Junior Master Gardeners' Rap

I became a Master Gardener and am currently volunteering at the Hill Country Youth Ranch. Teaching is my background so working with the children is comfortable and rewarding for me.  From the Junior Master Gardener Handbook I found a simple "rap" that would be fun to do with the boys and girls.

A verse from the guide:

Tomato sat on the railroad track

Thought he was the boss

Along came the choo-choo train (clap)

Tomato sauce.

I created several more verses:

Carrot sat on the railroad track

She’s really in a fix

Toot! Toot! Along it comes

Making carrot sticks.

Radishes are my delight

Straight from the garden soil

Wash them bite them yum yum yum

They are worth the toil.

What have you planted

In your garden space?

What else can we rhyme

In our greenhouse place?

Basil sat on the railroad track

Smelling oh so good

Along came the choo choo train

Pesto on our food.

And as our rap does end today

I hope you take the time 

Clap it out or sing it strong

And try to make it rhyme.

As time allows perhaps the students can create a verse about something they have planted.

In the meantime the above fits with today's NaPoWriMo prompt!😀

Ava

 

Ava

hundreds of dollars

today our dog Ava visits a New Vet

but then we never saw the same vet at the old vet

where prices were outrageous

hundreds of dollars for shots

hundreds of dollars for medicine

hundreds of dollars to tell me my dog is healthy

which I happily paid hundreds of dollars to hear.

the New Vet is recommended

from the online trustworthy nextdoor neighbor site where

I know no one yet everyone from the noones to the someones

has an opinion.

I learn from the someones that

New Vet is a young lady with a new practice

on the other side of town.

I will pass hundreds of vets to go to her

like I pass hundred of churches to go

to the one I haven’t been attending

that is sunday’s story

today’s story is Ava

she went to her spa last week the groomer

told me her anal glands had a thick excretion

I know: TMI, but that is the reason 

I will pay hundreds of dollars 

with the New Vet.

everyday is different yet some seem the same

when retired old willing to spend

hundreds of dollars on my dog.

My Prayer for You

 

Happy Easter Happy Passover and More!

I have been studying "Passionately Christian, Compassionately Interreligious" on beadisciple.com

these past ten weeks. 

Today, Easter Sunday for Christians, I would like to recognize the other faiths we studied. 

I shall follow this post with my mission statement and my Christian theology within the next two weeks.

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Easter is a sacred season of Christianity. At the time of Easter, there are 

religious festivals in Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Judaism, to name 

a few. Jains observe the birthday of Mahavir; East Asian Buddhists observe 

the birthday of Quan Yin. There is the Passover of the Jewish Faith and 

the Sikhs recall the fifth Guru, Guru Arjan Dev, who compiled the 

Guru Granth Sahib. These are among the religious festivals celebrated 

at this time. 

The above paragraph is from:

https://sheppartoninterfaith.org.au/?p=3283

Today's short poem celebrates His Resurrection and My Salvation.

He rose from the depths of hell

for my salvation

for my sins

for my separation from our God

He rose from the depths of hell

for your salvation

for your sins

for your separation from our God

I accept His grace, His love, His longing

for mankind

Of course I ask

Will you?

Amen and Blessings to all!

Joan💗

freely given

 

freely given

overcast, sprinkles drop with

expectations on the weeds

the grass the blacktop

the budding limbs of trees

saturday’s sunshine absent 

cancelled farmer’s market

feels like a free day 

bookmobile 

in the front yard

to be washed

didn’t happen

to travel downtown

didn’t happen

to meet children

with free books

didn’t happen

we relax

     write a rhyme

             wait for sunshine 

to happen.

            

             *                *                 *                 *                  *                *                * 

(Our napowrimo prompt today was a weather phenomenon. I forgot to rhyme! I love to rhyme.

I am going to take the above poem and create a rhyme or two within it.)

04.04.2026

heddles pedals and shuttles

My poem has nothing to do with flowers in a Mason jar.

It's about weaving!

However, when I think of weaving I immediately am focused on colors and textures,

all of which are bursting from the above container.

yesterday I was a weaver

heddles pedals and shuttles

the rhythm of weaving words

I return to my loom again

and listen to the clickety clack

of heddles pedals and shuttles

the warp is complete 

a job not favored by most

but lost in the repetition

of warp is the weft

the best collective of whatever 

I choose

for my heddles pedals and shuttles

the bobbins are wound

the loom speaks its sounds 

I begin my journey of threads

in out skipping missing

the freestyle weaving I flaunt

with my heddles pedals and shuttles

the project took hours

the traveling was miles 

I brought it home yesterday

from Her Studio

where spools line the walls

and fill the drawers waiting

for heddles pedals and shuttles

joanconnor

04.3.2026

Tanka Treats

5-7-5-7-7-syllabic tanka

celebrating Dave

birthday boy turns ninety-nine

today we eat out

“The party will be next year

when I turn one hundred.”

(munch that last word to = five syllables :)

cacti obsession

my current plant collection

one happy greenhouse

where the music plays daily 

uplifting spirits and spines

joan💝 04.01.26

Yeah! for Snoopy!

Doesn't this cartoon say it all? I have had a few days this month just like Snoopy!

With a hot cup of coffee and a sleeping pet by his side, in his fuzzy bathrobe - 

it couldn't get much better now could it?

We (being Hubby and Self and Four-Paws) have been hunkered down the past week or so, meandering out only to pick up milk and a few extras and the prescription which made the trip mandatory.

We're better but it has felt so good not going and doing and busying that I am adopting this lifestyle for the foreseeable future. 

However, today I am going to wash the Casita trailer and truck, still hooked up for the camping trip we cancelled due to illness. 

Tomorrow we take the truck/trailer for the distribution bar installation that we totally paid for ($500+) and forgot that we had ordered them. I am anticipating that they will be a challenge to hook up, but learning independence is my mantra in my octogenarian decade.

Have a wonderful day and finish "doing nothing!" 😀

 

Blessing for You

In our Creative O2 class with Jill Badonsky we wrote blessings that were responses to prompts. 

It was a pleasant experience and I share below my blessing with the prompts. 

The class ends this coming Wednesday. It has been twelve weeks of sharing and mindfulness within the concept of creativity.

Blessing:

What I like about nature:

May you find God’s spirit among the rustling trees, inhaling moving air on a slightly windy day as you sit in solitude in a small quiet space.

What my creativity does for me:

May you be provided an outlet for your personal creative journey as you seek to express delight and disarray within the textures of life, the colors of emotions, the flow of experience and the finality of completion.

What two wishes do you have for the world:

May you live in this moment working with others as you would have them interact with you.

What would you like to be surrounded by:

May you be surrounded by simplicity, meaningful relationships, vibrant activity - all interrupted with doses of serenity.

What would you like to hear from somebody else:

May you know that you are created in His image and you are complete just as you are.

                                               *                       *                         *                        * 

Give your definition of creative bliss:

Creative bliss is unadulterated contentment from the creation of mud pies to styling paper doll clothes to the published book to the gallery-hung art piece to the woven textures hung over your bathroom door. It all emits satisfaction. Creativeness is the movement to blissfulness within each artist’s soul as she begins again.

Joan Connor

03.28.2026

Poetry Commitment

Below is cut/paste from the NaPoWriMo site.  I am participating this year and posting daily the prompts via cut/paste on Story Circle Network's site. They are forming a community of poets participating. Check it out:      https://www.storycircle.org/class/napowrimo-community-poetry/

Na/GloPoWriMo Is Nearly Here

Happy Ides of March, everyone (unless you’re Julius Caesar). For those of you who are not doomed Roman emperors, mid-March should hold no terrors — especially because it means that National/Global Poetry Writing Month is almost upon us. As it turns out, writing a poem every day for a month is far less intimidating than a bunch of fairweather friends armed with daggers! Learning to dance on the knife’s edge of verse is a wondrous kind of fun — and the mortality rate is refreshingly low.

All that silliness aside, we’ll be back in the three days leading up to April. In the meantime, why not spend some time exploring The Poetry Archive? This non-profit is dedicated to preserving recordings of poets reading their work, and they have nearly 2,000 recordings freely available online. 

Happy listening!

I am also posting this blog on the NaPoWriMo site. I intend to post poems that I write during April on the blog. 

In the meantime I am working on writing Tiny Haibun in a Call of the Page class with Alan and Karen.

Jeremiah 29:11

 

The above Bible verse has been placed in front of me several times in the past 24 hours.

Again this morning, it appeared on a Facebook post I was browsing.

It seems to be a cornerstone verse for the Christian Women's Job Corps where I spent a mere one hour yesterday.

Thanks, Lord, for reminding me that you are my Leader, my go-to, my Saviour, my Comrade, my Pinnacle.

Yes, you have prospered me. 

I have not been harmed.

I have hope for today, tomorrow, the rest of my aging life.

I have plans and hopes for the future.

Yes, YOU know the plans.

I am at peace with YOUR plans.

Thank-you, Jesus!

In the meantime, I need to seek YOUR face within my worship, my Bible, my devotions, my erratic prayer life and my Bible studies.

Let me conclude this early morning with a bouquet of flowers and a verse!

Flowers of God" (Excerpt)
By Jean Penner
Softly growing in the garden of life,
Are beautiful flowers from God,
Lovingly planted inside our hearts,
Lining the pathways we trod.