Meet Rosie. She’s a bit shy, and might need a little encouragement to come closer.  A few treats should do the trick.  Before you know it she’ll be perfectly content to snuggle close and put her head on your lap. 🙂

 

 

Patricia shut the gate behind her and scanned the paddock, but the small shed in the corner was empty, and nothing stirred in the grove of thick palms surrounding it. She pulled her supply wagon closer to the plastic feed bucket hanging on the fence line, and reached into a large canvas bag for a heaping scoopful of pellets. She dumped them into the bucket and tapped the plastic sides with the scoop.

“Rosie!” She tapped the bucket a few more times before jabbing the scoop into the feed bag.

She heard rustling in the foliage behind her as she lifted soft conifer branches out of the wagon and shook them onto the ground. She turned to see the dinosaur just outside the cover of the palm fronds, standing as tall as she and staring with large, watery eyes. The creature limped forward, one three-toed foot swollen and wrapped in torn, dirty bandages.

“Mr. Diggle’s not here today,” Patricia said. “But I’ll be taking care of that for you.” Slowly the dinosaur lowered her turtle-like head down into the feed bucket, and Patricia reached into the wagon for a halter and rope. She held the contraption loosely as she crept past the thick tail, closer to the rose-colored neck…

Rosie’s head bobbed up, pellets tumbling out of her half-open beak, and Patricia pounced forward and threw the halter over the dinosaur’s head. But Rosie danced away on one foot, the halter hanging around her neck and rope dragging through the low ferns.

“At least it’s on you.” Patricia said. Rosie shook her head and stumbled sideways, scratching at it with her dainty hands. Patricia laughed.

“Good luck taking that off,” she said. She reached forward to grab the rope, but Rosie hobbled a few steps away. She sidestepped towards Rosie’s head, but the dinosaur simply turned on one foot, tail swiping the air between them. No matter which direction Patricia went, Rosie danced away just a few steps too far.

Time for a new strategy.

From a small package laying in the needle-littered bottom of the wagon, Patricia took a handful of small, red berries. Rosie cocked her head and cooed, fidgeting from side to side like a nervous pigeon. Patricia echoed the dinosaur’s soft chirping noise in the back of her throat, and Rosie blinked and shuffled forward one step. Patricia smiled and sat down on her heels, her arm resting on her knee with her hand open and full of the berry-like cycad cones.

“Good girl,” She said soothingly, and waited. Rosie sniffed and lowered her head, her arms held close to her brown speckled body. As carefully as a mouse plucking cheese from a trap, the dinosaur took a few red cones in her beak, and Patricia slowly reached forward to take the rope. The dinosaur ate from her hand while she fastened the halter around her neck and secured cotton flaps over her eyes.

With a few strokes of gentle pressure the dinosaur sat on the ground with her legs stretched off to one side. It didn’t take long to cut the dirty bandages off the sore foot and wrap it with fresh gauze, and Patricia dumped the supplies in the wagon.

“All done!” She unfastened the halter from Rosie’s head, and Rosie chirped. Patricia laughed and dug in the wagon for another treat. “Good job Rosie!”

 

 

Making progress…

I hope you’ve been having a great start to the new decade! I must say that there are a few things about the start of this year that are particularly…inspiring for me. As in, I better kick things into gear and get stuff done!

It’s the start of a brand new decade, and I want to start it off right and get something big accomplished before I turn 31 in October. Well, something big creative-wise. I can safely say I’ve accomplished quite a lot in my lifetime so far, like my beautiful family and everything I’ve done here on the site.

Each year I set a goal, and around this time of year I like to review last year’s goals and see how I did…

• Put together short story anthology
• Complete at least 3 full illustrations
• Finish material for presentation at the library (includes one complete illustration)
• Add new critters to the shop!

Out of this list, I completed the last one, with three new paleo pals added to the shop over at the critter page. Thinking back, I know why this was the only one I actually finished…

I had a clear plan. The new creatures where scheduled in to my critter list for the year, and completing a post by the end of the month is so much of a habit by now that my brain starts thinking about the next post as soon as I hit publish. Plus I have a process for new critters and new posts that I don’t waste so much time thinking about it anymore.

Everything else on that list was nebulous, just an idea…like a goal of “making more healthy choices”.

So I decided to do things differently this time, and as if the universe and heavenly angels were listening in on my thoughts, my favorite writing podcast had a New Year special on setting goals.

Click here for a link to the podcast and the worksheets they provided. They’re really great worksheets, and totally free! 😀

Just a quick warning, the hosts of the podcast have excellent information, but they do drop a swear word or two. I find their podcast valuable enough to ignore the swear words, but I have to be careful around the kids to avoid any little parrots repeating anything.

So with these worksheets I’ve determined my new goals for this year, and a doable process for achieving them. I’m excited! I’ve even started a brand new bullet journal for the first time to help me stay organized, and I’m loving it so far. 😀

• Put together a collection of short stories for publishing
• At least one, but possibly 3 new creatures for the shop

I’ll tell you more about these next month, and I hope to have made a nice bit of progress on them already! 😀

Thank you so much for stopping by, it really means a lot to me. 🙂 I’m sorry this post was later than usual. It’s been too long without a solid night of sleep, and this week was so bad I missed out on a day! I didn’t even realize I was a day behind until the 1st was halfway over! I hope to do better next month. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Coming March 1st…

This little guy loves to curl up in his bed with his favorite teddy. 🙂

Share your guess in the comments! He’s one of the critters over on the critter page. 🙂