Saturday’s Mix–22 July 2017

Welcome back for another addition of Saturday’s Mix. This week we’re looking at point of view and animal stories. I’ve long loved animals, and some of my favorite books as a young reader were about animals–Misty of Chincoteague by Margurite Henry stands out. When I was older, I read Shiela Burnford’s The Incredible Journey, the story of two dogs and a cat making their way back home after being lost. The story is told from the animals’ point of view. It was made into a 1993 movie by Disney.

Because of this love of animal tales, it’s not surprising that when I moved to the farm and got a lot of animals, I helped my goat Millie with her own blog. You can see a blog post Millie wrote about the time I had to put a coat on Vinnie to keep her warm here.

Source

I’ve also used my farm animals as the inspiration for poems on my own poetry blog.  This one comes from April, 2014.

The Geriatric Farm
by Teresa L. Perin

Down on the geriatric farm
where all the animals retire,
a perfect little quaint barn charm
while everyone waits to expire.

Chewing cud and burping the blues,
“Oh, my achy, achy hoofies,”
the seventeen-year-old steer moos,
as he sputters and gives a wheeze.

The three-legged calico cat
meows her constant displeasure,
“I’m too slow to catch that dang rat!”
She switched her tail for good measure.

“My kids have all grown and left me;
no one left to nibble my beard,”
complained the wise old goat, Millie.
Above all, family she revered.

Animals stood around waiting
to see who would be next to go
and there was much ruminating;
their golden days moved too slow.

They hoped the llama might be next,
tired of the cranky Djali fits
when he’d stretch that long fuzzy neck
and give a great big rumen spit.

Down on the geriatric farm
where all the animals retire,
a perfect little quaint barn charm
while everyone waits to expire.

The challenge today is to write a story or poem using the point of view of an animal.  If you struggle with writing from an animal’s point of view, it’s okay if you write from the third person point of view. As always, you can use one of the images for inspiration.

Once you’ve written your piece please tag your work Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie and Saturday Mix then either ping back or put a link to your work in the comments below. To make things simpler you can add your link to the Mr. Linky app below so everyone will be able to quickly find your work.