March 22nd…“DESCRIBE A CHORE ON THE FARM THAT ALSO TAUGHT YOU A LIFE LESSON OF BETTER CHARACTER TRAITS.”
POEM – “The Mad Midget Manure Mangler” by N. Elliott Noorlun
Pitching manure, With my Dad, When I was a young, And learnin’ lad.
We’d fork and shovel, That ooooey gooo, Into a half round barrel who,
We’d roll on track, From barn to loo, T’wood make most folk, To say PEEYEW!!
And then it reached, The spreader where, We’d pull trip cord, And dump it there.
Then tractor’d pull, That fragrant pile, Of cow and bull, To the field awhile.
Then there were times, With fork of five tines,
We’d clean calf pens, Dad’d hear my whines,
As my fork would snag, On twines I’d left,
Leaving me crying, And so bereft.
While ranting, “I CAN’T!”, My dad spoke up,
Said, “Listen HERE!, You little pup!”,
“There just ain’t no, Such word as can’t!”,
“Whether you be uncle, Or even aunt”,
“For these here troubles, It’s all your blame”,
“Cause if you’d followed, My order’s aim”,
“These twines would never, Be right here”,
“Now keep on forkin’, And dry that tear!”
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Epilogue: Whether it was a proclivity to procrastinate, a childhood paradigm shift of learning, or just a plain lazy little stinker……..this poem of silliness found its genesis in that fact that our dear farmer father had wisely told me about the need to properly bed down our calf pens with new, clean bales of straw. “Be sure to take the two strands of twine with you OUT OF THE PEN”, he’d say to me. “Awww, heck, whadda dads know anyway!”…I thought to myself. So, I’d just cut open the bales, kick the straw around the pen and leave the twines. Later, when the straw was “soiled” and time for removal, those twines came back to haunt both me AND my dad as we struggled for each forkful of manure that snagged on twines that THIS bad boy had left behind. A life lesson learned the hard way for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.
Norwegian Farmer's Son 