The wind swings overhead electric cables, casting shadows across the white snow. The movement catches my attention until I finally see the first rabbit appear. Like shadows, four more bunnies hop down Roberts Street. Mause and I are buried beneath the Blanket of Joy on the couch and she sleeps through the emerging rabbits.

To my embarrassment, I genuinely forgot yesterday was Sunday, the day reserved for writing a challenge post. Monday dawned with an important client meeting to prepare for, a veteran snafu, an unexpected call from a fellow prof regarding classes that start next week, and a movie out with a Warrior Sister.

Now, Mause is sleeping alone on the couch and I’m feeling like one of my students cramming to finish an essay.

The veteran snafu involved license plates. As a caregiver, I had to first understand the upheaval a notice in the mail created. Once we were understanding the issue, I armed Todd with the proper paperwork and sent him to the local state office. One mission accomplished.

The movie could have been one I shared with you with an eye for film writing. Alas, my friend and I both forgot the movie theater was closed on Mondays. We went to Applebees instead (nothing to write home about there). Coming home late, I crossed paths with the rabbits.

I wonder where they sleep and what feels like a Blanket of Joy to them? I know they nibble raspberry canes. A burrow must be nearby and I suspect my neighbor’s old carriage house. In the morning, I will likely see their distinct prints in the fresh dusting of snow.

Snow. Don’t get me started. It’s been an icy winter and the snow is greasy. During the blizzard a few weeks back, the snow blew so hard that our garage collected drifts. Mause was the only one in our household who found the mid-blizzard snow-shoveling fun. She barked with excitement, the sound carried by the wind. My friend told me tonight they got 50 inches of snow in that storm. It’s fizzled since then; the snow.

We are left to ponder the lives of rabbits.

January 9, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that includes rabbits. Is it a family? A strange planet? Some crazy bunny person’s pets? Who are they and what are they doing? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by January 14, 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.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

I’m old enough to have a son who will be taking a sabbatical later this (new) year. How is it he gets one before I do? Oh, that’s right. He was impressionable when I went back to college for my undergrad degree and followed the academic trail on his own to a job that recognizes the need to rest after several intense years of travel and work. I’m happy for him.

In a way, I took my own sabbatical in 2022. It was less formalized and appeared in the guise of “letting go.” Surrendering and resting may not sound like top-shelf New Year’s resolutions, but life often calls us to do the unexpected. Last year was one of the most lost years I’ve lived.

I wondered and wandered. I had no North Star because I had too many clouds blocking my view. I made several choices I never thought I’d make.

First, I stopped writing. After ten years of dogged transformation to go from a marketing communicator to a literary artist, I didn’t set a single goal. I wasn’t concerned about my choice because I’ve been writing at a professional level for over 25 years and know what it takes to write when I don’t feel like it. I won that battle years ago (thank you deadlines). To me, writing is not what comes and goes; it’s the writer. The writer can find inroads. I don’t believe writing inspiration dries up beyond restoration. I quit writing because I had too much unsettled in my life.

So I quit my marriage. The hardest day was in March when I let go. Just let it go like a bird I’d held captive in my hands. I didn’t think I could help my husband any more than I had and I really wanted both of us to be happy. He had turned his veteran journey into a battlefield and I had no fight left. Despite my acceptance into the VA Caregiver Support Program, it had come too late. They prepared me for separation from my duties and I did my best to prepare Todd.

He didn’t leave, as he’d been wanting to do ever since we arrived at the Keweenaw. I found a place to live and secured as much work at the local university as I could, adding professional tutoring to my adjunct professor position. All I needed was my half of the sale of our house. I had carefully tried not to call it a home and I even let go of ever having one. I’d have an apartment and that would have to do.

Covid has changed much of the social landscape as we knew it. Covid also changed my marriage. I half-heartedly laughed when I left the house to shelter elsewhere after Todd got Covid and his last words to me were about life insurance. Maybe it jogged something in his unreliable brain. Maybe my leaving when he was sick made him question his independence. There were many other factors at play but what changed was that he decided not to leave. I didn’t agree to stay (my apartment is still not ready). But I didn’t leave, either.

Letting go didn’t mean giving up or withholding love. Like with writing, it was a break; a time to ponder what will this be like?

What struck me, though, when I realized I didn’t have to leave, I allowed myself to feel how deep my feelings ran for my husband, family, and home. I’m a writer and even at my best, I don’t think I can aptly explain the complexity of those emotions. I have a profound appreciation for my bedroom and Unicorn Room as sanctuaries. I enjoyed Mause more, knowing I could continue to be with her. And I let go of training her or trying to correct/fix/help Todd.

Caregiver Support quickly kicked in and I’m profoundly grateful to have access. My therapist helped me understand a lot of Todd’s brain trauma doesn’t mean he is not there anymore. He’s still Todd and I keep an eye out for glimpses of him daily even if I’m laughing at really awful jokes like him “scenting” my sanctuaries. It’s become a morning ritual. I’m deep into yoga or meditation and he walks in making airplane sounds for a round of “crop-dusting.” Unfortunately for me, the joke renews almost daily.

On my side though, is a strange peace I’ve found where I thought there’d only be chaos.

Chaos came to school. The one area I applied myself last year was Finlandia. It was going to be my second career. The University’s enrollment tanked and I got two new bosses with whom I’m not a good fit. Can you ever remember being yelled at while at work? Well, it happened twice and with the same person. As someone who used to manage people, I was surprised. I can’t recall being ill-treated like that and I will no longer be tutoring. With the low enrollments, it’s questionable as to whether or not I’ll have enough students for a single class. For now, I have the minimum of four.

Carrot Ranch was not on the letting go block, but I did pare down to the bare bones. I had to figure out how to let go of a life and rebuild it. You likely noticed I was barely on social media and did not promote or visit blogs. I let go of any marketing. If ever there was a good year, I picked it! So much has changed in the social media sphere and I’m reminded of why we assess marketing annually. Without writing, I had no meaning, no target audience, and no visual on my North Star.

It’s coming back. I let go of so much I now know what is important, what isn’t, and what I can handle. This year, my focus is two-fold: peace and follow-thru. When you let go, you find peace at the bottom of the rope. When you let go, you don’t follow thru; there’s no need because you’re at the bottom of your pit after having let go. Now comes what next.

This winter break, I socialized more. I stayed in more with Todd and played more with him and Mause at the dog park. I watched a lot of films and documentaries. I read. I listened. I planned. My vision plan is nearly finished and my business plan is restarted. My SBA rep gave my proposal a green light saying I had nothing to lose. He’s right. And he doesn’t know I spent the last year on a sabbatical of letting go.

So greetings, best wishes, and aanii to you all. I appreciate your patience with me. As I return from my sabbatical, I’ll be putting my life back together with care. I realize that my heavy-achieving days belong to my younger years. I’m not old by any means but as a woman, I’m in the second half of life and I mean to live it on my terms not the expectations of others. I don’t need to achieve. I want to connect, inspire, be inspired, practice peace, and find a path where I can follow thru on the doing part of being.

A simple note of housekeeping — technological issues are now known (as Hugh and Colleen thought, it was an outmoded theme in WP. Happiness Engineers found several other theme options, but I’m still contemplating a move to a WP site hosted by Site Ground. I’ll decide later this month. I appreciate all the suggestions, too. For now, I’ll use the clunky workaround because it’s the best solution for what I want to do. My intention for following thru is to visit and be more social. Carrot Ranch remains at its foundation a place to practice the art of creative writing. It’s accessible. Anyone can take the weekly challenge to create a commitment to their writing process. You are free to set any goals for yourself, using the challenges.

This is it. I’m back in the saddle. I might be a bit like a greenhorn, but I’ll catch the rhythm soon enough! A hearty thanks to those of you who kept the campfire going. I’m grateful for your presence at the Ranch! Let’s ride and write!

January 2, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a sabbatical. Who needs one or has had one? What kind of tension could a rest create? Where can a break take your story? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by January 7, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection will be published 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.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

We gnawed the turkey bones clean after we soaked the twenty-pound bird in a Riesling and herbs brine, slid sage and butter beneath its skin, and roasted it for five hours. Turkey sandwiches with a slather of mayo and cranberry sauce consoled me after my children flew away. Once again, the nest is empty.

The visit was divine.

Bug and her partner, Josh, arrived from Montana the Sunday before Thanksgiving. They had flown to the states earlier to attend a good friend’s traditional Indian wedding in Washington, DC. Then, they returned to their properties and stuff in storage in Montana. It’s complicated living overseas on an arctic achipelago but they do well. It’s been five long years since I had seen my favorite middle daughter.

My favorite eldest daughter and I waited up until 1 am before their plane finally landed on the Keweenaw Peninsula. We were giddy! We hugged, hugged, and hugged some more. The couple stayed at the Ghost House Farm and I was there every day. Todd got to visit, too and by the grace of the brain gods, he handled the week well.

On Wednesday, my favorite son, Kyle, and his wife, Leah, drove over from Wisconsin. The siblings were like a reunited pack of pups. Mause was beside herself. She barked at first. She recognizes Allison, but the other two smelled of faraway places, one of polar bears, the other of cheese. Mause adjusted. We had everything from a 100-year-old recipe of enchiladas to cast-iron Brussels with bacon and Parmesan. Thanksgiving fit as the final meal unless you count pie and leftovers at breakfast the next day.

We puzzled. The kids brought me a gift on Wednesday as I was cooking all day — a puzzle with pieces that feel like velvet. The colors are matte so there is no glare. It’s a game-changer. Speaking of games, I lost every one I played but I could not be happier. It’s been so long since we all chased sheep as Settlers of Catan. We played Scrabble, and they all marveled over my kayaking/camping Scrabble board. And, of course, the Ghost House favorite — Wingspan.

The house is quiet and decorated for Solstice (when flights and cars depart, I turn to decorating and Trans Siberian Orchestra for solace). Mause whines. I tell her they will not be away for so long again. I tell her we can go visit the dog park or her farm cousins. I’m so blissed out and blessed to have had the time to be fully present to my grown children.

Alas, the transition back to teaching and tutoring at Finlandia has returned quickly. I have no idea why, but the silly phrase, “not my monkeys, not my circus” created an earworm. Not a song, but it gives me a funny visual as I attempt to re-enter the post-visit world.

November 28, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story using the saying, “not my monkeys, not my circus”. What is the situation that would spawn that aphorism? Have fun with setting and characters! Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by December 3, 2022. Please use the form if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines. Stories must be 99-words.
2. Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
3. Your blog or social media link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
4. Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

The petunias and I were not ready for the return of Lake Superior’s great snow machine. The flowers had remained colorful longer than any other autumn I’ve experienced on the Keweenaw Peninsula. Then…suddenly…white stuff. Ah, that’s the way of it. Winter has arrived.

Soon, so does my Svalbard daughter. I’m beside myself with excitement. I cleaned all day, realizing I don’t do much house cleaning. Oh, my. Lots of grit made its way down the drain or out the door. I cleaned the refrigerator, oven, and all my rocks. Well, most of my rocks. I have a lot of rocks.

It’s been five years since all three of my grown kids — all in their thirties — have been home. Home has been a moving target. I decided home is where we gather. Maybe home is truly nothing more than a shared campfire, a gathering of warmth and stories. And turkey.

The turkeys from Minnesota have arrived in Michigan. I know the turkey farmers and their farm used to be a frequent stop back when I wrote about local food, farmers, and artisans. It’s the turkey I always prepared when the kids were teens and young adults and home was defined by house and place. We can still share a beautiful meal. And beautiful it will be.

My eldest is now buried in snow on her farm. She sends us this fun romp with her two farm dogs, Oberon and Uther. You can clearly see we are all adjusting to the snow and the annoying way it clings to furry rumps.

I’ll keep it short and sweet. The midnight flight is nearing and I’m going to go to the farm and wait with Allison. I’m wishing everyone a beautiful week whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not. Know that I’m grateful for each and every one of you at Carrot Ranch. Aanii!

November 21, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story using the phrase, “Oh, my.” It can be used in storytelling or dialog. What is the cause for such a response? Have fun with this one! Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by November 26, 2022. Please use the form if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines. Stories must be 99-words.
2. Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
3. Your blog or social media link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
4. Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

Ninety-six years ago on November 14, 1928, Nellie Edith Emmons married Emmett Wilbur Colescott in Grand Junction, Colorado. Nellie’s sister, Gladys stood in as a witness. The minister, Franklin Fenner, apparently did not know the couple. You see, they lied to obtain a marriage certificate.

Edith and Emmett are my great-grandparents, the parents of my dad’s mom. Like all my family lines, they are colorful. My dad has shared stories with me that his Grandpa Emmett wrote down in his later years (he died in 1980). My own memories of him are fuzzy; nothing distinct.

Emmett began his story with the marriage of his parents. He writes, “Well as you can see by the enclosed Marriage Certificate, Mr. Edward “Scolescott” and Miss Belle Morse were united in marriage December 14, 1898. Witnessed by Dads Father and Eugene Rountree, one of the biggest drunks in Desoto, Kansas. The name Colescott probably misspelled by a drunk justice of the Peace.”

I did say, the Colescotts were a colorful lineage. The drunken marriage occurred between two teens a week before Christmas. I wonder how the holidays were that year? The Morse family was not like the Colescotts (a theme that often plays out in my family tree). Some families have a wild branch. Mine is the wild tree with the occasional upstanding branch hastily grafted to no avail. We are survivors of our own shit.

Emmet further explains, “Dad’s father was a little Wiry Irishman and an onyeyer [ornrey] little Devil never lived from what I can remember. Not mean in disposition but one who would fight a Buzz Saw at the drop of a hat over Politics, Religion or most anything else you might want to mention. He was a drinker and when he got on a tear you had better look out.”

He continues, “Dad’s mother from what I could ever gather was a Red Headed Scotchwoman and very pretty. I think she died in childbirth. Dad had a sister Maude who was a few years younger than he. Also he had a Brother John.” From records I’ve uncovered, it’s plausible that Emmet’s grandmother Mary Colescott died in childbirth. She was 29 years old and left behind four children, although my great-grandfather fails to mention Anna Colescott. She married a Rountree and was dead within three years, five years before Emmett was born. She slipped into oblivion, childless and unremembered.

It’s those graves that call to me the most when I explore cemeteries for stories. The graves of young women who nowadays would be of college student age often get left behind. Families move. Young husbands remarry. Later nieces and nephews grow up unaware of the young aunts no one mentions. Graves sink. No one places flowers or flags. What would my second great-grandaunt have studied had she’d been given the chance? Would she have voted had she lived longer? Was she redheaded and ornery, too?

Back to Emmett, the Colescott chronicler. He mentions the Morse family as “entirely different.” They, too, were Welsh. I wonder if Emmett knew his Grandpa Stark Morse fought in the Civil War as a Kansas Jayhawker? Even though the Morses were different and Caroline Winklman was raised in the faith of the Pennsylvania Dutch, I see a bit of the wild woman in his Grandma Morse. After all, someone of her faith married a Union Soldier at the start of the Civil War. What did her parents think?

Emmet recalls Grandma Morse (Caroline) hunkered down outside along the sunny side of their house in De Soto. According to 1915 Kansas census records, Caroline was staying with her daughter Belle and SIL Ed Colescott. Emmett was five. Why was Grandma Morse hunkered down outside? One explanation from her obituary is that she was an avid gardener, and the day before her death she was planning her next one. However, Emmet writes, “With her old brown shawl over her head and shoulders, she smoked her little clay pipe and made a hole in the dirt with a little stick to spit in. I used to love and set and watch her.” I think I would have, too.

Keep in mind, in 1915, Kansas was a blue sky state, meaning alcohol and tobacco were illegal. Grandma Morse may not have been all that different from the rapscallions of the Colescott clan. Perhaps young Emmet understood. My great-grandfather sums it up like this: “Well, as you can see this combination makes me Scotch, Irish, Welsh and Pennsylvania Dutch…Just Better say plain old American.”

He writes, “My earliest recollections are of the combination Restaurant, Soda Fountain and grocery store Ma and Dad ran in Desoto…Ma made homemade bread and pies and sold them and did most of the cooking. Don’t remember how much help she had but not much…Dad was a Booze fighting, woman chasing ringtailed humdinger and he loved to hunt and fish. Well our side of the Colescotts were simply not strictly law abiding citizens…Dad bootlegged Cigs from Missouri and also Whiskey.”

I grew up hearing stories from my Grandma Jean about whiskey in the sasparilla. The soda fountain in the restaurant and grocery store that her grandmother ran was a bootlegging front that eventually led to that side of the Colescotts having to leave Kansas. Emmett followed his father’s and grandfather’s ways in Colorado. All three men welcomed the Prohibition for the chance to make money bootlegging. According to family lore, but omitted from Emmett’s writing and as of yet unverified, something happened after the family moved west.

All Emmett has to say is, “I don’t know if we left Kansas by desire or request but I know we left when I was seven. Things get a little mixed up for me for a time.” He writes of hard times, of cattle freezing to death in Nevada, of a cousin trying to shoot his mother, of jackrabbits so thick, of being broke and eating tamales. Eventually, they went to Colorado and Emmett’s Dad found work, property, and continued to bootleg. According to family lore, his dad’s father was shot and killed in a raid. In 1926 Emmett married Edith.

My granduncle George was born in 1927 in Delta, Colorado followed by my grandaunt JoAn the following year. The Colescotts continued to live on the fringes of law-abiding citizenry and Emmet was arrested along with his dad for running alcohol distribution in 1928. It’s not clear if he did jail time but my Grandma Jean was not born until 1930. And, she was born in the Sierra Nevada mountains where I grew up because they were hiding out from the law. By 1935 they returned to Delta. I remember my grandma telling me about her earliest memory of living in Colorado. Her mother had the girls sing to their daddy outside the county jail. Grandma Jean sang and cried. A theme she’d repeat throughout her life. Yet, no matter where her monster of a husband drug her and the kids off to, some hidden Nevada ranch to escape consequences, she gardened and whistled like a songbird.

Emmet and Edith came to California permanently during WWII. They settled in an obscure area that remains remote today despite its proximity to Silicon Valley. Paicines. The old store where Grandma Jean took me to buy penny candy when she picked up her mail reminded her Dad of the store his family once had in De Soto, Kansas. Emmett stayed out of trouble thereafter. Edith must have been creative with a desire to perform. Small snippets of news exist to say she was in a play or won a poetry contest. I wonder what my great-grandma’s dreams were? She died at the age of 52 from the toxins she encountered as a fruit picker when the family fled to California for the first time.

So, the lie?

Emmett Colescott was not 21, nor was Edith 20. Nellie Edith Emmons was 22 years old and two months pregnant. Emmett was barely 16. I always knew that she was older than him, but I had no idea how young my great-grandfather was. When I think about how his life turned traumatic after leaving Kansas, I wonder what it was he sought in a relationship with Edith. Their early years of marriage must have been tumultuous with the bootlegging, raids, and children. California became a sort of peace, I think, though he lost his wife young.

November 14, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that includes a lie. What is the lie? It can be subtle or blatant. Who tells the lie and why? Is it an unreliable narrator? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by November 19, 2022. Please use the form if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines. Stories must be 99-words.
2. Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
3. Your blog or social media link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
4. Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

Farms can be squeaky places. Fence posts squeak over time. Dust in the truck brakes or unoiled wheelbarrows creak. Wind rouses anything loose or unhinged. Various critters and humans encountering the unexpected can emit all kinds of high-pitched responses. Even fresh cheese curds made can squeak with each bite.

The mystery of daylight savings time has descended upon the Keweenaw and it’s now officially the dark of the year in this place. Driving to my daughter’s farm, I can see through the woods after all the leaves have dropped. Naked trees wait for their winter coats of snow, reminding me to get my wool coat to the cleaners.

At the farm, apple trees denuded of leaves still cling to fruit. Some globes are yellow, others red. A future farm project is cider but for now, the farmers have enough to do with goats and pigs. One herd has expanded while the other munches dropped apples during their last week before they go to the local butcher. The farm sold all their pork shares in a single day and gained six new goats over two weeks.

I’m here for goats, not bacon. I want to watch the babies and see the wonder of Pegus Sue’s triplets.

Nubian goats don’t squeak. They scream and bleat. The mamas vocalize, calling for their babies. Beast, the only remaining male goat from last year’s herd is the companion to the billy, Big Chip. His mama is Belle, a small half-Nubian and half-dwarf goat who is a bit off. She was a freebie when my daughter and her husband started their herd last year, and Beast was born at Ghost House Farm. She also gave birth this week to a buckling and when she calls for him, Beast responds outside. What, Mom? I’m right here, Mom! Mom? A new brother is confusing Beast.

Molly had two bucklings a week and a half ago, and Peggy gave birth two days ago to triplets — two bucklings and a doeling. The oldest two rascals thought Auntie Peggy sprawled in the hay to play with them. My daughter found Peggy in labor with Molly’s buckings jumping on and off the prone goat. Peggy accepted the play in stride, but when Belle pushed Molly out of the barn, chaos followed. While Allison and Drew helped Peggy, Belle attempted to kill her nephews.

It must have been a hot mess at the time. Molly bellering outside the barn, run off by Belle. Belle silently head-butting and stomping at Molly’s twins in a corner. The twins crying, terrified. Belle’s new baby bleating and Beast calling from the divide across the barn where he and Big Chip live temporarily.

My daughter told me how she stayed with Peggy who was struggling with her second birth because the amniotic sac hadn’t broken. She said Drew built a fast makeshift divide while he also attempted to keep Belle from killing Molly’s twins. When Allison couldn’t get the second-born goat to breathe, she said she hollered for Drew but he had fenced himself off from her and Peggy. All’s well that turns out well. The second goat (named Carrot, by the way) found his breath.

A calm followed the chaos. Goats were safe and less vocal. Everyone had access to the hay chute. When it seemed the craziness had ended, Peggy dropped a third baby. Triplets. No wonder she had been in such discomfort the past three weeks. She’s a good mama, though and she lets all three nurse. The doeling is Vidalia, and the third sibling is Cabbage. The bucklings are spotted like fawns but will keep their markings. The doeling is an exact copy of Peggy.

I did not get to experience the high drama of Peggy’s labor because I’ve been submerged in Film Fest as if it were an artesian well ready to fill mine. Film was the first tool I learned from my mentor and advisor when I was in an undergrad writing program. From my prof, I learned how to study story structure and scene transitions, as well as plot and characterization. I’ve used film to teach my English comp students, too.

41 North Film Fest arrives with the dark of the year. It is my light. The best movies are the ones that inspire me. The worst ones are the films that depress me and leave viewers without a resolution or hope. But nothing viewed goes wasted. Discussions expand my perspective. Listening to filmmakers describe their vision or reason for their films, enlightens me. Hearing panels of researchers respond to documentaries gives me a deeper understanding. While the farm turned, I snort-laughed, cried, and sparked an internal eternal fire of creativity we all share.

If you want to view a sample of films I watched over four days, I created a playlist of trailers for my students. I used these trailers to teach analysis.

My favorite film and why? “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Brilliant movie. Brilliant writing. Brilliant mastery of everything everywhere having to do with storytelling. You know how in the persona’s journey the first scene is to show the ordinary world? Well, this movie begins there but creates a brilliant hub. In part, the genre helps — it is sci-fi meets contemporary as the ordinary world swings in and out of the multi-verse. It’s the combination of how to tell a story that makes this film relevant and absurd all at once.

One of my favorite scenes follows a trippy fight between mother and daughter. As they battle, the two characters slip in and out of their many selves in different universes. Written, the scene is short sharp staccato sentences. On the screen, it’s a flashing disco ball of action. Then, suddenly the shot spans wide over a desert scene. The action stops. And this scene unfolds:

November 7, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that includes something squeaky. What is squeaky and why? How does it move the story or disrupt a character? Listen, write, and go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by November 12, 2022. Please use the form if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines. Stories must be 99-words.
2. Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
3. Your blog or social media link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
4. Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

Happy Holidays, Carrot Ranchers! Today is Nevada Day; it is Halloween to the rest of the US. Many have celebrated Diwali this past week, and others will honor the bones of ancestors, believing the veil that separates the living from the dead thins on the Día de los Muertos. Allhallowtide is a three-day observance of All Hollow’s Eve to All Hallow’s Day to All Soul’s Eve.

No matter what you do or don’t celebrate at this mid-equinox time, sweets will likely be involved. Do you have favorites?

As a young mom, I remember instructing my children to not eat any candy until I inspected their Halloween haul. Todd and I grew up in an era when disturbed people put razor blades and needles in apples, boxes of raisin, or candy bars. I grew up in the California mountains 100 miles south, and he grew up in Nevada 100 miles east of Nevada’s “Biggest Little City” where such things happened in the ’60s and ’70s.

The wheels in my mind spin, remembering the fear of tampered candy that has now become an urban myth. Weird, to remember newspaper headlines, police warnings on TV stations, and the rise of alternative parties in women’s magazines only to find the contemporary myth on Snopes and in the Urban Dictionary. The modern chroniclers do have one thing correct — no one ever died. But the fear was palpable and lingered into my children’s childhoods. Using my Newspapers account, I had to look up some of those old articles from the Nevada and California regions. No one needed to die for the rest of us to fear punctured lips and sliced gums. As parents, we acted accordingly.

What we celebrated, and what we feared leaves a lasting impression on who we become. Yet, we continue to evolve. We never stop becoming until our last breath. Yet, we tend to experience the cycle of years with their markers for seasons and holidays as unchangeable. I could easily believe that the Halloween of today is the same as the Halloween of yesterday. It takes a distance of years in decades to see the vast difference. It takes courage to examine the difference without trying to erase or make permanent earlier truths. Not everyone is willing to hop on the bus of becoming, though. Nostalgia has a deep pull on our heartstrings.

I grew up in a tiny town that celebrated Halloween like we were secret pagans. Oh, the glee of impending Halloween in its complete Celtic triad. I can still feel wiggles of anticipation; leftover whispers from childhood. I can slip easily into the skin of nostalgia. Waking up on the morning of our all-school Halloween party where the older grades created a haunted house for the younger ones. Our school closed on Nevada Day (October 31) because half our student population attended high school across the border. We partied on October 30 and 31. In town, the Forest Service held a party at their headquarters after all of us county kids paraded through town. I was known to bring a mule. November 1, the Day of the Dead, we recovered from our sugar highs.

Such nostalgia would lead me to believe that the trick-o-treaters at my door continue a tradition I knew and loved. Teaching young college students sets me straight. In their weekly reflections, they relate different experiences of Halloween. None mentioned fearing razor blades. Or stampeding a mule down Main Street because Pizanno didn’t want three witches on his back. Costumes have evolved. I love the simple ones as much as the clever creations. My kids still like to dress up and party with the real Wiccans. These days, I’m more interested in finding ancestral connections to tending stories, stones, and dreams as I become.

When I worked in marketing communication, I remember learning the adage, don’t reinvent the wheel. Original thought and creative content doesn’t mean you need a new conveyance. Apply that idea to storytelling. There are so few wheels to apply to story structure you can add them up with your fingers. According to Jungians, there are only seven different story plots in existence the world over. Academics and modern authors might deviate from that number (some say six, some claim 36) but all the stories we know have already been written.

Therefore, don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Instead, keep those wheels rolling in the stories will flow endlessly. That’s your thought to ponder, and your prompt to get you wheeling. Enjoy your holiday as the season shift and we continue to become.

“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

~ Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

October 31, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about how the wheels keep turning. Are the wheels tangible or metaphorical? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by November 5, 2022. Please use the form if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines. Stories must be 99-words.
2. Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
3. Your blog or social media link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
4. Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

My fingers trace the nobby bones down Pegasus Sue’s back. Her vertebrae contrast with the fullness of her pregnancy. She’s a goat near term, carrying twins for five months. She leans her head into my hands and I cradle her jaw, massage her skull, and gently rub her back.

It’s a slow descent to winter on the Keweenaw Peninsula. We’ve had a few gales, some hard frosts, and even made national news with our shovable snow. But it has already melted and the lilac bushes cling to their green leaves as the maples shed their colorful canopies.

The sunny days we’ve had lift everyone’s spirits. We stay outside, hold bonfires, and prep the farm for winter. Well, the farmers do. I might cook a meal, or watch an episode of Bake with my daughter. It’s her birthday weekend and she wants to focus on her flower beds. She dug, separated, and replanted bulbs of irises, lilies, and hyacinths. I mostly hung out with goats, picking apples, and comforting an uncomfortable Pegasus Sue.

Molly, the younger doe of three at Ghost House Farm, already birthed her twins. Allison and Drew went out to the ghost-house-cum-goat-barn on Saturday and noticed a wee goat. I soon arrived — because my goat senses were tingling — to see twins still wet from birth.

Immediately, I swooned. I fell into full cuteness overload as this video demonstrates.

Fall seems an odd time to welcome babies to a farm in the Northern Hemisphere. Chip, the male goat, is also in rut which seems like even worse timing. The pregnant does want nothing to do with him. He hangs out with the herd of round-bellied kids from last fall in a separate pen and side of the Ghost House. The pigs are near time to go to market and the goats are birthing. Cycle of life and death plays out on a farm from day to day.

I wonder at the bones in this land. How many generations of humans and kin have fed the soil on this rocky spine? As Halloween approaches, I think of the different ways people around the world honor and bless bones. They say the veil thins at Samhain; a time for talking to the Ancestors.

As I comfort Peggy’s bones, I listen to messages on the wind. What stories lurk in the coming dark of the year? At least I know the light is somewhere. Thank you Australia and New Zealand for containing the light as the northern region of the world confronts the shadows. Day or night, North or South, the bones have a chance to speak their tales.

October 24, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about bones. It can be any genre or tone. Is it spooky, irreverant, poignant? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by October 29, 2022. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
3. Your blog or social media link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
4. Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

Aanii, my Friends of Carrot Ranch! I return to this place after walking Nibi for three days, transformed.

Transformation follows its own course. Linear time loses all meaning on a Water Walk, flowing like water does. I get it now. I understand the purpose of ceremony, the physical, emotional, and mental act of becoming one heart.

We all understand the concept of like-mindedness. We recognize the comfort or joy we feel when we encounter people who think like we do. It could be career related. I always relish talking to those who “get” the writing experience or understand the basics of marketing. For others, it might be the camaraderie of community or foodies out on the town. Sometimes, we find safety and comfort in hanging out with like minds. We don’t have to explain or debate.

Becoming one heart means joining un-like minds.

People of the Heart commit to the water walk for many reasons. Some people are indeed like-minded and others couldn’t be any more different. No one agrees on how to proceed yet none of us are leaders. Although I am a founding member who welcomed the Anishinaabe back to their Ceded Territory after the devastating Father’s Day floods of 2018, I joined to learn and experience the Anishinaabe protocols. I’ve held myself back, mindful not to appropriate a culture I respect but knew was not my own.

Each year, I’ve tried to organize the way I know how, and each year I learn to back off and let it be. This year, I stepped in it, so to speak, when I petitioned Finlandia University’s justice committee to hold the feast. A church in Houghton provided the space. I wanted to involve the students and faculty. Despite my fumbling, the church was glad to work in partnership with the university. It took me stepping out of the way and letting the water flow.

Each year, the Water Walk works. We show up at pre-dawn. We lift the water in ceremony, passing the copper bucket from woman to woman, looking straight ahead, trusting the Eagle Staff carrier to be our eyes. What is there to plan? We walk. We leapfrog walkers and support vehicles ahead. We welcome whoever shows up. We keep walking when no one else does. Nibi compels us forward.

This year I became more attuned to my desire to plan, organize, and expect. I let go at each moment of recognition. I also saw others frustrated in their own ways because of the human need to control events. What if like-mindedness is the attempt to control circumstances and outcomes to meet our expectations. Isn’t that what linear time is all about? But each time I let go, I marveled at how we continued to be in ceremony.

By our last leg of the journey, gathered for our final feast, I felt such agape love for everyone involved. I felt the support of others from afar. I felt a connection with those seated at the feast table, especially my elders. I felt love oozing from my ribbon skirt that embodied the spirit of the chickadees Sue Spitulnik crafted — friendship. I was on such a love high the day after, I hardly noticed my lack of sleep. I felt love for my students so strongly.

Then it collapsed. Or maybe I collapsed inside.

Needing to cry, and feeling disconnected, I went to Gichigammi and met her at my favorite beach (McLains). Her waves rolled furiously, yet the day was oddly warm. Turns out, my friend and fellow Water Walker was also there and for the same reason. She explained that we needed time to re-enter. She listened to my feeble complaints, and she spoke of her dying dad who has recently walked on. We both cried. Becoming one heart with a diverse group of people is an intense experience.

The next day, one of my students who is First Nations from Canada, shared how his Tribe has both Warrior Chiefs and Peace Chiefs. I realized that the ceremonies to bring people into one heart also prepare people to express and resolve grievances. In this sense, Water Walkers are the Peace Chiefs. But we need our leaders, our warriors, to join us.

While I have much to unpack and ponder, and so many stories I want to tell by the campfire (like when our Two-Spirited Beauty Maker lost both his soles, or the time I left my new Grandmother for dead convinced she was sleeping — and thankfully she was — and all the jokes we made about the va-jay-jay Aboriginal material in our teacher’s skirt) I will continue to process.

I want to share with you the beautiful Ojibwe greeting of “aanii.” It means, “I see the light in you.” Isn’t that a loving way to greet someone? What if we saw the light in one another instead of passing judgment, measuring people for how like-minded they might be? Let us do the work to become one-hearted.

Write and let your light shine.

October 17, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that references “I see the light in you.” You can use the phrase or demonstrate it in a story. Who is shining and why? Who is observing or reacting? What is the setting? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by October 22, 2022. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
3. Your blog or social media link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
4. Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

Monday, October 10, 2022, is the second Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the US. Social justice organizations around the world are recognizing the harm of colonization and cultural genocide on Indigenous populations. My classes are tasked with reflection on what it means to belong to a place. How do we overcome othering and welcome the contributions of groups, nations, and regions around the people?

Today, I walk in the company of my bone, spirit, and land ancestors. I think about belonging through kinship and presence. Today, I am present to the water. It is the third day of a 92-mile People of the Heart Water Walk.

Nga-zhichige Nibi onji. When I get tired, when I have less sleep and more responsibilities, when it’s my turn to carry the water, I say, “I will do it for the water.” My t-shirt speaks our petition and commitment. My skirt flows so the land of Turtle Island recognizes me as a woman, a vessel for water. Water is life and women are the water bearers.

This is my fourth Water Walk, although I did different work for the water in 2020 because of Covid. Actually, I seem to do different yet similar work each year. I’m learning to go with the flow. We are communal organizers, working as a collective of women under the sacred teachings of the Anishinaabekwe from Keweenaw Bay. We walk through their Ceded Territory. The Keweenaw. My Rocky Spine.

For the first time, I wear a traditional ribbon skirt. My friend, writer, and quilt artist, Sue Spitulnik, designed and created the skirt with material we found in a quilt shop in Ithica, New York. She appliqued two chickadees over colorful ribbons. The joyful birds represent kinship and friendship; they express joy in totality. I feel uplifted, wearing my skirt, Water Walker t-shirt, and hiking boots.

This year, Finlandia University took on the role of feast hosts our first night. I’ve been talking about the walk to my students as we read the Fire Keeper’s Daughter. When I was asked to write something about the Water Walk to our Finlandia community, this is what I wrote:

The People of the Heart came together after the devastation of the Father’s Day Floods to form community around the sacredness of water. We don’t really have organizers, but we look to the Anishinaabekwe to guide us collectively in their teachings. We all do the work for the water, and like water, we flow where needed. The Water Walk is a sacred ceremony open to all faiths and people. Women lift and carry the water in a copper vessel from one point on the journey to the next. A Water Walk is the only time an Eagle Staff walks behind (the water). Men or women can carry the Eagle Staff; only women can carry the Water. Women wear skirts so the land recognizes us in our work. Nga-zhidchige nibi onji (I will do it for the water). Finlandia holding a feast, anyone donating or preparing food, all of this is part of doing the work for the Water.

Many social injustices center around Water and we walk to speak for the Water, for those harmed by toxins in the Water, for our Land Ancestors, and for those not yet born. Water is life.

The People of the Heart Water Walk takes place over a three-day weekend aligned with Indigenous People’s Day. In the beginning, IPD did not yet exist. We chose fall because we walk narrow, busy, and scenic byways that cut across Anishinaabe Ceded Territory, and traffic is lighter. We educate people along the route with the images of the attached brochure. We walk 92 miles in three days, passing off the vessel from one woman to the next. We walk in relay but the Water never stops until we bring it to a ceremonial close of the day (or, reach our final destination). We feast and rest with the communities living where we walk. Typically, we gather pre-dawn and start walking as the sun rises.

Anyone can join the Water Walk at any time. Come for an hour, a day, all three days. We have a system of leapfrogging walkers in relay with vehicles and I can take walkers back to their vehicles. I commit to all three days, assigning my ENG 103 C and 104 B classes to attend Finlandia’s Indigenous Peoples Day event and using the Water Walk in writing and reflection lessons. We are reading Fire Keeper’s Daughter in ENG 103 and The Four Pivots in ENG 104 and the Water Walk is a way to deepen our understanding of culture, Ceded Territory, and social justice. I hope our students, faculty, staff, and trustees can join us as we feast and rest and share community. We welcome everyone’s prayers.

Chi Miigwech to Finlandia University!

C. Mills 2022

We are fortunate to learn from the Water Walkers who walked with Grandma Josephine. She was a grandmother who founded the water protectors movement along with other women from the four directions of Turtle Island (North America). We learn as we walk. Like writing. Practice makes progress, not perfection.

You can learn about our Water Walk and traditional protocol in this brochure we distribute along our route:

I invite you to ponder how precious water is today.

October 10, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that expresses the idea, “for the water.” You can find inspiration in water protection movements. Is it a celebration or a dark dystopian warning? Consider your place and the bodies of water that have shaped you. Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by October 15, 2022. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
3. Your blog or social media link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
4. Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
5. Please include the hashtag #99Word Stories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.