Hi all. I hope everyone is enjoying some pretty fall days. It’s starting to get cooler here now. And as it gets closer to Halloween, we might even see a snowflake or two. We’ll see. Last Monday was Thanksgiving here in Canada, which was a beautiful day and my husband and I went for a long bike ride. I shot this photo as we biked along one of our favorite routes, and later we had a nice Thanksgiving turkey dinner at our local golf club, which put out a lovely special holiday meal. No clean-up at home necessary, yay.
Recently we took down our vegetable patch for the year. It was a good season and we still have plenty of squash and cucumbers left, and enough to make zucchini muffins.
On Saturday I will head to the city for the book festival by Wordfest. It’ll be my first of three events. The talk features several female authors: Holly Gramazio (The Husbands), Madeline Ashby (Glass Houses), Robyn Harding (The Haters), and Marissa Stapley (The Lightning Bottles). Have you read any of these? I have read Harding before … her 2017 crime thriller The Party was a doozy. Then on Sunday I will see Irish authors Roddy Doyle (The Women Behind the Door) and Anne Enright (The Wren, the Wren), and Monday’s talk features Rachel Kushner (Creation Lake). Yay.
After Saturday’s talk, I plan to meet up with book blogger Haze from The Book Haze, which should be a lot of fun. A while ago after I found her blog, I discovered she lives in this province as well, so it’ll be great to meet up in person. Check out her blog if you don’t already know it. She reads and reviews a variety of great books.
And now I’ll leave you with a review of a nonfiction book that I finished lately.
Running With Sherman by Christopher McDougall / Knopf / 352 pages / 2019
My sister gave me the perfect gift when she sent me this book early this summer, since I have been interested in keeping donkeys at our back field ever since we moved to a more rural location in January 2023. They seem adorable animals and I have been intrigued by them for a long while. Though I’m still trying to talk my husband into the idea of these braying pack animals. I hope someday it will happen and we will have two here … if all goes well.
As for the book it’s a heartwarming true story that’s very informative too … about an abused, neglected donkey that is given a second chance at life when the author and his family save him from the previous owner and take him to live on their farm in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County. Sherman — as they rename him — can barely walk at the time due to overgrown hooves.
Luckily with vet care they are able to rehabilitate him … and when the trainer says Sherman “needs a purpose,” the author gets an idea to train him for the World Championship burro race in Colorado. This involves running alongside the donkey holding a rope from the harness as the donkey runs (or decides not to run) the mountainous course.
Over several months the author and “his team,” which includes his wife and a neighbor’s college son, train with Sherman along with two other buddy donkeys named Flower and Matilda that lure him along. As the race nears they have to overcome many obstacles just to get to the race — due to unrelated injuries and driving logistics — which miraculously they do.
The book is about donkeys but also about the people in their rural neck of the woods and so much more. Some of the book is the author’s personal story and another part is his journalistic reporting about Amish country, endurance running, and the world of burro racing and those who do it. Who knew? I hadn’t even heard of the sport till this book. But what really won me over are the three donkeys: Sherman, Flower, and Matilda. They are smaller than you might expect but they each have their own funny personalities and egg each other on.
It’s a lovely story for animal lovers, or for readers of human interest sports stories. I have the paperback copy as well as the audio version, which is entertaining and enthusiastically read by the author.
You might remember the author from his 2009 bestselling book titled Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen about the author’s journey to Mexico’s Copper Canyons to learn the secrets of the Tarahumara Indian native people, known for their ability to run for hundreds of miles without problems, or injury. Well apparently Matthew McConaughey has signed on to star in the movie version, which is still in early development. We will see if it pans out and is made.
That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any of these books and if so, what did you think?
Lovely terrain and view for a bike ride. Sounds like a great Thanksgiving. I miss Toronto!
What a beautiful scene in the picture you feature! And who wouldn’t want to have a donkey like Sherman in their backyard?
We don’t get any Fall colors (well, not much) in Santa Barbara, but I can live with that. It has been overcast at least half of each day so far this month, and I love that. Our (tiny) back yard has lost all its sun except for the top of the back fence but we are making progress in cleaning it up so we can do a better job planting some pots and succulents back there next Spring.
I am glad you includeded the cover of Husbands; it sounded interesting (and familiar) and it should have. I had forgotten, but I have this on my Kindle. I will have to read it soonish.
Running with Herman sounds like a good read. I have a backlog of nonfiction books to read soon, so I won’t add this one now, but I like the subject matter.