The Busy Bee

How doth the little busy Bee
     Improve each shining Hour,
And gather Honey all the day
     From every opening Flower!

How skilfully she builds her Cell!
     How neat she spreads the Wax!
And labours hard to store it well
     With the sweet Food she makes.

In Works of Labour or of Skill
     I would be busy too:
For Satan finds some Mischief still
     For idle Hands to do. 

In Books, or Work, or healthful Play
     Let my first Years be past,
That I may give for every Day
     Some good Account at last. [1715] 

"How doth the Little Bee" is one of  Isaac Watts's rather tiresome, preachy poems that well bred Victorian children were expected to memorize. Lewis Carroll parodies it in Alice in Wonderland: 

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!

 The crocodile is not my picture. It's from a site about Australia.

Requisite Patriotic Post

Okay, I love this country; let's get that out of the way first. While we’ve gotten a lot wrong – slavery, the treatment of Native Americans,  stealing Texas from Mexico, not to mention Hawaii from the Hawaiians --  we’ve gotten a lot right – even if we’re still struggling with that concept of liberty and justice for all.

But the current political climate has me wondering how well this democracy thing is working out.

These are uneasy times and the political polarization in Washington seems to be holding our (and it is our) government hostage. Maybe it's just me, but I get the feeling that the opposition wouldn't approve Mom or apple pie if Obama spoke in favor of them. Like Rush Limbaugh, the opposition wants Obama to fail. It is their prime directive, their avowed objective. And if it means paralyzing the government, well, they're okay with that.

Of course spending can't keep exceeding revenue; yes, there will have to be sacrifices.  But not all on one side. What ever happened to compromise?

I know, I'm looking at this through the eyes of a liberal -- maybe that's why I can't understand what would be wrong with things like eliminating the tax loopholes on corporate jets. Or why the very wealthiest shouldn't pay higher taxes before we start cutting Medicare and Social Security and education. Some of those very wealthiest being executives who profited by government bailouts.

It's hard to celebrate Independence Day when  government seems to have ground to a halt, sabotaged by a bunch of politicians who have fully earned the title "The Party of NO.' May their fireworks fizzle and their ice cream melt.

We'll be celebrating in a quiet way here at home -- keeping an eye on Silverbell, the Jersey girl whose calf in due any day now, and hoping all the time that a miracle will happen and all the flags and rhetoric and patriotic speeches will remind these folks in Congress  that their first loyalty should be to the United States of America -- not to their party nor to the corporations that fund them.

We can hope.

Cats at Work..

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Shoe Shine

There's not much need around here for fancy footwear -- but when my younger son had an event to attend that required a suit and shoes without so much manure on them, he came up to our house, asking if we had any black shoe polish.

I dug around in my closet and unearthed this swell little shoeshine box -- inherited from my grandfather.  

 

My grandfather, a poor Alabama farm boy who, with an eighth grade education, worked his way from bank examiner to president of the largest bank in Tampa, Florida back in the Fifties, was serious about shining shoes. I remember that every night, before getting ready for bed, he would sit in a chair in his bedroom and polish his shoes. If I happened to be spending the night -- as I did three or four times a week -- he would shine up my loafers.

When John and I married, he was in the Marine Corps -- and shiny dress shoes weren't just a good idea but a requirement. Those were also the days when I wore white shoes in summertime and had a little bottle of that chalky stuff, Still do, evidently, though my last white shoes were at least thirty years ago.

Most of these tins of shoe polish from the shoe shine kit are pre-bar code vintage -- possibly inherited with the kit, possibly leftovers from the Marine Corps days. 

An odd thing to be nostalgic about -- but I'm thinking that, come Fall, I might need to purchase some loafers and polish them.

But white shoes? No way, no how.  Not on a farm.

The Jersey Girls at the Buffet

Bluebirds

We are fortunate to have several pair of Eastern Bluebirds here on our farm.  John has made nest boxes for them and almost every year, they raise several gangs of babies. 

I was taking a break from hoeing the corn on Tuesday when I saw what seemed to be a bluebird family, introducing the young uns to the world. Bluebirds are voracious bug and worm eaters so I was happy to see the male poised above my winter squash.

Mama was there briefly but I didn't get her picture. Below is one of the babies -- or 'juvenals' as the bird book calls them -- also perched above the squash.

The term 'the bluebird of happiness' has a long history in many cultures. But for me, there's a more personal meaning.  Back in 1973, when we visited my old school friend V.O. here in the mountains and decided to look for a farm, V. O. told me how, when they had first seen their place, a bluebird had flown across their path and she had taken it as a sign that they'd found their home.

When V.O. came with me to inspect the farm John and I had fallen in love with,  she and I tramped up and down, admiring the views, the wild flowers, the flowing streams. And as we were leaving, driving down the dirt road that ran alongside one of the pastures, a bird flew up and crossed in front of the car.  The sun flashed on its red breast and blue wings.

"There's that silly bluebird," said my friend.  And I knew that I, too, was home.