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No school today due to the weather!  Woot! Woot!
(was I supposed to cheer for that? Outloud?)

I miss writing Haiku & its cousin Tanka poetry.  Tanka is taking the Haiku & adding on two more lines of 7 syllables.  One could go crazy (ask me how I know) & string several Tanka poems together into a really really long poem.

The one I wrote this morning is not that.  I’m getting my feet back into into the poetry stream (the water is fine) so I didn’t want to over-tax my already taxed brain matter.

Without further ado or hooey here is a Tanka poem for today’s weather.

roaring winds advance
the snowflake army onward
rolling and blowing
into untraversable
swelling rivers of white drifts
©2021 Tracy Swartz

Enjoy your day!

It’s been a hot minute!  I’ve been over on FB a skosh more.  It is still a time-sucking monster.

I’m having a difficult time getting my get-up-and-go to get-up-and-go.   Partially because I have a lot of projects going on & way too much creative juice coursing through the noggin & pandemic exhaustion.

It doesn’t help when one is re-organizing their creative projects binder only to discover a couple of Haiku.  Sigh.  I love writing Haiku.  I miss writing Haiku.

Haiku 1 from July 5, 2017
Sun’s golden head rises
to a chorus of bird song
dressing leaves in light

Haiku 2 from July 5, 2017
Slipping off old skin
a new you, tender & raw
is uncomfortable

Then there was the blurb I wrote about The Black Swamp.  The Black Swamp covered a goodly portion of the northwestern section of Ohio.

She had more to say as this wouldn’t leave me be.  The result was the following poem.  I’m gonna say it.  I LOVE this.  It gives me goosebumps when I read it.  I hope you enjoy it too!

The Great Black Swamp
The ice blanket
acquiesced
to my birth
to my reign

I am mud & water
wetlands
marshes
grasslands
I dress in dark
deciduous swamp

Nurturing the wild & fierce
they, in turn, nurtured me
only the brave dared to enter
only the wise could hear my secrets

I am Black Swamp

You carved ditches into my skin
dressed me in farm fields
housing developments
tarred me in roads
highways & byways

Did you believe that
would tame
one such as me?

I am Black Swamp

My power thrums
when drenching rains
form pools, ponds & lakes
drowning your crops
within wandering clay knolls
disrupting smooth yards
buckling basements
& shifting walls

I am Black Swamp

Breathing, living
dreaming
in wild places & spaces
crawling between
the cracks & fissures
of your limited thinking
that you & I
are not one

Oh, misguided beast

You can hear me
in birdsong
in rustling trees
in howls of coyote
when you stop & listen

You can feel me
with bared feet
on my dew-damped skin,
in the sting of mosquito
& the wild winds
when you stop to feel

You can see me in my
fierce quiet
a goddess breathing softly
as she seems to sleep
when you stop & open your eyes

I am here
I am Black Swamp

I will not submit
to your reign
of subservience
I can not be tamed
or
stamped from existence

I live
I breathe
I whisper
& call
to the beasts who remember
that
I am Black Swamp

Last night’s dream was full of feelings around white terrorism, waiting for the next shoe to drop, & let’s just say fear-mongering monsters.  Eeeew.

Dandelion, Princess, First of Her Name, The Bearded Lady was just begging for that belly to be rubbed. This was The Hubs’ view.
This was my view

This picture captures her whole Cali-Catitude perfectly. She is royalty & I should never ever forget it. She’s posing for the camera.  She’s such a diva.
And we can’t forget a Mocha moment!  I was the only one downstairs so it was slim pickings for servents to grace, but grace me she did.  I received a few kisses & purrs before she was done with me & left.
It’s hard to take a selfie with my phone & said cat on my chest & chin.

The house smelled amazing while the chicken bone broth/stock was simmering on the stovetop.
Once it was finished, it’s strained & placed back into the refrigerator.  That’s the best way to get the fat off.  Then it’s ready to be reheated, placed into jars & put into the pressure canner.  That’s a project for later today or tomorrow.

I learned something about George Washington Carver from a shared post on Facebook by Juniper Russo

George Washington Carver wasn’t the guy who invented peanut butter, even though you were taught that in school.
What he ACTUALLY did was much, much more important. In the post-war South, the economy and environment were in absolute shambles. The soil throughout the Black Belt was exhausted and eroded from centuries of over-farming cotton. Freedmen were left hungry and destitute after being emancipated without reparations, and poor whites weren’t doing well at all, either. There was an epidemic of scurvy, starvation, and anemia.
Carver was famous for “working with peanuts” but peanut butter isn’t the big deal here. It was Carver who discovered that legumes can enrich soil with nitrogen and prevent erosion, and peanuts are a high-calorie, high-protein food. He cultivated specific strains of peanut that thrived in the most barren land in the South and promoted their use.
He also studied dozens of other plants, fine-tuning the exact needs and benefits of each variety, and found ways that the poorest farmers could actually IMPROVE, rather than EXHAUST, their soil and could actually feed their families. He taught thousands of people how to heal the wounds that slavery had left on the land and on the economy.
So peanut butter… no, not really. A paste preparation was one of the methods of preparing peanuts that he promoted, but it had existed among indigenous Central Americans for centuries and it really wasn’t his greatest accomplishment.
I think it’s time to remember George Washington Carver not as the reason you have Jif, but as the reason that starvation didn’t kill half the population of the Southeast.

Yesterday’s theme song in the Land of Lunch was I’m A Little Teapot.  None of us could remember the verse that came after, spout.  Google sorted that out & an earworm was born.  I tried to counteract it with The Song That Never Ends to no avail.

This morning’s View From A Lair, brought to you by MOOD

In Bebe Feesh news, it looks like someone or someones have been having snacks.  The Hubs needs a particular type of plant that will give the babies more cover as they grow.  I’m sure it won’t be long before there’s another batch of eggs.

Here comes a ponder:  If you put one male & one female human in a tank as we do with fish, would they mate?  Can you imagine?  After an arduous journey, you’re finally “home” in a lovely place where food drops from The Top & you’ve met some lovely fellow beings.  There’s a one named Tom that you’ve been flirting with.  Things are awesome. You & Tom are making plans when…  The NO RETURN monster dives into your tank, chasing you hither & thither.  You try to outrun the beast or at the very least desperately hope it’s not your turn to enter the giant monster’s maw.  Alas, you are caught & swooped up into unbearable brightness.  OH NO!  You can’t breathe! Can’t breathe!  In a hot minute, you can breathe again but now you’re in a strange place where everything is a colorful blur.  You notice there are other beings with you.  Some are the sorts you’ve only heard tall tales about.  Then you notice another.  Could it be Tom?  Could it be?  No.  It’s Greg.  You don’t like Greg. Once you’re in the new home & settled in, you realize that you are stuck with gets-on-your-last-nerve Greg for the rest of your life.  Let’s not forget that if you’re not into the opposite sex & have been flirting with Sally & end up with Greg for the rest of your life.  Or, what if Greg isn’t such a bad dude, but he likes other dudes & he’s stuck with YOU the rest of his life?

I might need another cup of coffee after that one.

JimJim was such a fuzzball of cuteness last night.

Look at those adorable murder mittens. My oh my, they are in need of a trim! Look at his cute gruesome toothsome! He’s a vampire kitty.

And we can’t forget that one white whisker!

Today I’m going to make & can turkey broth.  In the past, I would make up a big batch & freeze it because I didn’t have the pressure canner fixed in working order.  After the gardening season’s canning success, I won’t take up valuable freezer space.  Woot! Woot! The smell of simmering broth makes the house smell wondrous.

I printed off all the chapters thus far (there’s 9!) of The Black Swamp Gourdess’ Unabridged Story of Daemons.  The Slasher of Red is ready to go for the editing & tweaking process.  They are more chapters to come.  I’m hoping this helps slide open the hidden panel to what comes next.  The Muses have been very cagey & making me work for it.

Have a super-duper day!