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Contact Me: bctrissel@yahoo.com
Welcome to the World of Author Beth Trissel
Historical, Light Paranormal, and YA Fantasy Romance Author, plus nonfiction. Avid gardener, farm wife, grandma, and animal lover. The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and surrounding mountains are my inspiration. I'm published by the Wild Rose Press and have my own indie titles.Like Me On Facebook
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CIVIL WAR TIME TRAVEL ROMANCE SECRET LADY WON BOOK OF THE MONTH!
‘A great read filled with romance and dash of suspense. Fans of time-travel romance won’t want to miss this novel!’
Inspired by Events that Occurred to My Ancestors in the Colonial Frontier
GHOSTLY HISTORICAL ROMANCE NOVEL
HISTORICAL/PARANORMAL ROMANCE NOVEL
KIRA, DAUGHTER OF THE MOON WON BOOK OF THE MONTH!
RED BIRD’S SONG
NA HISTORICAL ROMANCE NOVEL THROUGH THE FIRE
SHORT STORY–.99 IN KINDLE
HISTORICAL/PARANORMAL ROMANCE NOVEL
HISTORICAL ROMANCE NOVEL THROUGH THE FIRE
“A catless writer is almost inconceivable,”~ Barbara Holland
“I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t know what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose.” P.G. Wodehouse
NA HISTORICAL ROMANCE NOVEL THROUGH THE FIRE
GHOSTLY ROMANCE NOVEL SOMEWHERE MY LOVE
The Dove of the Holy Spirit
LOGAN FROM HISTORICAL ROMANCE NOVEL KIRA DAUGHTER OF THE MOON
BROTHER WOLF
Ask David Book Review Site
NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ROMANCE RED BIRD’S SONG
High 5 from the Pen & Muse for Historical Romance Into the Lion’s Heart!
White Elk
"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice."Autumn trees in the Alleghenies
They don’t make movies like this anymore. Sigh.
“Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.” Wesley, The Princess Bride
FOR SOMEWHERE MY LOVE
‘As I read Somewhere My Love, I recalled the feelings I experienced the first time I read Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca long ago. Using deliciously eerie elements similar to that gothic romance, Beth Tressel has captured the haunting dangers, thrilling suspense and innocent passions that evoke the same tingly anticipation and heartfelt romance I so enjoyed then, and still do now.’ ~by Joysann for Publishers Weekly at Beyond Her Book (blog feature now removed)
Top Posts
- "You have a great gift for rhyme." ~Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride
- “Once in awhile, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale.”
- Poison Hemlock and Some of its Victims, Real and Fictional--Beth Trissel
- Herbs Of Colonial Williamsburg and Early America
- Plants the Fairies Like and Dislike
- The Medicinal Value of Native American Plants: Pokeweed
- "Ladybug! Ladybug! Fly Away Home"
- Ward Off Witches, Vampires, and Werewolves--Herbal Lore
- Free Kindle--The Bearwalker's Daughter (Native American Warrior #1)
- My Ancestor Orlando Bagley and the Salem Witch Trials
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- "You have a great gift for rhyme." ~Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride
- “Once in awhile, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale.”
- Poison Hemlock and Some of its Victims, Real and Fictional--Beth Trissel
- Herbs Of Colonial Williamsburg and Early America
- Plants the Fairies Like and Dislike
- The Medicinal Value of Native American Plants: Pokeweed
- "Ladybug! Ladybug! Fly Away Home"
- Ward Off Witches, Vampires, and Werewolves--Herbal Lore
- Free Kindle--The Bearwalker's Daughter (Native American Warrior #1)
- My Ancestor Orlando Bagley and the Salem Witch Trials
- adventure romance Allegheny Mountains Amazon kindle American Revolution Arts Author writing companion Barnes & Noble Best historical romance Beth Trissel Christmas Christmas romance Colonial America Colonial American Romance colonial williamsburg Contemporary romance Cooking country life dog rescue family fantasy Fiction French and Indian War Garden Gardening Gardens Ghost ghostly ghostly romance ghost story God Henry David Thoreau Herb herbal lore historical Historical Romance Historical romance novel history Home Light Paranormal Romance Literature Mark Twain murder mystery mystery Native American Native American Romance New release North Carolina Paranormal paranormal romance Plant quotes romance Romance novel Romantic Suspense Scotch-Irish American Scotland Shawnee Shenandoah Valley ShenandoahValley Shopping spring The American Revolution The French and Indian War The Last of the Mohicans the Scots-Irish The Shenandoah Valley The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia The Wild Rose Press time travel Time travel romance United States Virginia western romance William Shakespeare Writing
Pondering the Possibility of Ducklings–Beth Trissel
I’m excited about all the migrating ducks on our farm pond this spring. And, once again, am debating the possibility and advisability of mail ordering some garden friendly ducklings and raising them to be my garden pals. Some varieties eat grubs and other pesky insects while not destroying the plants. But ducks need a pool of some sort as they love water, so I must provide that while figuring out a way to keep them from heading down to the ‘big water’–our pond. I also envision the need for a pen for their protection, and am pondering where it might be located, who would build it, plus how to care for them in the winter….Meanwhile, here’s an excerpt from my nonfiction book about gardening and country life, Shenandoah Watercolors, available at Amazon in kindle and print with lovely images of the valley and mountains. (*A 2012 EPIC eBook Finalist)
~When the world was new and I was young, I ordered a dozen Rouen ducklings (resemble large mallards) from a game farm and began my love affair with ducks, blessed by its moments of joy and cursed with inevitable tragedy. The box of downy babies was delivered directly to my door much earlier in the day than our mail normally comes as the mailman had wearied of their incessant peeping. I took the new arrivals from the grateful carrier and transferred them to a corner of the family room under a warm light bulb. My two oldest children, in grade school then, were delighted with their new playmates, but soon joined me in the discovery that these tiny creatures were incredibly messy.
The ducklings reveled in their food, spewing a mixture of feed and water on themselves, the box, and the walls. This led to their speedy removal to an unoccupied rabbit hutch in an outbuilding. Here they grew in sheltered bliss until we deemed them ready for life on the pond, unaware that our charges needed parental guidance. The unchaperoned youngsters soon slipped under the fence and lost themselves in the neighbor’s grassy meadow. We tracked their frantic quacks and carried them home, only to have them forget and stray again and again.
(*Our pond, calm on this day but often filled with ducks and geese)
Sadly, unwary ducklings do not know to be on guard against snapping turtles, something their mama would have taught them. By summer’s end, just two grown ducks remained and were fondly named Daphne and Darlene. They were inseparable and divided their day between the cows and geese in the barnyard and forays to the pond.
The next spring Daphne and Darlene built a mutual nest inside a clump of gold-button tansy at the edge of the garden and patiently sat on the eggs that would never hatch. It was time to find them a suitable spouse. One fall evening “Don” arrived in my hubby’s pickup truck.
(*Little creek that meanders through our meadow and under the fence to the neighbors)
The girls took an instant liking to the handsome drake, and he to them, though he showed a slight preference for Darlene. As spring neared again, we noticed a wild mallard drake observing our little band. He would dash forward for a bite of grain at feeding time, only to be driven away by Don. We pitied Dwayne, as he soon became known, and tossed a handful far to the side for him. Besides the free lunch, it seemed that Dwayne was attracted to our Daphne, much to Don’s strong disapproval.
The small male was undeterred and eventually won acceptance, amusing us by his attempts to mate with Daphne, twice his size. Persistence won out though. That year the girls had separate nests, Darlene at the base of a bittersweet vine, while Daphne went back to the tansy. Don and Dwayne bonded, swapping stories as they awaited imminent fatherhood.
The ducklings hatched in late spring and grew quickly. All survived with excellent care from their mothers. By fall we could see Dwayne’s influence on the flock. His offspring were considerably smaller. It was a golden, happy time. Late afternoons we quacked loudly, calling our ducks for feeding. Heads popped up from the seeding grass and they answered back then waddled single file behind Don, their noble leader. If we were late with dinner, they gathered to complain about the lack of service and were not averse to heading up to the house to fetch us if necessary.
Autumn in all its splendor passed into a winter that was our most severe in years. We tromped faithfully through the deep snow every day to scatter feed on the frozen pond. Then one morning after fresh snowfall we could not find a single duck. Our anxious calls came back to us empty on the wind…searching revealed spatters of blood and dog tracks in the snow, the silent witness to their grim fate. Still, we hoped that some birds had escaped the attack and combed the neighborhood, finally locating a pair of Dwayne’s offspring. Only the smaller ducks could fly well. We had unwittingly fed the others up to be “sitting ducks,” an expression I understand too well now. A week later Dwayne returned on his own, but it was a bleak time. How empty the pond seemed without the gang.
That May, Betty, our lone remaining female, hatched a fuzzy brood. Familiar quacks again filled the air and gladdened our spirits. It just isn’t spring without ducklings. ~
All of this took place eons ago, but we still have ducks on our pond and an ample flock fussy barnyard geese who make daily visits down to the water. The small town of Dayton, Virginia, not far from us, has a lovely body of water called Silver Lake (the size of a large pond) and a stream that attracts so many ducks the town has installed a duck crossing sign.
*Pics of our farm and ducks, also my mom and dad’s ducks…it’s a family thing this love of ducks. *Images by my mom, Pat Churchman. *The one of the creek by daughter Elise. It’s awash with moisture now, but was only a trickle that day.
*This story about ducklings is the one that really got me started in writing. It was ‘almost’ published in Southern Living Magazine and that editor gave me much encouragement about my writing, then she referred me to an editor at Progressive Farmer who accepted it and several more nonfiction pieces about rural life, but their free-lance column got axed before publication.
(Tame duck swimming in ‘duck weed’ in my parent’s water garden)
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged award winning nonfiction, back to nature, Bird, country life, Duck, Gardens, images, Mallard, Poultry, Rouen, The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Bookmark the permalink.
What an endearing story, Beth. i enjoyed reading it so much. We had a Canadian goose winter with us one time when he got hurt and landed in the yard. We fed him and grew quite fond of him. He finally flew away, honking his goodbye. Thanks for such an enjoyable story.
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So glad you enjoyed it. We have some Canadian geese on our pond, but not like your tame buddy. They mix in with our barnyard geese and the ducks, even hatch goslings here. I love our feathered friends.
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Nice story. reading it was a good way to start my day.
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Thanks! good to know.
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