a tale of tails, tenacity, and tedium, as told by me, usually barefoot and bellowing

Monday, August 31, 2015

Freaky Nature Or Goodly Lessons?

A tree bent by nature will now grow this way.
Bending but not breaking as many of us have experienced in life.
Look at those colors!
Orange, green, white, gray and brown...
They all seem to be coexisting without problems.
Signs of the Templar Knights?
An ancient language?
Proof of early settlement?
Simply a rock marked by life
yet it remains solid.
Is this a trail tree or merely a tree handicapped in its youth?
It continues to grow even with many difficulties.

Freaky nature or life lessons?

Saturday, August 29, 2015

My Epitaph

Mindlovemisery's Menagerie
B&P Shadorma and Beyond – The Epitaph 
The challenge is to write our own epitaph.

Here's lies Gail
end of trail swinging
on the gates
heavenward
she's giving the angels hell
no surprise...it's Gail

Also sharing with Poets United:  Poetry Pantry

Trailing Purple

 Bonnie 
playing
 stick
a trick of the light leaves an illusion of purple by her mouth as she swims.
I can't explain.  I think it was a gift for me to see purple today in a surprise place.

Friday, August 28, 2015

And The Beat Goes On

as does the work.  One tiny project seems to last longer than I expect.  This is the old smokehouse over a dirt cellar.  Both are still usable.  The dirt cellar actually is just holding our empty jars. Our houses hold the full ones.  The smoke house is mostly storage but makes a great drying place for herbs.  This is on my winter project list to organize again.
 During the high temperatures the shade dictates my job for the day.
Cutting out the bird poop trees freeing the Sweet Williams to grow.
Time has a way of wearing things down.
Pieces of siding and fence will be reused.
 My cow bone guarding the entrance got a new coat of paint.
Just for fun I added Welcome as you enter the yard.
I believe it's safe to say no one has a yard like mine.
I'm always armed with a camera.
Revelation! 
That may be why jobs take me so long.
Being easily distracted is a blessing.
The front of the smoke house before
and after.
All by hand looking for rocks and stumps.
I'm tired.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

It's The Little Things

wood cookie
butterflies
ant
damsel fly
dragon fly on rock
a wild flower
It's the little things that add up
 and make a great day.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Defective Rubber Snake

It did not scare the rooster at all!
This rooster has changed his roosting spot to my front porch.
At least he's fertilizing the flowers.

Ode to Rooster

Oh, Rooster, dear
I see you there
Ruffling your feathers 
Fluffing your tail
Sitting high on my rail

Take my advice
You'd better think twice
So early Do Not Crow
Or by the saints
You'll have to go

Three AM again at four
Wide awake I'm out the door
I insist you stop
Or you'll be crowing
From within my pot

Good Poetry Is

a rock that shines in the shadows
a tree that bends with no wind
a water plant in drought
stardust in your hair
water droplets after a rain

"good" poetry comes
writing itself
leaving me surprised
and breathless
with its truth.

good poetry
spews and bubbles
like a science student volcano
and grows and flows
i transcribe the dictation

and when its finished
i step back and read
filled with joy
and say, Wow!
who wrote that?

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Barbed Wire and History

During our clearing and cleaning we found broken rusted barbed wire.
To me, that's a gold mine.
We spent a day creating instead of destroying.

I love the peace symbol and tried to make one here. The center of the symbol is made from T.V. Allis "Buck thorn" barbed wire patented in July 1881 in Texas.  It came in narrow, medium and wide.  I will be removing the washer I used to TRY and cover the different colored wire and removing the wire and replacing it with an old piece.  I want mine all rusty.

Five varieties of barbed wire can be seen here. "Beginning in 1868, a series of patents was issued to several inventors for strong, mass-produced fencing made from interlocking strands of wire. These wires were outfitted with sharp barbs that kept even the toughest cattle from muscling through it. The varieties of barbed wire seen here include: the Kelly "Diamond Point" right twist (1868), Burnell four-point (1877), and Glidden two-point, (1874), H. B. Scutt "Y" plate (1878) and T. V. Allis "Buckthorn" (1881). Barbed wire ended the open range and with it the cattle drives and the range lifestyle that created the Texas cowboy legend."

The main part of these wreaths is the barbed wire patented by Joseph Glidden  in July of 1874 in Illinois.  "Cheaper than dirt and stronger than steel" was the line used to sell all models of barbed wire.  Kansas Barbed Wire Museum in La Crosse Kansas has 2100 unique samples of barbed wire. 
I made some wire art too.
Can you see the bull and the heart?
If not, I have to hang up my wire sculpture hat.
Dr Peppers were drunk.
Skin was poked.
Poked skin bled but all in all, it was a perfect day to recycle some old wire.
and a good night to do some research.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Solving Problems


 Chestnut tree almost on power line
and a bird poop cherry allowed to grow too tall
Sick, weak and unwanted limbs sawed or pruned
Much progress
See the tongs?  Wood is stacked. 
Small debris added to our ever growing pile. 
Holding the tree with the tractor bucket so it will fall correctly.
Too many things to hit if it fell wrong.
Timber!  
Doesn't look big but this was the tree by the power line.
Clean up continues.
We make walking sticks and vine wreaths for the shop.
The queen of distraction!
I'm not sure I will survive.

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Pep Rally

Pep 
Rally
The band played 
as the cheerleaders
danced their admiration
football players flexed
the crowd cheered
flashes seared 
the night
with
hope

the field emptied
except 
for a 
crumpled 
schedule
tumbling 
in the wind
as
the 
lights
went 
out
one
by 
one

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Things I'll Never Outgrow and Reading The Past

For Fireblossom Friday Lists

Things I'll Never Outgrow

dying Easter eggs
blowing bubbles
playing in mud puddles
coloring books
puppies
and toads
For Mama Zen Words Count  Power Image
Twenty-five words exactly.
Reading The Past


hundreds of years
or maybe centuries
passed
before the ground
gave up its secrets
we read their history
in stone
and bones
they left behind
Both for the prompt today at 

Today, I'll Buy No Sorrows


unlike Credence Clear Water Revival famous for Looking Out My Backdoor
I am looking out my front door.

I am home.

Friday, August 21, 2015

Where Are My Log Tongs?

Visit a demonstration of their use

Ours were not yellow but they worked well for what we needed.  The color only matters when you've lost them. And, yes, tongs are plural for one set.  No one could use a tong thus it is tongs...because I said so.

For weeks Hubby has been edging fields and looking up in trees for his lost tongs.  He asked me, Have you seen my tongs?  Nope but I bet they're right where you left them.  "Right where you left them/it" is a fighting phrase around here.  Neither one of us wants to be reminded that we lose things...a lot.

I think they were used in an early spring clean up hauling things to the "bone yard".   (Here it's not junk at all but a parts store).  Old equipment that might be broken but there still could be a use for parts or can be fixed when we need it.  They all go here to die like the elephant's graveyard featured in the 1932 Tarzan movie with Johnny Weissmuller.

That's where he found them.  Right Where He Left Them.  In the bone yard where he had taken the broken basket ball post and goal (we had two, one broke in a strong storm).

Due to tornado, ice, drought, disease and life in general trees fall.  It's a fact, no matter how beautiful they are, they die.  During our floods of spring many fallen trees were in the creek.  Not good, that causes the water to back up and do more damage.  Almost like when trees were floated down river to the sawmills, there are log jams.  We don't have dynamite nor would we use it for this if we had some.  These dams do wreck havoc on fences, land, and things in general.

Thus our search for the log tongs which, by the way, WERE right where he left them.  He has worried and looked for these so long he had a solution so this will not happen again.
 Please note the color and he made sure I saw where he put them this time.  Now when he forgets he can say, I told you where I put them.
Now we can begin.  When I get brave enough to wade into the summer's growth to clip these tongs onto a log where the tractor can't go.  When I get brave enough to wade into the edges of the creek where the Cotton Mouths and Copperheads stay.  I will drag these heavy tongs into the deep unknown.  I will close them until they get a 'bite" on the log and motion for Tractor Man to lift it out.

We will make a pile here and there for the wild life to nest or hide or play where the high waters can't reach.  We will wait for the logs to feed the land.  

Just a hundred and forty-nine acres to go.
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