Universal Mission Statement

"Be Good & Do Good." - HKJ

It's really that simple.


...and plant more Daisies.

HKJ

Copyright © 2013

All Rights Reserved.

A Writer's Palette

 "But with writers, there's nothing wrong with melancholy. It's an important color in writing."

~ Paul McCartney

Sunday Solitude

It’s the last Sunday of the month.

At second glance, it’s the last day of the month.

I hadn’t noticed.

At 11 a.m., the thermometer read 87 degrees.  This time last summer, we had already hit 100.  I’ll happily accept 87 and smile over it.

Last night while putting the sheep and goats to barn-bed, there was an amazing cloud bank in the northern sky that ran east to west as far as I could see.  The lightning flashed and danced miles away. The fragrance of the oncoming rain was so heavy I believe I could've spooned it from the air like ice cream.

It never rained.

The back porch has been a welcoming retreat this morning ‘til late this afternoon…..

…….despite the accompanying Red-winged Blackbirds.

My least favorite of the winged species, they hide in droves [like a collective conspiracy] and wait for me to come outside to squawk and cackle at me.

Indeed, they do.

Jake, the man-dog, is sleeping on the patio beneath the porch; his presence made known only by his occasional exhales.

The view of the chair on the dock is rather tempting from my vantage point here on the back porch.  As sure as I move into it the breeze will cease and the resident gnats will hijack my thoughts.

I can hear our infamous and all too handsome Kingfisher working the creek northward.  The cricket and cicada choirs have quieted with the heat of the day setting in.

There is a single Red-winged Blackbird out in the yard who is determined to impede on my thoughts – he and his flittering girlfriend.

Still, the chair calls and I weigh my options as I notice the dark clouds moving in from the west.  I may as well as I just realized that my morning coffee is sitting here cold and long ignored.

As the late afternoon settles in, the rain arrives escorted by

ever.

so.

gentle.

Thunder.

It’s a moment calling for Norah.

Melancholy.

HKJ

Copyright © 2013

All Rights Reserved.

It's Friday and That's All I Got

It can be a peculiar thing to be a writer.  Writers love words, use words, neeeeed words to generate a pause for thought, a soft laugh or something along those lines to pass along and convey whatever is on the writer’s radar-mindset and clearly needs to be shared with anyone willing to read along – or better yet ‘play along’.

But what happens when the words won’t come?

Where are those lettered combinations of language that effectively express the matter of the moment?

Do words have that much power? Can they vaporize out of sight or thought?

Those who know me know I am a social bug with verbal skills that could exhaust an ENtire army.  As a result, writing becomes an extension of my neeeeeeed to express myself.  So how is it that on this Friday in late June, all my words are missing?

They’ve picked themselves up and left the Dirt Road.

*POOF*

First, let’s remove the fodder words: “Hello” is a fodder word.  The phone rings and upon answering I say, “Hello”.  “Hello” doesn’t count and is exempt from the missing mass of words that have left my universe today.

More fodder words: “How are you?” “Fine, and you?” “Fine.”

I repeat: Fodder.

Then there’s the weather.  Even more fodder.  Do you really want a Dirt Road Weather Report?  I can provide you with a concise weather report that includes my all access to online satellite imagery direct from the National Weather Service (impressive – huh?).

It rained yesterday afternoon.  Today it’s hot.  It’s humid.  No, it’s MUGGY.  The sky is blue with white fluffy clouds slurring around thinking about merging this afternoon in order to rain right about the time I decide to go outside to accomplish something like cleaning boogers out of Buttermilk’s nose.  The satellite imagery shows that it’s a NO BEACH day along the panhandle of Florida and Mississippi and Alabama are under siege by a huge blue and red blob that has settled on top of them.  That very same blob should show up over here in a couple of days, unless it breaks up or the wind moves it north/northeast.  Cuba doesn't have a dry spot to stand in. Tomorrow will be a repeat of today.

There.  Fodder.

No real words – no words of passion or persuasion or thought provoking moments of wonder.  Fodder.

*POOF*

(sigh)

I repeat:   It’s Friday and that’s all I got.

HKJ

Copyright © 2013

All Rights Reserved.

Fragrance of the Spring Season...

During these late days of Spring leading up to the first days of Summer, I love sleeping with the windows open. Hearing the night sounds easily lull me to sleep.....

until....the bouquet of the resident skunk's *poot* drifted in and settled all over me at 2 a.m.

Yeah, it did.

And I've been WIDE. Awake. ever since.

Meanwhile, look who I discovered in the sheep barn this morning.....

Uncertainty

Uncertainty is equal

to having your breath

held by someone else.

~ Harriette Keen Jacobs

Copyright 2013.

All Rights Reserved.

When it Rains...

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain."- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Obituary for a Farm Cat

With all the indicators in place: temps, gnats and pollen – spring has formally arrived and for good here in the Deep South.   And like every spring, everything is awakening and is new: new growth and new life all around us.  With this, I am always entertained by our farm menagerie as they too, seem to be as excited with the change of season. Our “working cats” in particular seem exceptionally frisky with all that is stirring and vivid memories of Whiskers come to mind – she was the fiercest and most prosperous of all our barn cats.

Ever.

Originally written and posted in May 2009 when she departed our lives, here is her obit., in loving memory.

 ___________________________________________

OBITUARY FOR A FARM CAT

The Dirt Road Farm is grieving a great loss with the passing of Whiskers, the Farm's 5-year old black and white, tuxedo barn cat. Though not the eldest, Whiskers was regarded as the Matriarch of the Farm’s feline pride.

Born in the early spring of 2004, she was adopted by the Farm along with her 3 litter-mates in May of 2004. Affectionately known as “Ma` Ma`”, she was the quintessential farm cat. While lovingly devoted and loyal, Whiskers was fiercely independent and the open pastures remained her preferred domain; she was never to be a house cat.

A proud mother of two litters of kittens and skilled as a master huntress, Whiskers was best known for her tenacious mousing. She took great pride in her work – all too often sharing her prized kills with her beloved humans.

She lost the first of her nine lives to a mad swarm of wasps that had nested behind a window shutter on the Farm’s front porch requiring days of Benadryl treatments eventually seeing her closed eyes and softball sized head return to normal. The next of her nine lives was taken by the garage door leaving her with a fractured tail. The 3rd loss was a narrow escape after being locked inside the Farm truck on a long, long hot summer’s day. Her 4th life claimed from a possible coyote or wild dog having treed her resulting in serious injuries to a hind leg. But it would be an untreatable and fatal blood disease that would ultimately conquer what remained of her lives now leaving a huge hole in the hearts of her human family.

On May 26, 2009, Whiskers was laid to rest in the shade of the Oak and Pecan trees that cascade over the large granite outcroppings on the upper 26 acres of the Dirt Road Farm where she loved to watch and hunt from. She was buried alongside her first born son, Oscar-Duke of Meyer. She is predeceased by her sisters Misty and Diva, her brother, Professor Button, her daughter, Possum and her son, Oscar as well as other nieces and nephews including the Brer Brothers: Brer Fox, Brer Bear and Brer Rabbit, triplets born to her sister, Misty. She is survived by her two daughters Miss Georgia “Peaches” and Savannah Lucille (“Lucy”), nephews St. “Simon” La Rue and Rev. “Billy Bob” Clyde, nieces Skidaway and Charlotte, great nephew One-eyed “Rowdy” and great niece Princess “Patches”. Max, the eldest of the Dirt Road Farm’s cats and of no familial relationship to the deceased, remains indifferent to the passing of Whiskers.

She will be greatly missed seen frolicking and pouncing in the upper pastures as well as hearing her raspy mews expressing thank you’s for an early morning’s saucer of milk. This writer will deeply miss her all too familiar, gentle rubs against her legs while gathering eggs in the hen house – the comfort of her purring companionship while weeding the garden. But I know that somewhere her spirit lives on here along the Dirt Road…. and while on my early morning walks, I will likely feel her presence woven within the breezes that surround me along my trodden path.

…..just beyond my footsteps in the earliest morning sunlight, perhaps I’ll catch a glimpse of a distant silhouette of an elegant cat sitting proudly atop an aging fence post and it will bring a renewed sense of comfort reminding me of a farm cat’s lifelong devotion and unconditional love for me.

___________________________________________

Post Script:

Following the burial of Whiskers on the upper 26 acres of the Dirt Road Farm, the writer was driving the Farm’s truck back to the house and, due to an unprecedented amount of recent rainfall, miss-navigated the pasture and became stuck in an all too wet low area requiring a long walk back to the house and having her truck rescued by the tractor.

It just wasn’t her day.

HKJ

Copyright © 2009, 2013

All Rights Reserved.