Now, this is not a joke.

For a mere $150 entry fee, along with a 200 word essay, you can enter and just might win this contest to own a 20 acre farm, complete with 56 goats and a guard dog, in Elkmont, Alabama.  Paul and Leslie Spell, of Humble Heart Farms, are moving to Central America where they will be teaching people how to start up operations for goat milk and goat cheese, etc.  Not only will you “inherit” the farm, but you’ll get $20,000 in cash to cover first year operations.

Seems to me like a very clever way for the Spell family to get out from under Reconstruction, (but hey, we’ve all given that some thought).  Meantime, if you’re trapped in the city, and you yearn for the country, here’s your opportunity to at least “purchase a chance” of winning.  If you’re purty good with words, you have a better chance than most of us.  It’s a clever raffle.  What we used to call a gamble – and what more appropriate way to start a farm, because that’s what ALL farmers are – gamblers.

(more…)

If there were any perfect answer to this situation, it would be summed up in one rule, two words:  “Be there.”  As in, “Don’t.”  The thing you should not do is to be there.  Put another way, the thing to do is to be somewhere else.  Out of town, when possible, is an excellent idea.  Unfortunately, that’s not always possible, for a multitude of reasons.  Hence, this little guide is my service to you younger and less experienced men who may need a little help in the harmony department.

Being men, not women, let us not analyze too deeply on the whys and wherefores of life, of marriage, of why women host Ladies Bible Studies, etc.  They do, and being realists, we live with it, and we love them for it.  Indeed, there are very few things for which we do not love them, but once again, let’s don’t go there.  If we were to do so, we would regret it soon enough.  So we love them for that too.2

Being men, let’s get to the subject at hand.  You can, and will, come up with more reasons, maybe even better reasons.  Send them to the author and receive the gift of gratitude, along with honorable edition in future editions of this little manual. (more…)

Ah wuz mindin’ mah own biznes, t’uther day, sittin’ on the porch, a’swattin’ flies and drinkin’ peppermint tea (slightly amended), scratchin’ the dog’s head now and then when she put it in my lap (she’s always lookin’ for cornbread crumbs), and lettin’ mah mind wander in the late afternoon sun.

Thankin’ back over the past few years, I settled into a reverie of the toomultoous events, and how thangs had changed.  Twoudn’t none of us believed it, if you’da told us it was gonna turn out that way.

We were havin’ the normal protests by all sides of the political spektrum, which weren’t all that unusual.  But all of a sudden, three thangs happened the same week.

First, the Chinese called in their debts and so crippled the US dollar that our economy collapsed, the stock market was shut down until further notice, and all the banks were closed.  Those who got their life savings out of banks, soon found that the only thing those pieces of green paper were good for was startin’ fires.  Of course, the Chinese economy, and ever other country collapsed at the same time.

The next thang wss the riots, and they were everwhere.  They started as food riots in the cities, since most people didn’t have a week’s worth of food stored in their pantries.  But those riots became race riots in the cities, and suddenly there were two hundred or more race wars ragin’ in nearly every major city in America.  It was a three-way war, and nobody was safe.  Martial law was swift, and while often inadequate, restored order to most of the cities, with remainin’ hot zones where nobody ventured.  People demanded martial law, and they got it.  It wasn’t always pretty, and books will be written on that subject.

(more…)

You shouldn’t oughta name a dog with a human name.  It not only gives the dogs pretensions, it causes people to think they are almost human.  Contrary to Politically Correct thinking these days, dogs are animals, and while I know some people who claim that, “My dog is just like our children,” I’m not buyin’ it.  (Unless of course, there’s sumpthin’ wrong with yore kids.)

We once had a neighbor, this was a long time ago, whose name was Butch.  Problem was, his dog’s name was Randy.  I would wave at him when he came or went, but could never remember in time which name to call him.  “Now, let’s see, if that’s Randy, then the dog is…, no, the dog Randy.”  By the time I figured it out, he was around the corner.

So anyway, this friend of my most recent wife found out we needed a dog to bark at the coons and possums at night, around the hen house.  This was recent-like.  They were moving out west, needed a home for their dog.  I asked’em what kind it was, and he said, “It’s a black and white Labrador.”  Uh-huh.  Whatever.  It’s a mongrel, probably part Lab.  But she had a human name when she got here.  I’m not gonna tell you what it was, because it was embarrassing, and because I’ve already deliberately forgotten it.  I named her Chicago.  I suppose you think you know where she came from now, don’t you?  Well, she had four white socks, and it was one of those names that just came natcherl like.  When we took her to the vet, we put her name down as “Chicago”.  So that’s her name now.  We call her “Sox” for short.  Please don’t call her “Socks”!!  It confuses her.  We call her “S-O-X”!  She’s from Houston – did I mention that?  But she’s already somewhat psikotic and has poor self-esteem, so we didn’t want to make it any worse by naming her “Astro”.

Now this is a true story.  A few years back, when circumstances dictated that I live in a small town (which was still preferable to a big city!), we had a flock of chickens in a pen at the back of our city lot.  The pen was a bit flimsy, and I’m not exaggerating to say the chicken shed was probably over 100 years old.

(more…)

Whenever I can I like to drop in at the Calf B for an overpriced cup of coffee. It’s not the coffee, which is passable, it’s the company. They got this big old round table in the side room where the locals will be gathered in the event that it’s “too wet to plow”, or “too dry to plow”, or “too cold to plow”, or “too…”, well you get the idea. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s very serious war planning. But it’s never dull.

From time to time a stranger manages to find a seat among us, usually as a guest of one of the locals. Some years back one of them commented on the broad array of experience and “country wisdom” he heard at that table, and he said we were sort of a modern version of the Knights of the Round Table. After a lot of scoffing, the debate came down to whether we were “Serfs of the Round Table,” or just the “Yokel Round Table.” Point is that none of us takes ourselves too seriously, because we all know who we are, and posturing is difficult among guys who will deflate your ego quicker than you can spit.

When I see Robert E.’s truck parked on the back side of the café, I make the time to stop and have a cuppa. You only have to meet Robert E. to appreciate him. Or hate him. He’s what we call “hard core”, and I ain’t talking about porn here. Robert E. jes’ calls it like he sees it, has no regard for political correctness, and acts like he don’t know what that is, but I have my suspicions. He’s twice as fun when we have a newbie at the table, and no one misses that if don’t have to. You can chuckle all day long over the shock effect that Robert E. can have on some city dude who has had the misfortune to be educated in a university, and then asked the wrong question.
(more…)