This week I’m in the same situation as last week. I’m writing this before the new year 2022 rings in and you’ll be reading this column in the new year 2022.
Soooooo, hope you had a safe and Happy New Year. Surely 2022 will be a better year than 2020 and 2021. Nuthin’ lasts forever and all the covid varients should run out of new Greek alphabet letters this year. At least we can all make that our fondest hope for the new year.
***
Better find a place to put away your long-johns. The days are getting longer and summer is on the way. Of course, there’s always the consideration that my ol’ pappy, Czar R. Yield, wuz correct in his saying that the cold begins to strengthen as the days begin to lengthen.
Our holiday weather patterns has been anything but normal. Christmas Eve day the temps got into the 70s and the nights have stayed above freezing.
***
Winter is fur trapping season and here’s a trapping tale to make you smile:
An old trapper named, Ike N. Ketchum, was known for his ability trap and catch bobcats when they got to working on his chicken flock. But that’s about the only favorable attribute anyone could pin on him. He was about as grouchy and cantankerous an old codger as you could imagine.
Seems one winter Ike trapped a particularly mean old bobcat in a leg hold trap. The caught cat seemed as nasty tempered as Ike and was ready to take about anybody on. Well, Ike wuzn’t about to let a bobcat show him up, so he decided he was going to put that cat in a burlap sack and show him off to the boys at the coffee shop — maybe show himself off a little as well, too, as it takes a pretty tough hombre to sack a bobcat.
In the ensuing melee and fracas of sacking the bobcat, Ika got bit and scratched on the ear and didn’t think much of it. Later that day, he got to worrying about it a little because that old cat was foaming around the teeth quite a bit.
So, Ike loaded himself and the sacked cat up in his old Ford pickup and headed to see the local Doc, ol’ Polk N. Prodd, who proceeded to give Ike a thorough medical exam. The doc didn’t even try to see the bobcat — just glanced at the sack, heard the cat and shook his head sadly. Ike sat and waited for the news.
“Ike,” said Doc, “I’ve got some pretty bad news. That cat has rabies and I’m afraid you got it now.”
Well, Ike just sat there dumfounded and then asked the Doc if he could have a pen and some paper becuz he needed to write down some stuff at a time like this.
Doc, figuring he had scared Ike pretty bad, said, “Ike, this is no time to be writing down your Last Will and Testament. You’re gonna be okay. We got medicine that will take care of rabies.”
Ike then looked up and said to Doc, “Ain’t that I’m worried about, Doc. I’m just writing down some names of people I’m gonna bite before you give me the shot.” ***
A beef rancher, ol’ Wendell “Windy” Bloer, noticed one of his high-priced bulls had gone cross-eyed bull, so he called the vet to take a look and hopefully fix the problem.
The vet, Dr. Dee Spence Bolus, said “I can fix him.” Then he got a 3-foot long piece of plastic pipe out of his truck and stuck it up the bull’s butt. He told Windy, “I’m going to blow on this pipe. You watch his eyes and, when they are straight, tell me”.
The vet blew. Pretty soon Windy said, “They are straight.” So the vet quit blowing. He pulled out the pipe and charged the rancher 50 dollars.”
A week later the bull’s eyes crossed again. Windy told his hired man,”I’ll be darned if I’m having that vet come out again and charge me another 50 dollars. We can fix this bull ourselves.”
The farmer fetched a piece of pipe and stuck it up the bull’s butt. He told the hired man to watch the bull’s eyes and to let him know when they went straight and he would quit blowing.
The farmer blew and blew and blew. Finally the hired man said,”I can’t tell when his eyes are straight. You watch and I’ll blow.”
So they traded places. The hired man pulled out the pipe, turned it around and stuck it back in. Windy asked “What did you do that for?”
Hired man said ”You don’t expect me to blow on the same end you did, do you?”
***
I had a local neighbor tell me that, when he wuz a kid, one May it hailed so hard it filled the family’s cistern up to the brim.
He said, “I dumped a case of tea in the cistern and had iced tea all the next summer.”
***
That’s a tall one. Here’s a wise warning I should have given before New Year’s Eve. “Consumption of alcohol may cause you to wake up with breath so bad
you could knock a buzzard off a manure spreader at 100 yards.”
Have a good ‘un.
