Writer on a Horse

Friday, December 30, 2016

I'm going on a journey of promises...

I promise to write every day

I promise to blog every week

I promise to submit every month

Junket definition: a journey taken for pleasure

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Where you can Christmas shop in shorts at 2:00 pm and at 6:00 pm have on two coats and four pair of gloves. That this time of the year the Southern winds hates everyone.... I truly think they punish all because they miss the sun and flip flops...

In the south, Christmas means tinsel it, put lights on it, or spray paint it. Because of this, I was so excited when I found this book... The Official Guide to Christmas in the South or, If you can't fry it, Spraypaint it Gold by David C. Barnette.

Here are some of the Chapter titles

1. Stockings must be stuffed beyond recognition

2. Y'all get in line

3.Unplug the smoke alarm

4.Never mix Dirty Santa with Dirty Dancing

5. If you don't believe in reincarnation follow a gift bag around this Christmas

6. Guidelines and paint lines

7.The Divinity Code

8. Holidays are for celebrating the ties that bind. And nothing binds quite like cram of chicken and Velveeta

I really enjoyed this book because I could see snippets of my family on it's pages.

Here are a few of my Christmas memories

1. Momma crying every day the week before Christmas... after she married Daddy she never spent another Christmas with her mother and sisters... Thank you Lord for keeping my babies close

2. Getting the BIG package from Granny Dugan and Auntie Vi They lived in Rhode Island and liked to spoil me and my brother.

3. Getting up in the middle of the night to carefully open gifts that was in BIG package ... then tape them back... yes I was a bad child

4. Granny Trousdale's house... it always smelled like love but at Christmas the smells embraced you, wrestled you in a bear hug and pulled you to the kitchen

5. Everyone in one place... Granny and Granddaddy Trousdale.. their eight children... their spouses and 14 grandchildren...You had to be tough to withstand all that love... or sometimes the lack of it... Ah, the Christmas fights Remember I said I was a bad child so I might have started a few of those fights... but really it wasn't my fault... the Aunts were so easy to crank up

6. Perry Como and Jimmy Reeves singing Christmas songs all day and half the night

7. School being out so I could ride my horse every day, play football with the neighborhood kids or shoot some hoops, play with the dogs or ride my bike

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Are you thankful for small joys

The small things in life really are the most important to our happiness. Think about it, we have small joys everyday. A child's smile, a hug from a friend, spouse or parent... how many of you are guilty like me of not taking the time to feel the rush of pure happiness these gestures bring.

My favorite saying is we make our own happiness. We can fume about the disappointments in life which slams the door on all the good feelings trying to lift you up.

When you"re upset just close your eyes.... when you open them look for happiness... a sunrise, the beautiful colors of the leaves, your dog fetching a toy to play.

Be Happy My Friends.... it's so much easier to walk this life if you look for the good and spend as little time as possible on the bad.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

I would rather be a Honey Bee

I've been looking around at our world and realized that I'm now part of the generation that frowns on change. My Granny thought Elvis Presley was a tool of the devil... and we won't even talk about the Beatles, mini-skirts and bell bottom jeans.

So I started thinking of ways I can relay my feeling about today's changes with comparison.

I would rather be a Honey Bee than a Mosquito.

Let me explain why.

A Honey Bee replenishes life. The plant life on earth would be in trouble without them. And how many diseases have you ever hear of that a honey bee transmits? They are perfectly happy to do their job and co-exist with other forms of life. But they will defend their home and family to the death if invaded.

Now, a Mosquito sucks the life out of every warm blooded life form around them and they do not discriminate. They are host to many terrible diseases. They do not work for their food but wait for a meal to show up. They only worry about themselves.

Now I'm not saying everything today is like the Mosquito.... but the family unit is almost a thing of the pass. More children today are raised by grandparents than by their parents.

If you're willing to work hard for you dreams you are called a fool. Play the system and get it for free or steal it...

Children today have so many pressures and are not allowed to be children long. Playball for a scholarship or score high on this test. If you score too low you've let everybody down... class, teacher, school, parents.

That is so not true. The only way you let anyone down is not to try your best. If you work hard and reach for the dreams that will make you happy... you are a success and everyone that loves you will be proud of the person you become.

The old saying money can't buy you happiness isn't exactly true... we need money to live but too much money changes us and makes us slaves to it... we have to protect it, hide it and make it grow.

I just want to care for my hive (the people around me... family friends community, country) work hard and make the world a better place because I pollinated it with love and kindness... and a few grumpy words... will maybe more than a few.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

A word picture for you

Today I rearranged my chickens love life. I have many breeds but only two pure blood roosters. I have a Speckled Sussex's so I put him with my three speckled hens and to just see what happens with my white leghorn hens. Update in about two months

I borrowed my son-in-law's blue lace wyandotte rooster and put him with my blue lace hens and my golden lace wyandotte hens (again just to see what I get)

I have 22 five day old babies in the brooding house and 17 three month old easter egger babies in the small pen.
Now comes the pimping part.... I loaning my Rhode Island Red rooster to my neighbor so she can get replacement babies for her layers for next year. This time next year she's going to retire her hens to my chicken pen. She has limited space and can only keep ten hens.... I have plenty of space for too many hens, heheheh

Now for the word visually

I'm in shorts and a jacket... is hell freezing over???...racing across my field in my Polaris ranger with a chicken in one hand and driving with the other... with 16 eggs I had gathered in my jacket pocket... who needs a basket.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

I have a confession

I am a chicken addict.

It has been fives days since I brought chickens (20) but.... in four days the hen who has been carefully tending 25 eggs will get her reward (or curse) when the eggs hatch.
And
I took 48 eggs to a lady to hatch out for me.
And

I ordered 25 special breed chickens that will come in May 25th
And
you might wonder what I will do with all these chicks. I will pick and choose the ones hatched and sell or most likely give the others away.
I keep several elderly women in eggs, one less expense for them.
And
I do love watching and caring for my 50 + hens

Here's the conversion my husband and I had today

Husband: We're going to have to start buying chicken feed by the ton
Me: Some husband's have wives that smoke, drink or do drugs. Count your blessings.
Husband: You might be more fun if you had those habits.
Me:

I didn't say a word... I was too busy throwing rocks at him as he skipped away laughing. Good thing that I'm better at tending chickens than throwing rocks.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

2016 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem

Welcome to Day 10 of the 2016 Progressive Poem. Each year Irene Latham of Live Your Poem, invites poets to her own poetry festivities to help develop and build a progressive poem for National Poetry Month. Each of 30 different poets supplies a line on their assigned day to cumulatively create the poem.

Now it's my turn. Game face on! I'm not a poet and I know it.... but... I'm always up for a challenge. Just a bit of information about me... I love nature but rural nature. I live it every day and you can hear it in each beat of my heart.

Here's the poem so far: The last line is my humble offering.

A squall of hawk wings stirs the sky
A hummingbird holds and then hies
If I could fly, I’d choose to be
Sailing through a forest of poet-trees

A cast of crabs engraves the sand
Delighting a child’s outstretched hand
If I could breathe under the sea

I’d dive, I’d dip, I’d dance with glee

A clump of crocuses crave the sun.

Kites soar while joyful dogs run

Keep up with the poem and watch it grow at the websites below. One line each day of April. If you want to see the poems from pass years vist Irene's blog at www.irenelatham.blogspot.com

2016 KIDLITOSPHERE PROGRESSIVE POEM

1 Laura at Writing the World for Kids

2 Joy at Joy Acey

3 Doraine at Dori Reads

4 Diane at Random Noodling

5 Penny at A Penny and Her Jots

6 Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink

7 Liz at Elizabeth Steinglass

8 Janet F. at Live Your Poem

9 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche

10 Pat at Writer on a Horse

11 Buffy at Buffy's Blog

12 Michelle at Today's Little Ditty