Darkoshi

From the Jackson Criterion (Nebraska), Apr 13, 1899:

Estrayed on to my premises, about three miles west of Goodwin on or about March 15th, one iron gray mare about five years old, weighing about 1050 pounds. Owner will please prove property, pay charges and take same away. Cost of advertising this notice to be paid at the Criterion office. J.S. Clauson.
..

Andrew Anderson has completed his new dwelling house and has the most beautiful and comfortable home in the precinct.

Miss Hannah Casey who has been visiting friends here the past week, returned to her home at Waterbury, Wednesday.

Sarah Casey, Mamie Curran, Julia Manau and Mary Nichols have returned to Sioux City after spending Easter here.

While Geo. Monger was shooting at some geese the gun bursted, but lucky did no harm, only a few bruises on George's hand.

Mrs. Thos. Curran and sister, Mrs. Jno. O'Neill, visited their mother Mrs. Casey of Waterbury a few days the forepart of the week.

John H. Martin of Pender visited here a few days ago. Mr. Martin said his son W.C. was at his home in Pender at present, and feeling very good, but will have to undergo an operation in two weeks for appendicitis.

Milton McTaggard who has purchased the James Crohen farm has moved here from Iowa onto it. Mr. McTaggard four years ago was a resident of this place, and we feel happy to have him back again.

Every potato will slyly wink its eye, every beet will get red in the face, every onion will feel stronger, every oat field will be shocked, the rye will stroke its beard, the corn will stick up its ear and every foot of land will kick over the out come of the new school district.

I wondered if that last bit was from a poem. It seems to have been a newspaper meme.

The Dalles weekly chronicle, Oregon
Oct. 16, 1891
https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2003260222/1891-10-16/ed-1/seq-4.pdf

In Kansas mile after mile of side track is filled with cars loaded with wheat awaiting a chance to get into the markets. This fact seems to quiet the prating of those fellow who have been telling about the mortgages which these farmers couldn't pay. The Kansas papers seem to be having a picnic over these reports. It has gone thus far up to date:

When alliance orators talk about Kansas starving to death, every individual potato winks its eye. -State Journal.
And every stalk of corn pricks up its ears. -Wichita Eagle.
And every cabbage nods its head. -Lawrence Journal.
And every beet gets red in the face. -Clay Center Times.
And every squash crooks its neck. -Clyde Argus.
And every onion grows stronger. -Clifton Review.
And every fruit tree groans under its load. -Minneapolis Commercial.
And every field of wheat is shocked. -Leavenworth Times

Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen's Magazine, Volume 16, 1892
https://books.google.com/books?id=kyEqAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13

And the rye strokes its beard. -Philadelphia Press.
And every corn aches. -Millstone.
And every foot of land kicks. -Chicago Tribune.
And railroad stock bellows for more water.

The Rural New-Yorker, Volume 51, 1892
https://books.google.com/books?id=OjhHAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA485&lpg=PA485

And the rye strokes is beard. -Farm Journal
And the egg plant gets purple with rage, the celery turns pale -- the cucumber only keeps cool.

I was going through some of my old online journal entries which I don't keep online anymore, and got the idea that perhaps I should post them back on my website. It doesn't matter if hardly anyone ever looks at them; they are a part of my history, and some are quite poetic. But it would be nice if they were tagged, so that I could easily find all posts related to various topics. But I could do that! Instead of just posting the original html files on my website, I could post each entry into a journal system like my dreamwidth account, and tag them at the same time! I haven't even managed to find the time to tag all of my old LiveJournal entries though.

I'm not poetic like I used to be. Out of pain came poetry. Nowadays I avoid writing when I'm feeling bad. There's no point in making other people feel blue too. If I write about pain nowadays, it seems embarrassing, whiny, and repetitive. Not that I completely avoid it.

*
i want
my words
to be
beauty
*

I've been pruning and cutting down some small trees in my yard; trees growing in places where I don't want them to grow. I don't like doing it; I feel bad for the trees I'm killing and/or mutilating; I feel bad for the insects and animals that may have lived on or played on them. I sort of feel like an emotionless killer. It's so easy to cut down living branches. So easy to saw through a 3 inch trunk. Killing things, simply because I don't want them where they happen to be.

There are ant mounds in my yard. I may end up putting down bait to kill the ants. I haven't yet decided... if the mounds didn't get bigger and didn't multiply, they wouldn't bother me; but they do, and I don't want my yard to end up full of fire ants. So I may try killing them. I don't like doing it, but in the end, it is a simple matter to do. I don't have to think about the hundreds or thousands of dying ants... just like I don't have to think about the trees. Emotionless. Easy. I wonder if that is what serial murderers feel when they kill people. No, they get some kind of pleasure out of it, right? So not that. But then, I wonder if that is what hardened criminals feel when they victimize and murder people. Nothing. Expendiency. You don't want the person to be alive, or you don't care about their pain, so you hurt or kill them, for your own benefit.

The particular post I was looking for was one in which I voiced sadness and anger at FF pruning/cutting the trees which grew in front of my bedroom window, when I lived at her house. It's so ironic, that now I'm doing the same kind of thing. No sadness; no anger; it's just what one has to do, to keep things from getting overgrown and overly shady.

Irony.
Not who I used to be.


Oh. There are these very cute little insects that live on the trees around here. They are camouflaged to look like little bits of bark. But they have white fluff/feathery stuff on their tail ends.