Month: May 2016

The Dirt Farmer

In my neck of the woods there are a fair amount of farmers. In days gone by, there were a lot of them. Hardworking families try to make a living by the sweat of their brow, with their calloused hands, and from the land that was usually hard fought for – both to gain and to keep. 

Many of my ancestors lived lives such as this. It was not by choice but by necessity  they were what we hear deemed today as living a subsistence-lifestyle.  It is to the legacy of these folks, made of real grit, I wrote this little piece:

There was once an old man
who took great pride in his land.
He worked in the dirt,
in his old grubby shirt,
to scratch out a living by hand.

Image © Arthur Rothstein/ Library of Congress from NPR

Image © Arthur Rothstein/ Library of Congress from NPR

National Limerick Day

I read several posts in my feed that today is National Limerick Day, along with some great limericks written by several folks on a variety of topics. I have to be honest: I’ve never written a limerick before; I thought they all were “off-color” before today! But since it’s National Limerick Day I just had to give it a go (really, I couldn’t stop myself!).

I got the first line as a suggestion while looking up how to write one and stuck in my head. So I fooled with it until I ended up with a limerick chain – or something like that. 

There once was a very old dog,

who slept his whole life in a log. 

One night jarred from his sleep,

by a noise loud and deep-

just a pesky old bullfrog. 


The pesky loud, old bullfrog

nearly scared the life outta the dog.

When the dog realized 

what just materialized,

he ran the beast back to the bog.