We enter the farmstead
And the first thing I see
A horse big as a plum tree
Roaming the yard totally freeWe exit the car and start up the hill
As we plod up to the house
We’re followed by the big horse, quiet as a mouse
He just wants a sniff and a look, to welcome us to his farmhouseAfter greeting the watch horse
We enter through the rough door
With farm frocks on pegs and work boots on the floor
Opposite the gigant wood pile storeThe house is warm and calm
Safe haven for a child in constant storms
A life that to natural seasons conform
Farm learning experience that transformsAt the end of the attic
Is a sunshine and giggle filled room
Where two girls learn how to bloom
How to freedom under responsibility assumeEvery night we played cards and talked
Early mornings we did milking shores
After breakfast the work outdoors
Everyday cooking meals and working replenishing storesThe house might have been old and creaky
© REDCAT
The work old days hard and tiring
But most days I went to bed happily smiling
Snug for once in a house full of kind caring
Written in response to both today’s GloPoWriMo prompt and for Take Me With You! at dVerse.
I realized I got lost in how this place felt to me and what it gave me, and described that, rather than the buildings, people, animals, fields, lakes and woods. But maybe that is why this place will always be vivid in my memory.
GloPoWriMo 2020
DAY 1 – Build a New Start
DAY 2 – Beloved Bookstore
DAY 3 – Sunshine and Hail
DAY 4 – Isolation Dating
DAY 5 –Staring out a Windowpane
DAY 6 – Casanova Comes Closer
DAY 7 – Swirling Colors of my Mind
DAY 8 – White – Red – Black
DAY 9 – Different World After
DAY 10 – Spring Hay(na)ku
DAY 11 – Love – Hay(na)ku
DAY 12 – Make Art – Triolet inspired
by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell
DAY 13 – What did you think would happen
to a child left on my doorstep?
DAY 14 – Ballad of the Lost Poet
DAY 15 – Writer’s class – Hay(na)ku
DAY 16 – What is a Nomad without a Tribe?
DAY 17 – Pale Spring, Here Again, Nature Awake
DAY 18 – Spring Day in the Garden
DAY 19 – Close Couplets
DAY 20 – Lost in Love’s First Flush
DAY 21 – She Tasted Like Memory
DAY 22 – Struggling Mind
DAY 23 – Written in the book of dust
DAY 24 – At the end of every week, Friday-Cozy!
DAY 25 – Slip, Crack, Shatter
DAY 26 – Humans Really Don’t Know
DAY 27 – April Rain
DAY 28 – Greeting the Watch Horse
DAY 29 – Letter of Hope
DAY 30 – Witches Walpurgis Night Preparation
The world according to RedCat 
We’re country kin, methinks. Many of my memories are very similar, going further back to my grandparents, grandma’s iron cookstove, morning glory vine on the clothesline pole, the scent of oil lamps in the evening. Wonderful memories stored in the attic of my brain. Aren’t we lucky?
Oh this is so wonderful! You’ve definitely taken us to a place and the illustration shows us that. But mostly, your words about this place, warm my heart. We lived for three years – in the first home we ever bought – way out in the countryside of rural Iowa. It was a simple life….picking apples and freezing apple pies and making apple sauce; working in a huge garden and canning so many vegetables including making our own catsup! We had enough zuchinni to feed the entire town…froze many loaves of zuchinni bread! We woke up with the sun and went to bed early. You’ve brought back so many of those memories. Those old farmhouses, countryhouse, are caring and warm and just seem to nurture. This is just a wonderful post.
You have spun rural magic. I’m a city kid, but poetry by you and Kim and Bev transports me to a different world and childhood. By the by, I think you mean “milking chores”, not “shores”; smile.
I like how that horse greeted you and the kind caring in the house.
I enjoyed what you did with the prompt. It draws the reader into the experience. I especially liked the rhyme scheme.
it was obviously a very significant place in your life and you shared that sense in delightful verse!
This reminded me of the Little House on the Prairie books – the sense of a working farm full of love and tired bodies.
I spent some days in summer just like that… a farmhouse with cousins and aunts… I know the scent of the warm attic well.
The perfect place to get lost in your feelings! I love the horses and hills, the warmth of a familiar house ‘With farm frocks on pegs and work boots on the floor’ and the image of the sunshine and giggles in the attic. There’s nothing like going to bed smiling after a hard day’s work. I agree with Sarah – it reminded me of the Little House on the Prairie books too.