. He died before we finished.

At his funeral, I discretely asked about the book he showed me of all his research. His secretary knew it but hadn’t seen it. She said he’d filled a box for me and maybe it was in there. It wasn’t. I asked my aunts. I asked my mom. No one knew what I was referring to. Sonny’s niece, my first cousin once removed, researched with him and had gone on numerous trips across the country, and could get me copies. But it wasn’t the book I lost. I wanted his notes.

Fast forward to Idaho and the early days of Carrot Ranch. I accidentally found the book when a small box of my children’s early schoolwork fell apart when I went to move it into a closet. It was one of those boxes you never really intend to open again like a living time capsule. I must have grabbed a stack of school papers off my desk in Montana when we moved and kept them all those years in Minnesota as a box of mementos. When the box tore, out spilled colored stories, math homework, and Sonny’s lost book. I was flabbergasted because it never occurred to me that he’d left it for me to find on my desk. Only, he’d put it in a pile I didn’t go through!

I’ve told this story before because it had a profound impact on my own dream to write a historical novel, if not the saga my grandfather had envisioned. Rock Creek was born of this lost book found. I began by exploring the characters in 99-word stories. I found that the story constraint is a great tool for digesting historical research and experimenting with character motives. The stories add up and I also cranked out a raw draft for NaNoWriMo in 2015. When Todd and I wandered, we stopped in Kansas and Nebraska to research primary documents. I brought Sonny’s book with me, not daring to leave it behind in storage.

And so, it has sat. This lost book. This found book.

On Sunday, the first time since Finlandia University closed, I did not have papers to grade or lesson plans to post by midnight. I pushed the Challenge post to Tuesdays to further free up Sundays. Research Sundays. I peeled open the book and the first handwritten note to fall out of the cover focused on relating our McCanles line to Cobb McCanles, shot and killed July 12, 186 at his Pony Express Station in Nebraska Territory. Shot by Wild Bill Hickock (or not). Sonny speaks to me through his notes, “I am his descendant as are you, through Julia.” I had not seen this note before, or maybe I glossed over it. It encourages me because my tough-as-nails, hard-gambling, hard-drinking, visionary grandfather acknowledges what I had already discovered — the real story of Rock Creek resides in the women.

Yes, I descend through Julia McCanles, my third-great-grandmother who likely knew the real reason the historians are wrong about who shot her brother, Cobb. For someone who is returning to writing women’s fiction, a lost book was a good place to find my purpose again.

June 6, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a lost book (or many). What is the book’s significance? Who lost it, or who found it? How does this element fit into a poem, memory, or a specific genre? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by June 12, 2023. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Ah, I have returned to the Keweenaw, fully refreshed from my two weeks in Vermont. Readjustment was bumpy but nothing rough. One of my suitcases — the one near max weight fully loaded with books and rocks — took an extra day to get home. Todd did well on his own and I was able to get re-dialed into his unique mind frequency, much to my relief. Mause survived and is happy to have me back. The farm has rebounded and the farmers have happily prepared for market already. The Warrior Sisters are ready to regroup and new work is unfolding.

All is well.

Now, I’m going to tinker with dates! I had aligned the Challenges and Collections to my university class schedule, but since there is no more university, I’m going to switch it up to something that makes more sense to my new arrangement. Challenges will now go out on Tuesdays with the corresponding Collection publishing the following week on Thursdays. Writers will have a full week to submit. If you need clarification, post in the comments below.

On my final day in Vermont, I wrote what I had intended to be the next Challenge post. When I arrived home, not only had I lost one suitcase, the internet disappeared, too! I tried again on Monday before I realized it was a bigger problem than resetting the modem. But I had spent most of the day at the farm and had to wait until Tuesday (today) to call it in. Happily, both internet and missing suitcase returned to Roberts Street. It also provided some reflection time as I mapped out my new calendar of days.

The latest challenge prompt is based on a short essay from Vermont — not a place where I was born, but certainly a place that gives me roots. I can’t thank Kid & Pal’s author enough for the shared space to refresh my roots and wet my paddle when needed. My heart is filled with gratitude for great days past and great days to come. Vermont is a place that calls writers home — some of my literary heroes have summered or lived here from Annie Proulx to Wallace Stegner; some of my favorite modern writers live on a shared knoll above a a lake beneath a wooded mountain.

A Two-Slap Morning

Coffee in bed is a treat but even better when the coffee arrives in a travel mug. It means we are going out on the lake below the knoll. A home-waters paddle. Dede loans me a pair of Muck Boots because I’ll be entering the lake before the kayak. It’s been cold in the mornings, dipping below freezing at night. My feet will stay warm and dry in the boots.

We glide into the water, the morning sky, woods, and mountain mirrored on the surface. The leaves are so newly unfurled they are near-neon green. We alert to a rustling along the shoreline and Dede spots a mink with a coat so dark brown as to be a slinking shadow. She slips into a burrow and we glide past. Curious critters, almost as curious as two writers keen to see what there is to see. Mink paces us and we paddle as she gambols along the shore.

We all pause at a point of land shaved of grass and shrubs — a lakehouse lawn. We sip coffee and watch Mink watch Robin. Robin peeps softly as if she feels the presence of a predator. We float and wait. Mink makes her move, blasting out of the brush. Robin flaps and lifts up, up, up, escaping a breakfast she was to be featured as the main course. Exposed, Mink bounds away in arcing leaps and leaves our company.

We continue on, alert to the next critter or winged being to share sips of coffee.

At the mouth of the cove where the loons guard their two eggs, we veer away. Loon parents take turns nesting unless they both feel the need to protect their area so we don’t want to disturb them. It’s been years since they’ve had a successful hatch. This year, they are one of the earliest pairs to nest. Other lakes and ponds have paired loons, but not yet on nests. Dede’s sharp eyes catch movement gliding across the still water. A beaver, leaving a tell-tale v-wake.

I set down my coffee and paddle hard. I want to see Beaver. All around, I see the work of this industrious mammal — the lodge is at the mouth of the cove, and on all our paddles we see dams, chewed stumps, food piles, and beaver sticks. If it is Beaver, it will be my first sighting. Out West and even in the Keweenaw, they remain elusive. As we gain on Beaver, she slaps us a warning. My first beaver slap!

Whenever beavers feel threatened or need to warn others in their lodge or community, they hit the water with a hearty smack. I’m so delighted. I pause and return to my coffee, scanning to see where Beaver might emerge. After her tail slap, she dives. Her head pops up again and the chase resumes. we only want to watch her, but she’s had enough and Beaver warns us to back off a second time.

The day has barely begun and twice already I’ve been beaver slapped. It’s going to be a great day of many.

May 30, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a beaver slap. It can be an actual tail slap warning on the water or an imitation. Is a beaver slap the name of something — a new type of burger, perfume, or a sci-fi gadget? Take ecological and poetic licenses. Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by June 5, 2023. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Thursday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

A big horse fly buzzes from one window to the next. Each time the winged intruder hits a window, the glass makes a thunking pop. I duck as buzzing nears my desk. Why do flies bust down the doors to get inside only to frantically hunt for ways to escape?

Like a disoriented fly, I carry armloads of books downstairs from my Finlandia office. Profs arrive with boxes and I wonder why I thought I could do this task without containment. Books scatter in disarray in my truck.

Each passing in the hall illicits, “What next for you?”

“I don’t know,” is the common response. A few profs have already found new positions. One is heading to Montana. A part of me that will always feel home pull from out West wants to load my stuff in his truck and blow out of town.

The impulse is “flight.” Avoidance of the work it takes to begin again. Seriously, how many beginnings do I get?

When I pull up to my home on Roberts Street, I let the front garden soothe my jangly nerves. I’m aware of the day, of the lateness of my post, of all responsibilities, but I’m so off my schedule, I can’t remember what Tuesday means. So I examine my emerging flowers and let nature calm me, remind me that Tuesday doesn’t have to mean anything.

I’m in awe of life. Tarragon spears the soil with red stalks. Delphinium rounds into a bushy pile of fresh leaf salad. Scraggly lavender spreads. Tulips unfurl fancy wavy blades. One green stick announces the survival of Todd’s tea-cup rose. Phlox greens. Glories of the snow pop their purple heads from the Poet Tree’s leaf litter. Trout lily leaves blend as effortlessly as a trout hiding in a stream. And succulents appear like a plant mosaic among Gratiot beach flagstones, a work of nature’s art. Not only does life find a way, it signals the Beauty Way.

It’s in these moments I find what I need to. Reminders. Encouragement. Wonder.

Today, I interacted with my Finlandia staff more than usual. Everyone wanted to connect, use nostalgia to sooth our disorientation. We paused to comment on the dismantling of offices, some decades old. We didn’t share stories, we made thunking pops as we edged around desks and book cases in the stairwell. Good will toward humanity hung in the air like a living thing between us and you had to be in that hall at that moment to catch it. The campus was a desert. The parking lot empty but for our trucks. I lingered when I turned in my office key, knowing the door was not only closed but locked. We’d all depart in different directions.

At home, I had legal papers to contend with, although with no key and the assurance of my final check on Friday, I don’t think the papers matter. Yet, I set them aside in case I don’t get paid and have to file a claim. Another legal document I signed yesterday in hopes of extending a contract for freelance work. I feel untethered between incomes. But it’s good. Theoretically. On paper. Even the timing is set to work out.

Meanwhile, I’m finding a flow like my garden and visiting fly. Since October, I’ve been on a journey to explore mythic imagination with Sharon Blackie as a guide. It’s my Hagitude work. Today’s lesson makes sense to me: Death.

She looks back over her life, understanding cause and effect, and takes responsibility for
her past actions and beliefs – the double-edged sword of consequences – in order to ensure a
truer approach to the future (Justice). In order to carry on, the Fool must learn to let go, and
enter the Underworld (the Hanged Man). This can represent a period that is difficult to endure:
an existential crisis, a challenge, a loss, a breaking.

The Fool’s Journey by Sharon Blackie

Life and death are one. We live as if death is the end, but in truth, we all experience little deaths. Women in particular have a season of deaths. The child dies so the maiden lives; the maiden dies so the hag lives; the hag dies so her bones join the ancestors to feed the earth for the next generations. It’s like Jung’s theory of Wholeness — the light and shadow of our many selves must integrate into a Wholeness to actualize the Self. We live in the tension created between the duality of life and death.

Over the weekend, we paid a quick trip to Wisconsin to see our son and his wife before his sabbatical. They leave for Germany and Switzerland in two weeks. All three of our grown kids are facing major life changes and we want to be involved in their lives throughout the ups and downs. I feel like I’m sitting on a keg of secrets in the meantime. But they are not mine, so sit I must. Life is changing for many of us. The joke is that life is always changing and none of us get to escape consequences. We all get sequels.

My garden is different this year. And I want to re-home the rambling roses. All in due course. Sprouts emerge all over Carrot Ranch. Some of you have entered your writing and await news. Some of you are poised to publish more books. It’s hard to wait in the inbetween stages. I want to snap my fingers and be a hag. But the process is not done with me. I die my little deaths and wonder what nature will think of my next emergence.

It’s no secret that I have plans for Carrot Ranch and expanding my veteran work into my literary teaching goals. I’m excited to be working with Colleen on the first Around the Campfire literary journal we’ll publish under Gitty Up Press (be sure to check out the details for submission). I have a lot of details to point in the direction of my North Star this week, but then…

…it’s Vermont time! Loons, paddling, campfires. As much as D. Avery can put up with from me. I’ll be in full smiley mode by the time my plane lands, ready to let go the endings, and play until the new beginnings take shape. Then, I’ll return to Roberts Street to tend the gardens and possibilities. I’m grateful for all the beginnings I get.

This post is late, but so will it’s collection be. I’ve extended the prompt deadline to May 23 and will post the Collection on May 30. The next Challlenge posts May 29. That will give you time to also work on submissions to Around the Campfire (wink, wink). I’ll return refreshed, on the other side of closure, and in full frontal door opening mode. Then, I’ll let you in on a secret!

May 9, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about two who cankeep a secret. Is the secret between them or is one keeping a secret from the other. Who are they? What remains unknown? What is revealed? Go where the prompt leads!

1. EXTENDED DEADLINE: Submit by May 23, 2023. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Come hell or high water, I was going to get two new pages up by May 1. And here it is, May 1, 2023. Before I share the pages, let me reflect on the state of our local fragipan.

Fragipan sounds like a fancy sweet you might buy at a bakery. In fact, I’m headed to Roy’s today to buy a box of sweets for my students. It’s time for pizza, sweets, lemonade, and a film. My final exam is a celebration of the joy teaching at Finlandia University brought me; a celebration of my time with students.

But fragipan is nothing sweet. It’s an impermeable layer in soil that can cause havoc for farmers beneath the topsoil. Due to the nature of the geology on the Keweenaw Peninsula and Michiga’s upper “mitten,” the fragipan is near the surface. At Ghost House Farm, it’s about 18 inches and causes problems in the spring.

High water first arrived when July came in April. The snow melted too fast and overflowed the fragipan, breaking up pavement, carving paths through sloped yards, and pooling on flat surfaces.

Ghost House Farm went from bathing goats to sharing pooping space with them. The kids (Allison and Drew, not the baby goats), set up a sawdust toilet in the goat barn when the water rendered their septic system unflushable. Then the greenhouse flooded. That event was more serious because Drew had finished planting the first of their tomato seedlings and baby tomatoes don’t like swimming in ice water. With some help, they dug out both sides of the greenhouse to create drain ditches. As if high water wasn’t problematic enough, their new heater won’t work when the temperatures dip to freezing.

But come … or … they are facing the farm dragons.

Saturday night, we all went to a Beltane Party and reenacted the running of the cattle through the fires of fertility using candles. It was the playful kind of fun we all needed to blow off steam. Drew, understandably, wasn’t ready to go home to milk the goats. Eager to hang out with my herd, I volunteered to go with Allison. It meant changing my clothes. No way a goat was going to lick my red dress or tractor heels (the kind of heels a person could wear to drive a tractor).

While I waited downstairs for Allison to change out of her party clothes, I watched a curious bubbler in the backyard. I asked my daughter about it and she said that was the sump pump from the basement. She checked the basement and realized the pump was leaking. It wasn’t high, yet. We took care of the goats and I even got to wrestle Chip (this is how unintended goat-licking happens). He headed for the oat bin and when I reached to press down the lid, he popped it off, shoving his beautiful beastly head into the grain. He stomped and pulled, I pushed and shoved and grabbed his head. Chip’s stinky, stinky head.

No matter how high the water gets, it won’t wash clean goat stench. That must be the hell part of high water. At least for me! Still, I love Chip and all his little chips off the old block. All six of his kids are adorable variations of him.

Later, after Allison dropped me off and picked up Drew, they checked the basement. It was wet but not alarming. By morning, though the pump stopped working, and high water could be measured in feet. A second sump pump worked. We don’t seem to have a break in the weather coming — cold or wet. Part of farming is taking unknown risks and adapting to changes. Maybe, we had less stress when humans lived closer to the land, understanding that problems bring possibilities. So far, the kids and goats and tomatoes are adapting.

Today, I can adapt, too. Rather than dwell on the loss of a job I was really enjoying, I’m turning to the future of possibilities.

Thus the pages. Gitty Up Press (New Page 1) is up and running, a tiny but mighty effort to offer publishing opportunities. Colleen Chesebro has announced the evolution of her Word Weaving Poetry Journal to make room for our Gitty Up Press collaboration — Around the Campfire Literary Journal (New Page 2). Submissions are now open! JulesPaige joins the team, helping with the submissions process. I’m excited about this new publication!

More will unfold as I continue to go through another transition. The curves aren’t so bad. And high water eventually recedes.

May 1, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about high water. Hell can be involved, or not. Is high water a new drink? A crisis in nature or the basement? Get in the flow. Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by May 7, 2023. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

As the snow recedes (again), a hillside in Hancock is covered in purple crocus. I didn’t know what to expect when our false spring arrived hot enough to force blooms and buds only to dip back below freezing with back-to-back blizzards. Would the buried blooms rise again?

The color of hope is purple. Or is it?

Todd has shoveled the last of the ice and snow from our deck. He sits outside, arms crossed, smoking his pipe. It’s 31 degrees Fahrenheit outside, which is below zero Celsius. His beanie is pulled low over his ears. He calls for me to, “Come, see.”

In the Poet Tree two tiny birds dance upside down and around and around the trunk. The male’s feathers are bluer than the female’s gray ones. A pair of nuthatches. Todd tells me they are the tiniest woodpeckers in Michigan.

Hmmm. I don’t argue. Hope never has to be right. Nuthatch or tiny woodpecker, I’m still smiling over the light in his eyes earlier. He was animated over YouTube getting the algorithms dialed in to preview videos they predicted he’d like.

We share my YouTube so he doesn’t have to watch commercials. He likes to watch interviews with operators, past Vikings football games, Casual Geographic, Dave Stamey, and SNL skits. I research weird things, as fiction writers often do, watch courses on Jungian psychology, and listen to Yanni. YouTube is likely confused over predicting what our account might watch. But this morning, they delivered Todd previews of The Red Green Show.

It might seem a little thing, and hope usually is, but I enjoyed every minute of him standing in the doorway to my Unicorn Room, laughing, eyes lit up, pleased to have YouTube understand his sense of humor for once. He acted out this entire scene for “Delicate” and had me rolling on my yoga mat, laughing. At that moment, hope was all Red (Green).

The night before, we went out on a dinner date with three Vietnam veteran couples. I marveled at how we could laugh, swap stories, tease “the guys,” and share a meal despite the numerous medical trips to the VA we are all facing. One couple is headed to Milwaukee, another to Wausau, and the rest of us making “day” trips to Marquette or Iron Mountain. We gather because we don’t give up hope.

Maybe we circle back to hope to be the color purple. I wonder why injured soldiers are awarded Purple Hearts. Because purple is hopeful? Injured but alive? None of our group has a Purple Heart. Such injuries sustained have to be in combat by enemy fire. There’s no medal for breaking down beneath the weight of having served. We are fine with that. We only want healthcare. What we face plays out in Season Two of Seal Teams in an episode called “Medicate and Isolate.”

The fact that Todd can watch a series reflect what it’s like to seek help for TBIs after service helps him feel heard. That’s a superpower writers have — to portray “what ifs” and “what it’s like” to people who feel invisible. It’s the reason I chose women’s fiction as my genre because I wanted to write the stories I knew about women but never saw portrayed in books or films. Hope could be a different color; a specific color; the rainbow.

I need hope this week. It’s been increasingly difficult for me to go to class at Finlandia. Only one or two students show up. Half my class has left though some are turning in assignments online. My idea to buoy hope with journal writing led to depressing responses. This is my last week. I will hold a pizza party for my final exam next Monday. I’ll grade papers, issue grades, clean out my office, and close a chapter I thought would be longer.

Yet, on a hillside in Hancock, purple crocus bloom. No matter the color of hope, we only need a smidge.

April 24, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about the color of hope. Who is in need of hope and why? How can you use color to shape the story? Pick a color, any color. Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by April 30, 2023. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

“No, Mause, no!”

It’s day two of 70+ degrees Fahrenheit on the Keweenaw Peninsula, a rocky spine that juts into the cold belly of Lady Lake Superior. But not cold enough this year, so it seems, to avoid the unpredictability of climate change. Winter was off this year. Spring arrived drunk on strawberry wine snitched from a warmer region, which caused a poop dilemma.

You see, Mause poops on the mound of snow that builds up between our front yard and our neighbors’ pristine property. Usually, the snow mound melts like a glacier from beneath, sucking water from the packed icy layers of winter. This year, Spring pulled up and lit a bonfire. We could sit outside and watch the mounds and berms deflate had we accepted Spring’s offer of wine. But poop bombs emerged at an alarming pace, one layer defecating (secondarily) onto the next.

Having arrived home from class, I saw the poop drama unfolding. I changed clothes and stepped into my yellow rubbers that have weird high heels as if I might decide to go out dancing after chores. For the moment, I matched my steps to the grip of the rake. I had a good poop pile going when Todd and Mause arrived home from a walk. Too late, I realized Mause’s intent.

When we first got Mause in January 2021, she was tiny and mighty — Mause the Leaf Killer. If any stray maple leaf took to the air, Mause was on it. As snow melted and more overwintered leaves emerged, she hunted after each one. She grew–not a lot but enough–cultivating a love of chasing airborne things. Mause is a bird dog, thus her instincts are spot on, but she’s also a companion to Todd. That’s how Kick Snow came to be.

Lacking patience at a nuclear level (thank you TBIs for your service), Todd invents games to pass time. This means he gets agitated waiting for a dog to find the right place to poop in the snow. So Todd kicks the snow. After the first kick, Mause realized snow flies. Game on! Throughout winter, I’d hear her barking and step outside to see her leaping through the air the way dogs chase Frisbees. Even at the Dog Park, Mause will pass over all other games to play Kick Snow.

The game has seasonal components. In the summer, it’s lawn trimmings; in the fall, it’s leaves. In the winter, of course, it’s snow. Spring? Well, that’s how I came to raking an epic pile of winter-compressed-dog doo-pancakes. Mause ran for the pile with her mouth wide open. In mid-rake, a swath of released poop flew inter her open maw. She landed, sputtering, then barked for me to rake again. I gagged. Todd howled. Now you know why I was shouting, “No, Mause, no!”

And then, in a flash of a pile of anything kicked in the air, Spring fled. Snow covers everything, once again. The crocus blooms and tulip leaves slumber deep in white piles. That didn’t stop the new birds in town, though. The dark-eyed juncos have come to Roberts Street. Not leaves, snow, trimmings, or poop. Birds, real birds.

April 17, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story of something/someone dark-eyed. What could be a dark-eyed situation? Or is it a dark-eyed beauty? A dark-eyed junco? Maybe it’s a futuristic piece of technology. Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by April 22, 2023. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Over-wintered baby spinach tastes like veggie candy. Sweet, tender. Standing in the greenhouse at Ghost House Farm, I’m enveloped in the warmth of the space where the smell of earth is strong. The structure survived winter, received a commercial heater, and already houses the first round of seedlings.

While we pluck leaves from the early greens filling the rows, my daughter filled me in on the latest farm happenings. My SIL has innovated several solutions and structures, including a washing machine he’s transforming into a giant salad spinner. Allison filled me in on the goat situation.

Chip has mites. If the days warm up, Drew will bathe Chip. I offered to help; I can’t think of anything worse smells than a wet goat. But I love Chip and I know how miserable a goat with mites can be.

Molly kicked Allison while milking last week. She had several bruises. Last year, when the farm kids went to Costa Rica for a week, I was Molly’s leg holder. She’s a two-person milking team kind of goat and Allison tried to go solo.

Belle is adjusting. She required a new home, never having settled down after all the babies were born. She and Molly had twins; Peggy had triplets. So, Belle got a farm of her own. But there’s more…Allison had that serious but sympathetic look she gets when she tells me which rooster or pig they butchered. Instead, she tells me about an old lady.

I’m relieved to hear Belle didn’t go the way of the roosters or pigs and I’m curious about the woman.

Once upon a time, an old lady was a young girl. She had a goat she milked every day. The young girl would rise with the sun and run with floppy red rubbers to the barn. She down her milk pail to get the oats. Sunny, her goat, leaned against the fence to get a few nibbles. She coaxed Sunny to the small stanchion and poured the oats into a small feeding bin. Sunny chomped, and the girl milked. She was never happier.

Turns out, a Keweenaw family had a dilemma. Their matriarch, Grandma, has advanced dementia and she’s become obsessed with the goat of her youth. When Allison and Drew were looking to rehome Belle, the family found a solution. They took Belle home to become the object of Grandma’s obsession.

The young girl fed the second goat, Sunny’s kid. She returned to her goats after delivering the milk to ma to filter into a jar. She put on their halters to walk the goats to the apple orchard and back. Mornings were the best part of day. Even in winter, she bundled up and went with pa to the barn. One day, she’d grow up and have a goat farm.

With the help of her grandchildren, Grandma milks Belle every morning. She can’t remember what happened five minutes ago but remembers how to milk a goat. Then, another dilemma. Grandma remembers the second goat. She settled into milking but grew fretful over the missing kid.

The family asked if they could have one of Belle’s kids. In the end, after much discussion, they decided the role was best suited for Beast. This was the reason Allison approached me gently. Beast. Her “baby” Beast. Belle’s eldest kid and the first goat born on the farm. They kept him to be a companion for the buck, Chip but saw this as an opportunity for Beast to live his best life.

The grandkids are halter-training both goats now. Grandma has a tangible outlet for her dementia obsession. Peace is felt across the farm. It is good to know that spring is on it’s though snow still covers the landscape. Somewhere a family is soothed by the reunion of an old lady and her beast. We are reminded that stories leave powerful images. The story of a young girl and her two goats might seem a little thing but it is all the happiness in the world of someone cut off from ours.

April 10, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about “the old lady and the beast.” What does age have to say about the story? Who is the beast and why? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by April 15, 2023. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Well, it was bound to happen. I got sick. Not urgently sick, or chronic. A flu, a bug, a virus. Not THE virus, whatever iteration of it we are experiencing. Other than the first Monday of lockdowns three years ago (can you believe what happened to all of us three years ago?), I’ve not had COVID. I might not have had COVID three years ago either, but there was no testing back then in the Keweenaw.

I’ve avoided all the waves of sickness that have rolled in and out of college classes. Until late last week.

Over the weekend I rested, which means I vegged out on the couch under Mause’s blanket of joy watching trailers. As a literary artist, my language is that of dreams and stories — images that stir the heart. I like to feel what a trailer has to offer, distilling a film, series, or animation into a few minutes worth of images. For me, it’s like the flash fiction version of a movie.

Weekend trailer-watching padded the possible watchlist for me and Todd. It’s difficult to find watchable material that’s engaging but not agitating; interesting but not incorrect; correct but not boring. Todd’s definition of correct is a study in suspended reality — if a filmmaker portrays a Boeing MH-6M Little Bird on screen it better not sound like a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. That’s something for us writers to remember when we add realistic details to our stories; a single error can take down an entire book if you have a critical audience. Todd is hyper-critical. He can watch documentaries like Ranger, but can’t take the drama of Yellowstone. He thinks The Hangover is hilarious but he can’t fathom the absurdity of Everything, Everywhere All at Once. Sometimes, he prefers to hop from one YouTube clip to another, stopping the minute he encounters something wrong(!). Like the sound of mismatched rotor blades.

Dog, staring Channing Tatum (whose name messes with my dyslexia every time) seemed like an option; the trailer made me laugh and cry. But it was risky because Tatum (is that his last or first name; I’m intending it’s his last) plays a former Ranger. Most authors and filmmakers get it wrong. However, I caught a detail from the trailer that I thought was promising — in a scene, Tatum claims to be part of Ranger Battalion. Battalion is crucial. You see, many soldiers make Airborne. Only Airborne-qualified paratroopers can volunteer for Ranger School. Few are selected. Most wash out after Phase One. Todd did. But you can re-apply like he did and complete Phase Two. Being Ranger-qualified does not guarantee a soldier gets placed in a Battalion. Todd earned that distinction. Battalion carries a lot of weight.

And asshole-ness. Yep, I said it. And Todd loves it that I still call him by that “term of endearment.” They are assholes. And the movie Dog gets its right. Even the Ranger Battalion dog, Lulu, is an asshole.

There’s a powerful reason Rangers are assholes. They are trained that way. What the Army flips on in soldiers and war dogs, the Army is incapable or uninterested to turn off. Let loose in the civilian world, they don’t fit. Often, Tatum’s character doesn’t mention he was in the military, let alone in an elite unit part of the Joint Special Operations Command. It might seem odd to viewers, especially when speaking up might be the thing that resolves a situation. But it’s not just a literary device; Rangers don’t boast about being Rangers. Unless they want to piss off an MP or buy a Marine birthday cake.

Not only does Dog get the culture right, but it’s one of the best representations of how disposable our elite soldiers are. In the movie, Tatum says, “Rangers find a way to die.” It’s a reference to the on-switch they themselves can’t figure out until they check out. As an extension of how lost post-service Rangers can be, Lulu shares many of Tatum’s attributes of poor adjustment to civilian life. And this is where the movie gripped my heart. In one scene, Tatum makes a stop to see her littermate, also a former war dog. She hugs the handler and Tatum is surprised to find a squishy center still in Lulu.

The handler says of her brother, “I’ve been working every day for six months. When he stopped struggling, that’s when I realized I could stop struggling, too.” The pivotal moment for Tatum and Lulu comes later.

Dog honors the dignity of combat veterans despite their struggles. It shows that even the biggest assholes still have squishy soft hearts. Something I knew early on about Todd. Until his more recent battles with the long-term effects of TBI and PTSD, his kids recount how their dates and coaches were terrified of “Daddy” but the kids knew him as their squishy Growly Bear. It was not lost on me that Lulu was destined to be put down because she had become too difficult to handle.

Yeah, let that sink in a moment.

I swear, if the VA could, they’d do the same to these vets suffering from the complications of their training, injuries, and aging. The dog takes on the metaphor of disposability. Tatum knows it but remains dutiful to his mission to deliver Lulu to her last photo opp and final fate. By this time in the film, their camaraderie and shared service and struggles have melded. You can’t separate the man from the dog.

In one of the most powerful images I’ve seen recently, they come to their last night in the desert. Tatum, drunk, tries to drive off Lulu into the vast wasteland. The desert. Empty promises of freedom. It hit me hard in the chest. It reminded me of the catchphrase, “Freedom is not free.” What do we know of freedom, anyhow? Those who fight for a nation’s freedom are like the dog standing at the edge of a desert. Where do they go? What do they do? How is living alone and empty free? I sobbed. I looked over at Todd and he was crying, too.

It was cathartic, facing a hard truth. The shadow of military service is a dog left in the desert, free to live or die.

But the movie has an elixir. Tatum and the dog need to take care of each other because no one else is coming to save them from what they face. Lulu refuses to “be free.” She stays by his side. And in the end, he stays by hers. (SPOILER: happy ending.)

Dog is also a movie veteran families can understand. While it is not our direct struggle represented in the images, it is a rallying cry — yes, these assholes matter. They are our assholes who did what we could not, deserving of what they cannot have, of what we cannot have with them as functional families. Regardless, we face the desert and choose to stick together. As one daughter of a Vietnam veteran who is dying of brain cancer said, if my dad can carry the bodies of his buddies out of the jungle swamps so they could be properly buried, I can carry my dad’s burden so he can die with dignity at home. These are the real veteran family experiences I know.

Dog understands courage, commitment, and honor.

I didn’t intend to go so dark, but I needed to animate those images in my mind to prepare myself for the next round of edits on my novel about the veteran spouse experience of “long-haulers” — the ones who don’t give up when common sense says, tap out. The ones who can soothe the muzzled soldiers and give voice to their after-war life. I have a new editor, too. It’s taken two years, but Todd has finally agreed to edit Miracle of Ducks. Lord help me if I named the helicopters incorrectly!

Now, I leave you to contemplate the dog in the desert image. Maybe you have a joyful interpretation, humor, grace, or playfulness. We literary artists play with shadows and light. We don’t hide from the depths. Which direction will you go?

April 3, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a dog in the desert. Why is the dog there? Who else is involved? Is there a deeper metaphor you can make of the desert? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by April 8, 2023. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

It’s a Friday and the sky is impossibly blue over the whole of the Keweenaw Peninsula! I know, I know, it’s impossible for the color blue to be impossible. After all, the bag of snowmelt is the exact color of sky-blue. The difference is that the actual blue-sky vibrates with an aliveness that the same color cannot match. All I want to be is alive beneath this sky on this day.

Sure, I’ll likely feel the same way tomorrow, But this is the moment. This is now. This is the impossibly blue sky that drove me out of the classroom earlier.

Occasionally, we get snow days. With Finlandia on its downhill slide to closing, we’ve had more snow days than usual. This morning, as I drove across the Houghton Lift Bridge, I wondered if we could call a sun day. I was on my way to a Warrior Sisters group. Ever since the Vet Center shuttered its doors, I’ve stood in the gap until they restored mental health services to our community.

Mary Gauthier asks in her song, The War After the War, “Whose gonna care for the ones who care for the ones who went to war?” Well, the real answer is each other. We take care of each other. The Vietnam vets started the Vet Centers of America when it was obvious that the VA was not taking care of the PTSD crisis after the Vietnam War. They pushed to get services. Their wives and families pushed. But they are aging. And the next crisis looms on the horizon — brain injury is the signature wound of Post 9/11 veterans. Todd squeezes invisible between the two eras and is the harbinger of what’s to come. It’s easy for the VA to ignore CTE; it’s a problem of the NFL, not the military. They can ignore Todd, but what will they do as Iraq and Afghanistan vets begin to age? CTE is not going away.

I bring this topic up because even on a blue-sky day, shadows lurk. I’ve bobbed up and down all week. My students show evidence of struggle and I’m reaching after each one of them. My colleagues are leaving and despite my plans for an online writing school, the timing of Finlandia’s closing leaves me searching for employment, too. It feels depressing and we are going to be in an uncertain mudhole until we each figure out what next. In the midst of all this, I’m not willing to watch my Warrior Sisters and their vets fall into yet another crack in society.

So, we take care of each other.

Something incredible happened this morning on this sunny Friday. We got the guys to group. If you think it’s easy to herd Vietnam vets, you have not experienced their level of stubborn self-isolation. To me, the heroes are the wives, sons, and daughters who look after these men America would rather forget. I look after them so they can look after their vets. This morning we all managed to get most of the old Vietnam veterans group reunited. It took tremendous trust on their part to gather because they have not had an in-person group since COVID, and they felt the sting of the Vet Center abandoning them last summer. They’ve never trusted the VA. But that should not be a deterrent to getting together with those who share your experiences.

I could have wept with joy, watching the men across the backroom at the Copper Depot where we meet every other Friday for a social outing (the alternate Fridays we meet on Zoom to follow the guidance of a positive psychology workbook I bought). Even Todd joined us and he was having a good brain day. We heard lots of talk about firearms and ballistics; helicopter stories; parachuting accidents; Las Vegas. I think Todd precipitated the Vegas conversation when he spoke of his desire to move to northern Nevada. They all agreed that snow sucks. They all ordered breakfasts and swilled coffee. They needed these conversations.

We spoke of medical concerns and tricks we employ to get our spouses to take their pills. My job is easy — Todd refuses all medication. One of the Warrior Sisters is also a nurse and she said she knows plenty like him. Another Warrior Sister told us she finally got her husband to consider cannabis last week and he’s been smoking ever since. Someone asked why smoke it when you can pop a gummy, and she said he believes the smoke will help his lung cancer. He’s dying so it’s not going to hurt. I told them about my first Caregiver for Living with Suspected CTE group meeting this week and how hard and yet hopeful it is to learn more about this disease. We laugh, too. A lot.

We couldn’t stop looking across the room and smiling, either.

Now that we finally got these cats herded into one place, we plan to keep it going. I’m currently taking a course in Mindfulness from PositivePsychology.com and when I’m finished, I’ll have a certificate and course materials to lead classes. I plan to create a Mindfulness for Writers class to generate income and then set up local Mindfulness for Veterans that are free. It scares me, though. Responsibility is measured in lives. You see, a big reason these vets avoid gathering in groups is that it triggers their PTSD intrusive memories/thoughts/feelings and I’m not a therapist. I’m a literary artist. But I am a Warrior Sister to the Long-Haulers and they will help me. They will soothe, listen, and protect. I will have the Veteran Crisis Hotline (Dial 988, then press 1) on speed dial. I’ll also make sure I’m maintaining my mental health.

As I head to class, I marvel at the sky. When I park on campus, two crows zip past like fighter jets and I watch their maneuvers. My classroom is empty. I open the window. Even in blizzards, I open the window because Finlandia’s boilers are set to “hellfire.” Finally, one student shows up and I think, it’s enough. We talked about the skies last night when the Northern Lights danced like a 3D green and pink phoenix over Hancock last night. My student is from Florida and had never before seen them. He’s itching to explore and I pull up a map of waterfalls for him. Two more students show up. We all decide it’s too beautiful of a day to be inside.

I declare a Blue Sky Day. The grandest container we can have as humans for hope.

March 27 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about something impossibly blue. You can go with sky or any other object. What impact does the color have on the setting or characters? Does it lead to action or create a pause? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by April 1 ( no foolin’), 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

We can all use some light in the midst of the fray.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite hillsides to comb was down a steep embankment behind my house through a thicket of red willow across a small creek with a stepping stone named Snubbie. The marshy creek bottom quickly dried out as the hill began its steep ascent to the acres of cow pasture above. Jeffrey pines grew too sparse to be a forest, but their needles and seeds scattered across the dry grass. I followed the zigzag of deer trails, searching for treasure.

I’d comb that hillside for rocks, broken purple glass, and square nails. Miner shanties used to populate this hillside but a wildfire in the 1950s razed the cabins, leaving behind only broken bottles and hand-forged nails. I didn’t know of anyone else who followed the deer trails. I never saw anybody. Who would hang out on this hillside but a curious kid who liked to collect things from the past or sit on a boulder two-thirds of the way up and ponder.

The deer had a great view of my small second hometown; a place where I had lived from the ages of seven to eighteen. From the boulder, I could see down into the bowl where Markleeville sat. I knew every house, every occupant, every shed, and every dog. I knew most of the cats. I could see the cow pastures above the old ranch behind the stone library across town, the road that rose and disappeared into the forests toward Grover Hot Springs State Park, and the old white schoolhouse. The cow pastures atop the hill behind me and the ones across town were like plateaus at the edge of forest. Towering above everything were the granite crags of Silver, Reynolds, and Raymond Peaks. When I was a kid, they still had year-round glaciers.

Glacial snow, as I recall, was grainy like coarse salt. Up close it was dirty and compact. The Sierra glaciers are all gone. The peaks of my childhood look naked in photographs. I wish I could recall more details like the way water trickled out from under ice shelves that formed a glacier’s edge, or what types of tiny wildflowers grew nearby in the summer. Despite the crazy amount of snow dumped over the mountains by atmospheric rivers. Over 650 inches. Crazier yet is that the snow won’t fix California’s long-standing drought or humanity’s short-sightedness in damming the rivers of the West. Those glaciers are not likely to return.

Ever? Well, who knows about ever.

In a Dream, I’m back on that familiar hillside. I’m elevated like a director in a crane, overlooking a movie set. Immediately, two riders gallop their twin sorrel horses straight up that steep hillside. Hooves hit the ground hard, kicking up rocks and dirt. The tails of the horses are dark red and black. My family once had a horse with a tail like that. Deacon. A steady sure-footed quarter horse with cow-sense. It means he did his job on the trail or in the corral. He was dependable. As the riders race up the hill and I follow from my observational crane position, someone is shooting. Rifle fire rounds out the Old West vibe of this Dream image. On top of the hill, the riders are gone and I’m back on my feet.

Instead of the cow-pastures I remember, I stand in a luminous space. The grass is so tall and so vivid with an other-worldly light shining through every blade. Flowers bloom, nod, and rebloom in deep colors like LED globes. The light of this space is undeniable, yet the forest surrounding me is tall, deep, and dark. Not dark in a foreboding way. More like, impenetrable. Safe. A cow pasture sanctuary. Just me, the grass, and the reviving flowers. I’m not a cow — or a calf, bull, or steer — but I feel this image feeds me.

Last week, I didn’t really teach. I counseled. I encouraged. I asked questions, and let my students hijack a class with a lively discussion that had nothing to do with ENG I03 or writing or Our Missing Hearts. Friday was a snow day. We all stayed home and I didn’t record a class or assign any homework. We have much to process with the closing of our university.

Moving forward, I completely rewrote the second half of our class, following my intuition and passion for studying stories through the imagery of film. I’m teaching the class in a way that will also encourage my students during a difficult transformation. They will answer the same journal question every week: What possibilities do you have this week? It’s my way of reminding them that we will take each week as it comes and look for possibilities and not get hung up on problems like the two riders chasing after gunshots. We will watch video clips and correlate the analysis to our book. And, of course, we will write 99-word stories in class.

Over the weekend, I got Todd to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once. I had seen it at the Film Fest and it set my brain on fire (in a good way). I thought the story was beautiful and absurd. The acting was incredible as evidenced by all the Academy Awards. Michelle Yeoh was brilliant. Ke Huy Quan delivered a powerful performance. Todd couldn’t follow along. The flashing images that lit me up, agitated his brain. The movie made him angry, but he said he was happy that I liked it. A small balm for not being able to share the experience with him fully.

Here’s what’s in store for my students. First, we will watch a film analysis focused on the idea that Waymond Wang (played by Ke Huy Quan) has no character arc. I can’t wait to draw this on the whiteboard. It’s a profound treatment of a secondary character and one that breaks stereotypes of beta males. Then we will watch two clips that focus on the actor’s achievements as a former refugee with few opportunities in Hollywood and his inspiring Academy acceptance speech. We will discuss secondary characters in the novel we are reading and how we can relate to the actor achieving a life-long dream. By watching film clips we can learn to analyze novels.

By writing in class, we will learn to process our thoughts as well. Images are powerful whether they find us in memory, dreams, film, books, fairy tales, or in an impossibly lit cow pasture.

March 20, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about shots fired. Where is this story taking place? Is there urgency or surprise? Who is there? What happens next? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by March 25, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.