In a highly regulated and zoned county, an ag building company was hired by an dairying company to erect a new building for milking cows. Of course, not a shovel could be turned until all the necessary permits were acquired and paid for.

The builder proposed gray roof metal and sidewalls, but the all-knowing county planners and zoners were insistent that the builder use more expensive — and supposedly more appealing — colored sheets of metal.

After much argument, members of the zoning council were finally persuaded that “natural microscopic plant growth” would quickly grow on the grey roof sheets if a dressing of manure was applied. The builder’s convincing (and creative) argument wuz that the “natural colorized” metal would blend in better with the rural environment.

So, the zoning council reversed course and approved the building permit – with the strict condition that an appropriate mix of manure and water be appropriately applied to the roof metal “by an employee of the builder.”

Sometimes, it pays better to be creative than to be skillful.

***

As those who work in agriculture know, anything can happen when you’re out on a farm and there are millions of ways strange, funny or even scary things can happen. Here’s a story I call a good ‘un.”

On a big-run sale day at a local cattle auction, a prominent cattleman and auction regular had brought a load of high-quality feeder cattle and was hoping to top the market and get his name in the weekly report. As usual his trusty black-and-white Border Collie dog never left his side.

When it came close to the time for his cattle to sell, the rancher encouraged a good neighbor to stand in front of him at a corner of the sale ring rail. The neighbor’s instructions were to push the bid when the cattleman gave him an obscure signal.

Everything wuz set when the bidding got underway and, during the auctioneer’s chant, the neighbor got a tap on on the backside of his knee, which he interpreted as his signal to push the bid, which he did. The auctioneer took his bid. Other buyers responded with a higher bid.

This happened several times in the next minute. The neighbor thought to himself that the cattleman was going to get burnt, but the owner knows best, so he kept bidding.

Well he finally stopped getting bid signals from the cattleman, and another bidder got the cattle at a market-topping price.

The neighbor turned around to the cattleman and said: “You were lucky. I thought you weren’t going to quit giving me bid signals. The cattleman replied: “I never did give you a signal.” That’s when they both looked down to see his very happy Border Collie which had been tapping the back of the neighbor’s leg with its wagging tail.

I know Border Collies are clever, but I never thought they knew the value of cattle.

***

A surveyor drove up to a rural farmstead to stake out the site for a new farm shop. When he got out of his truck, he encountered a very big and fierce-looking Alsatian guard dog. It made the surveyor cease what he wuz doing.

But, then, the farmer emerged from the house at the sound of the dog barking and announced: “Don’t worry. He won’t bite you, but he does make a good detergent.”

The surveyor managed to contain his smile at the malapropism.

***

Two rural realtors met at the farm with both seller and buyer of a hopeful multi-million dollar farm sale. They hoped to facilitate the settling of prices for a newly erected hay barn, growing crops, diesel fuel in the tanks and hay in the barn. The negotiations were tricky, but they successfully got the seller and buyer to reach an agreement.

All that was left to negotiate a price for wuz a very large pile of cattle manure in the corner of one of the fields.

The buyer was adamant that it had fertilizer and soil-building value to it and he expected $2,000 for it.

The buyer was equally adamant that he wasn’t going to pay a penny for a pile of cattle dung on a multimillion-dollar sale. He invited the seller to cart it away if it was so valuable.

Buyer and seller locked horns with neither budging for what seemed like an age. It even seemed that it might screw up the sale.

That’s when the senior realtor pulled out his checkbook and started writing a check. “I’ll pay $2,000 for the manure pile,” he huffed, looking at the seller.

That settled the deal. The farm sold and the senior realtor got both his share of the commission check and the benefits of a big manure pile.

***

Tariffs have garnered the world’s attention. They have caused a gigantic see-saw, yo-yo in the global equity markets.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. The U.S. is going about tariffs the wrong way. Here’s how I think tariffs should be handled to assure that the trade books are balanced. Here’s an aggie example of what I’m talking about.

Assume the U.S. has a 30% tariff on China. A U.S. importer orders $10-million of Chinese widgets at a mutually-agreed price. But, before the widgets are shipped, China must deposit $3-million of tariff funds into a “trade escrow account.”

Then, once the escrow account is set, the Chinese can redeem it by buying $3-million of U.S. soybeans or corn (or anything else). Once that happens, the trade books are balanced.

***

Words of wisdom for the week: “Sometimes complicated problems have simple solutions.” Have a good ‘un.

Good stories about humorous practical jokes are common at the daily Old Geezers’ Coffee & Gabfest. Here’s a good fishy practical joke as related by my new fishing buddy, ol’ Castin Krankitt.

The story goes that a local Riley fisherman and his buddies decided to spend a weekend camping and fishing a nearby river. They spent several days getting ready for their “fishy” weekend. Saturday morning when they got to the river and after they all got settled, they turned to serious fishing.

One fisherman either was really good or really lucky and quickly filled a stringer with nice fish, which he loudly bragged about to anyone within earshot. When his stringer wuz full, he anchored it on the bank close to the camp and went around a bend in the river to continue fishing. He admonished his buddies to “watch my stringer of fish and keep the turtles from eating our supper.”

When he got out of eye-sight, one of his buddies laughed, “Let’s play a fishy practical joke.” That motivated the ornery rascals to pull the stringer of fish out of the water and quickly sliced the fillets off of every fish, being careful to leave only the heads and bare backbones.

Then they put the remains of the filleted fish back on the stringer and waited with high anticipation for the practical joke’s victim to return.

Before long, the victim returned with a few more fish to add to his stringer. When he pulled the stringer from the water, he quickly surmised that a renegade snapping turtle had made a fine meal of his hard-earned fish. And, predictably, he launched into an obscenity-laced tirade at his “friends” for their slovenly inattentiveness.

When they wouldn’t quit laughing, he looked more closely at the turtle-eaten fish carcasses and realized the prank they had pulled on him.

All’s well that ends well, and the buddies enjoyed a fine fish fry that evening and they all left with a life-long memory of their weekend together.

***

Folks who live in rural areas can expect to have both positive and negative encounters with wildlife.

The positive ones are seeing wildlife in idyllic settings like a doe and fawn coming to drink at a pond, or having a covey of quail nearly stop your heart with its flurry of wings with it flushes, or seeing mother birds diligently feeding their babies through the summer.

But, on the other end of the wildlife spectrum are the negative ones like having your pets, chickens, calves, lambs or kid goats killed by coyotes, foxes, hawks or eagles. Or, smacking a deer with your car or pickup and having expensive damages. Or, happening upon hurt or injured wildlife that you have to put out of its suffering.

And, rural law enforcement officers aren’t exempt from negative wildlife encounters and what happened to one unfortunate Riley County police officer one day last week proves the point.

While on patrol, he received notice of a car/deer collision. When he arrived, the poor deer wuz crippled and he, sadly, but dutifully, put it out of its misery.

He had scarcely handled that accident, when another similar car/deer accident happened nearby and he had to investigate that accident, too. The ugly task of killing the crippled deer had to be done again.

But, his negative encounters with wildlife that day were not over. That afternoon he received a call from within the Riley urban boundary (the stuffy new name for city limits) that a coyote and a dog were fighting in a resident’s back yard.

The officer’s investigation showed the call wuz true. A coyote and dog were squared off in the yard and having a tussle. Fearing that the coyote wuz rabid, the officer carefully approached the fight and wuz able to dispatch the coyote with one shot from his service weapon.

And, that’s when the strangest thing happened. Upon seeing the coyote being shot, the dog promptly turned on the officer and bit his leg.

Luckily, the dog bite didn’t draw blood and there wuz no rabies endangerment to the officer. But, I’ll bet he never has another day to equal his negative encounters with wildlife that day.

***

Two nights ago the area around Damphewer Acres had a really good rain. Five inches of rain provided much-needed runoff into the local ponds and flushed out the stagnant creeks. We had some hail stones up to quarter-size, but very little hail damage.

We were lucky and we know it. A lot of rural folks across the nation experienced floods and tornadoes.

***

A worn-down farm wife started nagging her bedraggled husband to take her on vacation. Finally, her exasperated hubby got a map of the U.S., pinned it to the wall, and told his wife to throw a dart at it. Where ever the dart landed, he promised to spend a week with her there.

Little did he know he’s spend the week with his wife behind their refrigerator.

***

Words of wisdom for the week: “Old age is coming at a really bad time for me!” Have a good ‘un.