Quick JAB

QuickJAB

Fences in My World

JAB

FarmerMan has fenced in our peach trees. Do you see that the left side of the tree is bare? There is another peach tree next to it, and it looks just the same.

We had apple trees growing in the same two spots for the last few years, and they were always bare on that east side, just like this peach tree. We thought we had a strange weather environment in just that small spot because the rest of our fruit trees were fine. Or maybe there was a type of bug that ate only part of the tree because they were too lazy to fly or crawl to the other side.

We had two fig trees that were west of the two suffering apple trees that also finally died after all their fruit that was almost ripe disappeared and their leaves were stripped. We pulled up the dead trees, so they wouldn’t spread their strange virus to the rest of our trees.

When we planted the peach trees this year, FarmerMan fed and fertilized them and double-checked their irrigation. All was good until it wasn’t, and we were perplexed.

Our son visits regularly; FarmerMan showed him our troubling trees.

“Deer,” he said.

FarmerMan used what we had on hand, and the fences went up around all the peach trees. The green tape gives a little more height to the fence.  We’re hoping to slow the all-you-can-eat free  buffet for our deer neighbors.

Have you heard the old saying, “good fences make good neighbors”? I’m hoping our hungry neighbors decide to move on for their night time snack. I’d like to rewrite the old saying: “Good fences make absent neighbors.”

TJ and Toby, however, don’t share in our fondness for fences. They’d much prefer no fences or at least an open gate, so they could visit their friends who live half a mile away and find new friends that might be two or three miles from the farm.

Ella Fitzgerald sings TJ and Toby’s theme song: Don’t Fence Me In

My world revolves around what’s happening outside. What is your world?

Looking for a great book to read to be immersed in an exciting world?

Browse, shop, read, enjoy!

Barrett Book Shop

QuickJAB

Go for the Burn

JAB

The past year has been rough on our trees: windstorms, heavy rain, a tropical storm, a hurricane, and two tornados have taken their toll.

We’ve waited for the downed trees and branches to dry out, then we waited for a relatively wind-free day  to Go for the Burn.

Do you see the helpers who showed up? There’s a fire witch and a fire ghoul who brought their cannon to the fire. If the fire hadn’t been roaring so loudly, we would have heard the fire ghoul signaling, “Ready? Aim! FIRE!”

If you don’t see them, it’s okay. I don’t write horror, so you won’t see them later in a book, which is why we don’t know their names.

This was a cameo appearance of the fire apparitions to encourage me to Go for the Burn while I’m writing, and I am! I’m on a roll and ready to announce the PreOrder of the new GRID DOWN SURVIVAL Series, Book 7.

Ready?

FIRE IN THE HOLE!

Here’s the cover!

Preorder Now!

Barrett Book Shop

Use the Barrett Book Shop link for a 15% discount off any Grid Down Survival Series novel (through May 31)

Pick Your Retailer

Release Date: June 29, 2023

QuickJAB

Road Trip

JAB

We decided our new camper needed more than one shakedown weekend: our latest excuse for a road trip!

FarmerMan found an all-day Arts and Crafts festival for me and an all-day agriculture class for him that were on the same day and within a 45-minute driving time of each other. I made our four-day reservation at the Americus KOA, which was an absolutely perfect campground for us, TJ, and Toby.

We arrived at the Wolf Creek Plantation Winery in Americus, Georgia, for their Spring Festival at seven thirty on Saturday morning to put up my canopy tent and set out the tables, then FarmerMan left for his class.

After I arranged my tablecloths, banner, books, and signs on the tables, I asked my new early-bird neighbor if she’d take a photo of me with my booth.  See the newly planted grapevines behind me? The winery has acres and acres of grapevines, and there was plenty of room for the 95 vendors who had signed up to hawk their wares.

I’ve loved our local fall and Christmas arts and crafts festivals that I attend every year, so one in the spring was a new adventure for me, and one without FarmerMan’s assistance was definitely a new and scarier adventure.

The morning was a bit chilly to sit and wait, but I was busy answering questions when the rest of the vendors arrived. The most common question: where is number fill-in-the-blank; I was in #36.  I had printed the map the winery sent us, so I was the resident expert at pointing. “It’s that way!”

By noon, the visitors parking lot was overflowing, and cars were parked on both sides of the road. I enjoyed talking to so many interesting people while I made new friends. Shout out to the sweet woman that stuck by my side while I fumbled then finally figured out how to accept her credit card payment for the signed book she bought from me. My first book sale of the day!

There was a bounce house for children that was very close to where I was, so I had extra entertainment. Have you ever heard of playing Marco-Polo in a bounce house? I hadn’t, but they did!

My book sales were great, and I was an old pro with taking credit cards by early afternoon. FarmerMan gave me his solar charger to use for my cell phone, and that definitely made a difference in being able to accept credit cards.  My phone would have run out of steam by one o’clock without it! It’s my solar charger now, but you knew that.

In the late afternoon, the weather turned hot. My booth faced the west, and the day turned into a scorcher; I overheated. My booth neighbor on my other side watched my booth while I hurried into the air-conditioned event center that was nearby. I washed my face with cool water then used damp paper towels on the back of my neck. Heat stroke averted!

When I returned, my neighbor told me about another vendor who had a ceiling fan in her tent. Her mother watched both our booths while we went to ask nosy questions. The ceiling fan made the vendor’s tent very comfortable. Guess what I bought after we returned home? You got it!

Remember it was hot? People who went past my booth had slushies. I had water to drink, but those slushies looked really refreshing. Two young women with slushies stopped by my booth to chat, and I asked them about their drinks. They urged me to get one at the event center because they said my cheeks were really red  from the heat; they kindly offered to watch my booth for me.

I bought a strawberry-mango slushy; it was a little pricey, but I was certain it would be as tasty as it was cooling. Are you already ahead of me on this? I took a huge slurp from my straw.

Pro Tip: If you buy a slushy from a winery, it may likely be a Wine Slushy.

I drank another bottle of water and quietly set my Wine Slushy aside to melt into a sadly watered down drink that I threw away before we left.

In spite of my minor slushy faux pas, it was a great success, and I’ll keep an eye on the Wolf Creek Plantation for their next event!

QuickJAB

Time Out for Toby

JAB

Our front and back yards and the field from the house to the road are completely fenced. The fence around the house is chain link, and field fence completely encloses the front field. The purpose of our fence is to keep the neighbors’ dogs out and our dogs in. It was a brilliant plan in theory.

Last week, I realized TJ was patrolling the front field alone. I whistled and called for Toby, then finally TJ and I walked to the road. Still no Toby.  We keep our gate closed, so we aren’t overrun by wandering canines, but sometimes Toby gets it into his head to go visiting, and he jumps the four-foot fence.

TJ and I climbed into my Doggie Van, which other people might call a minivan, and I drove a mile down the road then turned around and drove two miles in the other direction, but the only dogs we saw were two old dogs that were enjoying the warmth of the sun. When TJ and I returned home, Toby was waiting for us on the front porch with his tail tucked.

He followed me into the house and spent the rest of the morning under the barstool. Evidently, Toby put himself in self-imposed Doggie Time Out, which was fine with me since I was still mad and wasn’t speaking to him.

Toby stayed in time out until FarmerMan came home and asked him if he was okay, which must have lifted the time out curse because Toby wagged and grinned with delight as he came out from behind the bars.

How’s that for a twist to the old standard, wait until your father gets home?

Ideas, QuickJAB

New Spring Projects

JAB

We had an old fire ring that we’d almost forgotten about because it had been overrun by several years worth of weeds and brush on the edge of our woods. After  FarmerMan cleared away the dead weeds and brush, he rescued the fire ring,  the few stones that hadn’t been repurposed for other projects, and the concrete benches that had surrounded the fire pit for the past ten years.

We walked around our property while we discussed the best site for our “new” fire pit. After we considered several spots, we decided on a location in the backyard that was relatively flat;  we also decided that our folding camping chairs would be more comfortable than the concrete benches and would make mowing around the fire pit easier. We relocated our concrete benches to be near near the chicken coop, so we would have somewhere to sit while we watched the chickens and their latest antics.

We had a beautiful Bottlebrush tree next to our driveway. In case you’ve never seen a Bottlebrush tree, this is an example of its flowers  from the University of Florida Extension Service.

The Bottlebrush attracts hummingbirds and butterflies and has bright red flower spikes that are reminiscient of a bottle washer. The Bottlebrush plant is frequently sold as a shrub, but it can grow as a tree up to 25 feet in height. Our tree was probably only 15 or so feet tall, but it was beautiful.

Our weeklong hard freeze this past winter took its toll on our beautiful Bottlebrush tree. In a last ditch effort to revive our tree, FarmerMan severely cut back the branches in the hopes there was still life in its roots…

…and there was.

In January 2023, I made a career shift as an author and a publisher and moved all of my e-books from being exclusive with a single US/UK-concentrated retail distributor to the additional top four retail distributors, and dozens more smaller distributors, that are now delivering my e-books world-wide.  I expected a drop in royalties because the single retail distributor sales were based on the readers purchasing an annual subscription to read “free” books. Authors were paid royalties of a fraction of a penny for each page read.

While my gross income dropped, my net income has dipped only slightly because my marketing costs have drastically dropped; because more people (including libraries!) are willing to buy a book they want to read, more of my stories are flying off the pages and being read world-wide!

Would you like to pick a book to read?  Tap HERE to pick one out! (With the magic of invisible electrons, when you select a book, the webs will deliver your book to your favorite ebook reader.)

You keep reading; I’ll keep writing!

QuickJAB

Starting Over

JAB

The fragrant, beautiful gardenias in the front of our house have bloomed every May since we bought the house in 2018, and we know they were there when the previous owners bought the house  in 2013, so they had survived the high and low temperatures that fluctuated from year to year for more than ten years.

When the hard freeze that lasted four days hit in February 2023, we were saddened by the loss of so many of our pine trees that we had planted over the past three years but were completely shocked that our three sturdy gardenia bushes didn’t survive.  So, we started over.

In November 2022, in a series of unfortunate events, our faithful camping trailer that we bought new in 2015 bit the dust in a most unlikely incident. Out of respect for her faithful service, we won’t go into the details, but no humans, dogs, or chickens (even though they weren’t there) were injured. We had a choice: give up camping or get a new camping trailer. I’m certain you aren’t surprised that we bought a new camping trailer. We’re starting over by taking short trips to get used to our new trailer.

As an author with a publishing business, I’ve been closely tracking the dwindling benefits of exclusivity with a single online book distributor. I started over in January 2023, and now all 30+ of my books are being sold by over a dozen book distributors.

In February, I investigated several options of selling my books directly to readers online. By the beginning of March, my online Barrett Book Shop was live and in business!

 

I’ve been excited to learn that other authors are doing the same!  Take a peek at a very delightful author, Maria E. Schneider, at Bear Mountain Books. 

I’ve found my toe-tapping, head-bobbing theme song for 2023 on You Tube:  Chris Stapleton

You keep reading; I’ll keep writing!

QuickJAB

Grand Opening! Barrett Book Shop

JAB

Do you try to buy from your favorite local store or vendor? It’s not always that convenient, is it?

Announcing a new way to purchase Judith A. Barrett books – the ONLINE Barrett Book Shop!

All the thriller, post-apocalyptic science fiction, and mystery books  are conveniently at your fingertips; it’s just like going to an in-person event to buy a book from your favorite author, Judith A. Barrett, amiright? without spending money for transportation or even having to  put on your shoes or change out of your comfy pants.

Barrett Book Shop has the same deals and specials as any of the Big Gorilla Book Sellers in addition to exclusive discounts and deals!  Match THAT, Big Gorilla! <- I say that lovingly, BG, in the extremely unlikely event you’re reading this blog.  

Tap the link Barrett Book Shop and browse, drop a book or two into your cart then check out for a special Welcome Discount!

REMEMBER to mark Barrett Book Shop as a favorite in your browser, and let me know what you think!

Meanwhile, You keep reading; I’ll keep writing! 

QuickJAB

Celebrate the Small Stuff

JAB

Have you heard the old saying, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”? Not all that easy, is it? It hasn’t been for me!

Here’s an idea, before we hustle from one small stuff thing to another, let’s CELEBRATE the Small Stuff we’ve accomplished! Our timeless sage, Oprah Winfrey, said, “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.”

Here’s my first celebration for 2023:

I haven’t been celebrating the glorious, but small accomplishment of  THE END when I publish any of my books, and I have no idea why not. FarmerMan has been so faithfully supportive since my first book was published in 2016, my second book was published in 2018, and all the books after that. I was on a roll, or maybe it was a roar because I never took time to celebrate THE END before I charged forward with the next book.

How did we celebrate? We went to a new-to-us restaurant and enjoyed a nice dinner. I don’t have any photos to commemorate the grand celebration because our phones were OFF while we talked and laughed.

What have you celebrated lately? What should you celebrate this month?

QuickJAB

Best Way to Get Lost: Books

JAB

library

The absolutely best place to get lost in books is at your local library, particularly if your appetite for reading far exceeds your budget for buying books or paying for a subscription to borrow “free” or reduced price books.

The goal of public libraries is to provide books for you to read. No charge, no catch, unless of course you rack up late fees, but that’s on you. Read and return: that’s all they ask.

Has it been a while since you’ve been to the library because your vision of the library is a stuffy, shushing place with old books that are out of date?

Let’s update that thinking with a peek at a current library.

New Libraries

Libraries have gone digital. You can borrow an ebook, an audiobook, or if you love a paperback, that’s fine too. There’s no judgment in the library; librarians want you to read or listen to books.

But what if you want to read one of your favorite author’s books, but that budget thing is a huge block, and you haven’t seen her books on the shelves?

Let’s pick an author at random, for an example: Judith A. Barrett. I suspect there is not a shelf in the fiction section or on the table at the front door of your library where all her books are prominently displayed. No problem for us. We’ve got a link to her books, which is practically the same!

Here’s the link to a page with all of the Judith A. Barrett books listed with the identifiers, ISBN, that your local librarian can use to order the book for you to read then return, so someone else can read it.

Judith A. Barrett Books at Your Library

You’ll also find the link on the Judith A. Barrett website under the Books menu item as a pulldown tab. It’s called Judith A. Barrett Books at Your Library. Pretty catchy, isn’t it?  https://judithabarrett.com

QuickJAB

A Mountain of Goodness

JAB

Our beautiful Buff Orpington and Appenzeller Spitzhauben chickens were two days old when we brought them to their forever home coop from the feed store last August.

This morning, they had their first experience of two mountains of newly-mowed grass and weed clippings from the front field. Initially, they were very suspicious of the two new monstrous creatures in their run, but eventually two of the Buffs ventured close and discovered seeds, fresh green grass, and bugs. Game on!

The chickens have spent the entire day scratching and snacking at the two large piles; the mountain in the back that is much smaller than it was this morning, probably because it had the most green grass blades on top, but they are discovering more tasty grass, seeds, and bugs in the closer mountain.

I understood exactly how they felt when they first saw the two large, foreboding creatures. I tackled my first 2023 mountain when I expanded selling my books through new retailers: Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google, Apple, and a myriad of other international booksellers in addition to Amazon. As I scratched and searched through the mountain of goodness, I’ve discovered a few yummy royalties and am sharing the bounty with my newsletter readers.

The second mountain, with which I’m more wrestling than tackling, is the daunting monster of developing an online book shop, so I can sell my ebooks and paperbacks directly to readers. I’m taking small steps because it’s an entirely new world with all kinds of strange creatures to wrangle. I’m hoping Barrett Book Shop will be live by the end of February.

Have I ever told you learning is fun? It still is!