Raspberry Romance Dump Cake

I've always had a weakness for raspberries. And lemons. Give me a dessert with enough tang to make my taste buds sit up and take notice, and I'm a happy woman. Chocolate is wonderful, of course, but sometimes it needs a little excitement in its life. Apparently, so do I.

That's how Raspberry Romance came about. I was making a dump cake, which has to be one of the least romantic names ever bestowed upon a dessert, and decided to introduce chocolate cake mix to raspberry pie filling. No elaborate preparations, no fancy equipment, and absolutely no need to get dressed up for the occasion. Just a couple of ingredients getting acquainted in a baking dish.

Some people believe there's such a thing as too much butter. I've never found any convincing evidence to support that theory. Besides, the butter is what gives this dessert its wonderfully rich, gooey, almost brownie-like texture. Three ingredients, one pan, and enough butter to make a cardiologist reach for the smelling salts. What's not to love?

And since I firmly believe that no recipe should be inflicted upon the unsuspecting public without proper testing, I volunteered for the job. It's a responsibility I take seriously, even when it requires a second helping.

Ingredients

• 1 can (21 oz.) raspberry pie filling

• 1 box (approximately 15.25 oz.) chocolate cake mix

• 1½ sticks (¾ cup) butter, very thinly sliced

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Spread the raspberry pie filling evenly over the bottom of a 9 × 13-inch baking dish.

3. Sprinkle the dry chocolate cake mix evenly over the filling. Do not stir.

4. Slice the butter as thinly as possible and arrange the slices evenly over the cake mix, placing the outer slices close to the edges to ensure good coverage.

5. Bake for approximately 40–50 minutes, until the top is baked and the raspberry filling is bubbling around the edges.

6. Allow to cool slightly before serving. The finished dessert will be rich, moist, and gooey, almost brownie-like.

Disclaimer

The author assumes no responsibility for broken diets, expanding waistlines, or the sudden disappearance of an entire cake.

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© 2026 Sandy Davis | Between the Fenceposts

But Where Would the Fun Be in That?

Harvest Hosts people are so helpful, even when you don't want them to be.

For those unfamiliar with Harvest Hosts, it's a membership program that allows people traveling in self-contained RVs to stay overnight at farms, wineries, breweries, and other interesting locations around the country. We've been hosting travelers at American Way Farm for several years, and it's been a wonderful way to meet people from all over. After each visit, the host and guest have an opportunity to leave reviews about their experience.

Now, most hosts write perfectly respectable reviews along the lines of “Wonderful guests, very pleasant, left everything clean, welcome back anytime.” There's absolutely nothing wrong with that approach, but I'm a storyteller, and I find it considerably more entertaining to write something a little less predictable. Even the most uneventful overnight visit can inspire an unusual five-star review if I put my imagination to work. Besides, I figure people who have driven halfway across the country deserve something more memorable than a sentence that could just as easily describe the last twenty campers.

Recently, I wrote a humorous post in a Harvest Hosts Facebook group about the challenges of coming up with these reviews. I thought other hosts might appreciate the idea of finding something entertaining to say about people who had arrived, parked, behaved themselves, and departed without incident.

What I hadn't anticipated was the outpouring of helpful advice.

Several people assured me that I didn't have to go to all that trouble. Why not write one generic review, save it somewhere, and simply copy and paste it whenever another guest left? It would be so much easier, they explained, and think of all the time I'd save!

Well, of course it would be easier. I could also buy eggs at the grocery store instead of keeping chickens, eat frozen dinners instead of cooking, and stop writing stories altogether. Just imagine how efficient my life would become if I eliminated everything I enjoyed doing simply because there was an easier alternative. I'd have so much spare time I could sit in my recliner and contemplate the remarkable achievement of having absolutely nothing interesting left to do.

Eventually, I added an edit to the original post explaining that yes, I knew perfectly well that I could write generic reviews, but where would the fun be in that? Fortunately, that seemed to stem the tide of helpful suggestions before somebody offered to design a spreadsheet to automate the entire process.

In one exchange, I explained to a particularly helpful commenter that I'm a creative writer and humorist, and if I couldn't come up with something more entertaining than a standard review, I might as well hang up my hat. Her response was reassuring. “Then I bet your reviews are probably fine.”

Fine?

I've written a book, had my work recognized internationally, with one reviewer describing me as “one of the most honest, down to earth, hilarious authors of our time.” After all those years of writing, countless hours at the keyboard, and enough livestock-related disasters to fill a book, I had finally achieved the pinnacle of literary recognition. A complete stranger on Facebook was reasonably confident that my Harvest Hosts reviews were probably fine.

I know she meant well, and I'm sure all the others did too. They were simply trying to save me from a task they assumed I found burdensome. What they hadn't realized was that the supposed burden was the very thing I enjoyed. I wasn't looking for a way to stop writing entertaining reviews. I was looking for more entertaining ways to write them.

The irony, of course, is that all those considerate people trying to save me the trouble of writing have now provided enough material for another story. Their suggestions may not have improved my efficiency, but they've certainly improved my supply of material, and I didn't even have to wait for another camper to arrive.

So to all the wonderfully helpful Harvest Hosts members, thank you for your concern, your suggestions, and your generous assessment of my literary abilities. I promise to keep writing unnecessarily complicated reviews for perfectly ordinary visits, because sometimes the fun is in doing something you don't have to do.

And if this story turns out to be merely fine, I suppose I can live with that, too.

Enjoyed this tale from the barnyard?
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©2026 Sandy Davis | American Way Farm

Downsizing the Flock

Because of my upcoming ankle replacement surgery this winter, I decided to drastically reduce the size of my chicken flock. Considering that I once had 400 chickens, I thought 29 hens and two roosters already qualified as downsizing. Apparently, the term is relative.

But fewer chickens would mean less feed to haul, less manure to deal with and, most importantly, no more packaging and selling eggs. Ten or twelve good laying hens could provide all the eggs we could possibly use and still leave Gus, our livestock guardian dog, with something to guard. After all, a livestock guardian dog without livestock is just a 130-pound unemployed noisy flooff-ball with excellent benefits.

With winter fast approaching, this seemed like the best time to do it. I put a notice on our town Facebook page: “Downsizing my flock of chickens. I have layers that are one year old and some that are six months. Anyone interested? PM for more information and price.”

I was surprised by the response. Apparently, chickens are a hot commodity. I could have sold the entire flock—and possibly several chickens I didn't own—before the weekend was over.

The first family to set a pickup time wanted ten. Almost their entire flock had been wiped out in a single afternoon by one particularly determined raccoon, who subsequently discovered that Dad owned a shotgun. Later, the family found a few surviving hens hiding in a tree. And they say chickens are dumb.

We arranged for the family to come just after dark, when all the hens would be settled on their roosts and much easier to catch. They brought their young daughter, Lily, who was delighted to choose her new friends.

Her first choice was Marshmallow, my pretty white Ameraucana who lays beautiful blue eggs. Marshmallow was one of my favorites, so although I hated to see her go, I was glad she was going home with a little girl who was already smitten with her.

Next came Midnight and Chocolate, my two Black Australorps. I'd never been able to tell them apart, but Lily immediately pointed out that one had more reddish coloring in her neck feathers. I'd owned these chickens for over a year and apparently I needed a child I'd just met to introduce me to them properly.

Then she chose Andrea, a particularly pretty New Hampshire Red with a story of her own. The previous spring, my friend Andrea and I had split an order of ten mixed-breed chicks. Although she'd raised chicks before, four of her five died within the first few days. All five of mine were thriving, so she offered me her lone survivor in hopes of saving her. When I went to pick up the chick, I tried to figure out why she'd lost four when mine were doing fine. Andrea had been painting something in her basement. We couldn't smell fumes upstairs, but it was the only environmental difference we could identify. Whatever the cause, I brought the lonely little chick home, tucked her in with mine, and she thrived. She grew into a beautiful gal and, obviously, had to be named Andrea.

Lily's selections also included Hennifer Lopez, the Welsummer some readers may remember from my last book, Between the Fenceposts: Tales of Mud, Mayhem, and Manure. When I told the family Hennifer was famous and explained why, they bought a book. I had accidentally discovered a new marketing strategy—sell the cast.

The remaining hens weren't quite as notable and had somehow made it through life without acquiring names, but Lily left happy with ten new chickens to rebuild the family's flock. I was happy knowing that several birds I'd grown attached to were going somewhere they'd be loved and appreciated.

The next day, a friend who happened to be passing this way stopped for several more hens and was also going to take my two roosters, Mike Crowe II and Dusty Springfield. Mike, of course, was named in honor of Mike Rowe, because being a rooster is a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. Readers may remember the original Mike Crowe, the Light Brahma rooster who challenged Gus one too many times. Gus eventually settled that disagreement once and for all.

Mike Crowe II appeared determined to uphold the family reputation. At only six months old, he was already boss of the coop and well on his way to becoming every bit as obnoxious as his predecessor. I'd read that Light Brahma roosters were supposed to be docile. Apparently neither of these Mike Crowes had access to the Internet.

Dusty Springfield was another story entirely.

Dusty had arrived as the free mystery chick McMurray Hatchery tucked into my last order. I'd gotten lucky the previous two years and received female mystery chicks, so I hoped I'd beaten the odds for a third time.

I didn't.

But for a while there was hope. The chick was exceptionally fluffy and very vocal, chattering constantly. Because it looked like a feather duster, I started calling it Dusty. From there, Dusty Springfield simply followed. The fact that the chick seemed determined to sing all day only made the name more appropriate.

Then one morning Dusty crowed. Apparently I'd gotten the career choice right but the gender wrong.

Dusty grew into a Buff Cochin rooster and quite possibly the most ridiculous-looking chicken I've ever owned. For anyone unfamiliar with Cochins, picture a large blond feather duster with feet. It's as though an angel somewhere was designing chickens, looked at an already heavily feathered bird and said, “You know what this chicken needs? More feathers!” Then added feathers to his legs. And his feet. And possibly several places where chickens don't actually require feathers but there was a surplus at the factory. He looks like someone swept up everything left on the floor after a pillow fight and glued it into the shape of a chicken.

Temperamentally, Dusty couldn't be more different from Mike. Mike, and even some of the older hens, chased him. Dusty spent much of his day sitting on the roost where everybody would leave him alone. So while Mike Crowe II was strutting around conducting hostile takeovers, Dusty Springfield was hiding upstairs hoping nobody noticed he worked there.

Originally, I'd planned to send both roosters on their way. I didn't need a rooster. I wasn't planning to hatch chicks, and if I was reducing the flock to ten or twelve hens, every mouth at the feeder ought to have a reason for being there. The Red Stars I was keeping certainly did. They are egg-laying machines. If I was going to keep only a handful of chickens, I wanted the ones most likely to keep the egg basket full.

Dusty's contribution to egg production was going to be difficult to measure. Actually, it was going to be zero. From a strictly agricultural standpoint, his résumé was terrible. But when it came time for him to leave, I hesitated.

The hens I was keeping were the same age as Dusty and he had been raised with them. All of the older hens who bullied him were leaving along with Mike Crowe II. For the first time in his life, Dusty was about to find himself the only rooster in a flock of ten or twelve young hens. His circumstances were improving dramatically.

I also worried about what would happen to such a docile rooster if he went into a larger flock containing several other roosters. Dusty's primary conflict-resolution strategy seemed to consist of getting onto the highest available object and waiting for everybody else to go away.

And there was one other consideration that had absolutely nothing to do with practical chicken management. Dusty makes me smile every time I look at him.

So Dusty Springfield stayed. Mike Crowe II rode away in a dog crate in the back of a truck along with 4 bully hens, head held high and dignity apparently intact. If he understood that he'd just been voted off the island, he wasn't letting on. From the look on his face, this wasn't exile. He was expanding his territory.

The Red Stars earned their places through cold, hard economics. They're here to produce eggs. Gus remains gainfully employed guarding them. And Dusty? Well, Dusty is apparently in charge of morale.

Besides, I've learned something after all these years of keeping chickens. They don't necessarily have to do anything useful to earn their keep. Sometimes they lay eggs. Sometimes they eat bugs. Sometimes they provide a livestock guardian dog with a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And sometimes they're several pounds of golden feathers wearing bell-bottoms who make you laugh just by walking across the yard.

There's also the possibility that Dusty will eventually provide something considerably more valuable than eggs. Another story. Come to think of it, he already has.

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©2026 Sandy Davis | American Way Farm

Yes, there will be a Book 2!

Quite a few people have asked if I'll write another book after Between the Fenceposts:Tales of Mud, Mayhem, and Manure. The answer is yes! I'm working on it now, and if all goes according to plan, I'm hoping for a spring release.

This one picks up where Between the Fenceposts left off. We sold the livestock, bought a camper, and became snowbirds for several winters. Eventually, though, the road led us right back where we started—with fences, sheep, chickens, and more stories that probably wouldn't have happened to sensible people.

So here's your first peek at the working cover for Beyond the Fenceposts: Here, There, and Back Again. It's still a work in progress, but I think the cover tells the story rather nicely.

What do you think?

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©2026 Sandy Davis | American Way Farm

The Zucchini Problem

It’s that time of year when gardens everywhere have stopped being polite little rows of hopeful green plants and have turned into full-scale food production facilities. Tomatoes hang heavy on the vines, and there's nothing quite like picking one that's still warm from the sun, wiping it on your shirt, and eating it right there in the garden. Fresh corn is even better. There's a very short window between “not quite ready” and “why didn’t we pick this yesterday?” but catch it at exactly the right moment, slather it with butter, and you have something close to heavenly bliss. Green beans are coming faster than you can pick them, cucumbers are hiding under leaves, and summer squash has suddenly decided it has something to prove.

And then there’s zucchini.

Anyone who has ever planted zucchini knows you do not plant it casually. Nobody with experience looks at a seed packet and says, “I think I’ll put in a nice big row of zucchini this year.” That's the sort of thing people do once. The following year, wiser and slightly traumatized, they plant one hill. Just one. Maybe two plants, because surely that will be reasonable. You tell yourself you’ve learned from past experience. You are exercising restraint. You are being responsible.

The zucchini does not care.

For the first few weeks, everything seems perfectly innocent. A few nice leaves appear. Then some blossoms. You stroll through the garden feeling smug about your excellent planning. You might even spot the first little zucchini, about the size of your finger, and think, Oh, how nice. We’ll have fresh zucchini for supper in a few days.

Do not turn your back. By the next morning it will be approximately eighteen inches long and weigh six pounds.

There's something about zucchini that seems to bypass all the ordinary laws governing vegetable growth. Tomatoes require adequate moisture, good soil, sunshine, staking, pruning, and the personal approval of several minor agricultural deities before they will produce properly. Zucchini apparently requires dirt. Possibly not even that much dirt. I suspect if you dropped a zucchini seed into a crack in your driveway and forgot about it, you’d have fourteen squash and a problem with the mailman by August.

At first, you keep up. You pick the nice little tender ones and feel wonderfully self-sufficient. You sauté them with butter and onions. You grill them, make zucchini fritters and casserole. You bake zucchini bread, which is really cake wearing a vegetable disguise so you can pretend it’s good for you. You shred some and put it in the freezer. You find a recipe online for zucchini pizza and decide to give it a try. Nobody is fooled. “It’s pizza!” you announce brightly. Your family looks at it. “No,” they say. “It’s zucchini with cheese on it.” You even feed some to the chickens, who by now have started turning their beaks up at it too. And inevitably you miss one hiding under the leaves until it has grown to the size of a Louisville Slugger and is no longer technically produce. It’s now lumber.

Eventually you reach the point where zucchini is no longer a vegetable. It's an inventory problem.

You begin giving it away. At first you offer it graciously. “Would you like some fresh zucchini from the garden?” you ask the neighbors. “Oh, yes!” they say. That works once. A week later you try again. “No, thank you. We still have some.”

Another week passes and now you’re approaching people in the supermarket parking lot. “Here. Take a zucchini.” “No, thank you,” they say. You reply sternly, “I wasn't asking!”

Soon everyone in town is in the same predicament anyway. You can’t give zucchini to someone who already has twelve of them sitting on their kitchen counter. That’s like trying to give snow to a New Englander in February.

Desperation requires creativity. You take some to church. You place a basket near the door with a cheerful little sign that says FREE ZUCCHINI, although by this point the word free doesn’t have nearly the appeal you’d hoped. Everyone walks past it on the way into services. Everyone walks past it again on the way out.

Fine. There are other methods. This is why, during zucchini season, experienced churchgoers should lock their cars. If you come out after services and discover three zucchini lying innocently across the back seat, you have nobody to blame but yourself. You knew it was August. You saw the gardens around town. You left the windows down. Amateur mistake.

There is probably an unwritten code among rural gardeners regarding anonymous zucchini distribution. You do not ask questions. You do not accuse anyone. You certainly do not attempt to return them, because that merely begins an escalation nobody wants. You take them home, shred them into something, and make a mental note that next Sunday the car gets locked.

I have long believed science is overlooking the obvious solution to world hunger. Forget complicated agricultural programs. Forget trying to coax delicate crops into producing more under difficult conditions. We already have the answer growing beside the garden shed.

Zucchini.

All we need to do is figure out how to cross zucchini DNA with every other vegetable. Imagine carrots that taste exactly like carrots but grow with the enthusiasm of zucchini. Sweet corn that produces fifty ears overnight. Green beans so prolific you have to sneak them into parked cars. Broccoli plants capable of feeding a family of six for the entire winter.

We could even improve vegetables nobody particularly likes. “Would you care for some Brussels sprouts?” “No, thank you.” “Are you sure? I have four hundred pounds.”

Within a few years, grocery store produce departments would become unnecessary. One tomato-zucchini hybrid planted behind the house would supply enough tomatoes for everyone within a five-mile radius. Farmers would no longer worry about crop yields. They’d worry about containment.

There might be zoning laws. NO ZUCCHINI HYBRIDS WITHIN 500 FEET OF RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY.

Scientists would eventually lose control of the project, of course. One experimental cucumber-zucchini hybrid would escape the laboratory, climb a fence, and cover three counties before anyone noticed. National Guard helicopters would fly overhead while officials begged citizens not to plant anything from an unlabeled seed packet.

Still, world hunger would be solved.

And somewhere, on a Sunday morning in August, somebody would walk out of church, open the door of an unlocked car, and discover twelve tomatoes, four cucumbers, eight heads of broccoli, five dozen ears of corn, and one suspiciously large zucchini lying across the back seat.

Serves them right. They should have locked the car.

Enjoyed this tale from the barnyard?
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©2026 Sandy Davis | American Way Farm

Will the Real Sandy Davis Please Stand Up?

One of the odd things about being an author is that your name starts turning up in places you didn’t put it. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes it’s confusing. And sometimes you find yourself wondering whether you have accidentally become somebody else.

It started on a Facebook writing group called The Plot Thickens. They regularly post writing prompts designed to get people thinking, and one of them sparked a story idea for me. I developed the idea a bit and posted it in the comments. A man replied that he really liked what I had come up with and said he would read a book about the subject. Naturally, I was pleased. Writers are simple creatures. Tell us you’d read something we wrote and we immediately perk up like a dog hearing the cheese drawer open.

Then he asked, “Wait... are you the chaos Sandy Davis?”

I stared at the screen. The chaos Sandy Davis? Well, that certainly sounded possible. My book, Between the Fenceposts: Tales of Mud, Mayhem, and Manure, is largely about the chaos of farming and rural life. Sheep escaping, goats making bad decisions, chickens making worse ones, equipment misbehaving, weather refusing to cooperate, even a neighbor who was drunk and naked in the middle of the road, and me standing somewhere in the middle wondering how things got so far out of hand. If there was a Sandy Davis associated with chaos, I had a pretty good claim to the title.

So I replied that if he meant the Sandy Davis who wrote about the chaos of farming and rural life, then yes. Guilty as charged.

That seemed to settle it. Then he told me that someone had given a friend of his my book, but she hated reading and was going to send it along to him. Now I was thrilled. This is what authors hope for. One person gets a book, another person hears about it, and the book gets passed along. No advertising campaign. No carefully designed marketing plan. Just a book finding its way from one person to another. Grassroots readership. I ended our exchange by telling him to let me know how he liked the book.

And that should have been the end of it.

Except I still didn’t know what he meant by “the chaos Sandy Davis.” The phrase kept rattling around in my head. Was that how somebody had described me? Had I been mentioned somewhere? Was there a review I hadn’t seen? Had I somehow acquired a nickname without being notified?

Curiosity eventually got the better of me, so I did what any sensible person does when confronted with a mystery in the twenty-first century. I Googled myself. More specifically, I Googled “chaos Sandy Davis.” And there she was. Another Sandy Davis has a podcast called Chaos to Calm. I sat there looking at the search results for a minute. Well. That was unexpected. Apparently there really was a Chaos Sandy Davis, and it wasn’t me.

Now I had a problem. Had this man mistaken me for the podcast Sandy Davis? That certainly seemed possible. But then what about the book? His friend had supposedly been given a Sandy Davis book and was going to send it to him. Except, as far as I could determine, the Sandy Davis behind Chaos to Calm hasn’t written a book.

So whose book did his friend have? Mine? Someone else’s? Was there yet another Sandy Davis wandering around the publishing world creating confusion?

Back to Google I went, and that was when I discovered there are quite a few of us. Sandy Davis. Sandra Davis. Authors writing in various genres. I even found a Sandra Davis who had written fiction involving chaos, which did absolutely nothing to clarify the situation. Instead of solving the mystery, I had expanded the suspect list.

I began to feel as though I had stumbled into a literary version of To Tell the Truth. Will the real Sandy Davis please stand up? Except I was already standing, and apparently so were several others.

The more I thought about the original conversation, the stranger it became. He had asked if I was “the chaos Sandy Davis.” I had assumed he meant the chaos I write about. He may have meant the podcast. Then he mentioned a book. I assumed he meant mine. He may have assumed the podcast woman had written it. His friend may actually have Between the Fenceposts, or she may have a completely different book by a completely different Sandy or Sandra Davis. It was entirely possible that every one of us had been having a different conversation while believing we were all talking about the same person.

There is something wonderfully human about that. We hear a familiar name, recognize enough of the details to make them fit, fill in the missing pieces ourselves, and keep right on going. I didn’t question “chaos” because chaos fits me perfectly well. He apparently didn’t question the book because he already had Sandy Davis filed away somewhere in his mind. Between the two of us, we may have constructed an entirely separate identity out of perfectly reasonable assumptions.

The best part is that the story isn’t over yet. His friend is supposed to send him the book. Eventually a package may arrive, he may open it, and Between the Fenceposts may be inside. If so, mystery partly solved. His friend really did have my book, although I still won’t know exactly how I became connected with Chaos to Calm in his mind.

On the other hand, he may open the package and discover a completely different book written by a completely different Sandy Davis. I hope he remembers our conversation if that happens, because I asked him to let me know how he likes the book. At this point, I really, really hope he does.

Until then, I seem to be faced with three possible endings.

Behind Door Number One, his friend really does have Between the Fenceposts, and somewhere along the way he simply confused me with the Sandy Davis who hosts Chaos to Calm.

Behind Door Number Two, his friend has a book by some other Sandy or Sandra Davis, and neither of us was talking about the same person from the beginning.

And behind Door Number Three, the package arrives, he opens it, stares at the cover, and thinks, “Who in the world is this woman, and why is she talking about manure?”

At this point, I’m not ruling out anything. I only know one thing for certain. Somewhere out there is another Sandy Davis helping people move from chaos to calm. I may even need to tune in sometime when I’m having a particularly chaotic day. And, somewhere up here in northern New Hampshire is a different Sandy Davis who seems to have spent a lifetime proving that calm is highly overrated.

Enjoyed this tale from the barnyard?
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©2026 Sandy Davis | American Way Farm

Hot Air, Not Fresh Air

I opened my email one morning and nearly spit out my hot chocolate. There it was in my inbox—the email every author dreams of getting. An invitation from Terry Gross to be interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air. She had supposedly read Between the Fenceposts: Tales of Mud, Mayhem, and Manure and thought my stories of life on a small farm would make an entertaining interview.

For about half a minute, I was already being interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air. My biggest concern wasn't what I was going to say. It was what on earth I was going to wear for such a prestigious event.

Like most women, I have a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear. Actually, that's not entirely true. I have a closet full of perfectly good clothes that I've kept for the unlikely event my diet finally pays off and I lose enough weight to wear them again. They're hanging there in hopeful anticipation of the day I can once again button them without holding my breath. I just know someday I'll be glad I didn't donate them to Goodwill. Unfortunately, that didn't solve my immediate problem. Did I own anything that DOES fit me that didn't look like I'd just come in from feeding the chickens?

It was about then that my practical side finally wandered into the conversation. Why was Terry Gross emailing me from a Gmail account? That tiny little detail burst my bubble like a balloon at a porcupine convention.

I went back and read the email more carefully. It was beautifully written and surprisingly flattering. Then it hit me. They hadn't read my book at all. They'd read my recent OpenShelf interview and review instead. The glowing compliments sounded awfully familiar because they were little more than a reworded version of those. Whoever wrote the email had simply stolen OpenShelf's thoughtful observations about my book and presented them as their own. I have to admit, that's a pretty nice compliment to Justin and the OpenShelf team. Apparently, the scammers liked them well enough to plagiarize them.

They had done just enough homework to sound convincing without ever mentioning a single story, a single animal, or even one goat by name. The more I looked, the more obvious it became. Terry Gross wasn't inviting me onto Fresh Air. Some scammer was inviting me to become considerably lighter in the wallet.

A few days later another email arrived. Different sender. Different sales pitch. Same bait. This one came from someone calling herself a "Global Book Marketer & Discoverability Strategist." She assured me my book deserved a much larger audience and offered a complimentary "Book Snapshot" before explaining how she could help me reach thousands of eager readers.

Then came another one. Apparently, my writing career had reached the point where I was attracting professional admirers... all of whom would eventually want me to compensate them.

I never replied to any of them. Not because I was tempted to believe them, but because I knew replying—even to say "SCAM!"—would simply confirm that a real person had opened the email. Instead, I marked each one as spam and let AOL quietly escort them to the digital compost pile. From now on, they'll go there automatically. Then I wandered into the kitchen and raided the refrigerator instead. The leftovers were considerably more trustworthy. Unfortunately, they did nothing for my diet.

Looking back, I'm almost grateful for the experience. Not because Terry Gross never interviewed me. Not because I still haven't found the perfect outfit. And certainly not because those hopeful clothes are still hanging in my closet, patiently waiting for the day my waistline finally decides to cooperate.

No. I'm grateful because in the end, even though I didn't get an interview with Terry Gross, I did get another story. After all, when you're a writer, that's not a bad consolation prize.

Enjoyed this tale from the barnyard?
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©2026 Sandy Davis | American Way Farm

The Midnight Kibble Bandit

One raccoon, one barrel of dog food, and one very determined nighttime thief.

Every evening, just before I lock up the chickens, Gus makes a beeline for the coop. He slips inside, circles a couple of times, and settles himself in the far corner beneath the poop board for the night. I leave through the door into the main barn and lock it behind me.

Now, before anyone starts questioning his credentials as a livestock guardian dog, let me assure you that Gus weighs about 130 pounds and takes his job very seriously. Coyotes? Bring 'em on. Foxes? No problem. Bears? He'll stand at the fence barking until either the bear leaves or the sun comes up... whichever happens first.

But let the faintest rumble of thunder drift over the mountain and this fearless guardian of chickens, this knight in fluffy white armor, suddenly decides the safest place on earth is under a flock of laying hens. He has a perfectly good dog house outside, yet every evening he heads straight for the coop. I'm beginning to suspect the chickens aren't his flock—he's their dog. Or perhaps they're simply his emotional support chickens.

For the past week I've been hearing Gus barking frantically in the middle of the night. Every morning there was fresh evidence that something had been visiting my barn. The large barrel where I keep the dog food was open, its screw-on lid lying on the floor. One morning I found the entire barrel had been dragged nearly four feet from where I'd left it. Clearly, something was helping itself to the kibble. Whatever it was, it clearly hadn't read the "No Free Samples" policy.

I never actually caught the culprit in the act, but I had a pretty good suspect. Not many animals are clever enough to unscrew a lid, and raccoons have those little hands that seem capable of earning an engineering degree. So I moved the dog food into my farm store, set a live trap, and baited it with a handful of kibble.

The next morning, I headed out to let Gus out of the coop. As soon as I stepped into the main barn, I found one thoroughly irritated midnight burglar waiting for me in the trap, looking less than pleased with his complimentary accommodations.

No wonder Gus had been raising such a fuss every night. The poor guy had been locked safely inside with his emotional support chickens while some masked burglar was enjoying an all-you-can-eat kibble buffet.

It's probably a good thing Mr. Coon never figured out how to open the coop door. Thunder may send Gus running for cover, but I suspect even the bravest raccoon would lose an argument with a 130-pound livestock guardian dog if it laid a paw on one of his hens.

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Long Live Mike Crowe II

Mike Crowe had very strong opinions.

Chief among them was that every hen belonged to him, every human needed supervising, and every dog, regardless of size, should mind its own business. If I so much as picked up one of his hens, Mike took it as a personal insult and charged in to defend her honor. I admired his dedication, even if I didn't appreciate the bruises.

With Gus Gus, Mike discovered something he'd apparently never encountered before—a creature considerably larger than himself that wasn't particularly impressed by his resume.

Gus, our livestock guardian dog, weighs somewhere around 130 pounds. Mike weighed... well... enough to make a decent pot of soup. Those are not favorable odds by anyone's calculations.

The first time Mike decided to challenge Gus, things didn't go especially well. Gus won the disagreement rather decisively, and Mike spent the next couple of weeks looking a bit humbled. He still strutted around the barnyard, but the swagger had lost a little spring. I thought perhaps he'd learned a valuable lesson about choosing his battles.

I should have known better.

A rooster doesn't spend much time studying military strategy, nor does he believe in strategic retreat. He simply assumes that next time things will work out differently. Sure enough, a few weeks later Mike started coming after me again whenever I got too close to his hens. His confidence had returned. His chest was puffed out. He was strutting again. Apparently, in Mike's version of history, he and Gus had fought to a draw.

A few mornings later, I walked into the coop and found Mike lying there, quite unmistakably dead. I didn't witness what happened, so I can't say for certain. My best guess is that Mike decided to reopen negotiations with Gus. If that's what happened, the second meeting ended much like the first—only with a more permanent conclusion. Gus, after all, does have the right to defend himself.

What surprised me wasn't finding Mike. I assumed it was only a matter of time before his bravado proved to be a fatal flaw. It was the hens. There they were, pecking away at him. They'd already moved on with astonishing efficiency. There wasn't a memorial service or a moment of respectful silence. There wasn't even a tiny chicken-sized expression of, "Well, this is terribly sad." Nope. They'd apparently looked at their former protector and collectively concluded, "He always insisted on providing for us."

If you've never owned chickens, that probably sounds horrifying. If you have owned chickens, you're simply nodding your head. Chickens are practical creatures. Sentimentality is not one of their stronger qualities.

As I stood there looking at Mike, I realized he had lived exactly the way a rooster ought to live. He protected his hens. He patrolled his territory. He feared absolutely nothing, including things that could squash him like a bug. He was bold, opinionated, occasionally exasperating, and completely convinced he could win any argument. You almost have to admire that kind of confidence.

Fortunately, the flock wasn't left leaderless. Russell Crowe, my 4-month-old Light Brahma rooster, had already been waiting in the wings. Since he looks so much like his predecessor, I've decided that Russell has earned a promotion.

His name is now Mike Crowe II. Around here, it isn't really a name anymore. It's a job description. As Mike Crowe's namesake, Mike Rowe, might say, "It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it."

Mike Crowe is dead. Long live Mike Crowe II.

Enjoyed this tale from the barnyard?
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The Guitar I Never Intended to Buy

I need a name for my funny-looking little travel guitar. Any ideas? Here's how it ended up at my house...

I was absolutely certain I knew what I needed. Now, whenever I find myself absolutely certain about anything, I get a little nervous. Experience has taught me that life has an annoying habit of smiling politely while saying, Oh really? Just watch this.

Several years ago, I bought an Ibanez guitar with every intention of learning to play. It was a beautiful instrument. It also spent most of the next several years leaning quietly in the corner, silently judging me.

It wasn't the guitar's fault. I faithfully watched YouTube lessons, practiced until my fingertips felt like I'd been petting porcupines, and waited for those magical calluses every guitar player promises will eventually arrive. Mine must have been shipped UPS and ended up on the wrong porch.

On top of that, the guitar itself was simply too big for me. Reaching around the body wasn't comfortable, and after a while my shoulder started complaining louder than my fingertips. Eventually I admitted defeat. The Ibanez stayed in the corner while I avoided making eye contact every time I walked past it.

After careful research, I diagnosed the problem. I didn't need another guitar. I needed a baritone ukulele. Smaller instrument. Nylon strings. Problem solved.

Or so I thought.

Living in northern New Hampshire changes the way you think about shopping. Around here, a trip to just about any specialty store is about an hour and a half each way. By the time you get home, you've burned enough gasoline to make Amazon Prime look like one of the greatest inventions since indoor plumbing. That's why we rarely head south unless we can combine several errands into one trip.

The nearest music store was in Littleton, about an hour and a half away, so one morning Jim and I headed south. Fortunately, Jim likes driving. I like sleeping. We've each found our niche.

When we arrived, I walked up to the front door only to find a neatly printed sign announcing they would be closed for the entire week. I stood there staring at it for several seconds, hoping maybe it only applied to everyone else. It didn't.

Out came my phone. The next nearest music store was in Plymouth. Another hour and a half away.

I walked back to the truck. "I found another music store."

Jim looked over. "How far?"

"Another hour and a half. You up for that?"

"Fine with me."

That was all I needed to hear. By the time I woke up from my nap, we'd arrived in Plymouth. Jim stayed in the truck while I went inside.

It wasn't a very big store. There couldn't have been more than a dozen guitars hanging on the walls. They looked like a jury, silently watching to see if I'd choose the wrong one, again.

A very young salesman greeted me, and I explained the two problems I'd been having with my Ibanez. He laid the guitar case on the floor, opened it, looked it over, then popped back to his feet in one smooth motion. No groaning. No grabbing one knee. No putting both hands on the floor while deciding whether getting up was really worth the effort. And no crawling over to something else to climb up assisted by his arms. He simply stood up. I remember being able to do that. I don't remember exactly when. But I remember.

He handed the guitar to me and I held it in proper guitar position.

"Yeah," he said. "This guitar's too big for you."

Finally, somebody besides me thought so. I explained that I'd come looking for a baritone ukulele because it was smaller and had nylon strings. He smiled. Then he completely ruined my plan.

He explained that because I liked the lower bass notes of a guitar, I'd probably be disappointed with a baritone ukulele. Yes, it's tuned lower than a regular ukulele, but it still has only four strings—the same notes as the highest four strings on a guitar. The two deep bass strings that give a guitar its rich, full sound are missing.

Well, that was information I could have used before we spent three hours on the road.

Instead, he began handing me one smaller guitar after another. Every one felt a little better than my Ibanez, but none of them felt quite right.

Then he mentioned they even made guitars designed specifically for women. Well, now he had my attention. I immediately pictured a regular guitar with a molded indentation in the back where one of my boobs would fit. Sort of like the little pocket in some men's underwear designed to accommodate the male anatomy. I thought that was a remarkably thoughtful design.

It turns out a ladies' guitar is simply thinner and smaller. Frankly, I liked my idea better. If anyone ever invents one, I'm sure it'll be a best seller.

By about the sixth guitar my shoulder loudly informed me that our audition was over. I didn't even know I had elderly shoulders. Apparently they'd decided not to mention it until that very moment. By then my shoulder felt like I'd spent the afternoon wrestling goats.

The salesman stood there for a minute looking around the room. Then he pointed toward an odd-looking instrument hanging off to one side. "Let's try the funny-looking one."

Funny-looking was an understatement. That's a bit like calling an aardvark "slightly unusual." I'd never seen anything quite like it. It looked like somebody had crossed a guitar with a mandolin, then wandered off before finishing the project.

"It's a travel guitar," he said.

That was fine with me. The only traveling I had planned was from the corner of my bedroom to my recliner.

He handed it to me, and the moment I sat down everything changed. My shoulder relaxed. My arm wasn't stretched halfway to Canada. The neck fit comfortably in my hand. After trying guitar after guitar, I'd almost forgotten what comfortable was supposed to feel like. It just fit. The guitar happened to be there on consignment, so it cost less than buying a new one. Before I left, he replaced the steel strings with nylon strings while I waited.

I walked into that store intending to buy a baritone ukulele. I walked out carrying something I didn't even know existed when I woke up that morning.

Looking back, what impressed me most wasn't the funny-looking little guitar. It was the young salesman. He never tried to sell me what I'd come in to buy. Instead, he listened while I explained the problems I was having and then worked on solving those problems instead of simply handing me what I'd asked for.

Had the music store in Littleton been open, I'd probably own a perfectly nice baritone ukulele today. Instead, I came home with a funny-looking little travel guitar that fits me perfectly. Turns out the funny-looking one was exactly the right one. I suppose there's a lesson in that somewhere... hopefully it won't involve another day on the road to learn it. 

(P.S. I'm serious about the name. If I pick yours, you'll forever have bragging rights that you named the guitar in my next stories.)

Enjoyed this tale from the barnyard?
Don’t miss the next round of critter chaos — to get new stories by email, just send a note to sandydavis@aol.com or follow on Facebook.

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©2026 Sandy Davis | American Way Farm