Singing on the farm

Though I am loathe to sing in public, I belt it out at the farm. I seem to have different songs that come to the surface, depending on the activity at hand. Early on, I found myself singing different songs as I fed the chicks and added more clean bedding to their brooders. Nothing was ever premeditated - whatever song popped out of my mouth was the song of the day. Literally. Do you know how hard it is to get a song out of your mind when you are consciously trying to rid yourself of it?

The chicks seemed to really like Dan Folgelberg and Seals and Crofts (I am showing my age, aren't I?) So for several days I would walk into the workroom to do my morning chores and the words to the song would slip out of my mouth before I knew what I was doing. "Longer than there've been fishes in the ocean, higher than any bird ever flew..." They especially seemed to like that one until I ran it into the ground. Then one morning, out of the blue, came Seals and Crofts' Summer Breeze. "Summer breeze, makes me feel fine....something on the jasmine in my mind..." I never could remember the words to that song. So it was always..."something on the jasmine in my mind." Something what??

Okay, I cheated. I finally looked it up. You already knew this but now I know. It's "blowing through the jasmine in my mind." What is jasmine doing in my mind?

Probably my all-time, number one, "run it into the ground" favorite is the mower song. I cannot seem to get through a mowing session without the old stand by, Green Acres.

"Green acres is the place to be, farm living is the life for me.

Land spreading out so far and wide, keep Manhattan just give me that countryside."

Then I forget a little so I hum under my breath until the beat allows me to blurt out:

"da, da, da, da, da - fresh air!

da, da, da, da, da - Times Square!

You are my wife! Good-bye city life!

Green acres, we are here!!!"

This, of course, is followed by about 30 repetitions of the same said song until I finally start inserting my own words for another 15 repetitions or so. Finally I either finish mowing and the completion of my task miraculously marks the ending of my singing, or I start consciously thinking of other things to think about or sing about.

How crazy is all of this? It's a wonderful crazy. It's a puttering kind of non-serious, "let your hair down" crazy that I love. It's a silly childish kind of crazy that is completely allowed on 30 acres with no one around to tell you what a bad singer you are or how crazy you are being (except your kids, of course, but they don't count. Your family always knows how goofy you can be; that's one of the joys of close relationships. You are a goober and they love you anyway.)

Even when I try, I can't NOT sing. I love mowing and moving chickens and singing dumb songs all the while. Life here, though not perfect, is pure joy. What's not to sing about?