Down on the Farm

[beetiger]

I've been spending a lot of my time lately soothing the little guy when nothing's really very wrong, but he's just fussy. This often gets done by bouncing and singing for long periods of time. This evening, I found myself singing infinitely many verses of "Old MacDonald Had A Farm". Everyone knows what the cow says ("moo", right?), what some of the less standard ones say (foxes "yerf!"), and can guess what some other things say/do when they think about it (tilapia "swim", for example). After some lengthy period of amusing myself (and I hope Rhys), I discovered that 1) I don't know what canonical sound some of my favorite animals make (what *do* otters say anyway?) and 2) Farmer MacDonald in my universe has a weird collection of beings (the broker says "Buy! Sell!"; the aliens go "probe, probe")

This kid cries a long long time though. Please come to my edification and aid, for next time. Whom/what does Farmer McD have on his farm, and what does it say/how does it go?

(A random memory: When I was a child, my family used to occasionally go to an odd theme restaurant called "Down on the Farm", which featured country-style cooking in a mock-rustic setting. It was the only time I ever used to eat ham.)

Comments

[kai-ta-loipa.livejournal.com]

The otters around here make a low bark/yelp sound, much like what would happen if you crossed a seagull with a puppy. Or cartoon seals! That's very close to an otter sound.

[melskunk.livejournal.com]

They also whistle and chirp, like a bird

[waterotter.livejournal.com]

The otter says "Oh! Aeouh! Ohahahahahouh. Aiouhbabababawa."

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Remember the little tykes destiny. Ninjas. With a skulk-skulk here, and a skulk-skulk there! And I've always figured otters chirped, at least when represented by humans, for lack of more ottery larynxes...

[waterotter.livejournal.com]

Ever see the Animal Planet show, Jeff Corwin, Gay Herpetologist of Action? There was one where Corwin was tooling along the Amazon, and spotted a family of otters. So he started talking to them. In otter. Like a 20 minute conversation in their native tongue.

Then they followed him begging for treats, so I guess the moral of the story is that the otter says "Food? Food?"

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of Finding Nemo, where the Seagulls said "Mine!"

[rowyn]

and the computer goes beep! beep!

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I could send you some MP3s of me and my mom singing Spanish lullabies, but between you speaking English and Bard speaking Welsh I wouldn't want to confuse the baby. :)

Frogs go "creek, creek!" (unless they're English, and then they say 'ribbit').

Toads go "croak, croak."

Ravens say "kaw, kaw!" (And so do crows!)

Snakes go "sss, ssss".

Grackles go "haaack, aaack."

Jays say "aww! Aww!"

Jaguars (in the process of moving) go "Gack, Gack!" :)

[wordslinger.livejournal.com]

Hyraxes go 'chup-chup'.

Speaking as a mom experienced with fussy babies, I suggest you pack him into the stroller and walk around the block, singing the song to him. He yells at the out of doors (where the noise doesn't echo back to you as it does in the house) and walks in the stroller gets 'em soothed down faster than anything.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I ran into a lady with a very difficult-to-feed baby once upon a time - and she got through the feeding times by singing Mary Had a Little Lamb.

However, she warned me. The things she had done to those lambs...bake, fry, poach, stew, served with mint jelly...anything she could think of.

Tractors go "vroom vroom".

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

...and on that farm, he had a cowboy, ee-ei-ee-ei-oh, with a "whoa, boy," here, and a "whoa, boy" there, here a whoa, there a whoa, ee-ei-ee-ei-oh...

(Otters are silent)

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Greek frogs go, "Brekekekek koax koax!"

(Yes, I know that this is from Aristophanes' The Frogs, but a friend of mine, visiting Greece, confirmed that the Greek frogs do, in fact, say this.)

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Cani go "choof! choof!"
Gormoror go "bash! bash!"
Herethroy go "grow! grow!"
Khtsoyis go "bang! run away!"
Orren go "Lookit that! Lookit that!"
Rassimel go "Mine! Mine!"
Sleeth go "Hunt! Hunt!'
Zi Ri smile mysterously. ("...with a mysterious smile here, and a mysterious smile there.)

You knew that book would come in handy, didn't you?

If that doesn't keep Rhys interested, sing about the 7+12.

[melskunk.livejournal.com]

Ferrets go "dook dook"
Kokaburras go "Haa haa"
Hyaenas go "Yip yip hee"
Tazmanian Devils go "Rrraaauwg"
Carp go "Gulp gulp"
Emu go "Boom"
Skunks go "Stomp stomp"
Llamas go "Spit"
Beetles go "clik clik"
Locuts go "eat eat!"
Rats go "gnaw gnaw"

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

The surfers go Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude.
The waves go CRASH!
The seagulls go skree skree
The sand crabs go skitter skitter
The wind goes *whistle*
The ducks go quack
The sealions go honk *a really loud honk*
The sharks go Duh duh duh duh duhduhduhduh *jaws shark theme*
The sea otters go crack crack yum *opening and eating abalone on chest*
The swimmers go Splash Eeeeeiii Cold!
the mussels go click click click
the foghorn goes *foghorn*
etc.

[beowabbit]

This sounds like a job for the Teetotaler's Drinking Song (also useful for long car trips):

99 bottles of beer on the wall,
99 bottles of beer!
  Take one down;
  Put it back.
99 bottles of beer on the wall!

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[hakeber.livejournal.com]

And crickets go, "Cree, cree." Or possibly, "Churr, churr." (At least ours do.)

John was a fussy baby. Lots of night time drives, miles of walking him in a stroller. Endless walking and holding him. Thank goodness they usually settle down a bit by three-four months. It's mostly waiting for their little bodies to grow and mature enough to handle things better.

This is a website an old friend of mine put together: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfa/dreamhouse/nursery/rhymes.html

Hope some of that helps.

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

Otters go "Ee! ee!" (a very short, high-pitched noise)
Seagulls go "Aldershot, aldershot." This is from an amusing misfeature in some voice recognition software a few years ago. Nowadays they go "Mine. mine."
Camels go "Hoccch, splat."
Clams go "Crack, crack." Or at least they do when the seagulls get at them.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Dragons go "hoard".
Artists go "draw".
Goths go "angst".
Skinheads go "oi".
Gangsta rappaz go "yo, bitch".

Mothers go "help".

[eetmewithtoast.livejournal.com]

Let's see . . .

Bunnies go "grunt, grunt"

Squirrels go "chukk! chukk!"

Satyrs go "Come with me! Come with me!"

Ravers go "dance, dance"

Graphics Weenies go "pixel-push, pixel-push"

aaiiiieeeeee!!!!!

[allessindra.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, a long time ago (about 11 years ago now), a good friend of mine, with two kids of her own -- 3 years and 8 months -- was back in the area visiting due to her grandparents being very suddenly possibly-deathly ill. We -- me, my husband, our 2 year old daughter, and our housemate -- stole her and her kids for teh weekend and took us all down to another friend's house about 8 hours away. Have you got this? 4 adults, and three children, *all of them in carseats*, got into a 1986 Colt Vista and drove for 8 hours.

That wasn't the hard part. The weekend was good, de-stressing happened, the infant was manageable, and the 3 year old, the 2 year old, and the 1 year old that was resident in the hosue we were visiting succeeded in REALLY AGITATING EACH OTHER.

Ahem.

THe trip back was... interesting. Fortunately, neither the 2 nor the 3 yera old could *reach* each other even tho the carseats were right next to each other.

For reasons I don't quite remember, the two older children started singing. They started singing 'Old MacDonald.' My child apparently thought that hte farmer raised ducks. Nothing but ducks. And succeeded in drowning out the older child, who was trying to sing about other animals.

The older one eventually fell asleep. THe younger one serenaded us with about an hour of:

O McDnld had a far -- e i e i o. And on dis far there was some ducks.

O McDnld had a far -- e i e i o. And on dis far there was some ducks.

O McDnld had a far -- e i e i o. And on dis far there was some ducks.

O McDnld had a far -- e i e i o. And on dis far there was some ducks.

(apparent typoes deliberately in place to mimic the child's pronunciation.)

We didn't stop her; it was much, much better than the manic bickering that had been going on before that. The adults, however, started making sotto voce comments about exactly what that farmer was doing with all those ducks. Most of it was lewd. Sanity was -- barely -- retained.

Other than that, we had started asking the child the pretty-standard 'what does the (animal) say?' Cows say moo, cats say meow, dogs say woof, birds say peep, owls say Whoo?. However, Ravens say Nevermore!, Computers say Crash!!!, Grandma says Put That Down!, Trains say "Choo, choo!" and teachers say "Spit that gum out!", and mommy, after the kid goes to sleep at night, says (something that approximates the noises I make when I'm having the type of fun that *creates* children.)

Oops. Right, don't ask taht in front of the parents.