Easter Tree (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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To enjoy more blogs participating in the A to Z Challenge, click here.     

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by yours truly, right here.

This week's words are

opinion

shell

clue

seed

attention

sit

and/or

story

makeup

corn

emotion

mess

circle

Use words from one list or both, mix and match, or ignore them all, just use them to inspire you to write! 

You are welcome to leave your story in the comments section, or put them on your blog and leave us a link so we can visit.

If you ask my OPINION, it was bound to happen.  After all, we are still just learning about farming ourselves and when a city cousin comes who has even less of a CLUE about what to expect than us newcomers, well, we're just glad nobody got permanently injured.

Sox the dog, of course, might SIT up and take exception to that, but that dog has always been a bit of a drama queen.  Once, after we pulled a thorn out of his paw, he limped for a couple of days and we gave him plenty of attention.  For months afterward, if he thought we weren't giving him his due he'd try limping to see if we'd notice.  Little scamp.

I guess I better give you the whole STORY and you can make up your mind for yourself about it all.

We decided we wanted to be a farm family, raising the children where they'd have more than a small back yard for playing and be able to do chores and learn what city children never get a chance to learn.  About five years ago, we made the move, taking over a farm from an old couple who just couldn't do the work any more.  

The first year, we lived in the tiny "guest cottage," which was mostly just a SHELL of a house, while they showed us the ropes.  Boy-howdy did we have a lot to learn!  We were worked off our feet sometimes and slap worn out, and I figured out why so many old pictures of farm women show them without MAKEUP.  Who has time to doll up your face when you're going to be in the barn by 5am to milk your cow and feed the chickens?

After that first year, with a lot of EMOTION (and commotion, but that's another story), the couple we were buying from moved into an apartment in town so their niece could keep an eye on them and we got moved into the big farmhouse.  We still call on them sometimes when we get to town and are we ever thankful for the bigger place.  Nothing like living on top of each other for a year to make you appreciate each child having their own room.

Anyway, my husband's cousin came out to visit, thinking he knew all about everything.  It was the week my husband was going to plow up the field so we could plant our SEED CORN.  Cousin insisted he knew how to drive the tractor and plow straight, and husband gave in and after moving the tractor into position, let cousin take over.

It should have been pretty easy for anyone who can drive a straight lane on a road, just head for the fence, when you get to the marked edge where you turn around, turn around, head back, same again and again.  Somehow cousin didn't get the message on how to turn properly.  After all, this old tractor has a steering lever, not a wheel, that's a lesson in itself.

Let's just say that between the hollerin' my husband was doing, trying to tell cousin to just stop, and the hollerin' cousin was doing as he drove that tractor in a CIRCLE over and over again, and the barking Sox was doing because he always barks when my husband starts to holler, well you couldn't have ignored that huge ruckus even if you had the worst case of ATTENTION deficit ever.

Top it off with the rooster, Angus (don't ask why my children named him that) getting upset that Sox was barking -- he always gets upset when Sox is barking -- so Angus took off after Sox and chased him, pecking and stopping to crow every so many yards, then chasing and pecking more, and well Sox, I admit, does have a couple of small peck marks that bled just the tiniest bit.  You'd think, however, he got near killed by that rooster.  Sox won't go near the chickens any more.

For a while I thought the doggone tractor was going to have to run out of fuel before crazy cousin was going to stop, but he finally let go of the steering and took his foot off the gas feed.  Not before he'd made a huge rut in the end of the field, it was a MESS, of course.  It took my husband and the kids a good while to fill in that area, spreading the dirt out again, and it's a good thing tractors can climb themselves out of such situations if they're not too far gone or we'd have needed a tow truck.  That would have been a sight, I'm glad we didn't have to see it.

The upshot, as I noted, is Sox does have a fear of chickens and a small scab or two as souvenirs.  Cousin, of course, left the next morning.  If he ever shows up again, he's going to stay at the hotel in town and we'll visit him there.  The one good thing is i have a tale to tell the couple we bought from next time we visit.  I'll think this'll tickle their funny bone, they sure enough laughed at us the year we were learning, in a kind way, of course, before they set us right every time.

All's well that ends well.

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Today is:

Act of Self Determination Day -- Cocos (Keeling) Islands

Animated Cartoon Day -- date of release, in 1908, of Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, often considered the first actual animated cartoon

Army Day -- US (by proclamation of FDR in 1942)

California Poppy Day -- California, US (state flower)

Chakri Dynasty Day and King Rama I Memorial Day -- Thailand

Drowsy Driver Awareness Day -- please pull over and take a nap when you need to

International Day of Sport for Development and Peace -- UN (on the anniversary of the date of the opening of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896)

Jump Over Things Day -- probably started by the same people who brought us Walk Around Things Day on the 4th; as if friends and family aren't looking at you strangely enough after that one

National Bookmobile Day -- US, on the Wednesday of National Library Week

National Caramel Popcorn Day

National Day of Hope -- US; recognizing victims of child abuse and neglect, a day to recommit to make the world safe for children

National Student Athlete Day -- US

National Walking Day -- US 

New Beer's Eve -- US (unofficial celebration of the end of Prohibition; beer became legal to sell again on tomorrow's date in 1933)

North Pole Day -- Peary and Co. arrived there this day in 1909

Paraprofessional Appreciation Day -- honoring the contributions of paraprofessionals everywhere

Plan Your Epitaph Day -- figure out how you want to be remembered, and then live that way! (some sites celebrate this on Nov. 1)

President Ntaryamira Day -- Burundi (anniversary of assassination)

Sorting-Out of the Doggets Day -- Fairy Calendar

St. Sixtus' Day (Patron of Alatri, Italy)

Tartan Day -- Scottish diaspora of Canada and the US (anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320)

Teflon Day --  Polytetraflouroethylene resin was developed by Roy J. Plunkett while working for E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company in 1938

Thank Your School Librarian Day -- US, on the Wednesday of National Library Week

Think About Spring Cleaning Day -- don't do it, just think about it

Twinkie Day -- the snack cakes that will never go away were invented on this day in 1930

Birthdays Today:

Candace Cameron, 1976

Zach Braff, 1975

Ari Meyers, 1969

Paul Rudd, 1969

Marilu Henner, 1952

John Razenberger, 1947

Barry Levinson, 1942

Philip Austin, 1941

Roy Thinnes, 1938

Merle Haggard, 1937

Billy Dee Williams, 1937

Andre Previn, 1929

James Watson, 1928

Gerry Mulligan, 1927

Lowell Thomas, 1892

Rose Schneiderman, 1882

Butch Cassidy, 1866

René Lalique, 1860

Raphael, 1483

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Barney & Friends"(TV), 1992

Post-It Notes(first day of sale), 1980

"Entertaining Mr. Sloane"(Play), 1964

"Little Orphan Annie"(Radio series), 1931

"La Double Inconstance / Double Inconsistancy"(Play), 1723

Today in History:

Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) in the battle of Thapsus, BC46

The Roman army under the command of Stilicho stymies the Visigoths under Alaric in the Battle of Pollentia, 402

Charlemagne confirms his father Pepin the Short's "Donation of Pepin," which had established the Papal States, 774

King Richard I, The Lionheart, of England dies from an infection following the removal of an arrow from his shoulder, 1199

The Scots reaffirm their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath, 1320

The Italian poet Petrarch first sees his beloved Laura, 1327

At the Cape of Good Hope, Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp that eventually becomes Cape Town , 1652

An earthquake devastates Dubrovnik, then an independent city-state, 1667

Peter the Great of Russia ends the tax on men with beards in that country, 1722

Rama I succeeds King Taksin of Siam (modern day Thailand), who is overthrown in a coup d'état, 1782

The Committee of Public Safety becomes the executive organ of the republic in France, and the period known as the Reign of Terror begins, 1793

John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company, 1808

Celluloid, the first plastic, is patented, 1869

The city of Vancouver, BC, is incorporated, 1886

The Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City is dedicated, 1893

In Athens, the first modern Olympic Games are opened, 1,500 years after being banned by Emperor Theodosius I; James Connoly of the US becomes the first gold medalist of the modern games, 1896

The Kishinev pogrom forces thousands of Jews to seek refuge in Israel and the West, 1903

Robert Peary and Matthew Henson allegedly reach the North Pole, 1909

Governor Huey P. Long is impeached by the Louisiana House of Representatives, 1929

Mohandas Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire." Thus he starts the Salt Satyagraha, 1930

Launch of Early Bird, the first communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit, 1965

The American League of Major League Baseball begins using the designated hitter, 1973

Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of reaching India, 1998

Rolandas Paksas becomes the first president of Lithuania to be peacefully removed from office by impeachment, 2004

Scientists announce the discovery of three new animal species that spent their entire lives without oxygen, 2010

In England, lawmakers ban the display of tobacco products, hoping the move will lead to a reduction in the number of youths who smoke, 2012

The first baby with DNA from 3 parents through mitochondrial transfer is born in Mexico, 2016

NASA's InSight lander detects its first ever "Marsquake," a seismic event on Mars, 2019

Nadia, a tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, tests positive for Covid19, the first known case of human-to-cat transmission, 2020