Diane Stringam Tolley's Blog: On the Border, page 26

A Crow’s Cawse

Okay. I have to admit that crows aren't my favourite feathered creature.
But they are fun to put in a rhyme and as today is Halloween, an apt topic!
Here we go . . .
A crow emerges from the mist,Its blazing eyes can’t be dismissed,

I wonder as I have before,

What did he get his bad rap for?

Did he miss eating all his greens?

And then quit cawlege in his teens?

Drink too much cawfee in his life?

Forget to caw his loving wife?

Perhaps his drinking went too far,

Spent too much time at his crow bar.

No visits from ol’ Santa Caws,

For frequent and diverse faux pas?

Did his cawstume-wearing e’er portend

An inclination to offend?

And did his friends all scream ‘foul play!’

When they met to play crowquet?

The cawking did our bird eschew,

When fixing plumbing old and new?

And did he horrify his Folks

With cawnstant telling of bad Jokes?

When meeting his light-feathered friend, 

Call him cawcasion to the end?

And did he stomp the crowcus flat?

When angry, crowcuss? ((What a brat!)

For such a shiny, pretty bird,

His reputation seems absurd!

So, for the record, I dispute

The total loss of his repute!

This evening on this crisp fall day,

When kids (and crows) come out to play,

Please be kind-hearted, don’t demeanOr cawse them grief this Halloween.

Cause Mondays do get knocked a lot,
With poetry, we all besought
To try to make the week begin
With gentle thoughts,
Perhaps a grin?
So  Karen , Charlotte, Mimi, me
Have crafted poems for you to see.
And now you’ve read what we have wrought…
Did we help?
Or did we not?

Sticks to your ribs, served fresh and hot,Come dive into our oatmeal pot!
Thinking of joining us for Poetry Monday?We'd love to welcome you!
Topics for the next few weeks (with a huge thank-you to Mimi, who comes up with so many of them!)...

Halloween -or- your favourite Knock-Knock Joke (October 31) Today!

Oatmeal (November 7)Pickles (In or eating!) (November 14)Giving Thanks! (November 21)French Toast--or Breakfast (November 28)Mittens (December 5)Poinsettia -or- Potted Plants (December 12)Muffins (December 19)Candy Canes (December 26)

The ANT in me

I'm on the mend, the end's in sight,
(At least I wish with all my might,)
Today, I'll have to fudge a bit,
I hope this old poem is a hit!

If you could be an animal, what is it you would choose?

A lion with his heavy mane? A sloth who likes to snooze?

Perhaps a horse who runs so fast. A monkey in a tree?

How about a dolphin playing games of tag at sea?

A shaggy bear? They get to eat most everything that’s seen,

Go sleep the cold months all away and wake up really lean!

Sometimes, I think a great gazelle, cause they run really fast,

Or perhaps a spotted cheetah. Watch as I blow past!

An eagle flying overhead and looking down on all?

Would you choose an elephant? Or something rather small?

Now here’s the point that I would make: A bug’s NOT on the list,

At the bottom of the food chain, they’re the ones that just exist,

Look at all the ants! We humans see them as a pest,

And do the things we can to kill or tear apart their nests,

Getting squished or poisoned if they stray beyond their grounds,

So they try hard to live their lives where they cannot be found.

Is it any wonder that an ant I would not be?

I’m sure you see my point and likely with me you agree…

But here’s a thought I had not factored in the very least,

Though the ant is very small, he is a hearty beast,

And every one can carry ‘most a hundred times their weight,

In food and lots of yummy stuff, to put upon their plate,

And then the thought struck me: In food, a HUNDRED TIMES MY WEIGHT?

I’ll be an ant. Watch out! I’m heading for the choc-o-late!

Karen asks, "Write for me, please?"We write because she's the Bee's Knees!And we love her, you know that’s true,So this is what we writers do . . .We craft a poem based on a theme,With pencils, sharp, and eyes agleam,Each month we write and have such funWe can't wait for another one,Sooo...this month, how well did I do?Please go and see the others, too:
BakingIn A Tornado
Messymimi’sMeanderings           

Fairly Effective Imagination

I'm trying not to choke and gasp,
But Covid's got me in its grasp.
My brain is just a little dense,
I’m praying that this poem makes sense!

When I was young, I loved the tub,

With rubber ducks and rub-a-dub,

For hours on end I’d splash and play,

Until my mom got in my way,

Cause once she came inside, I knew

My bath time moments numbered: few,

Soon it was time for me to leave,

The thought? It made me feel bereaved,

Who knew when next we two would meet,

With water, warm and claw-ed feet?

So I would slide as far away

As I could get. To my dismay,

My mom had other tricks that she

Employed most effectively,

Yep, she would simply pull the plug,

And her young daughter’d hit the rug, 

And shiver there, all wet and pink,

Even faster than you’d blink,

Cause daughter knew if she remained,

She’d go down as the water drained!

Now looking back, I see the flaws,

It never was to be, because,

E’en though I was a little thing,

I’d not fit through that bathtub ring!

 

When raising kids, it’s good to use

Imagination to induce,

And Mom? She put in tons of thought…

Then she used MINE an awful lot!

Cause Mondays do get knocked a lot,
With poetry, we all besought
To try to make the week begin
With gentle thoughts,
Perhaps a grin?
So  Karen , Charlotte, Mimi, me
Have crafted poems for you to see.
And now you’ve read what we have wrought…
Did we help?
Or did we not?

Halloween or Knock-Knock schtick,Join us, see which one we pick!
Thinking of joining us for Poetry Monday?We'd love to welcome you!
Topics for the next few weeks (with a huge thank-you to Mimi, who comes up with so many of them!)...

Bathtubs (October 24) Today!

Halloween -or- your favourite Knock-Knock Joke (October 31) 

Oatmeal (November 7)Pickles (In or eating!) (November 14)Giving Thanks! (November 21)French Toast--or Breakfast (November 28)Mittens (December 5)Poinsettia -or- Potted Plants (December 12)Muffins (December 19)Candy Canes (December 26)

Saved by Reflexes

  Big Daddy. MY daddy's supreme herd champion.
Who does not feature in this story...
Early summer.The grass is green.
The birds are singing.
The earth smells sweet.
And the irrigation canal is empty.
It was time to bring the heifers, and their attendant ‘boyfriend’, home.
This was a relatively painless job considering that the youngest of the breeding stock were always wintered in the fields closest to the ranch buildings.
One simply had to walk out, circle the small field once, and start the herd moving.
They would find the corrals, and feed, without being directed. Usually.But between their pasture and our destination was . . . THE IRRIGATION CANAL.
A vast expanse some forty feet wide and twenty feet deep which snaked across the countryside and our ranch. Spanned by a sturdy little bridge.
A sturdy little . . . sideless bridge.
At high summer, this canal was full - sparkling clear water nearly reaching the supports of the bridge. At this time of year, the floodgates had not yet been opened and it wasn't.
Full, that is.
Except for the large, nasty rocks at the bottom. . .
To head from the pasture to the corral, one had to make a slight right turn immediately after crossing the bridge.
A left turn took one to the house and its attendant outbuildings and, eventually, the main road.
Right was what we wanted.
Left was what we got.In an effort to turn our misdirected herd, I started threading myself between large, warm hairy bodies, working my way forward as quickly as I could by the shortest route possible--through the herd.
On a 20-foot-wide bridge.
I had worked my way almost to the leaders.
I noticed a vacant spot at the extreme left of the bridge. I made for it.
At the same time as the 2000-pound bull.
We collided.
He won. I bounced off that red hide like a blue-jean-garbed tennis ball. 
Suddenly, I was teetering at the extreme edge of the bridge, staring down at the large hungry rocks. They and their willing partner – gravity. They...beckoned.
Oh, this is going to hurt! I told myself.
Then, the author of my misfortune stalked past me.
2000 pounds of perfect, red-blooded, oblivious muscle.
With a tail.
A tail.Before he could take the fatal step that moved him forever out of my reach, my hand shot out and nabbed that . . . appendage. That glorious, wonderful, life-preserving (rather smelly) tail.
Then I turned to stare down at those rocks.
Which slowly lost their hypnotic grip as each step my oblivious rescuer took pulled me further . . . and further.
Away.
I clung to that tail until I was safely across the bridge.
By this time, the herd had seen the corrals--and other cattle--and were heading in the correct direction.
Success was within our sight.
There was only one other problem to be solved.
Someone had to help Daddy up.
He had laughed himself into the dirt.
Again.
Sigh.

Near Misses

Daddy, Big Brother George. And me.
I'm the one in the curlers...
Near Misses:

1. When I was just two, Bobby the Cow (the queen of the barnyard) and I had a disagreement. I lost. Turns out she hates children. Who knew?

2. Did you know that mothers are capable of scaling a 100 foot TV tower in mere seconds? They just need toddler-at-the-top motivation. True story.

3. When butchering chickens, it’s probably best if four-year-olds remain somewhere out of the picture. Chicken heads have been known to cause varying degrees of trauma.

4. Chicken-traumatized children would also much rather wrestle 1500-pound bulls than venture into the dreaded chicken house to retrieve eggs from underneath 3-pound bundles of nastiness.

5. Graduation from one’s pony to one’s brother’s spritely gelding may not be all that wonderful. Though it may guarantee a medical emergency ride on Dad’s amazing stallion.

6. When vaccinating calves, always remember the large crossbar of the cattle squeeze. And remember, too, to always look up. Believe me, your nose will thank you.

7. When crossing the barbed-wire fences on a ranch, long pants and good balance are a necessity. Although impressive thigh-to-ankle scars make for a good story…

8. Okay, this wasn’t me, but I heard and it’s still a good lesson: Even from the distance of the house roof, don’t pee on the electric fence.

9. When moving a cow herd across sideless bridges, make quite sure there is a bull’s tail in the immediate vicinity. Your bones will bless you. And it.

10. It’s important to note that even polled (hornless) cow heads are capable of significant damage when they meet human heads. Just ask my traumatized mother. Or me.

Today’s post is a writing challenge. Each month one of the participating bloggers picks a number between 12 and 50. All bloggers taking part are then challenged to write using that exact number of words in their post either once or multiple times. 

This month’s word count number is: 28It was chosen by: Mimi! 

Links to the other Word Counters posts:

Baking In A Tornado  

Messymimi’s Meanderings   

Pass the Bruschetta!

Italian food, I love! It’s true!

But picking one specific? Oooo!

How does one choose which dish to eat?

With Pizza, spicy; Nougat, sweet?

Spaghetti’d wake me from the dead,

When paired with some Focaccia bread,

Some Ravioli would be nice,

Or how about Risotto (rice!),

Or Pasta Carbonara, yum!

With Panna Cotta’d please my tum!

Bruschetta start and Gnocchi end,

Then Tiramisu ‘tween us friends?

Some Cannoli? Give me lots!

All topped with Marinara sauce!

Or Tortellini, grab a fork,

I love it stuffed with cheese and pork!

But try to choose just one? I’m stumped,

All these and more would get me pumped!

So...

My memorable Italian ‘spree’?

Any one someone makes for me!

Cause Mondays do get knocked a lot,
With poetry, we all besought
To try to make the week begin
With gentle thoughts,
Perhaps a grin?
So  Karen , Charlotte, Mimi, me
Have crafted poems for you to see.
And now you’ve read what we have wrought…
Did we help?
Or did we not?

Bathtubs, we'll discuss next week,Joins us--it'll be worth a peek!
Thinking of joining us for Poetry Monday?We'd love to welcome you!
Topics for the next few weeks (with a huge thank-you to Mimi, who comes up with so many of them!)...

Most Memorable Italian Meal (October 17) Today!

Bathtubs (October 24)

Halloween -or- your favourite Knock-Knock Joke (October 31) 

Oatmeal (November 7)Pickles (In or eating!) (November 14)Giving Thanks! (November 21)French Toast--or Breakfast (November 28)Mittens (December 5)Poinsettia -or- Potted Plants (December 12)Muffins (December 19)Candy Canes (December 26)

Fire-d

Well, I was right. Mom and Dad are pregnant!

Mom is pretty excited. I mean, she had Sally and me 10 months apart over 18 years ago. I guess she’s been secretly thinking her family was incomplete.

Who knew?

But Dad? Dad is completely OVER THE MOON!

You’d have to see it to believe it—this former crusty old Major all googly-eyed over baby stuff.

But I suspected he had a soft spot somewhere in his makeup. I mean, he did deliberately join our family. Even after he’d met Sally.

Speaking of Sally, I should probably tell you that Sally and Mort are still in Munich. I think they are due home any time.

It’s been…quite peaceful. Even a bit...shall I say it? Boring.

Until today.

Dad has been totally obsessed with helping Mom with everything. Baby shopping. Exercising. He and Mom came back from their new favourite walking trail with him carrying her like a prized poodle because he was afraid she'd gotten too tired (but that is another story!) He even insists on going to Mom’s doctor appointments. I think it’s totally sweet.

They just got back from one.

A doctor's visit, that is.

Peter and I were making supper when they walked in. Well, Peter was. I was abuse-ing some craft materials in an effort to make a little scarecrow decoration for Halloween. I looked at them, standing there just inside the front door. “Supper’s almost ready.”

They merely nodded. Mom--smiling. Dad--not. 

Dad helped Mom take her coat off and hung it up for her. Then the two of them walked over to the couch and sat down.

Now, normally, this wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. I mean, it was fairly normal behaviour, am I right?

But neither of them was saying anything.

Anything.

And Dad seemed to be holding Mom’s hand with greater…intensity…than usual.

I set down the glue gun I’d been holding.”Okay. Out with it.”

They looked at me.

“Your Dad’s a hero,” Mom said quietly.

I smiled at Dad (who was now shaking his head) and thought about his bravery in joining our family and making Mom so happy. “He’s already a hero to me,” I told them.

“No,” Mom insisted. “He really is a hero.”

I abandoned my crafts and moved closer, sitting in the chair opposite the couch.

Peter shut off the heat under the soup he had been stirring and joined us.

Mom, her fingers tightly entwined in Dad’s, leaned forward. “There was a fire at the Doctor’s office!”

Dad groaned and put his head back against the cushions.

I stared at Mom. “Whaaat?”

She nodded. "It’s totally true. A fire.” She looked at Dad. "And your dad put it out!”

I turned to him. “Seriously?”

I’ve seen him blush before, so I know what it looks like.

“Yes,” he said finally.

“Well, that’s great!” Peter said.

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Um…no.” 

Mom sat there, smiling at him. He was staring at the floor.

Neither of them were saying anything.

Mom put her head on his shoulder. “And he saved everyone!” She squeezed his hand, then got up and headed toward the hallway. “I need the bathroom,” she said, unnecessarily.

Dad looked at us after she had closed the door. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life,” he said.

“So…what happened?” I asked.

Dad’s blush got darker.

Okay, this was really strange.

“Umm…Dad?”

He sighed. “Well…actually, I started the fire.”

Okay, I hadn’t been expecting this. “Seriously?” I asked again.

He nodded. “Your Mom couldn’t…well…it was dark in the corner where she was sitting and she was having a hard time reading her magazine and I thought…maybe I should move the light over for her. So I did. But I pulled too hard and the cord ripped out of the plug. And it spit sparks all up the wall and it…actually It was pretty spectacular. Suddenly the whole wall was aflame! And there was stupid me, with my jacket, beating out the flames.”

“But you put the fire out, Uncle Pete,” Peter protested.

He rolled his eyes. “After I started it.”

I smiled at him. “A true ‘Sally’ moment,” I said. I got up and crossed the floor, then gave him a big hug. “Dad? You wanna know something? You fit right in!”

Today’s post is a writing challenge. Participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post—all words to be used at least once. All the posts are unique as each writer has received their own set of words. And here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now. 

My words:  scarecrow ~ abuse ~ walking trail ~ poodle were sent to me, via Karen, from my good friend, Rena! Thank you, my friend!

Now see what my friends have done with their words!

BakingIn ATornado     
TheDiary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver 
Climaxed  
Part-timeWorking HockeyMom 

My Chinny-Chin-Chin

She was sitting on my knee, studying my face as only a toddler can.Wha's that, Gramma?" She pointed."My chin," I said helpfully."No, Gramma . . . that!" She pointed again."Oh, that's a scar, sweetheart."She touched it. "Owww!" she said."It doesn't hurt, sweetheart. It's old. Like Gramma.""Oh.""Gramma got it from a cow."She stared at me. Skepticism writ large in the two-year-old expression.  No way the gentle cows from the books we read could ever have given Gramma the two-inch scar she sported across her chin.
"Yep. A cow," I repeated.
So, for my granddaughter, and those who haven't heard the story . . .

Me and GollyGee. Ready for action...I never used a saddle.Only a 'riding pad'.
Tacking up was amazingly easier. Riding much more natural.
And no stirrups to get in the way.
But it afforded other . . . complications. For one thing you could never use a rope.
Nothing to dally to.
Chasing down and securing a calf presented . . . certain challenges.
But . . . Adapt. Adopt. Become adept. The theme song of ranch life.
I simply rode up beside them and leaned off to one side, catching said calf by the tail. Then I slid off on top of him. Or her.
It was fool proof.
Until I met Cow 175.
Head on.
But I am getting ahead of myself . . .
The day started out much as any other. I was 'riding herd'. Checking to see if anyone had calved, or needed help in doing so. I came across a small, obviously newborn calf hidden in the tall grass.
I should explain that a new cow mother will instruct her new calf to lie quietly until she returns.
I don't know how they do this. But they do.
The new little calves will simply lie there while you vaccinate them and check them over.
But the final step, the one where the calf is officially identified and tagged to match mama, is the trickiest.
Because this requires the attendance of said mama.
Imagine trying to pick out the mama when all the cows and calves . . . look the same.
I found that the best way was to straddle the calf and make 'distressed baby' noises. Guaranteed to encourage any mama to come on the run.
It worked.
Mama came.
Mama saw.
Mama attacked.
Now I should mention here that my Dad raised Polled Herefords. The breed known for their gentle dispositions. And the absence of horns. Thus the word 'polled'.
They don’t need them. Let's just say that if they had them, my scar would look a whole lot different.
And this story would have had a vastly different ending.
See that 'poll' on her head, between her ears? 
Avoid that.Moving on . . .
175 hit me with the pointy part of her head. The part between her ears made entirely of bone.
I saw stars and quite a bit of the prairie as I left the calf.
In a summersault.
Backwards.
The culprit and her offspring wasted no time in vacating the area.
I got to my feet and stared after them, fuzzily. I had lost my glasses in the encounter. But that didn’t even slow me down.
I piled back onto my horse and started after the two, quickly nabbing the calf once more. This time, I took the precaution of dragging it beneath my horse—an old cowboy trick.
Something else you should know is that throughout my years on the ranch, I was known for riding really . . . ummm . . . green horses. Usually radically unsuited to ranch life. GollyGee, my mount of the moment was totally in keeping with this reputation. She was an ex-racehorse. Tall, lean, fast, and really . . . un-smart. Usually, a person walking anywhere near her would have startled her. Thus sending her, by the most direct route, to the moon.
And a person dragging something toward her? To Jupiter.
Perhaps the anger radiating off me in waves had a stupefying effect. Perhaps she was merely trying something new. Self preservation.
Whichever. She stood like a rock as I dragged the 50 pounds of protesting red and white calf beneath her.
Now most cows are afraid of horses. Fortunately for me, this particular cow was only over-protective, not suicidal.
She did laps while I injected and tagged her calf.
Then I stood up, releasing the baby, but before it could regain its feet and rejoin its mama, I walked over and booted said mama in her giant red butt. Twice.
I don't know what it did for her, but it made me feel a bit better.
Then I watched as the two of them headed for some human-less spot.
Riding back to the scene of the crime, I searched around until I finally discovered my glasses. Miraculously undamaged.
Then I rode home and stabled my horse.
And here is where the story really gets interesting . . .
My Mom was the daughter of a rancher. Her years of ranching experience were many and varied. But she could still be shocked.
When I walked in the kitchen door, she screamed. And ran for a towel. It was only then that I realized that I could feel the tip of my tongue.
Through my bottom lip.
And that my shirt was completely covered in blood.
Huh. How did I miss that?!

Fired Up

‘T’ and his friends were digging a hole.

But not just any hole.

This was to be a hole of parts. Something stupendous. Mind blowing.

A hole to be remembered.

And it was.

Just for all the wrong reasons.

Maybe I should explain…

The boys had been digging for quite some time.

It probably seemed much longer to them than it was in reality, but that doesn’t matter.

Because, regardless of how long they had been digging, they were getting tired.

And bored.

Remember the saying, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’?

Well, tired muscles and boredom are the ‘Father’s of desperate creativity’. And yes, I just made that up.

Because these boys were ready to try anything to get their giant, stupendous hole in the ground.

Except work hard.

Then one of them had—what to him was—an astounding idea.

They would get their Olympic-sized hole.

And they wouldn’t have to do much work.

I think it was this last that got everyone’s attention.

They all looked at him sceptically. “How?”someone asked.

He explained that he had a bunch of fireworks and firecrackers.

Now he really had their attention!

“Let’s put them all in our hole and light them. The resulting explosion will do our work for us.”

Now you have to know that a group of little boys are definitely NOT going to turn down this idea.

They helped him gather up his fireworks…

And dump the entire mass into the hole.

All was good so far.

They lit the fuses.

Still okay.

And that was the precise moment ‘T’s’ mother came out into the yard to collect the laundry that had been drying on the line.

A job that put her in close proximity to the hole.

Oh, not close enough that the boys were worried about her safety.

Just close enough that they were worried about their own if she caught sight of what they were doing.

Meanwhile the fuses were still hissing happily away in the hole.

One of the boys got the brilliant idea of covering the hole (and their soon-to-be crime) with a sheet of plywood.

Which they did.

Then, as a last precaution, they all stood on said plywood.

I’m sure you can see where this is going. Boys standing on a flimsy sheet of plywood over a hole containing a boatload of explosives.

The good news? They got their hole.

The bad news?

They almost achieved orbit.

The explosives…erm…exploded.

The plywood disintegrated.

And several small boy bodies were tossed around like wood chips. (Which were also plentiful—owing to the shattering of their plywood Crime-cover.)

They survived.

I know you were worried so I thought I mention it.

But I think ‘T’s’ mom grounded him from explosives for the rest of his natural life—as well as that of his children/grandchildren.

The hole may still be there.

Being used for something spectacular.

Well, that’s what I like to think…

My First Murder

Okay, I'm half-past excited here...
My newest book has just been released.
My first cozy murder mystery!
Harriet Ansen--Harrie to her friends--has spent the last 30 years as a stay-at-home mom/Grandma. With that training ongoing, she is ready to face a new challenge. Her first out-of-the-house job.
Beaumont's newest Real Estate agent.
Will her years of changing diapers, drilling spelling tests, dealing with testy coaches and serving on the PTA prepare her for what's next? For bickering (and seriously odd) relatives. Exotic animals. A philandering boss.
And murder?
I would love for you to read it. And then let me know if you figured it out!Who knew murder could be fun? Well, writing about it anyway!P.S. My internet search history is now seriously deranged and may get me flagged! ;)

Find Real Estates: All Murders Included in the Price at Amazon! In Kindle, Paperback and (new!) hardcover formats.

Amazon.com
Amazon.ca