Territorial Egos

After listening to what was happening in the political realm this morning, I could not help seeing the comparison between our President and these beautiful birds. See what you think as you view these rare shots!! They were too good to pass up!

After all these years of evolving,  the male apparently  still has not learned how to successfully communicate with the female!

He is often weak in his approach and then has to be dominate  in order to feel good about himself.  Past cultural norms have only reinforced this attitude.

When  confrontation occurs his first reaction is often defensive, trying to protect his fragile ego! He does not handle criticism very well.

It does not take long for tempers to flare. Accusations fly and everything is up in the air!

He is not happy until he has won the argument and totally humiliated his opponent. For some reason he can’t seem to let it rest and at times it spills out into the street!

Too bad he can seem to learn from strong self-confident females how to live, work, and share. No need to feel threatened.  Simply accept one another’s differences and enjoy each other’s company. She had no trouble sharing the feeder with the finches and sparrows.

Amazing what we can learn from the birds. These birds came to my feeder this morning. I am guessing that the cardinals are both immature (no pun intended) the colors are not fully developed. The female house finch just wanted to share the feeder in peace, but the male Cardinal would have none of that! He had to be king and run her off. I think he was quite surprised to see such a little bird stand her ground. It was a rare and wonderful site to see! Enjoy!!

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

 

 

 

 

 

The Poetry of the Sunflower

Poetic Patterns

This is a photos essay of a sunflower.  I took these shots today with the morning sunshine lighting up its face. Green leaves and petals accent the flower, while the seeds form fantastic patterns across the face. This is one of God’s most beautiful creations. I hope you enjoy my photos. I call it poetic patterns. This sunflower was a volunteer that grew in my back yard. Enjoy!

Snake Oil Salesmen

If you are like me, you despise seeing all the drug commercials every time you turn on the TV. It seems like they are churning out a new drug every week. If you listen to the side-effects listed at the end, you wonder why anyone in their right mind would even think of taking it.  We are so drug oriented that we have now labeled every little thing in our society,  that is out of the norm, as an illness, which in turn needs a drug to help control or cure it! What are we thinking. While the pharmaceutical companies and Vitamin Companies get rich we get hooked!!!  Just ask your doctor if this is right for you …and for him!

 

Snake Oil Salesman

In days long gone the salesmen traveled

With Snake Oil potions concocted and bottled

From covered wagon they sold their wares

A few drops would in two weeks cure any ill

Step right up get your bottle and pay your bill

Cures headaches stomach cramps and every little chill

Almost two hundred years later they’re still here

In your face on TV peddling tales for you to hear

Sneaky and brazen they make their plea

Step right up folks try this weird new cure

Promising side-effects you don’t want to hear

Xeljan Invokana Keranique and Stelara

Just ask your doctor gets him off the hook

So many pills they don’t all fit in the book

Puts all on you when things go wrong

A hundred bad things happen to get one imagined cure

You need this new bottle it’s only just one more

Leaving you worse off than you ever were before

Snake oil salesmen invade your mind

With flowery words they hope you’re blind

Every day when you turn on your cable line

Blind we are and hooked on their elixir

Trusting our lives to this witchdoctor’s fixer

A drug-crazed public believing every word

Expecting a pill for every ill they’ve heard of

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Clip art from: https://bilbosrandomthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/08/clip-art-friday.html

 

A Tree Grew From My Heart

A Tree Grew

A tree grew out of my heart

With roots entwined around my toes

Each year for seventy years it grew

Rings of varying width tell stories true

Years of small beginnings fragile and thin

Others of great growth and scars within

Good years of encouragement and strength

Branching out each season increasing in length

Showing beautiful new growth as new rings swell

Shedding the bark of last season’s junk

Reaching out each morning to the warmth of the sun

A tree grew out of my heart

And in the middle of winter it broke and shattered

Split right down the middle and some limbs scattered

Feeling like it would never recover

But bruises heal time recovers that broken heart

Growing ever stronger with each new season

Putting down roots drawing deeply from its source

Knowing spring will come once again one day

This is just another step adding beauty to its depth

A tree grew out of my heart

Through every season of my life

Creating nurturing nests for the young

Shading them from the heat of the sun

Weathering hurricane storms

And the fires of life

Only to come back again and again

And now I am here in the winter of my life

This oak that grew for the past seventy years

Revealing its colors in leaves of gold

Character comes out in flaming beauty

Knowing fall is here and winter is near

This tree that has grown out of the center of my heart

Provides a resource and life for generations that follow

Who knows what will be made of my wood

In the trees of their hearts both far and near

In the forest of the future they will carry on

 

 

Nasty Little Boogers

 

Cute little creatures so beautiful and sweet

Come to my deck and bring friends to eat

It’s one giant leap and off the window he ricochets

Claws hang as the seed feeder sways

Eating all the seeds he can get

One at a time he pulls them out

Three seconds it’s shelled and in his mouth

He sits there all day stretched over the top

Eating sunflower seeds  until they run out

His friends hog the rail and bird feeder too

When I look out the window I think it’s the zoo

With no fear of us or our continuous knocking

He continues what he’s doing

While the feeder is rocking

I holler and shout and hiss and growl

But nothing would phase them

He was not beguiled

I got out the soakers and filled them with water

Shooting streams at them hiding  is great fun for granddaughter

With three on hand I kept them running

But when I turned around they kept on coming

I tried throwing cucumbers as they ran through the yard

But my aim was no good and I threw out my arm

Young little ones want to go to the top

Climbing up the window chewing the stop

They jump and they claw and scratch and pry

But only the old ones can learn to fly

I finally gave up after much consternation and fuss

When they chewed on the windows I finally had enough

The seed feeder came down the rail feeder is empty

For the rest of the summer I have no empathy

Now I smile when I see them come by

And hope they disappear before winter is nigh

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Wiener Roast

 

What’s the difference between a wiener roast and a hot dog roast? None!! My sister and second brothers were older than me. When I was ten or eleven, they were in the youth group at our church. My father was the pastor, so we had a lot of activities at our house. We often had what we called a wiener roast which included a bon-fire and lots of hot dogs and fixings. I was only ten or eleven, so I was too young to participate in games and activities, but I did get in on the eating.  My father built a long eight foot wooden table from left over three inch tongue and grooved porch flooring.  The hotdogs, ketchup, mustard, onions , napkins and Kool-Aid drink cups were spread across the top. When the fire burned down we roasted our wieners on the hot coals. They were wonderful.

Wiener Roast    (Childhood Details Collection)

Before I was a teen I can still recall

A crackling bon-fire burning tall

All gathered ‘round in the cool evening breeze

 

A group of young teens laughing with delight

Evenings  by the woods with fireflies bright

After an evening of fun at the beginning of night

 

I was too young but I was the preacher’s kid

So I shared in the food when all the others did

After all it was at my house and my back yard

 

Sticks from the woods all sharpened to a perfection

Young folks scattered in all directions

Wieners on buns await onions and relish

 

Three dogs to a stick across the pointed Y

Perfectly roasted  about to be anointed

With ketchup mustard and maybe a fly

 

A simple evening lots of fellowship and fun

Then they all went home the wiener roast was done

And I was fat and happy after three loaded buns

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Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Write Me From Paris

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Write Me From Paris

Today I worked on art instead of writing. My friend Bob buys and sell stamps. He has big tubs of stamps that he goes through looking for that special stamp that will bring more than just a few cents. He is a good friend and we spend a lot of time solving the world’s problems down under the trees!

I asked for some of his throw-away stamps, that don’t measure up to his keen eye.  I wanted to do a mixed media project. The piece above is 12 x 16. I think of a theme, paint in the background with acrylics, and then add the stamps. I use clip art from the Webb and then add in the stamps around it gluing them on one at a time.

I used the Eiffel Tower as my first project that I worked on last week. I called it “Write Me From Paris.” It has stamps on it from all over the world.

Today I decided to do a tribute to New York City and the Twin Towers that were destroyed by terrorists on 9-11.  I think I will call this one “Remember When I Wrote You from New York?”  I used clip-art from the Webb and added color to the buildings with acrylic paints. The stamps in this piece are all from the USA.

Perhaps there is poetry in stamp art as well!! What do you think?

 

Remember When I Wrote You From New York?

Car Wash

A clean car was a priority for my father, even though we lived on a dusty dirt road. Since we did not own our house, the car was the only major possession we acquired. Therefore having a clean car became an extension of himself. We loved to help wash the car feeling the soapy water running between our toes. The photo above is a picture of me in 1953 when I was six years old. My sister is up on the bumper of our 1951 Chevy, scrubbing, and my father is on the far side. I had the job of pumping the buckets full at our outside pump. As a result,  we all acquired the need for  clean cars as we got older . 

Car Wash    {Childhood Details Collection)

Soapy suds run over dusty surfaces

Cleaning unwanted coatings from the car

Dirt roads shed their dandruff

Cars stir up cumulus clouds of dust

Following behind like a little boy’s shadow

Settling into every crack and crevice

Mud builds up from pothole splashes

Water from the well-pump and dish soap

Chase those particles like an avalanche

Washing them to the ground

Wheels washed and shined

Comet cleanser and wire brush scrubbing

Wide whitewalls cleaned to perfection

Sponged and rinsed the shine returns

Chrome surfaces sparkling in the sunlight

Seems like such an effort in futility

Knowing that the first trip out our dirt road

Will invite powdery dust

To once again settle like dandruff

On the fender-shoulders, hood, and roof

But that ephemeral pristine look

Brings satisfaction if only for a moment

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Photo from the family album

 

 

The Honsaker Tombstone

The Honsaker Tombstone  (Childhood Details Collection)

Who knows the tales that could be told

Of goings on behind the stones

In the dark after church on any Sunday night

Children loved to play among those stones

Behind our church in the cemetery

Stood the biggest marble stone I ever saw

Seven feet tall five feet wide two feet thick

Two ledge around the bottom eight inches wide

The Honsaker Tombstone stood out above the rest

A place to play and a great place to hide

My friend Jimmy told tales of making out

With a girl named Marion behind that stone

Little children love to walk on its ledge

Hide and seek and games of tag in the dark

We squealed and hollered as we ran and played

Teens walked slowly hand in hand in the dark

No need to fear falling in a grave

The plots were all filled

Digging moved further up the hill

If those stones could talk

Who knows what tales they’d tell

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Photos: Phil Roth

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate Drops and Hardtack

Children love getting boxes of candy. Each Christmas, when I was young, our church had a Christmas program where the Sunday School Children were given parts we called “pieces” to recite.  Christmas Carols were sung and sometimes they dressed up in house coats for acting out the parts of Mary and Joseph and the Wise Men and Shepherds.  At the end of the service my father would pass out boxes of chocolates along with an Apple and a big Navel Orange to each person.  The candy boxes were put together by our family a few days before. It is a very special Christmas memory.

Chocolate Drops and Hardtack  (Childhood Details Collection)

Every Christmas we had a program and treats

Where children gathered to say their piece

Of wise men and Shepherds and Baby Jesus

Cute voices and smiles they always pleased us

Each year the words were much the same

Children emerged different but cute once again

Songs and carols filled the air

Everyone who came was glad to be there

At the end of each service treats were passed ‘round

Children waited anxiously with nary a sound

An apple an orange and a box of candy

Put together at our house by the preacher and family

Flat cardboards with pictures of camels and angels

Became boxes for candy when bent ‘to right angles

A string on top made them easy to carry

Rounded lids over lapped and ends were married

Chocolate drops and hardtack sorted and laid out

Gum drops and whole walnuts finished them out

Ends folded and crisscrossed to hold it all in

A hundred or more for everyone who attends

A special time for all and a simple treat

Topped off the season and kept us all sweet

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Bing Photo: Rubylane.com