Johnson Funny Farm bee haven, April 2023 – baby bees at top right corner and entering bottom left tube
Forget Lonesome Dove. This one’s all about the lonesome bees – and putting food on Earth’s tables. One of my 2023 goals is spending more time outdoors, taking more notes in nature observations, and learning more about the ecosystem and the creatures that do jobs I’ve taken for granted. A couple of summers ago, we bought a bee house to provide safe spots for solitary bees like mason bees and leaf cutter bees to nest. These pollinators help plants like fruits and vegetables thrive. We have enjoyed watching the little bees come and go – they’re so cute – and so helpful! In rural areas like ours where agriculture is the name of the game, bees matter! Help with pollination – NOT PESTICIDES! We are doing one small part to make a difference – and watching it happen thrills our souls!
Lonesome Bee Haven
lonesome bee haven
apiculture hideaway
pollinator post
baby bees buzzing
busy building businesses~
hungry world feeders
Aidan enjoys helping us outdoors when he comes to visit the farm!
One of my 2023 goals is spending more time outdoor, taking more notes in nature observations, and learning more about the ecosystem and the creatures that do jobs I never fully appreciated. Both my mother and grandmother, avid gardeners, died of Parkinson’s Disease, a neurological disease that has been linked to pesticides. If my fish are not wild caught, I don’t buy them (my takeaway from Silent Spring). I’m doing all I can – one small part in a big world – to make a difference where I can.
I was driving along our rural highway last week and felt tears well up when I saw a sign advertising 52 acres for sale. I drove back around the loop, looking at all the trees – all the homes where right now, there are baby birds and deer and foxes and squirrels whose homes will be felled with the blade of an ax when the money changes hands. It hurts my heart for them.
We have been considering ways to control our mosquito population (quite possibly the only critter in the entire universe I would vote to eradicate), and one of our ideas is installing a bat village. So this past Saturday, I raised my husband and grandson up in the tractor bucket to install our first bat house. We’ve seen bats out by our driveway for the past several years, and we hope we can attract them to the bat houses from wherever they are living (we checked the barn and see no signs). We’ll add to the village over the next couple of weeks, even though the boxes should have been up by now since they are more likely to be inhabited over the summer when the bats emerge from hibernation in the spring, according to Google. I read somewhere that the occupancy likelihood is only 35%, but we’re going to give it a go since we know we have them nearby.
Plus, Halloween. It will just feel a little spookier and more seasonally festive when the pumpkins frost over and moon shines through the trees. We’ll enjoy batwatching almost as much as birdwatching!
~~Bat Hollow ~~
house installation
erecting a bat hollow
mosquito control
spooky October
Loblolly pine neighborhood
for night flight critters
vampirish creatures
welcome wagons circled up
upside-down hangout!
My husband takes direction on the exact placement of the box, which should be at least 12 feet off the ground. Bat Box #1 being installed
The first of the three bluebird hatchlings; one did not hatch.
I’ve spent the months of March and April writing among friends, celebrating the Slice of LIfe Story Challenge and #VerseLove – – and spiffing up my bird and butterfly garden. Each year, we discard any cracked feeders and add a couple of new ones so that we maintain the work that began in spring 2009, shortly after we moved to the Johnson Funny Farm on New Year’s Eve 2008.
I caught butterfly garden fever from my mother. Throughout her years, she planted fennel as host plants for butterflies to lay their eggs. Every summer, her fennel plants would sag with the weight of the caterpillars, each happily munching away to becoming a chrysalis before emerging as a black swallowtail. She also threw out rotting fruit for them to feed on, and taught me to do the same. She had attended a butterfly gardening workshop with one of the leading butterfly garden experts in Georgia and learned that butterflies like to feast on urea. So if you ever see an upside-down garbage can lid with rotting oranges and a wet sponge in a garden, you can bet that someone knew to invite their little grandson to go tee-tee on the sponge to make the butterflies happy. Mom grew nectar plants nearby, such as butterfly bush, azaleas, lantana and coreopsis. Every once in a while I can keep a flower alive, but it takes a modern-day miracle to make it happen.
A miracle. That’s why a week ago Thursday for the Open Mic, I changed up my whole reading plan less than an hour before the long-awaited event started. I’d stepped outside to toss a lemon rind out and to fill the bird feeders and birdbaths and check the bluebird house (again) to see if the eggs had hatched. I could see a tiny notch in one egg, and I knew the hatchling’s head would emerge within the hour if all went well. I waited awhile, watching from the front porch, and when I could see that no parents were coming and going, I returned in time to capture the moment of wonder! Watch the video at the top, if you haven’t already.
I headed out to the poetry reading, leaving my own poems at home, selecting one by by Mary Oliver instead. I stepped onto the stage and readThis Morning.
Reading poetry at the Open Mic, 1828 Coffee Company, April 2023
Sarah Donovan is our host for Day 30 of VerseLove and our host of this space each month for writers who crave togetherness each month as we come together to celebrate our words and thoughts ~to share the joy of writing. She helps meet a deep need in each of us. I adore the prompt today, and I ran for my journal from 2019 when I saw the topic. I thought back to the first year I participated in VerseLove and looked for that first prompt that changed the trajectory of my life from grief over my mother’s death to connection with others whose pain shone through their heart holes, too, who showed me how to use the sunspots to write and heal. To every writer who shares the journey, thank you for all of the inspiration you bring. This morning, my grandson writes along with me as I revise my first-ever VerseLove poem, Blackberry Winter.
Blackberry Winter, Revisited
It’s a Blackberry Winter I wrote in 2019 beginning a poem about all the good things
later this morning, my first grandson will make elderberry jam toast plus cheese omelettes on the Lodge cast iron griddle wearing my apron (he doesn’t know about the apron yet)
but first: raindrops on rooftop, fresh coffee, wi-fi (stronger than coffee, finally), computer charged, comfy chair, whisper-soft pajamas,
thoughts ready to materialize three schnoodles tussling on grandson’s sleepover mattress as we write together in the living room
words forming on pages: his pen, my keyboard to the first #VerseLove prompt of 2019 from Sarah:
….the good things in our lives….
there are those who bring more warmth than raindrops and coffee, more comfort than chairs and pajamas, more joy than words ~ ancestors whose cast iron presence and apron strings linger in kitchens hugging us tight about the middle
and those we ancestor ~ grandchildren who write right next to us about all the good things in our lives on this elderberry toast and cheese omelette morning.
Kernels of Truth
ten months after
she died
four months after
he died
you asked me
what I thought
of y’all
and I told the truth
you’re nice
she’s nice
but y’all don’t fit
you thought
it was that woman thing
that I
just didn't like her
you had it all wrong
there were those
I thought would be a
great fit for you
readers
travelers
lovers of wine
whose blood runneth blue
this one wasn’t for you
you’ve held my
truth-telling
against me all this time
made me the
unaccepting one
and now after
seven years
of frustration
figuring out
discovering
you finally realize
all those reasons
y’all don’t fit
so next time I’ll
tell the only truth
you want to hear
marry her
then I’ll go
make popcorn
Cutting Eyes
post-ripple small talk~
reconnecting after a
hard conversation
but eyes tell the truth
might as well pass out peanuts
feed the elephant
which just grows bigger
eyes that will no longer meet
resentment sets in
Today, I've written a riddle-type poem (Haiku two lines short of a Haiku sonnet), open-ended, to invite readers to title this poem AND to add two seven-syllable lines to the end to make it a true Haiku sonnet if you wish. I'll add my title after the photo at the bottom so you can see what my initial title was. It's subject to change :).
never have I met
anyone who on first taste
liked its bitterness
sipping piping hot
aromatic wakefulness
swallowing its truth
ah, but sip by sip
its addiction is for real~
can’t live without it!
A lavender latte from my local coffee shop, where I’ll be reading poetry tonight – YAAAY!A book of poetry
The title I initially landed on was Coffee and Poetry – original, I know! Perhaps you can figure out a better title for this poem! Leave ideas in the comments, please.
Dave Wooley is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 13 of #VerseLove. He inspires us to find poems on the pages of books or sheets of music or newspapers – anywhere there are words. Blackout poems are positively addictive. I could sit all day finding blackout poems and wish I could. I ripped a few pages out of a Steven King destined for a Little Free Library and found this from the pages of Blaze: a single soup-spoon ain’t what I call a thing for grim peculiar amusement
Try a Blackout poem and share yours in the comments! Warning: you can’t stop after one.
Today’s host for Day 10 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Brittany Saulnier, who inspires us to write whimsical science poems. I chose to focus on outdoor science – nature and all its discovery and wonder about the world! I have just gotten my flower presses out of the old barn over the weekend and can’t wait to gather flowers and greenery to press on a long walk one afternoon this week. So much of science is soothing, just pure medicine for the soul. Brittany’s gift of a prompt that invites peace is particularly appreciated on this Monday back to work after spring break. Today, my poem is a first-word-Golden Shovel Tanka (5-7-5-7-7) string. I took my striking line as a quote from a birding journal by Vanessa Sorensen: “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bloom!
adopt a mindset~
the practice of noticing
pace your amazement
of observing more fully
nature: less is so much more
her covert moments
secret discoveries ~ what
is our big hurry?
its blessings beckoning us
patience blooms on every stem
Our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 4 of #VerseLove is Jennifer Guyor Jowett of Michigan, who invites us to write grammatically ungrammatical poems, using mixed up parts of speech in place of others and made up words without regard for rules. You can nounify verbs, verbify adjectives, or whatever you want to do to write this type of poem. Come meet Jennifer and read her poem and prompt here!
A daughter of mine on a desert hike with a peace sign
Birkenstock Peaced-Up Pipe Dreams
when we wander Birkenstocks
corkbed frolic nope to socks
camouflagely sherpa’d arch
hippiescuffle guitar’d march
bellishbottomed denimly jeans
knowexactly peaced-up means
leatherfringe’d-up gauchovest
showsly braless halter’d chest
macramae’d-up shoulderbag
carefree pet rock tail-she-wag
daisychainedup tousled locks
when we wander Birkenstocks
Common Threads 