Recently I’ve been running a “Fantastic Farming Tales” story or so in my column. So, this week’s version is about my Stealth Coveralls and cloth invention — you know the coveralls I have made in the U.S. from the newest and most effective military-grade camo cloth that makes the wearer all but invisible.
Users of my new invention are both positive and negative. One user sent me this report: “Milo, your Stealth Coveralls took all the fun out of stealing watermelons, pumpkins and cantaloupes from my grouchy neighbor’s garden patch.”
But, another user writes: “Wearing my new Stealth Coveralls, I walked right up to a wild turkey roosting in the tree at dusk, snagged him with a poultry-catching hook, and carried him home for a free dinner.”
Still another user writes: “There’s little in life more irritating to me than a neighbor’s mutt that loves to sneak to my driveway and tear open the garbage sacks and scatter it all over the yard. Well, I settled that problem using your Stealth Coveralls. I simply sat in the shade in my most comfortable lawn chair holding my 12-gauge shotgun loaded with home-loaded rock salt. Ho, ho, ho. That mutt didn’t know where the shot came from, but I assure you he hasn’t been back.”
Still another report: “Milo, I bought my first Stealth Coveralls a week or so back. I plan to use them this fall to sneak up on the Canada geese that love to feast on my new, tender wheat plants or glean the last of the picked corn from the field. I love roast wild goose, especially when it’s fattened on your own crops.”
And, another guy writes, “I’ve never been able to rope worth a darn and so I was always hiring some genuine cowboy to come catch a cow-critter that needed medical attention. That was expensive. Well, your Stealth Coveralls solved that problem. Wearing them, I can walk right up to a sick critter anywhere in the pasture and snub it to the pickup bumper hitch, and do my own doctoring.”
A young hunter wrote me all excited about his hunting expectations for this fall. He wrote, “Milo, I’m going to use my new waterproof Stealth chest waders and my Stealth Poncho when I duck hunt in a few weeks. I’ll wear the waders and the poncho while I paddle around in my favorite duck ponds in my fishing inner tube. I’ll simply grab my limit of ducks by the neck as I paddle by. A side benefit is that duck species identification will be much easier close up that it is while the duck is flying.”
Still another use for the coveralls wuz submitted by another happy user. He wrote, “Milo, I have a long-time employee who is a good worker when he works along side of me, but I knew he wuz a slacker when he works by himself. Well, I solved that by wearing my new Stealth Coveralls to the field where my employee wuz supposed to be tilling for this fall’s wheat crop. I found him with the tractor shut off and him napping in the shade of a tree. I sneaked up right behind him and scared him so bad I’m sure his hair will turn gray. Bet, he won’t be napping on the job any more.”
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I have my own version of a Fantastic Farming Tale for this week. Yesterday when I wuz driving at 6 a.m. to help prepare breakfast for the Old Boar’s Breakfast Club, the fog wuz so think and the road dust so bad that when I arrived to Saffordville, my pickup truck wuz covered in mud balls.
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On the wildlife front at Damphewmore Acres, I can report that the Purple Martins are gone for the year. They vacated the premises about 10 days ago for somewhere south of the border. Some of the barn swallows have left, but some are lingering and congregating for their southern trip. The mourning doves are starting to bunch up, too. Hope they don’t leave before the dove season opens September 1.
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The garden scene is rather quiet. I picked all my dried black beans, but I ain’t shelled them yet. The green beans are about kaput, as are the zucs. The acorn squash are about ready to eat if the squash bugs don’t kill the vines first. The tomatoes are finally producing close to normal, as are all the green peppers. We even had one batch of jalapeño poppers. Yum.
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Got my tiny hay crop baled this week. The big round bales of winter “chicken scratch” are stored. The chix will be ready to scratch for wheat, barley, oats, vetch, and weed seeds all winter. Thanks to my good neighbor for baling. He gets the grass hay for his cows, but it really ain’t enuf to properly repay him.
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I got a little rain last week. About a half-inch. It wuz welcome, but just a few miles south of me got 4.5-inches of rain and Emporia got 5.5-inches. It flash flooded those folks.
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Played cow-pasture pools last evening. Only the second time I’ve golfed all year. But, the team I got picked for won first place. I won $8 for my winning share, which helped pay for the fine steak I ate at the club after golf.
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Words of wisdom for the week: “Rainbows are just to look at, not really to understand.”
Have a good ‘un.
