MONARCH BUTTERFLY

   


 



     A little watercolor of another 'flutterby'
   One of the easier fun ones ... like when you were twelve and you found that special page in your coloring book ...and time stood still

 

Monarch Butterfly

LIKE A STONE

                I am invisible
            like a stone on the beach
            it is only when you pause
            when you are bent deep
            yourself
            on days like these
            that you will see me
            if you have patience enough
            to gather waste that has littered 
            my shore
            you will eventually find me

            I am not like the others


            Hold me
            on moonlit nights
            that you may feel my texture
            my warmth
            and when it is time to return me there
            you will have found
            my space has shifted
            shallowed with time
            so there is nothing left
            but to carry my weight
            my solid weight
            in your mind 

             poem by annie
    

           

               

               

WOMAN TO WOMAN

 

           This artist Tamara de Lempicka born in Poland 1898
had quite a wild and exciting life for a lady of her time. Her art is collected by Madonna, Jack Nicholson and others.  Madonna has lent her art pieces and they can even be glimpsed in some of her videos. The artist claimed to be bi-sexual.  The painting above titled 'Spring' is one of my favorites and inspired the poem I share here.  You can read more about this artist here

                                     WOMAN TO WOMAN

                You come to me across the room 

                Not out of passion but something stronger 

                like the old tom cat at four a.m

                who crawls on my chest for comfort

                and from that howl and unable to breath

                I open one eye to meet his cat eye

                round like a saucer

                fling him at the moon

                to crash that old wicker chair you salvaged

                from Gables Market 

                instantly sorry

                see him sulk through the corners to darkness  

                Now here you are

                whimpering urgent hard against my hip

                as a lovers erection

                worse

                you like some shadow of childhood

                shiver through your thin cotton gown

                I teeter on the edge of sleep wondering

                what

                what is it about the night that makes us too

                loose our claws

                and being proud

                of never making the same mistake twice

                I curl in behind you mouth to your hair

                caress your back woman to woman

                whisper that tomorrow being Sunday                

                I'll help you plant your roses

                       poem by annie

            

              

 

ART BATTLE 2

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

                      Well hell yeah, I know it's been a couple of months but don't say I never do what I threaten to do.

                I took part in Art Battle Halifax.
               
               With the exception of one brave man I was  the oldest there which is what I expected.  Cool young dudes  smeared with paint  creating cool  canvases, and girls barely primed with the first layer of life squeezing out globs of alizaren the color of their cheeks.  One girl painted her lips with it and started off by kissing her canvas.

               Hard to compete against that.

               But art has no age limit right?  So there we were.. twelve of us would be placed in front of blank canvases tonight and given 20 minutes to paint something.  WITHOUT REFERENCE MATERIAL.

               I have to paint what I know.  Something from the farm??...  Something I see every day?..  there in my mind... its form and color easy to slap down in 20 min.  The overhead lights are bright.   Adrenalin  pumping along with the music that rattles the floor.  The bar is open. A lovely couple I meet buy me a drink.  And another.  Around 100 guests and spectators circled around the artists waiting for the countdown.  These guests would be the judges casting their ballots for their favorite painting.  Would an artist faint?.  Cut off their ear?  Throw up there hands and just head for the bar? 
                
               " Aren't you nervous? " challenged one trembling creator.

               " I'm old enough" I said, "there's nothing much left to be afraid of. "

              10... 9... 8... 7... 6 ...5..  We grab our brushes and we're off.

              You can see my masterpiece in the photo.  A quick version of one of the peacocks that roam our country property.  I was  happy with it except time ran out before I could paint a nostril on him.  At the end of the evening our paintings would be auctioned off in a silent auction. 

                  Would anyone notice?

             Did I win Art Battle?  Noooo.... but this is the most fun I've ever had with my clothes on.  If time could fly like that when you're at the dentist... or doing your taxes.

            If you would like to see the winner and a few pics of this little fiasco check the article  here.

            I don't get out much and when I do I like to do something that stays in my memory bank.  This was one of those things.  I can't explain why an introvert closet artist who ponders for hours over little paintings would want to do such a reckless thing.  But I do know I would like to do it again.  Perhaps I will do better sober.

            And my peacock?  He did find a home.  I hope he hasn't suffocated. 

                                                                                                                  

ART BATTLE

                              I went to "Art Battle" at the local bar last evening.  Artists have twenty minutes to create a painting from scratch and the audience votes for their favorite.  The winners from three rounds face off in the final battle.

                     Fueled by adrenalin and alcohol  (which are two of my favorite things)  I really liked this event.  I may even try it myself sometime.  I always aim for a looser painting style and if you start a canvas while your IN the bar.... I mean how much better can it get?

A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO BRUISED

                        


                         I am an advocate for chickens.  I've spent enough time with them to know that they feel pain, fear, and the joy of being free.  My grandson helped me load 24 meat birds in the back of my PT Cruiser to take them for slaughter to a private and humane farmer.  I turned up CBC radio and didn't talk on the way because I didn't want to bore them to death.   By the time they arrived at their final destination they were calm and already drowsy.

                       A good death is just as important as a good life.


                       I know a few people raising birds in their back yard makes very little difference in the big marketing scheme of things but if you have the opportunity please try to buy local free range chicken.

                      I gave my grandson some cash and a chicken dinner and asked if he would do me one more favour.  
                      
                      He had to clean my car.
   http://www.mfablog.ca/2013/03/shocking-truth-about-chicken-and-turkey-slaughter.html

GOOD GOURD!

SQUASH SOUP.. YUM!

                 I threw a few squash seeds down over the hill in an area where I had spread some manure a few years earlier.  The squash flourished and spread and to my surprise yielded a good crop.  My squash this year are also 'smarter'.  They are in an area where the goats graze and I guess they got tired of being trampled.   Instead of spreading laterally they went up...  straight up any tree or bush in the area.  I'm proud of them and their ingenuity.
                         
                These are hubbards squash the biggest of the beasts and have been known to grow up to fifty pounds under good conditions.  So I still have some work ahead of me.  I have to get them out of the trees without sustaining a concussion and transport them to a cool dark spot where they can sit and ponder their fate a little longer.  If one falls on my head I will probably end up being a vegetable myself.  Harvest time will be an adventure I'm sure.  A few months along when they have cured I will need a hatchet or a large sharp knife to get through that tough outer shell.  Some people just drop them from the back of their half ton truck to get things started.

              I'm usually bleeding when I'm done this part.

             This all sounds very discouraging I'm sure, but I have a tough outer shell myself  and for such a large vegetable and all the delicious things you can do with it's worth the work.  
        
             On a chilly winters day I will set down to a steaming bowl of Curried squash soup and my world will be toasty warm again.         SQUASH SOUP...YUM!
              

W.W SAYS IT ALL

I just really like this and thought I would add it here
                                               

                                                      

This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

- Walt Whitman

                                    

PEN PAL ART

                Online I discovered 'The Sketchbook Project'.  They come up with little art assignments no matter what your skill level and get your art mobile in various ways so that it's enjoyed by a bigger venue.

                This project is Pen Pal Art where they send you a small canvas.  You slip a little note about yourself in with the art you create and send it with the goal that they match you up with someone similar and send their painting to you!  You have now met a pen pal in the world of art and can follow up with them if you wish. eHarmonart!   An oil might even meet and acrylic.  Great idea.

                     The catch was I procrastinate and there was a deadline so on the final hour of the final day I dug out the acrylics and ran with my goat to the post office.

                     Can't wait to see what I get in return.   They'll probably match up this goat with a jackass.

DIVISION

               I think most of us at some time during our early years have had a teacher that has inspired us.  That special person embedded  in our memory bank that stood out as encouraging and real. Someone who went that one step further to make us want to learn.
               A friend told me the story of such a person.  A brilliant math teacher who later developed Alzheimer's and was known to 'wander away' from home and get into some odd predicaments.  She later had to be placed in a care home.  This poem that is influenced from my friends memory can't help but be tinged with sadness.  Or is it?  

                              DIVISION 

        Miss Betsy Love spends all her time 

        in the lower pasture

        she squats to pee by the sun drenched stump 

        of a rotting oak

        mice tickle her toes

        scamper under her skirt and chuckle

        she dips ripe berries in the crested brook

        sucks fresh fallen fruit

        smiles that rusted smile of happiness

        Miss Betsy Love no longer trusts the numbers

        old chalk dust memories

        circle her mornings like spiders

        so she measures her days and the pressure of

        water

        at Gorman falls

        the slant of the sun in late August

        she lies herself down in the afternoon rain

        to study the bellies of sheep

        and the earth

        like the bottom of and old wooden bucket

        Miss Betsy Love can't do the math

        if you take one life and divide it up

        she comes up with a number hard to believe

        as she claws through the brush and speaks to
        the wind

        the blood on her skin becomes crusted and dry 

        and she knows that somewhere

        people are counting

        counting her days 

 poem by annie

               

A TIME TO REAP

                 The haying is almost done.  Put in by my 74 yr old neighbor who has been kind enough to help since we moved here.  He's wiry with skin as weathered as the old equipment he drives but still moves with that spring in his step.  His favorite sweat encrusted hat is turned up and patched this year where it has frayed.   Around his neck is an old rag that he dips in the brook to cool himself.  I see him stop the tractor several times to look for pheasants in the tall grass and watch him pop a few babies in his shirt pocket. 

          " I can't save them all"  he says.  But he tries.

                I like him. He is an ad for the values I've come to appreciate as I get older.  Hard work,  tenacity,  perseverance.

           The two lads that show up to help stack the barn are a quarter his age but he can out do them both.  They sweat profusely,  guzzle water,  and compare blisters while he works around them. 
             
           I'm probably riding in a small pocket of misfortune right now but I've had a hard time getting good young men to help out.  They lack strength,  fortitude,  foresight,  and plain old common sense.  They should know how to stack wood,  fill gas tanks,  tie a slip knot.  These are things they should have learned from their fathers and grandfathers.  They complain of allergies,  bad backs,  fear of heights.

           One young man left the top two feet of our barn doors unpainted as he was afraid to go up the ladder further.

           I wanted to tell him that when I was his age I went sky diving.  I jumped out of a plane at 3000 feet.  I was scared too.   But it was Sunday and I spread open to the silence and finally descended close enough to hear the organ playing in the little country church far below me.    I wanted to explain it all to him.   To tell him there is nothing to be afraid of in this great country of ours,  our charmed world.  The only thing he should fear is that extra 85 pounds he was carrying around,  the little fat globules clutching the side of his young arteries.

          But he is not me.

          I tell the young men to go to the swimming hole to cool off.  I bring lemonade and more water.  I ponder over how much I will pay them.  I worry the hay will not be all in before tomorrows rain.  But then the miracle happens.  A car drives in the yard.  It's the neighbors wife and she's here to help.

WHEN I AM AN OLD HORSEWOMAN

Jake and I love this little poem by Patty Barnhart.  What an appropriate last name she has...


             

When I Am An Old Horsewoman

I shall wear turquoise and diamonds,
And a straw hat that doesn’t suit me
And I shall spend my social security on
white wine and carrots,
And sit in my alleyway of my barn
... And listen to my horses breathe.

I will sneak out in the middle of a summer night
And ride the old bay gelding,
Across the moonstruck meadow
If my old bones will allow
And when people come to call, I will smile and nod
As I walk past the gardens to the barn
and show instead the flowers growing
inside stalls fresh-lined with straw.

I will shovel and sweat and wear hay in my hair
as if it were a jewel
And I will be an embarrassment to ALL
Who will not yet have found the peace in being free
to have a horse as a best friend
A friend who waits at midnight hour
With muzzle and nicker and patient eyes
For the kind of woman I will be
When I am old.

-Author Patty Barnhart

CONVERSATION WITH A PONY

JAKE

CONVERSATION WITH A PONY

 It's true what people say

that you can talk to the animals

but the thing is

you must listen first

for that faintest whisper

subtle, precarious

like tendon sliding over bone  

Today he tells me that he will trust

this one encounter

shift his weight toward me

offer something up

beneath his eye a muscle shivers

It is not with words 

but the space between them

where animals speak

if you listen carefully

it will be a song

like the prayer of horses

in their own tongue 
poem by Annie and Jake the pony 

I DON'T GIVE A RATS ASS.....OR DO I?

Rats giggle when you tickle them

They're voices are so high pitched you need special instruments to hear

But when you do they're laughter becomes immediately evident

               I take pride in the fact that on my little farm I treat my animals with respect.   Not just the animals I own but also the ones I encounter.   I am not a practicing Buddhist but I appreciate some of their teachings,  and I like the phrase that we are "all sentient beings."   Yes, I have been known to carry a wayward spider outdoors to safety.   Yes, I have brought in a sick chicken and nursed it behind the old wood stove.   Yes, I have trapped invaders and spent hours transporting them to more remote areas.

               The exception though is rats.

               I had no idea the damage rats could do and their speed of reproduction until the winter they invaded the barn and feed room.  At first I thought I might be imaging it . Maybe that gnawing and tunneling was a weasel and I could just set a trap and problem solved.  I went out one night with my trusted 3000 candle power flashlight and there they were.  Rats.  Feasting,  frolicking,  hosting open sexual orgies in the storage room.

                                   

               What would you do?

               I put out rodent bait, the stuff that says it works quickly and waited.  In three days I found dead rats, and a few more staggering weakly in the yard wondering what had gone wrong with their ideal life.  Shortly my rat problem was over.  Or so I thought....     

               In mid April I called in our neighbor with his front end loader to move the manure pile next to the barn.  He was almost finished and was lifting the last bit of steaming goodness  next to the barn wall when I went out to pay him.  I saw something drop out of the bucket of his loader.  Two baby rats.  Two pink... hairless creatures... eyes closed... squirming and nudging each other.  Newborn baby rats.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see the loader heading with the last load out to the far pasture.  The ground was clean now, and there were no siblings, no mother, nothing scampered near by

               What would you do?

               Rat Facts:     
                                      Rats can become fertile at 5 wks and   have five litters a year of 7 to 15 pups
                                      They can chew through wood, metal and even concrete
                                      They can swim half a mile
                                      They can fall 15 meters and not be injured 
                                      They can go longer without water than a camel
                                      A rat can survive a large amount of radiation
                                      Rats can kill small baby animals and pets

              What I did was walk quickly over and raise my oversize five pound thrift  - store rubber boot over their heads.
              But I couldn't bring it down. 

              Why?  Life is a paradox sometimes.

              What I did was go to the house and make a nice cup of chai tea.  The mother rat would come back and get them, and I would get what was left of the poison and put it out.

               Murder by accidental poisoning is easier.  I must remember that for future reference.

               When I came back an hour later they were still there. I glanced around but only the pony was staring suspiciously through the smoky barn window.

               I ignored all those rat facts above, bent down and slipped them quickly in the left pocket of my jacket.

              According to the Comprehensive Manual of Rat Care you can't just feed newborn rats anything.  So much for my plan of just blending up  leftovers with the sour milk in the fridge.   They need something close to their  mothers milk, and you can give them a little dilute pedialyte to hold them over so I headed off to the drug store.  I searched through no less then a dozen cans of infant formula, reading the ingredients, hoping to find something that said 'Recommended for Rodents.'  A helpful clerk approached.

                "How old is the baby" she asked 
                "Newborn" I replied. 
                "Has the mother been breast feeding ?" she inquired                  "No,  I think the mothers dead"  I said 
                She gave me the 'look' and stumbled back a bit into the display of breast pumps.  
                "You think?"  she gasped.

                 Shortly I headed home with my supplies :
                 Bottle pedialyte   $7.95
                 Syringe                  $2.98   
                 Isomil Advance infant powder  32.95!!

                 At home the babies were wiggling around in their new shoebox home and I found it remarkably easy to flip them holding the loose skin on their neck and give them their first feeding. 

                 Like I'd been babysitting rats all my life.  

                 I will tell you proudly that the rats lived.   At first I fed them four to six times a day.   In eleven days their eyes opened.   They grew fur.   They started to come out and anticipate their mealtime.   They 'held' the syringe and sucked greedily.  I started giving them pieces of fruit and seeds and dry bread.  They started to play with one another and they ran up the sleeve of my sweater.   Yes, they became cute.   I mean, look at the picture again.   What amazed me the most was how clean they were.  They were constantly washing up.  Disturbed when I spilled something on them they washed each other.
 
                It was cold and damp that spring and I kept them longer then I should have.   I moved them to a larger cage and started introducing bits of meat and bugs.   The one weekend hubby and I got out of town my trusted neighbor friend helped look after the place.   We had loaded the car and I was shouting last minute instructions.

               "Oh, and I forgot to mention the two rats in the back porch.  "Instructions on the cage,"  I yelled.
    
                We knew her well and we felt confident as we sped quickly away. 

                It was a warm Sunday in late May when I scooped the little creatures in my jacket pocket and headed toward the river on our old A.T.V.   About a km from our house I put them carefully at the base of an old hollow log.   I deposited enough dog food and scraps to last them about six months.   Although I knew they wouldn't stay around it made me feel better.

                 Rat Facts:
                                      If a member of a rat pack becomes ill they will care for it
                                      A lonely rat becomes depressed 
                                      Rats like chocolate
                                      Rats are affectionate, curious and intelligent.  They love games
                                      Rats are an important part of Eastern spirituality
                                      They have been used to sniff out land mines and have been found to be able to detect tuberculosis
                                       95 % of wild rats don't make it through their first year

                  As I drove away I looked back to see them scampering around the tree.  I know I imagined it , but I thought I heard a giggle.

                 Over head a hawk circled.