When you want the news, raise some guineas, grow some gourds

One of my favorite poets, Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey, a former newspaper columnist for a Springfield, Mo., newspaper, wrote little common sense poems about women's lives in the Ozarks. One of her poems dedicated to a discontented wife gave the remedy for her unhappiness this way, "raise some guineas, grow some gourds."

Our former good neighbor, Opal Hensley, kept us supplied with gourds, and Lester's mother had several dippers and ornaments that she had made from gourds, but I never actually grew any myself.

We have raised chickens, including bandy chickens at times, but we have never had any guineas, but now our neighbor, three doors down the road has a flourishing flock of guineas that like to take their morning exercises in our lawn. I enjoy watching them and have learned some things by just watching them.

These guineas are various shades of gray. Some are almost black but the majority of them are a nice smooth gray under their tiny little heads, I have heard that many people have them in place of a watchdog because they raise a ruckus whenever anything unusual happens in their area.

If one of them makes their call (which sounds like "pot track") then the whole flock begins to answer with their own calls. I have watched them scurry from one spot on our lawn to another making this call each time they change directions.

They don't dig in the fallen leaves like chickens do to search for seed, but they move rather quickly from one area to another, grazing a bit as they go. Within an hour they will have come to our lawn, gone over the front part of the lawn, then usually took a stroll on our dock over the pond. Next they spread through the back lawn, or sometimes instead they continued on around the pond bank. There sometimes are two distinct groups of them, each having 15 or so fowl in them. One of the groups will often then head over to our son and daughter-in-law's home to explore, while another seems to center on our place.

While I am watching these actions of the guineas, Lester is often watching MSNBC while he is eating breakfast. I hear the news flashes and comments as I watch the hurried actions of the visiting birds. One will lead the group and when he/she? Gives the call the rest will rush to be there also, while making their own conversations about what is going on.

It's like seeing a reporter telling about some breaking news he has discovered, but immediately he gets surrounded by the women and men of the press also using their mikes to "squawk" to America what was found.

Then a little way off from the main flock, a stray guinea finds something, or is looking for the group and calls out "pot track" and the group responds with their own calls and they often meet the stray and reform their group to go yet another way.

So it is with our media people who want to be the first at the scene, but if they are not the first, they hurry to join the throng to get what they can, even if it is second hand. With the guineas they soon get tired of whatever first excited them and they leave again, but the media seem to stay longer and are even happy if the others have left. He thinks maybe there might be something.

In both cases often it is really nothing very important that the guineas or the media are talking about so loudly and constantly. It soon is forgotten, and both groups are on the track of something else.

So where do gourds fit in here? Mary Elizabeth was a strong believer in creating beauty wherever you can. If the news is bad, then having the hardy gourds growing nearby with their unique shapes and colors can help us remember that life is full of these beautiful moments and objects if we aren't spending our time chasing after bad news or calling "pot track," to our neighbors.