Detail of my friend Patty’s backyard. Sheridan, Wyoming
FOTD, July 13, 2021
2 Replies
Monthly Archives: July 2021
Catnap
Catnap
I’m in the tidepool of repose, floating on my dream—
Hushed and very far away from exhaustion’s scream.
The telephone’s not ringing, I have nowhere to go
except to float in currents of my dreaming’s flow.
All my finicky habits stream out ahead of me
and vanish in the currents, to leave me calm and free.
My head falls to the chair back, waking me from my nap,
but as if to calm me, the cat jumps in my lap.
I fall in with his plans for me, do not avoid his scheming,
but as I gently stroke him, I fall back to my dreaming.
Prompt words today are tidepool, repose, telephone, finicky and exhaustion.
Still Lifes with Protea and Cat
Day Lilies: FOTD July 12, 2021
Solar Debacle
Solar Debacle
Dad decided it would be wise
if we could economize
by finally going fully solar
as skies turned overcast and polar.
No hot baths. No stove or fridge.
No TV, no lights for bridge.
Seeing the cards was too much trouble.
Mom couldn’t trump. Sis couldn’t double.
And so it was unanimous
that no one felt magnanimous.
We were one in our conviction
of our father’s dereliction.
All of us just felt derision
over Dad’s ill-timed decision.
Solar’s fine when there is sun,
but when all is said and done,
life is short and it’s no fun
when Mother Nature gives us none.
Since I’m in Mountain Standard time, it is only 11:42 here, so even though my blog is set for Central time, I’m counting this as getting in under the line before midnight.
Prompt words today are solar, bridge, magnanimous, convict and trouble. Free photo found on pxfuel.com
Mystery Fruit
Somehow, Things Just Seem to Work Out
Somehow, Things Just Seem to Work Out
Sometimes the world’s a slippery slope as though it seeks to best us—
its calumnies and trials just meant to try to test us.
But I have found the hard knocks that seem about to break us
are really just the tempering by means of which life makes us.
Life at its extremities of temperature and weather
tests our very limits and makes us stronger whether
the regions where we find ourselves be boiling hot or frigid ones,
cooling off our hot spots and warming up our rigid ones.
When we are exhausted, life has a way of slowing,
as though it has known all along the direction we’ve been going.
Although we meet with floods and gales, there is a sort of knowing
that’s somehow able to predict the way our winds are blowing.
Prompt words today are calumny, slope, exhausted, extremity and region.
Ashton Wildwood Park
This is the entrance to the Ashton Wildwood Park that has now been dedicated to my former brother-in-law Denis Wilcox who passed away a few months ago. We had the dedication for it on Friday. The dedication arch has not yet been completed, but here is the stone marking the area that he maintained for so many years. He was also on the conservation board for the park.
Above is a photo of some of his kids and grandkids at the dedication
And a photo of the whole crew: kids, their spouses, grandkids and former sis-in-law.
For Tree Square
Model A Still Going Strong in the 1950’s
These are photos of my sister Betty and her future husband Denis at her spring formal at Cornell College, Iowa in the mid-1950’s. This car was his pride and joy and I remember going on weekend rides in it when I visited them.
Yesterday’s Cars
Yesterday’s Cars
Yesterday’s cars slanted down where they should
have had fins at the tail, and were square at the hood.
Some required a stepstool to enter the door,
then had a big bump centered there in the floor
The grandfathers of cars weren’t for the faint-hearted.
They required you crank them before they got started,
and inevitably, when the tires went flat,
a service station wasn’t where you were at.
With no Triple A, the onus was on you
to figure out what you had to do.
The jacks were all manual. Tubes needed air,
so many the driver gave up in despair.
With Mom in the front seat and kids in the rumble,
dad would pump and unscrew and blather and bumble,
then put out his thumb to beg for a ride
in a car that was passing that had room inside.
He was not feinting his look of distress,
and neither was mom, although I confess
it was an adventure for sister and me
who watched the procedure giggling with glee
as inevitably, he would hoof it to town
and we’d open the car doors, jump happily down
and cavort in a field, searching out hidden treasure
and picking up cockleburs in equal measure.
Then when dad caught a ride back with a fixed wheel,
we’d drive on to a diner for a well-deserved meal,
then be on our way, trouble-free and much faster
for the rest of our trip that was free from disaster.
And HERE are another two special photos of Model A’s you won’t want to miss.
Prompt words today are yesterday’s cars, slope, require, feint and inevitable. Image by Philip Schroeder on Unsplash.
I must admit that this particular situation is fiction, although the predicament certainly must have been reenacted many times in an era earlier than mine.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 