Now I have been known to rescue a feral cat or stray dog or two, but I think this is my all time accomplishment....that is, if you're an animal lover..as I am.
The other day I took my elderly cat Webster to the vet...however, before I did, I had to find him.....
So I went down in the basement dungeon looking for him and jumping Jehoshaphat....there in my escape window well was a baby muskrat...looking pretty bad...his eyes closed and laying flat.
Now what? I had to get Webster to the vet. So I went outside and dropped down some long branches that i had just cut from the trees in the yard,hoping he would crawl out by time I got back from the vet.
Oh, and when the vet got through with Webster, I said, "Oh, Doc, I have a muskrat stuck in my window well..any ideas?"
"Put a stick down there he should climb out"......Glad I didn't pay for that advice.
When I got home, he was still there looking worse. I also noticed that he had ripped the screen to pieces. He must have been there a while and had tried frantically to get out.
I went online to see what these critters eat.....cattails mostly...and water lilies.....Nope,don't have any of those in my larder. Then I read on that they sometimes eat farmer's corn if things are tough.
Well, I had a moment of decision. You see, just that morning I had gotten fresh corn from the local farmer.....delicious sweet corn..at 3/$1 Should I throw an ear of my fresh corn to a musk RAT?
Well, yes. And while he was ravishing over the corn I opened the window and slipped (forgive me little miss) a Dollie bathtub into the well..real fast like...and sure enough he found it and drank and swam as happy as a baby muskrat can be. He didn't crawl up the branches,but he was looking better. When my left -brain husband got home he went to the store and bought a large net and fished him out....and away the baby musk rat scampered. We are about a block away from a pond...I hope he finds his way back..I have since covered the window well.
It was just about two weeks ago when I rescued a large toad from there.
If I had called someone they would have gotten him out and then killed him. So I am very happy to have had a part in setting one of God's little creatures free.
Besides, Bethany and April and Dogwood and Dar and Goldenbird and even Red will be proud of me.

Thought some would like to see how Mr. Darcy is doing.
He has grown into the most wonderful addition to our family.
This morning he found his way up onto the bed...he has arrived.
My husband calls him "little bastard" due to his constantly biting his feet as he tries to watch the ballgame.
I call him boo boo baby....Mr. Darcy is such a big name for such a squirt.
I took my senior cat to the vet yesterday with the help of my mom(thanks mom)
and I was full of dread at what I was sure was going to be bad news...Webster is almost 14
Well...the vet called this morning and said he has an infection somewhere in his body
but all his other blood work came out fine....so he has to go on antibiotics..that's it..for now at least
He is an aging kitty, but if I can have him around for a bit more....praise God
Webster has been so tolerant of boo boo Darcy...guess the good guy upstairs saw that
and gave him a reprieve

Magpie tale

MAGPIE TALE #26

Willow, at http://magpietales.blogspot.com

hosts a weekly writing prompt

write a small vignette or poem

using the below photo as your inspiration

the old man sits down

the water can beside him

both of them empty

***

Wandering Day

I need a wandering day.
Do you ever desire to just wander? I do.
I feel a very strong pull
sometimes to just get into my car
and stop where I am called to stop
It may be the park, the library, a bookstore,
a thrift shop,an art store or TJMaxx
Or maybe just a drive with music playing
and my mind doing the wandering
There have been times in my car with music playing randomly
and Oh my gosh..something reaches deep inside and I am overwhelmed
with feelings
Gypsy Kings is the kind of music that sometimes.lots of times
aims an arrow at exactly the right thing
I love the beat and passion of their music
and most times that is enough and I drive back home
having danced and loved and released some passion
all in the privacy of my car..wandering
Wonder where my wandering will take me today..?

                                                             BEM BEM BEM MARIA......

***

Wednesday poem

http://oneshotpoetry.blogspot.com/
 host a weekly poetry opportunity
for you to post a poem you have written

BEARER

Often I think of loss

and how it seems to be

 an account

that is drawn on

when it's

added to

***

Microfiction

microfiction # 24
Susan, at http://www.stonyriver.ie/
hosts a weekly writing prompt

                                                              Using the below photo
                                           write something using only 140 character or less
                                              Quite a challenge....why not try it yourself?

Family ruins,not the kind you cast

but the kind you're given

Cast before you were born

Like it or not,the foundation

of your own house

-138-

characters

you know, I actually followed this movie.

hubby hated it

like I said...he's different...he doesn't write

**

I love Joe Pye Weed,but it is a sign that summer is on the wane.
Yesterday I heard a bagger at the grocery store talking about having to register for school and buy books.
That's really when it hit me...this summer really is coming to an end.
I mentioned this to my husband this morning as I inspected the garden for storm damage,
as it had rained so hard all night,lightening and thunder included.
"Oh summer is almost over," I lamented to him.
...He looked at me like I was a dumb blonde.
"There's August, that's summer,duh?" he said sipping his coffee that I had made him this morning.

...Some people are not poets or writers, they don't see things through the eyes of agony.

"No, it's almost over, the bagger at the Jewel is buying school books, it's over."

...This man will never understand my delicate nature.

But it is true, no matter how hard I wish it, the season is gearing up to move on.
...Maybe throwing a few parties before it skips town so we can have a few more hot dogs on the grill
and dip our pinkies in the pool or pick a few last flowers for the vase on the kitchen table,
but she has given notice...signs...she's leaving soon.

"Besides," he says, "Fall is nice... cooler weather, colorful leaves,bonfires,apple pie,migrating birds...."

FALL! He dared to say it.

FALL is just a temptress tricking us
into not noticing that WINTER is just under her skirt!
The man knows how to ruin my morning.

I have found that I like to write in first person...it is intimate ..it is immediate

...it draws you into the story like nothing else.

I started writing after the age of 50. I will be 60 in December. Not long. But it seems like my whole life.

I started with a little poetry group and soon found poetry as a way of purging all the gunk that had my pistons stuck.  They were confessional but poorly crafted. Craft. I never knew that writing had craft until I began taking workshops and joined a few writing groups. Boy, is that a hard lesson for a new writer to learn. There are rules. And you must learn the rules in order to be skilled enough to break the rules, otherwise your work reads like so much dribble...that only your good friends and family adoring says is wonderful.

But I have also learned that you must write that way to get to good writing. Because writers write.

The first writing workshop I attended, the must immediate question asked by almost the entire group was..How will I know that I am a writer? Write.

Poetry taught me how to condense language and to think in images. An image is powerful, enabling you to tuck it into the reader's mind where it takes a leap.  A good poem to me is when it happens inside the reader's mind,when they connect with something universal. No tears in the writer no tears in the reader..as they say. But it can't just be confessional or an emotional dumping..it must take a leap..turn into something more.

At another writing workshop I tried my hand at short, short, story...beginning, middle, and end...kind of writing. A story that must also take a leap of some kind at the end. Oh boy, this is hard, I said. And it is.

It took this old lady a long time to see what is good writing. Only then was I able to get anywhere near to writing something that was passable. Not sure I have yet. I have had stories published in small presses and poems published in various venues and I've won third place for a poem in an anthology and an honorable mention for a postcard poem's submission. Not bad. But that has no influence on why I write. When I write I go somewhere known only to me..a place of pleasure...sort of a masturbation of the soul. This kind of masturbation will not make me go blind, quite the contrary, it opens my eyes.

I have learned to listen for found language.....things like bits of conversation overheard at a restaurant.

At the last workshop I attended in Door County, at the end of the week, we had a one on one with the teacher. Tell me, he asked, what have you learned this week that you didn't know before?

I learned about story. Look for the story in everything. It doesn't have to be something that actually happened. Search for the universal in the story.

So when I write a Magpie or Microfiction Monday, or a Wednesday Poem

and people think I am writing about myself.....I guess that it is a good thing. I have moved them.

And that is what a good story or poem does.

Thanks readers...I guess I am doing something right...or is it write?

magpie tale

Magpie tale # 25....it's hard to believe

Willow,at
http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

hosts a weekly writing prompt

Write something using the below photo

as your inspiration

  

All these years I've kept the lock

just to prove to myself that it really happened

Hour upon hour of darkness and hunger

just a crack of light at my feet

I could hear her heavy footsteps

and her stopping every once in a while

sending warm pee down my leg

I'd close my eyes fearing

that she might smell it

and I would be blinded by the light

as the lock turned  

The day we moved from that old house

I stole the lock and spit inside that prison

under the stairs, hoping that maybe,

in the new house, she would forget about me

But there are things people

just don't forget

***Magpie tale of fiction  # 25

melancholy
sits beside me
an unwelcomed guest
who has nailed me to this spot
doesn't care that I have things
to do and places to go
she has placed
blue lead around my heart
Tomorrow,she says
she will go tomorrow
then takes my hand
locks it into hers
and gives it a squeeze

One week...gone so fast...too quickly...I closed the door as grandpa took them to the airport, the trunk of the car stuffed to the gills with new toys to brings home...the rest grandpa will send out this week...I closed the door and cried.
cried for the missing of them
cried for the missing of my son as a little boy
cried because I can't go with
cried because it's going to take me a week to get this house back in order.

Wednesday poem

http://oneshotpoetry.blogspot.com/   

OUT THERE

She called to apologize

and I heard in her voice

that it was enough

for her to say she was sorry

But how do you get back

every milkweed seed

that has blown in the wind?

***

Magpie

Magpie tale # 24

Willow,at http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

hosts a weekly writing prompt

Let the photo below be your prompt:

Love is a romantic room

with a moon window

and rumpled 600 thread count sheets,

and the quiet sweet light

of another morning

***

Microfiction

Susan at http://www.stonyriver.ie/

hosts a weekly writing prompt

using the below drawing write something

using 140 characters or less

He grieved like his woman

for his child

Rivers and rivers of sorrow stars

blazing in the sky

and he thought he saw one

that was theirs

-139- characters of fiction

May I indulge a bit for a comment about something in this poem?

the first line....in the drawing I noticed that the image was mostly male in the body

but the face female.....okay..good start for something interesting

now ...in my first line...I originally had "He grieved like a woman....Then I wrote..He grieved like his woman.   Very subtle change... the power of one word in a poem...

any comments? ideas on this?

oh and would you put an apostrophe at the word theirs

someone was messing with grandma's zen garden

and I rewarded them by putting up the slip and slid

despite grandpa

and little miss loved my lillies

....kiss up

***

They arrive at 10:45 tonight

such a long day for them to come and see grandma

and grandpa. Everytime the littleguy has come

he's been sick..everytime

He just turned 2...I can't wait to get to know him

I hear he loves books....good start

and the little miss,why she's 3 1/2

and I missed her dance recital all the way in Laguna beach

Skype can only do so much

they need arms around them and kisses on their cheeks

and an old lap to sit on

and a whole lot of fussing over

and cooking together,and helping grandma water

and prayers at bedtime and a tuck in at night

and oh in the morning... I can't wait to hear

"Where you grandma?"

***

Wednesday poem

One shot Wednesday Poem, a place to share your poem
http://oneshotpoetry.blogspot.com/

 Whether

When I hear a storm coming
like bad boy attraction

when the trees bend
like bent code of conduct

and the rain comes down so hard,
I remember my first storm

Chill
chill
chill
thrill

***

In case you want to read the story I came up with for J.Reid's challenge here it is. I wasn't even in the running. But it did give me a chance to learn a bit about what she likes.
With only using 100 words or less tell a story using these words- Fenske,Bacon,Reed,Resistance  & Simpson  and to guess the theme...which I did not do...don't know much about Oregon I guess.

Last year at this time he had taken her to Fenske Lake Cabins, and there in the isolation of the deep woods of Minnesota he told her he was filing for divorce.
"So,when a certified letter comes from my attorneys,Bacon and Reed,you better sign for it."
That night she offered no resistance to the man who had broken her nose and blackened her eyes,the sex more violent than before.
But now...in Caifornia at Simpson Grove, she tries to put her arms around a giant sequoia,her husband still missing in the deep woods of Minnesota. 100w/c

That's it. I got all the words in and I think I got a story going here...oh well.