Tag: farm life

Posted on

Day 4 of #VerseLove with Jennifer Jowett, inspiring us with Alphabeticals

Donkeys on the south side of the Funny Farm

Today, Jennifer Jowett of Michigan is our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for our fourth day of #VerseLove 2024. She offers a spectacular Alphabeticals prompt, using letters of the alphabet to create a poem. You can read her full prompt and the poems of others here.

My mind went straight to the farm as I looked at the letters on the keyboard. There’s a whole world of things to see if you let your eyes see what is held in each letter. Donkeys belonging to someone in our area keep getting loose, and my sister in law and I helped some other neighbors for two hours on Tuesday trying to trailer them, finally herding them into another neighbor’s fenced pasture. When they turned up in her yard again Wednesday, we decided to just make friends with them – they’re not halter trained, and we think they are lonely and seeking the companionship of humans.

They know they’ve found folks who are friendly. They’d rather live here on the Funny Farm, where things are amusingly quirky. 

RELAXing on the Funny Farm

R hangs out in the
barn, his back against the wall
relaxing cowboy

E stalls two horses
or goats or donkeys or mules
safe from elements

L stands firm, holds reins
hitching post for keeping us
right where we belong

A swing for sweethearts
porch side sunset views, sweet tea
two-strawed Mason jar

X makes a manger
to feed all of God’s creatures
Posted on

Day 3 of #VerseLove with Wendy Everard of New York, leading us to Inspriational Places

Today’s host of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Wendy Everard of New York, who inspires us to research our favorite writers’ places and our own favorites, and to write a poem inspired by that place. She wrote her poem as she walked around Emily Dickinson’s home and gardens.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
The Funny Farm

give me outdoors
on a bright, cloudy farm
one that's just a slant off
from the normal farm's charm

where the dogs think they're people
and there's no chimney-steeple

where the roosters don't stop - 
they crow 'round the clock

and the cats are all blind
(confused mice think them kind)

where the pigs all stay clean
but the John Deere stays green

and the fig-pickin's plenty
and the fence posts are denty
 
and we grow winter corn
once the goats' wool is shorn

and the rabbits stay single
'cause they don't like to.....mingle.....

and the cows oom
(not moo, like all other cows do)

and the deer never scare
they just stand there and stare

and the farmer wears oil rags
returns new clothes with price tags

wears his straw hat with holes
'cause he's got backwoods goals

and he can't eat no sausage
but it's really no loss-age

they just go out for dinner
(and for her, that's a winner!)

on this farm that's quite funny,
sipping coffee with honey

give me outdoors
on a bright, cloudy farm
one that's just a slant off
from the normal farm's charm
Posted on

Sunday Morning on the Johnson Funny Farm

Aside from the usual blasts of neighbors’ target practice gunfire and tannerite explosions just to light up the Pike County Discussion Page at 8:00 on any given Sunday morning, the planes from the local airport flying low and the jets flying high along the flight path above the farm from the Atlanta Airport, and the roosters excited to see the sunrise after the long, dark night, the sweet notes of birdsong from the branches of the Loblolly pines brings peace and serenity.


One of our deer families has learned how to enter and exit the old goat pen, where they feast on breakfast and enjoy a little more security and thus a more relaxed dining experience than they normally have, especially with their little ones.

The white-breasted nuthatches laugh like evil circus clowns with their white-painted faces as they climb up and down the suet trees and keep watch while they eat.

And the hummingbirds engage in full-body air jousting squabbles over the sweet nectar at every feeder.

What I love most about my birdwatching time, despite all the best reasons I’d sometimes love a noise ordinance in our county, is that all deadlines and demands are on hold while I sip my morning coffee, never knowing what I’ll see or hear next.

This is wildlife as I’ve come to know it.