Despite farming and ranching’s ranking as one of the nation’s highest accident-prone ways to make a living — and it’s high levels of financial risk and stress — there is no shortage of fun-loving, practical jokers amongst the aggie ranks.
One of those mischievous, pranking aggies wuz ol’ Q. U. “Cue” Wipper. The story of his practical joke goes like this. First, he wuz on crutches because he’d sprained his ankle walking across some frozen ground.
Second, he had driven to town to buy some groceries and some dog food. Third, he did his shopping and wuz standing in the checkout line with a 25-pound of expensive kibble dog food slung over his shoulder.
That’s when a pert lady behind him spoke up brightly and said to Cue, “Looks like your dog is in for a treat when you get home.”
Grasping the occasion opening up for a little fun, Cue replied on a serious note, “Nope, it’s not for a dog. It’s for myself. I’m on a dog food diet.”
The puzzled lady replied, “I’ve never heard of a dog food diet. How does that work?”
Cue replied, “Well, dog food contains all the essential nutrients I need to stay healthy. And, it’s non-fattening the way I use it for a snack throughout the day.”
“I still don’t understand,” the lady replied.
“Well, I keep a supply of kibble in my jean jacket pocket,” Cue explained. “Then, whenever I feel a bit hungry, I simply fetch a little kibble from my pocket and eat it. It keeps me from overeating.”
The lady came back, “That’s very interesting. Does your dog food diet work? Have you lost any weight?”
Cue replied, “Oh, yeah. I’ve lost a few pounds. But, my dog food diet about got me killed!”
“Oh, my!” the concerned lady replied. “What happened?”
Cue frowned and ended the conversation with, “Well, I got hit by a car when I chased a cat across the road in front of a car!”
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Farmers occasionally get strange requests from city folks looking to entertain themselves out in the countryside. Usually, it’s folks asking permission to hunt or fish on their land. But, once in a while, the request is a bit wild.
In this told-as-true story, a pair of urbanites pulled into a farmyard by the farm house, knocked on the door and politely asked the farmer if if they could hunt pack rats on his farm.
The farmer, a bit puzzled, asked the urbanites, “Just how do you propose to hunt pack rats?”
The pair replied, “Well, we saw a couple of huge pack rat nests in your hedgerow. We want to set them on fire and shoot the pack rats as they run out.”
Needless to say, the hunters didn’t get permission to smoke out the pack rats. The main reason wuz becuz all the leaves and grass on the farm were dry and the hunters could easily have started an out-of-control fire.
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Here are a couple odds and ends I gleaned from the news this week.
First, if you think beef steak is high priced, it’s cheap, cheap, cheap compared to a 500-pound blue tuna fish sold at auction in Japan. It sold for $3.2-million. That’s around $6,500 per pound.
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Second, a Wagyu cattleman in New England bought a used street sweeping brush that his cattle use as back scratchers.
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I’m guilty of frequently criticizing the efficiency of government entities. However, one segment of local government that operates at high efficiency is the county assessor’s office. An official from that office has visited the construction site of our new shop three times to check on it progress. And, while I’m on the subject of the shop, it’s a mystery to me why I had to purchase a building permit to get permission to construct a building that will yield the county property taxes for the next 100 years. To me, building permits should not cost a penny.
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I often get amazed at how widely distributed the material in my column reaches. Last week a young lady who works on a “tall-ship” in upstate New York emailed that she’d read my recent column on “Original Wealth.” She wanted more info on the subject and I happily obliged her. But, I never did find out how she saw the column in the first place.
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One of the geezers at our morning gabfest bemoaned the fact that it had been awhile since one of his scratch-off lottery tickets had paid off. He wondered if he had reason for a lawsuit on the grounds of old-age discrimination.
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Words of wisdom for the week: “God told man, ‘Good, obedient wives will be found in all corners of the world’ … and then he made the Earth round.”
Go figure. Have a good ‘un.
