Doo-be-doo-be-doo

[mynewplace]

I put various foodstuffs on the back porch for the birds and squirrels. This is considered cheap cat entertainment.  So far I've seen deer tracks - indicating they've jumped over my 5 foot deck railing to lick the stuff until an ice crust forms.  I spotted a squirrel Saturday, while Suzi watched from between the vertical blinds, tail twitching manically.  I couldn't get Mitzi to look out the window at all!  So I finally picked her up, and stuck her head between the blinds until she saw the squirrel.  She made the strangest Scooby Doo sound, with a question mark at the end, and was promptly fascinated.  Their tails twitched in tandem. 

I had a good weekend, but started getting sick again on Sunday.  Couldn't get my antibiotic filled because it's a penicillin derivative and I'm allergic.  I've taken amoxicillin before but the pharmacist didn't recommend it, so I decided to wait and call the doctor again today. Maybe a Z-pack?  I don't know which ones are good for sinus infections.  siiiiiiiiiiigh

Got to type up the meeting notes from the WV Poetry Society board meeting Saturday.  It was interesting, educational, fun and a bit frustrating.  The older women are very negative.  

Let's see.  I wrote the following last week, based on a prompt in my Yahoo poetry group.  I sometimes think that these are the types of things I'm meant to write, reminisces about my life, especially my childhood and parenting experiences.  I believe they'd be interesting in a memoir or perhaps a compilation of combination fiction/nonfiction.  I don't know.  I still have trouble using the words "writer" or "poet" when someone asks me about myself.  I'd like to fictionalize some of the stories of my family - like the time I went creeping around in the dark with my aunt to see if her boyfriend had a woman at his house. Or the way my great grandparents split up due to Civil War arguments, but never divorced.  Years later they both told the census taker that they were widowed.  Just poignant interesting stories like that. 

So here's my latest story.  It's true, but I do need to check some facts. 

 

Pastoral

 

Chauffeured past rolling green hills and modest brick homes in our sturdy Pontiac, I would see the white fence begin and sit up straight, scanning the fields in search of familiar faces. Gentle brown eyes would gaze over the fence. An Army surplus jeep bounced up a rutted track, my cousin sun-kissed, her red hair flying as she shifted gears.  I had finally arrived at my favorite place in the world, my Uncle B.B.'s farm.

 

The successful beef farm was buried in hills at the heart of West Virginia, on acres owned by generations of Canfields. My favorite visits lasted a week or more in summer, when there were both fruit and blossoms on the trees, and lots of fuzzy chicks to chase and cuddle. My sisters and I spent hours with our cousins, climbing the crooked apple trees or sitting in the velvet grass beneath, quoting a rhyme to the ladybugs.

 

These people were comfortable and dear. Attic bedrooms smelled of old cotton quilts and books, the sheets were cool and the sun beamed into the windows much earlier than it appeared in the city. Try as I might, I never quite rose early enough to follow Uncle B.B. to the henhouse to help him gather eggs. The chickens intimidated me anyway. I didn’t like being pecked! I preferred to romp with Shep, the big black and white collie. I far preferred to ride along with Debbie as she drove the jeep like a wild woman through the rutted hills. I chose to walk the cattle paths for a mile or more, wading the creek that curled throughout every farm in the valley and up the hill to the bent "horse tree". Every year we girls climbed aboard for a moment. It was ritual just as much as breakfast with fresh baked bread and homemade grape jam from the arbor, or beef roast with carrots and onions on Sunday afternoon.

 

Need I say life was real on the farm?  Real with a capital "R". Hogs really did root in mud, and weren't pink as much as black and white and a little bit mean. There were no lap cats - the manx family caught mice for a living and were content to accept the occasional head scratch or offer a rub against my dirty knees. Hay had to be baled and loaded on a trailer, then hauled to the barn. The men would throw bales onto the conveyor belt and we kids would catch them as they fell into the loft three stories up, the smaller girls stacking the hay in the corners, building the occasional fort, or hunting for kittens.  Cattle were occasionally shot between the eyes right in the corral, and I was encouraged to watch - to "harden me up". There was the occasional trip to the barn in nightgowns and muck boots under sparkling stars to watch a sweet-faced calf slip from her mother's dirty red hindquarters. 

 

It was hard on a little girl with severe allergies to everything that moved on four legs or two, but it was divine! I still love the smell of a barn more than any other scent. When I drive past the farm, still in Canfield hands and still bustling, my heart aches for a moment. What I wouldn't give for one more whiff of Aunt Jessie's kitchen, or the antique quilt where I snuggled on a cool morning.  Just one more climb over the fence, please?

Comments

[sapphirescarlet.livejournal.com]

I admit it does look and sound interesting. Wanna trade? Your GS cookies for the book and my skillet? Maybe during lunch at Ginos or something?

[reallyamermaid.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking about those cookies today! I can trade the skillet, but the book's a no-go. I had it personally inscribed to my father by the author. Unless you've suddenly become "John" and you're "a fellow McDowell County boy," I've gotta hang on to it until I see him. Sorry, nothing personal. Name the day for lunch, though.

[sapphirescarlet.livejournal.com]

Oh I see. That's far cooler than letting ME read it!

Lunch, lets see. Next week sometime. 3-12 good for you?

[reallyamermaid.livejournal.com]

Is that next Wednesday? That's fine unless I magically get a job between now and then. Remind me, ok?

[sapphirescarlet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I meant to say that, next Wednesday.