When i started the project of "Dusty Goes South", i was fulfilling a childhood daydream.

On those warm, sunny Sunday family drives after church, about 36 years ago when i was 9 or so years of age, with the other 4 siblings clambering over me, and me over them...our parents talking and dealing with the noise as though it were not even there (except of course for the occasional "YOU KIDS QUIET DOWN BACK THERE!", which we, of course, always giggled at...*s*).

Well, on one of these drives, i noticed these caterpillars crawling in force down the roadside, basically all together.

They were really, really fat and fuzzy...and most of them were going in the same direction. i noticed how they would sometimes ball up when a car came too close, and the wind swirling behind the following, rushing cars would pull them tumbling down the road very quickly. I thought, "MY!, what a wild ride that must be!"

What made them especially attractive to the eye though, and noticable, was that they were black in the middle, and orange on both ends. It was usually kind of cool outside when i noticed them, like autumn, and so they put me in mind of Halloween, what with their color scheme and all.

They, to my childish mind, were also attractive in the same kind of way as those thick, thick pencils are that they give you to learn to write with in the first grade. I just wanted to pick them up and pet them, the chubby, wriggly, little fuzzy things.

Funny that i never saw these caterpillars anywhere near my home, that i recall, so my curiosity could not be satisfied firsthand, as the little amateur entemologist i was. And of course, i wasn't the most daring of children, so i never asked my Stepdad to stop the car so i could look at one of them up close.

I DID learn though, through reading and research, that the particular caterpillar i was seeing is known as the "Banded Woollybear".

"WOOLLYbear", thought i..."How charming!"...and my mind conjured up all kinds of cool things about them when i also read that they are very rarely a pest when it comes to our crops, excepting soybeans and sunflowers and such...like, 'how nice they are' to keep mostly to their forest herbs, leaves and grasses...."noble little moth larvae"...thought i..."as well as cute".

Then i began wondering..."Where are they headed....so often going the same way and in such numbers as this?"

i skritched my head.

I could find nothing in my research that ever addressed this strange occurance....and so i was left to my own imagination as to what these squirmy, fuzzy things were up to out there.

And the only thing i could think of was...they must be going to a Family Get-Together...a Reunion of sorts.

Through the years, i never lost my fascination for these curious little caterpillars...and have always thought of them as attending Family Reunions in the Fall.

One day, a few years ago, i finally thought to myself that it was time that i put out that childrens' book in me that hadn't been brought forward yet.

Now, i'd done a lot of art and creatures and all of this over the years...for ME...

But this was different. This was for the kids.

The search within didn't last long. The Banded Woollybear popped right up to mind.
So i turned to with the outline, the text, and began the illustrations between creative writing bursts.

I chose the setting of Pungo, Virginia...a farming community on the outskirts of Virginia Beach, VA that we had gone through so often on those comfy Sunday afternoon drives, gandering at horses and houses and cows, mooing at them and such...and where i had glimpsed my first, and most all of, the Woollybear caterpillars i had seen throughout life.

Pungo had also been my favorite stomping ground in high school.

Not long after i had finished the book (three years to get the text to not only rhyme in acceptable variance, but to be humorous enough, active enough, funny enough, and not scrimp on the educational aspect, which i consider highly important in all things), we suffered a pretty horrific arson fire.

It happened on May 11, 1999, in Norfolk, VA, at2 am, on Phillip Avenue where we lived upstairs in an apartment house.

Many of Dusty's original illustrations perished in the blaze, and many of the ones I do have left are visibly scorched.

Please do forgive the condition of the some of the older illustrations included here, as they are the only surviving ones.

Enjoy the excerpts here, and if you'd like to write, be in touch, talk business, please write. I dearly wish to complete this, and certainly could use a partner or a good publishing house who will help to promote "Dusty Goes South" for the good and enrichment and pure happiness of the children, particularly those who have never had a glimpse of any nature, or the country way of life, outside of the inner cities and re-runs of the Beverly Hillbillies.

(*chuckling to herself..*s*)

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