Child Prodigy

My favorite Grandson Jackson Danger came for a visit over Christmas and of course had to bring those two people who take care of him, namely Robbie and Catie.

During the visit, I was allowed to spend some time alone with Jackson (those “two people” don’t let me be alone with Jackson very much – I don’t know why) and I sang a little song to him which he seemed to greatly enjoy. It’s a gentle little song familiar to many redneck parents and grandparents who have sung it to their progeny over the years to the tune of “Turkey in the Straw”:

Oh, I had a little chicken but she wouldn’t lay an egg.
So I poured hot water up and down her little leg.
Oh, the little chicken cried and the little chicken begged,
But she wouldn’t even try to lay a hard-boiled egg.

Jackson seemed to like the little song and told me that he had written a second verse to this little ditty. He was gracious enough to share the second verse with me and in turn I share it with you here on Buddha Belly Farm blog:

Oh, I had a little chicken, but she wasn’t bar-b-qued.
She was roasted in the oven as a tasty Cordon Bleu.
With some lightly sautéed mushrooms and a fruity chardonnay,
She was much more appetizing than the egg she wouldn’t lay.

There is a certain sophistication and latent intellectualism revealed within Little Jackson’s lyrical ability. In fact, I think he is a child prodigy, a genius. The little fella brings tears of joy to these tired old eyes and a great sense of pride to my soul. I mentioned to Catie that it was so heartening to know that her son, my grandson, has so much in common with me, and was so much like me, his beloved and respected Grumpa. And I vowed to her that I would teach Little Jackson every thing I know.

Upon hearing these words, my loving daughter, mother to my grandson, gently placed her hand on my shoulder and said, “Dad, it’s bad enough Jack has inherited your ‘physique’, such as it is. I certainly don’t want him to be afflicted with your warped sense of humor.” With that, she took Little Jackson from me and I heard her softly say to him as she walked away, “Mama ‘good’, Grumpa ‘bad’.”

Motherhood has not changed Catie too much – she’s still a rotten little girl.

Wonderful white Christmas in Newalla, Oklahoma

Timing was perfect. Robbie and Catie and Jackson Danger arrived from Lenexa, KS, the night of the 23rd, and Christmas Eve morning the 2009 Blizzard began.

Visibility dropped to less than an eighth of a mile, and snow drifted around the buildings. But, Pam and I have seen worse, having lived in North Dakota the first part of our marriage. In a way, this little blizzard sweeping through the plains of Oklahoma is somewhat of a treat. We have a house full of food and drink. The only thing missing is the last member of our little family, Daniel, who is stuck in Edmond, north of Oklahoma City. He probably will not get here until Saturday. We are expecting Linda and Tom from Tulsa then as well, so maybe then we can eat up some of this food.

Merry Christmas to all. And for pete’s sake, Oklahoma, stop dreaming of a white Christmas already.

Dad's situation

The last few weeks have been busy. For those few hardy souls who enjoy reading this blog, you notice that nothing has been posted for about a month. We at Buddha Belly Farm have just been too busy with other pressing matters.

For those of you who don’t know, my dad had a stroke about three weeks ago. At the time, he was visiting in Missouri taking care of some things at his house he’s trying to sell. It was a minor stroke, but he ended up being taken first to the local hospital and then to the hospital in the Baptist Home for the Aged. I was on a business trip at the time in Georgia and cut the trip short to meet Linda (my sister) in Missouri to check on Dad and see what needed to be done.

Based on our own observations and after consulting with those in the know, it was determined that Dad should immediately be admitted into the assisted living center at the Baptist Home for the Aged.

At first, he expressed some concern about being in the Home, but after signing all the paperwork and recognizing that everyone he knows is nearby, he is now resigned to the situation.

The Baptist Home is where Dad wanted to be when the time came and had recently applied for an apartment there. He still wants to be on his own, but that is now impossible. Looks like his traveling days are over as he now needs daily assistance.

At this point in most blogs, it is customary to appeal for donations and contributions to provide for Dad’s daily needs. This is not necessary as the Baptist Home is an excellent charity-based and charity prone facility that will take care of Dad regardless of his ability to pay.

So, that is the gist of the matter. Not much update for three weeks of activity. But, as you know, I am a man of few written words.

Another "Danger Lane" Exclusive

If you think hard enough about seemingly unrelated concepts, you can come up with the most stupendous ideas.

Take for instance the following seemingly unrelated concepts:

1. My lovely niece Andrea once mistook some goats in a field for dogs, and proclaimed that the place must be a "dog farm".

2. Part of the new "multiculturalism" purports to celebrate different cultures through cultural foods. To some folks, if you don't eat foods from other cultures, you ain't got multiculture and are just another American redneck devoid of any culture at all.

3. In certain countries, people eat yesterday's pets. In a small town in Korea, I once saw a dog hanging in a butcher shop. (No, I don't think it was A.K.C. registered, but it looked tasty.)

Now, put all these seemingly unrelated concepts together and what do you have? You have the next great idea coming out of Buddha Belly Farm:

"Danger Lane Dog Farm and Canine Cuisine Restaurant".

In this age of "multiculturalism", it is important to do your part to enhance and celebrate other cultures by sampling their food. When it comes to food, we naturally celebrate different cultures in America. We have Italian restaurants, Mexican restaurants, German restaurants, Vietnamese restaurants, Greek restaurants and many other culturally inspired restaurants too numerous to allow inclusion here.

And now Buddha Belly Farm has the same answer to both the food shortage question and to the growing dog population question: “EAT THE DOGS”.

Buddha Belly Farm is proud to offer various cuts of organic farm raised meats, grown from 100% domesticated canis lupus, served up in various multicultural styles using recipes adroitly plagarized from legitimate restaurants for your dining enjoyment.

The lovely and astute Nana has been busy developing the following multicultural dishes designed to titillate and inspire your palette to be more culturally diverse:

Southern Fried Spaniel

Shar-Pei Cordon Bleu.

Bar-B-Qued Beagle burgers.

Chicken fried Poodle

Terrier Tots.

Schnauzer Wellington.

Pug chops.

Baked Alaskan Huskie.

Pomeranian Pot Roast.

Collie Cutlets.

Chihuahua Tacos.

Boxer Burritos.

Shih tzu Stir Fry.

Yorkshire Terrier pudding.

Chow Chow kabobs.

Mastif and potatoes.

Weiner Dog schnitzel.

Bluetick stew.

Ground Hound meatloaf (see note below).

Bulldog casserole.

Redbone and rice.

Pinscher pot pie.

Spaghetti and Mastif meatballs.

And a special recipe for that favorite hunting dog that is now past his prime, "Peking Duke".

Samples from the children's menu include "Snoopy Doodles" and "Marmaduke Surprise".

(Note: Although we do have a surplus of feline products, we do not mix our shredded cat with the ground hound. That just wouldn't be right.)

Odds are Against

Last year, I hit a deer on the road to our house (or, more accurately, “the deer hit the car”). Since, then, Pam and I have had about three or four close calls with deer on the road. This morning I had another “close encounter” that was pretty darn close – I had to apply the brakes rather sharply and almost caused the donuts to spill in the car (which would have been a REAL disaster).

I always thought that once you hit a deer the odds go down that you would hit another one anytime soon, like being struck by lightening – once you’re hit the odds should go down that you’re hit again right away.

Apparently, though, once you hit a deer, the odds of hitting a deer increase thereafter. It’s almost like hitting a member of a mob family – they want revenge for the previous hit. So one must constantly be on guard and expect the unexpected.

This got me thinking about some other bookmaking opportunities here on the farmage.

For instance:

The amount of dog poop in the yard is directly proportional to the square of the size of the dog multiplied by the amount of dog food the dog consumes.

The odds of stepping in dog poop in your yard are indirectly proportional to the care taken to avoid dog poop in your yard, and directly proportional to the quality of shoes one is wearing.

And last but certainly not least . . .

The odds of contacting a pile of fresh mushy dog poop with a gasoline powered weed wacker is indirectly proportional to the amount of safety equipment the operator is wearing.

Well, OK, wearing safety glasses and a dust mask when operating a gasoline powered weed eater in a dog kennel won’t necessarily help you beat the odds, but can make the experience a bit less traumatic.

Danger Lane Workshop Special Offer

ATTENTION!! You may qualify for an exciting new program direct from Danger Lane Workshop. For a limited time only, and for the price of a small cottage, you can help save the environment by purchasing this exclusive FIXED CARBON TABLE.



Imagine, no more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, no more nasty carbon soot on your clothes. You can now have your very own carbon-offset wood table to rest your coffee cup, prop up your feet, or simply stare at while you imagine you have saved the planet.

This fixed carbon table is made from completely recyclable wood.

As you know, nature uses wood to fix carbon so that nasty carbon dioxide is not released into the atmosphere. Each day, trees use billions of tons of carbon dioxide to make wood, effectively binding the carbon into the wood fibers, permanently locking the carbon within the very fibers of the wood itself. But, as wood decays, as it decomposes, or as it is burned, the carbon in the wood naturally combines with the oxygen in the atmosphere, creating carbon dioxide.

This natural cycle created by nature has been happening for millions of years but has recently been declared by trusted politicians to actually destroy nature.

And now, YOU CAN PREVENT THIS NATURAL CYCLE FROM OCCURRING!!

For a limited time only, you – yes, YOU - can purchase an authentic fixed carbon table for the low low price of $350, plus shipping and handling (and taxes and governmental fees). This table is manufactured by hand from the most natural material known in nature, real wood. But not just any real wood, but real wood NATURALLY infused with actual carbon.

Yes, it's true. This table actually holds carbon preventing it from entering the atmosphere, preventing the creation of carbon dioxide.

Forget silly cap and trade schemes; forget carbon offset scams. This is the only program that GUARANTEES you will be buying GENUINE FIXED CARBON that will not be released into the atmosphere for as long as you own the table.

But that's not all. This fixed carbon table comes with an introductory CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTIC FIXED CARBON. Yes, for the low low price of an additional $300 you can show your friends, your family, your boss, your spouse, your significant other that you are saving the planet by having in your home an authentic certified FIXED CARBON TABLE.

If this table had not been made, the wood would have been chucked by a woodchuck, or burned by a moonshiner, or simply left to rot in the woods releasing that nasty carbon into the environment.

And if you do not purchase this table IMMEDIATELY, YOU will be guilty of destroying the planet.

So act now. Send $350 for the table PLUS an additional $300 dollars for the fixed carbon Certificate of Authenticity to Danger Lane Workshop, Newalla, OK. You'll be glad and guilt free if you do. (Note: no personal checks, no money orders, no credit cards accepted. Certified bank drafts accepted with an additional $10 handling fee. Cash and gold always accepted.)

CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTIC FIXED CARBON TABLE offer good to U.S. east coast and west coast residents only. San Francisco and Boston residents add 15% sales tax and an additional 20% gullibility surcharge. New York City residents add 50% for the municipality tax, the county tax, the state tax, the luxury tax, the value-added tax, the transportation tax, water-ways tax, air tax, refuse tax, street-vendor tax, sales tax, and any other tax devised by the state, county, and city of New York.

Table guaranteed M.I.O. (Made in Oklahoma).
From a concept M.U.B.A.G. (Made up by Al Gore). (Gotta give credit where credit is due.)

Maneuvers and mannerisms

Recently, we visited Jackson Danger (and by extension my daughter and her husband) in Lenexa, Kansas, just outside Kansas City. Pam’s parents from SE Missouri also visited the Kansas City area at the same time. I thought it was nice of them to drive all the way across the state to visit for a day. They are pretty good people, in spite of the fact they drive a hybrid car.

Pam’s mom, Ruth Ann, told a story about how Pam’s dad, Phillip, recently saved a person’s life. Now, while she was telling this story I was a bit distracted – Jackson needed my advice about something and I was engaged with him – so I may not have the story exactly right and may have gotten some of the facts wrong, but here is the jest of what I gathered:

Apparently, Phillip and Ruth Ann were visiting with some friends and one of them started choking on some food. Ruth Ann related how Phillip was able to clear the friend’s breathing passage and in the process said something about hugging men and Phillip’s friend complaining about a resulting sore throat.

Half hearing the story, I got a bit confused, and at this point I began to pay a bit more attention to what she was saying because this just didn’t sound quite right. And when she mentioned something called the “hind lick maneuver”, my radar became fully active. And when my son-in-law agreed with Phillip that “you must be gentle when doing this maneuver,” I doubled my efforts to understand what was being said.

Now, people in SE Missouri are pretty conservative, and pretty much keep private aspects of their lives to themselves, especially when it comes to “personal” activities, so I was naturally surprised that Ruth Ann would openly tell us about this kind of thing. And Ruth Ann was so nonchalant about it, making me think that this was something they engaged in regularly. It almost made me blush – almost. After all, I am an adult, I’ve traveled around the world some, I’m a “been there, done that” kind of guy, but there was just something wrong with hearing my in-laws talk about this kind of stuff, especially in front of little Jackson Danger.

I was just about to protest when I realized that we did live in a progressive world and thought better about correcting my in-laws (they drive a hybrid car, after all). They too are adults and are entitled to their personal lifestyles. Who am I to judge? So, I decided to participate in the conversation and started describing similar things that occurred around the Naval Bases in the Philippines, and went into some details about some of those activities.

Well, everyone in the room suddenly became quiet and just stared at me. Phillip excused himself to get another cup of coffee, and Ruth Ann excused herself to “powder her nose”. Pam gave me a somewhat disgusted dirty look, while Robbie just sat there and kind of snickered behind his hand. I knew something was wrong, but didn’t realize just how TERRIBLY wrong until Catie, my daughter, glared at me with distasteful incredulity. Now, Catie often glares at me with distasteful incredulity, but this was such a much more intense look of distasteful incredulity that it frightened me into silence right in the middle of my description of the “Filipino Jungle Boy maneuver”.

Seeing that the conversation had kind of dried up for that moment, and not being quite sure what had happened, I thought it best to sit quietly for the remainder of the day.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder why my family doesn’t like it when I join in their adult conversations.

Release the Hounds

Bailey da Hound Dawg is the same age as Jackson Danger.

This is where the similarities end.

Jackson Danger is still a cute innocent little boy and still reliant upon his mommy and daddy.

Bailey da Hound Dawg is a cute recalcitrant little wretch manipulating his mommy and daddy.

Jackson Danger will cry when he wants to eat, then will be happy and go to sleep until he poops his diaper.

Bailey da Hound Dawg will cry and bark and howl to get food, then will howl even more to get even more food, then will steal the cat’s food, then will sleep under foot, then will poop in the yard where we will step in it, then will howl for more food.

Jackson Danger is polite enough to live within the means of his mommy and daddy.

Bailey da Hound Dawg is now officially beginning to eat us out of house and home.

The neighbors initiated a lawsuit against us because there is evidence that Bailey swallowed their German shepherd. But, the single eyewitness did not actually witness the consumption of the dog and no remains of the German shepherd have been found, so the case may not come to court.

We had to repair our downstairs air conditioner. It seems that Bailey was attempting to sabotage our house by chewing the wiring behind the air conditioning unit. We think he has been jealous of Petey da Wiener Dog and wanted to get even (Petey is an indoor dog). But, now that the weather is getting cooler, we may have the upper hand on Bailey.

Anyway, after completing the repair and presenting us with the bill, the service tech suggested we keep Bailey away from the air conditioner. Well, “DUHHHH” - we have already come to the conclusion that we have to keep Bailey away from pretty much EVERYTHING.

We are now anticipating Bailey’s next move – we suspect he will either attempt to dig up the water line from the well house, or continue a previous attack upon the satellite TV wiring.

Pam moved the cat’s food to a table on the back porch. Previously, the table was plenty tall enough to prevent Bailey from accessing the food. That has changed. Bailey can now easily reach the cat’s food and is not bashful about doing so – which really isn’t much different than the raccoons and skunks getting access to the cat’s food, so I don’t know why Pam makes such a fuss about Bailey getting the cat’s food. She said something about the poor little defenseless felines not getting enough food. Whale hale, the poor little defenseless felines should go out in the fields and eat the rodents like felines are supposed to do. That would help solve another problem Pam had in the kitchen the other day involving a cute little defenseless mouse.

But, I digress.

In spite of his rambunctious nature, Bailey is shaping up to be a fine dog. Because of his size, Pam and I tend to forget that he is still a puppy and will do puppy things. For the sake of our sanity, we can only hope that his mature nature catches up to his body weight before too much longer.

And for the sake of his own survival, I hope he will not dig up any more of Pam’s flowers – she still harbors wrath from the “raccoon and chickens” incident and has learned how to use her AR-15.

Stuck in Albuquerque on business.

Albuquerque is really quite a nice town to be stuck in. I’ve been here since last Monday and the weather has been mostly nice with lows in the 40’s and highs in the 60’s. And except for the first week, it has been dry. The people are generally friendly and there are a number of activities available for the weary traveler.

I mentioned in a previous blog that there are 361 city parks here. And just east of the city are the Cibola National Forest and the Sandia Wilderness Area, where I hiked over the weekend. But, except for the weekend hike, I have limited much of my activities to eating and drinking beer so as not to overwhelm the residents of the fifth most fit city in the U.S.

As I said, I’m here on business. We are conducting a class for the Intertribal Information Technology Center (IITC). The IITC coordinates business activities between various Native American tribes. The people in the class are representative of different Native American tribal companies around the country. We have been hired by the IITC to train tribal members to convert technical documents for their various customers, which include the U.S. Army.

This class is quite diverse. We have one person from Oklahoma, two folks from Wyoming, two from North Dakota, two from Hawaii, and four young people from Barrow, Alaska.

Even though the class officially began Monday last week, the single guy from Oklahoma didn’t arrive until Tuesday. His boss explained to us that he thought the class started NEXT week. In typical Oklahoma fashion, the Pawhuska area of Oklahoma apparently began “daily-savings-week” early in October and his boss just lost track of time. And like everything else associated with Oklahoma, it is OK.

Pam would be interested in knowing that the two NoDaks in the class live close to Rugby, ND, the geographical center of the North American continent. For those of you who are geographically challenged (my lovely Niece Andrea comes to mind) the geographical center is the location where the oceans are the same distance away regardless of the direction you go.

We have two pictures taken at the monument at Rugby. The first is of Pam pregnant with Catie Jo, and the second was taken a few years later with Pam, Catie and Daniel. I mentioned this little fact to the NoDaks, but they didn’t really seem impressed. They can be excused though - if a picture is worth a thousand words, then it must take a thousand words to describe a picture. And family photos are boring to begin with, so try to imagine just how bored these ladies must have been listening to me describe my family photos.

Pam would also be interested in talking to the two from Wyoming, who are from Riverton. Pam and I passed through Riverton on a trip across Wyoming a few years ago, a beautiful but isolated area of the country. This guy and gal had to drive three hours to Denver to get a flight to Albuquerque. Their only other choice was to drive three hours to Cheyenne and catch a flight to . . . . Denver, to get a flight to Albuquerque.

A bit more geographic/demographic information: Did you know that there are more people in the city of Albuquerque than in the entire state of Wyoming? Neither did the Wyomings. Did you further know that there are just as many people in the Oklahoma City metro area than in the entire state of New Mexico? I have been a proverbial fount of information during this business trip and I’m letting everybody know it while I have a captive audience.

Throughout the past week, the Hawaiians have made quiet and polite comments about the cool temperatures in New Mexico. Most days, these two ladies have worn sweaters and jackets in class, while the Alaskans have constantly pointed out just how hot the weather has been (no joke here).

The Alaskans were interested in joining me on my recent hike. Being from Barrow, they said they have never walked through mountains before. They told me something I didn’t know - they informed me that the topography of Barrow is flat coastal tundra covered with permafrost. There are no mountains where they live. They also said that the only wildlife they get to see in Barrow are polar bears, arctic fox, seals, coastal whales and dolphins and various other species I had only heard of on the Discovery channel. They wanted to hike in the mountains with me because they were anxious to see some “exotic” animals, like ground squirrels and coyotes (no joke here, either).

They ended up not going on the hike with me, which is just as well. Considering the amount of aches and pains I experienced (and I’m rather used to hiking in hills at least), I can only imagine the difficulty they would have had.

Besides, they said that one member of their group had never been to the “lower 48” and they wanted to take him to some clubs. I didn’t ask, but I think they wanted to take some embarrassing pictures of him to show the tribal elders back home.

Anyway, this has been a good class and easy work for me. At the end of this week we will travel home. As soon as I get to Oklahoma City, I will depart for Kansas City to get there Saturday evening. It will be a quick turn-around, but I understand Jackson Danger wants to see me about something. Probably needs my advice about girls, as usual.

All work and no play makes Jackson's Grumpa even grumpier

For the past week, I’ve been on a business trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Prior to leaving, I planned a hiking trip in the Cibola National Forest, so part of my luggage included my hiking equipment.

Albuquerque is the largest city in New Mexico, and unlike the largest city in Oklahoma, Albuquerque is not the capital of the state. For those of you who have forgotten your state geography, that distinction belongs to Santa Fe.

Albuquerque is home to Sandia National Laboratories, so there are a large number of highly educated people living here.

The city also has 361 municipal parks. There may be a correlation to the number of PhDs to the number of city parks, but I don’t know what that could be.

Sandia Peak Tramway calls Albuquerque home. At 2.7 miles long, it is the longest tramway in the world, ascending 3,819 feet above the valley floor.

I’m not certain what the residents of Albuquerque call themselves, whether it’s “Albuquerites” or “Albuquerquians”. But, both of these sound kind of awkward, so I will henceforth call them “Albuquirkies”. Not because they actually are “quirky”, but strictly out of convenience, mind you. Just like it used to be convenient for me to call residents of Moore, OK, “Moorons” (for those of you who don’t know, Pam and I used to reside in Moore, OK, so the somewhat self deprecating term should be OK).

In a 2007 article, USAToday proclaimed Albuquerque the number one most physically fit city in America. This year, according to Men’s Fitness Magazine, Albuquerque has dropped to number five. I guess my business trip to Albuquerque has had an unintended consequence.

So, in an effort to help boost morale among the Albuquirkies, I took the tramway to the observation deck atop the 10,378 foot Sandia Peak in the Cibola National Forest and hiked the Crest Trail and the Pino Canyon Trail back into Albuquerque, a distance of about 10 miles and a vertical drop of about 3700 feet.

This feat should boost Albuquerque’s fitness rating by two points at least.

People who have never really hiked think that the ideal hike should be along a flat, level, smooth trail free of obstructions. And there are others who have the notion that the ideal hike will always go downhill, presumably because “it’s easier”.

Well, concerning the first view, I say this: Most hikers go out to see the scenery and to enjoy the experience, so a long flat stretch of smooth trails over featureless terrain leaves a bit to be desired. A long hike should have a mixture of some uphill and some downhill travel along trails with exquisite scenery.

And as far as the notion about always going downhill, I say this: THAT IS INSANE! And I’ll explain why in a moment.

Since my work partner wanted to take the tramway to see the sights, the planned departure point for the hike became the observation deck on the Sandia Crest. This had the advantage of ensuring I could get a ride to the jump off point, plus provide a spectacular view prior to departure, plus make it convenient for my work partner to pick me up after the hike (and after a 10 mile hike I wanted to ensure I had a ride back to the hotel). The main disadvantage was that the entire hike would be downhill, as going downhill from the top of a mountain is inevitable. So, I prepared myself mentally.

But I was not prepared physically.

Now, if you have hiked for any distance over a long downhill stretch, you know the different feeling you get in the legs. After a long climb, the feeling of going downhill is initially almost one of relief, but after only a short distance going downhill you’re ready for some more climbing uphill to relieve the strain you feel coming in the calf muscles and knees. I knew during this hike I would surely experience a slight discomfort in the legs afterwards, but I was totally unprepared for the level of discomfort. I’ve had sore legs after most other hikes, but this morning I was barely able to get out of bed. And for some odd reason, I had the indescribable urge to climb some stairs.

But, about the hike itself:

It had rained in Albuquerque a couple of days last week, and up on the mountain it dumped 14 inches of snow. Although the sky was clear by Saturday, the temperature at the observation deck was 28 degrees and the wind was blowing at 30 miles an hour. I began thinking I should not go on this hike, and decided to reevaluate the situation once we got to the top of the peak.

On the way up in the tram, I met an Albuquirky who was going up to check conditions for a cross-country ski trip. I told him what I had planned, and he informed me that considering the location of the Crest Trail and the wind direction, the trail should be sheltered from much of the wind. That’s what he said verbally, but his body language said, “YOU’RE NUTS.”

When I talk to people about hiking, I always get the impression that they are quite skeptical of my skill, knowledge, and abilities. I have learned that their impressions arise from my personal appearance and not necessarily from any actual knowledge they might have about me. After all, my physical appearance gives the idea that I am a middle-aged over-weight bumpkin. However, I am in fact an ASTHMATIC middle-aged over-weight bumpkin with a bum knee and a bad heart and an abdominal hernia repair. If those in authority really knew anything about me, they would never allow me to go white-water kayaking or hiking in Glacier National or in the Cibola National Forest.

In spite of what others think of me based on superficial criteria, I do have the common sense to know my own limitations. When hiking, I don’t take chances, and I always have a “Plan B” and usually a “Plan C”. My only failing is that I like to hike alone, and that is contrary to the first cardinal rule of hikers, “never hike alone”.

As I said, on this particular hike, I wanted to gauge the weather conditions at the top of the mountain before making the “GO” or “NO GO” decision. I told my work partner that if things looked too bad, I would return to the tramway. At the top, the wind was blowing like mad, but the trail was in fact shielded from the wind, just like I had been told, and the wind at the trail entrance was little more than a nice breezy day in Oklahoma (still questionable by ordinary standards, but . . . ). Although the temperature was less than 30 degrees, the sun was shining and I was well dressed. I decided to go along the trail with the plan to return if things got “IFFY”.

The snow depth along the first mile of the trail was about 8 inches. And the trail was quite visible due to the tracks of other hikers before me. That, along with my trusty topo map and my compass, the trail was very easy to follow and I had great confidence that I would not lose my way.

The Crest Trail runs about 100 feet east of the actual crest of the mountain and about 40 feet lower and I was shielded from the wind which was howling over me through the taller trees. Occasionally, the wind would blow a clump of snow from the trees onto the trail or onto me, but other than that there was no serious wind problem.

The farther along the trail, the better the conditions became. And I stayed warm, which had been my greatest concern, so after a mile and a half I decided to continue.

Long story short, it was a beautiful hike. I stopped occasionally to rest and to eat a handful of trail mix, and I constantly drank water. Halfway through, I entered the Pino Canyon Trail and began a sharp descent. The temperature increased as I descended and the snow disappeared from the trail. I stopped for a solid hour along a small stream to relax and to prepare a lunch of beef stroganoff (no kidding). The only thing missing was a glass of nice cabernet.

If I had it to do over again, I would change the direction of this hike. I think now it would have been better to hike up and catch the tramway down. A different set of muscles would be aching right now, but I think I would be able to walk without looking like an old man with wooden legs trying to make it to the bathroom in time to prevent an “accident”.

Oh well, the legs will recover by this time next month, I’m sure.

2 cheese R not 2 cheese

I'm on the internet doing research about cheese at http://www.cheese.com.

There are many different types of cheeses, and many different areas that produce great cheeses, but even though the internet is chock full of information, it really doesn’t answer the all important question about cheeses, namely, “What cow is needed to produce which cheese?”

I'm not sure simple plain ol' black and white cows would give anything but plain ol' yellow cheese. But, what if we want to produce a nice Brie? Or a Muenster? Is there such a thing as a Brie Cow? Can we get cows sent over from Muenster, where ever the heck that is? I understand Brie is made in France - do the French even have cows? And do we have to have Swiss cows to get Swiss cheese, or do we just have to have cows raised in any ol’ mountainous area? And would that automatically disqualify Oklahomans from making Swiss cheese? Do you have to do anything special to the cows to give cheese with holes in it?

So many questions. This farmage thing is harder than it looks.

The internet has information about vegetarian cheeses. Now, I know that cheese is made from milk, and milk comes from animals, like a cow. So, does this mean that a vegetarian cheese must come from a cow that is strictly a vegetarian? I thought all cows were vegetarian. Or does it have to come from cows that aren't made of beef? Does this further mean that if I want to produce non-vegetarian cheeses I have to feed some sort of meat to my cows? And if so, how do they want their steak grilled? No, that's ridiculous - that would make my cows cannibals - so maybe cows eat chicken (?) Bar-b-qued?

The more I read, the more questions that come to mind.

I read it on the internet, so it must be true – there are vegetarian cheeses - which implies there are non-vegetarian cheeses. I mean, if a cow eats grass, doesn’t that mean that the cow is a vegetarian, and by extension doesn’t that mean that any cheese you make from the milk automatically qualifies as a vegetarian product? I guess it's kind of like being “kosher”, where you have to have a rabbi do some sort of religious thing with the food in order to be called "kosher". Maybe PETA has some sort of religious cult preacher guy or gal who has to do some sort of religious thing that somehow turns your cheese into a "vegetarian" version of the non-vegetarian cheese. I knew that PETA was full of fanatics, but I really can’t imagine what kind of religious ceremony they would do over my cheese to make it a vegetarian cheese. Maybe with enough internet research I can learn how to conduct my own vegetarian-conversion process on my own cheese.

I like cheddar cheese, but I don't want to offend anybody, so I better contact PETA before making any cheese. Maybe they would know what kind of cow I need to make a vegetarian style cheddar cheese.

Still on the internet looking at goat cheese.

One of the goat milk cheeses is called "Formaggio di Capra" from Italy. Sounds like the name of some D list movie star. I suppose instead of cows we could switch to goats. But that still wouldn't answer the question about the vegetarian cheese. PETA seems to make an awful lot of noise against beef, but I haven’t heard them say anything against goat meat. Maybe PETA has not designated goats as real animals - and that would make sense because I myself never thought a goat was a real animal, more like a big four-footed garden pest.

Hey, if you mix goat milk with cow milk, would the resulting cheese taste gouda? (Just a little joke here)

Still searching the internet:

Now, there's an interesting vegetarian cheese, called "Bishop Kennedy". Since PETA is mostly an atheistic organization, I wonder how they would get around "blessing" a cheese that has "Bishop" in the name? And what's up with the "Kennedy" in the name? Oh, I see from my internet search that Bishop Kennedy was some 15th century bishop at St. Andrews. Is that the St. Andrews in Scotland, the golfer's "mecca"? Did Bishop Kennedy play golf, and if so, how did that affect his cheese making? Did he slice his cheese?

So many questions.

Oh, in that last paragraph, I didn't mean to offend any Muslims out there, but I’m certain there won’t be any problems. I used the term "mecca" as a metaphor, kind of like how a cartoon of Mohammed is just a metaphor, and that’s never caused any problems, so it should be OK.

But, I digress.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, vegetarian cheeses. If a cheese is not automatically considered a vegetarian dish, and if Catholics don’t eat meat on Fridays but do eat fish (presumably because it’s not “meat”(?)), and if meat can be declared “kosher” by a Jewish rabbi, and if the PETA religious fanatics declare goats as meatless animals, then there should be nothing to prevent me from declaring my cheese cholesterol free.

I think I got it all figured out:
I can feed my cows fish and that would produce milk worthy of being used to make a vegetarian cheese, and I can sell it by the slice as a kosher cheese to vegetarian Catholic golfers in St. Andrews.

There, I think I got it.

Except now Pam and I have decided not to get any cows – we’re going to get chickens instead.

I reckon now I have to research the internet to find out what really came first, and why, and how to replicate THAT particular process.

So many questions . . . . .

Danger Lane Workshop

I'm opening up a little woodworking shop on the farmage. I'm calling it "Danger Lane Workshop" because we have renamed our driveway "Danger Lane" in honor of my grandson, Jackson Danger Knight. Sounds much better than "Danger Driveway Workshop", don't you think?

Anyway, I'm opening up a woodworking shop and have started advertising for some help. In this neck of the woods, most of the advertisements for help are on hand-lettered signs tacked onto power poles. And there are many signs from people looking for "nail techs". So many people wanting to hire “nail techs” seems to indicate a shortage of people doing this type of work. To get a jump on the competition in hiring the best qualified person, I figured I better get advertisements up quick. I'm already one up on the competition because I know all about the internet and know how to post my advertisement in this blog:

Help wanted: NAIL TECH.
Job description: Successful applicant will straighten bent nails and sort to size.
Educational requirements: Arkansas GED, or equivalent USC-Berkeley PhD.
Other requirements: Successful applicant will own a hammer and know somewhat how to use it without inflicting serious injury to innocent by-standers.
Benefits: Free ObamaCare; opportunity to participate in "cash-for-clunkers" program after work hours; free automatic tax withholdings with each paycheck with possible partial refund at the end of the year; social security withheld automatically; plenty of other work if you get bored.
Equal opportunity employer: I'm willing to fire anybody for any reason at any time if you don't work.

This type of advertising alone should ensure I get hundreds if not thousands of applicants and I should have my pick of the cream of the crop.

Recently, Danger Lane Workshop produced some cabinets and tables for a couple of folks. I’ve found that doing work for others liberates me from doing all the work that Pam wants me to do for her. Not that I don’t like doing work for Pam, but I can get some money when I do work for others. Pam never pays me. She always said that I should do things for her because I love her and want to make her happy. She's always saying things like that - I don't know why. Don't get me wrong, I do love her and do want to make her happy, but it's real difficult for me to understand why she thinks I need to always show her. My very presence should be enough to make her happy, and me sticking around is plenty of evidence that I love her. I do all the little things that every husband should do. Just the other day I cut some of the grass around the property instead of making her do it all. And I always take one of the two trash containers down to the road, always leaving the lighter one for her to drag down. I always tell her the best places to go to get things for me and always let her know when her cooking needs improvement. I'm a typical guy, and I don't understand why us typical guys are always being told we need to do things for our wives when it's obvious to us every day that we constantly do things for our wives.

But, I digress.

The workshop is a place where I can relax and listen to music while I make copious amounts of sawdust. And I’ve progressed quite well in my woodworking skills. I think you can always tell the experience level of a person by the types and extent of the injuries he sustains. My woodworking skills have progressed to the point that I rarely hit my finger with a hammer. Only amateurs do that. And I don’t cut my self to the bone anymore with razor sharp chisels and finely tuned hand planes. Any self-inflicted injuries can generally be dealt with by the application of a few band-aids, a large supply of which is always in the shop.

But, an injury involving a table saw or a band saw is too horrendous for me to contemplate, and every time I turn on a saw I think of just how nice it is to have all my appendages. And this type of thinking keeps me safe. Hey, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose, especially if you don’t have any fingers.

Once, I was actually told that I must not be a very good woodworker because I still have all my fingers. This philosophy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. For instance, I used to work with munitions, so I guess the logical extension of this belief is that I must not have been an experienced munitions specialist because I didn’t blow myself up.

No, I think that a good woodworker is a careful woodworker. Accidents do occur, but most if not all of the really serious accidents can be prevented through use of normal safety precautions.

I said, “normal safety precautions”. Sometimes, on a bad day, a “normal safety precaution” would involve shutting down the equipment, putting away the tools, and walking out of the shop while there is still blood in the arteries. Everybody has a bad day, but you really don’t want to perpetuate a bad day around things that can take your arm off.

I don’t drink and drive. I also don’t drink while woodworking. Well, that’s not quite true since I have been known to go out to the shop with a beer (or two), but under those circumstances I will limit my activities to the use of hand tools, no power equipment. The only thing mixing alcohol and power tools will do is numb the initial pain when an inadvertent amputation occurs.

Working with a lathe is fun and interesting and relaxing - that is, once you get past the realization that you are pressing a razor sharp chisel against the surface of a 10-pound piece of wood spinning at 1500 plus rpms. I have not been injured using the lathe (yet), but I think that is only because of my paranoid use of proper safety equipment such as a full-face shield, a dust mask, a good turning smock, an athletic cup, and a rabbit’s foot from a particularly lucky rabbit.

Anyway, Danger Lane Workshop is open for business, and the business right now is waiting for the customer who wants to pay me a million dollars for building a table.

Hey, if ya gonna dream, dream BIG.

Danger Lane, a Gated Community

Our little bit of heaven is a five acre lot enclosed by a structurally sound pig fence - not the most aesthetic piece of architecture, but it generally keeps the good things in and the bad things out.

The single entry to our property is a 16 foot wide double gate in the center of the south fence line. We like to say we live in our own version of a "gated community". Although the gate can be easily opened by anyone with a brain, the latch is a bit tricky and has a tendency to inflict flesh wounds upon anyone not accustomed to how it operates. But, I think this is an unintended security feature that could provide the CSI with potential forensic evidence in the event we are ever subject to home invasion and the police are called in to investigate (always gotta look on the sunny side of life).

The first year on the property, we always left the gate open, mostly out of convenience (a nice way of saying we were just plain too lazy to close it). We have since learned the error of this practice.

Recently, Pam and I had our usual date night that included a rousing visit to the local farm n’ feed and hardware establishment with a stop over for dinner at Sonic (Pam's favorite place). As usual, we had left the gate open so we were able to drive right into Danger Lane, which at the time, however, was not called Danger Lane since little Jackson Danger had not yet been conceived or reckoned into existence. We didn’t really have a name for the driveway at the time, we just simply called it “the driveway” – don’t ask me why, ‘cause I don’t know. We thought of giving a name to our property, but could never really agree on what to call it. Pam always wanted some girly sounding name like “Lavender Falls” or “Daisy Chain” or something like that, and I always wanted something that sounded a bit more rugged, like “Smoke n’ Oakum Woods” or “Flat Bottoms”.

But, I digress.

As we entered the property after our date night, we noticed a large dark object in the middle of the east field. Upon closer examination, we realized that the object was self mobile, in a lumbering sort of way, and that it was in fact a large cow. Being self mobile, and apparently instigated by our presence, it began to mobilize itself toward the north field.

Old habits returned to my mind and I began acting from experiences of years gone by. When I was younger I had numerous frustrating encounters with stray cows being where they were not supposed to be, and it was contingent upon me to escort said cows back to where they belonged. This nearly-forgotten habit motivated me to attempt to escort this particular cow out of my property, so I followed the bovine as it proceeded to the north field with the intent of driving it back south and out the gate.

As stated previously, it was nighttime and darkness had set in and there was no moon. I could only see shadows of things, not their reality, and this included the cow. Cautiously avoiding what could have been cow pies, I attempted to get in front of the cow before it lumbered into the north fence - I did not succeed. The cow met the fence at a walk, stopped short, and began searching for a path away from me and through the fence. It became a bit excited and trotted eastbound along the fence line, with me in lukewarm pursuit (I was not very interested in being run over by a cow in the dark and leaving Pam with the embarrassing task of having to explain things to the life insurance adjuster).

At this moment, as if a veil had been lifted from my consciousness, a radical thought came to my mind: "What the heck am I doing out here in the middle of a field trying to catch a cow in the dark?" And I realized just how needless and stupid it was for me to bother with this nonsense. After all, the cow came into the property of its own volition, it could leave on its own. Anyway, it was probably safer for the night inside our fenced area than it would be wandering around out on the road.

And so, I decided to tolerate the cow’s presence until daylight and headed back to the house.

But, for some reason, something startled the cow. She suddenly mooed loudly and bolted in my generally direction like a run-away southbound bus on I-35, not directly for me, but close enough to cause me alarm. I zigged to avoid the onrush, but the cow zagged, this time putting me right in harms way. So I did what any self-preserving red neck would do in this situation, I yelled an obscenity. This got the cow's attention and it stopped advancing. I moved to the cow's right flank and uttered another obscenity at the cow (which was apparently understood) and it moved off at a trot, directly toward the gate at the south end of the property.

Well, the cow trotted out the gate and onto the road, headed west and turned north into the next un-gated drive at a fast clip.

Congratulating myself on a job well done, I closed the gate for the night.

Next day was normal and I went to work, leaving the gate open as usual.

Later that morning, I received a call from Pam. The cow was back on the property, and this time had brought an offspring. Pam reported that the cattle belonged to a neighbor who had hired some cowboys to wrangle their cows, and at that very moment the cowboys were on horseback doing their thing in our north field.

Now, I was rather taken aback at this revelation - I did not know that in this age of space travel and computer technology one could still hire cowboys on horseback to come to the farmage and round up stray cattle with nothing more high-tech than a piece of rope. Apparently, at fifty dollars per cow, a rural homeowner could hire these young rustic entrepreneurs to do the work I did as a youngster for free.

And I wonder why I can't make money with a home business.

Well, the horsemen lassoed the cow, but the calf escaped capture by jumping our north fence and proceeding into a rather thickly wooded area north of our property. The cowboys worked for a couple of hours in a vain attempt to apprehend the calf, but the fugitive bovine evaded capture for two days before it was finally brought into custody.

We now keep the gate closed pretty much all the time, especially since adopting Bailey da Hound Dawg – fewer cars are damaged if Bailey is not out in the road trying to catch them.

It's nice living in a gated community, especially if you and your spouse are the only ones within that community. And as for potential home invasions, the only invasions we have been subjected to so far have been from a couple of stray cows, some stray dogs, and some roadrunners – not of the MOPAR variety, but just about as interesting.

Just another day on the farmage

The other day, Bailey woke me up barking, which really isn't too unusual since he generally wants out of his kennel at daybreak. Me, being the good dog trainer I tell myself I am, I insist to Bailey that he stop barking and refuse to let him out of his kennel if he continues to bark.

But, this particular morning, Bailey was barking non-stop and would not quiet down even after my stern admonishment. Thus, I knew something was amiss.

I put on my boots (not the Lady Bug boots, mind you) and tramped out to the kennel. Again, right away I noticed something else was not quite correct, for Bailey has never failed to exit his dog house upon my approach - this time he remained in his dog house barking all the while.

Entering his kennel, I was a bit on guard. Bailey stayed in his house while I circled to inspect the area.

There, at the corner of Bailey's dog house, in the faint light of the early morning, I saw a ringed tail, the unmistakable markings of a raccoon. Now, I thought this unusual, a raccoon in Bailey's kennel area and wandering freely so near the dog house unchallenged by a rather large dog. And putting two and two together, I realized that I was the not-so-proud owner of a cowardly hound dog.

Well, anyway, when I got close to the raccoon, it retreated and scampered up the walnut tree. (Bailey has his own tree within the confines of his kennel, even though he has not yet learned what service a tree is to a dog.)

OK, so here we were with a raccoon up a tree in the dark with a cowardly dog fearing to exit his own house to even sneak a peak. I finally coaxed Bailey out of his kennel and encouraged him to follow me down to the gate to get the morning paper.

After I retrieved the paper for Bailey (he’s still in training), I wandered back down to his kennel and observed the raccoon still in the walnut tree.

Probably confused because my morning routine had been disrupted and I had not yet had my first and second cups of coffee, I then decided that the raccoon must be immediately evicted from the walnut tree. And the only thing that came to my mind as to how this should be accomplished was to throw things at the raccoon – I figured (erroneously) that by hitting him with an object he would politely climb down the tree and depart the area.

My original missiles of choice were apples, but realized early on that the deer had eaten all the apples last month. So, I grabbed the handiest thing that wasn't fastened down, namely, the broom from the back porch. I sauntered back to the kennel, and, taking careful aim (such as it was at 5:30 a.m.) I launched the broom at the raccoon, completely missing the animal, and succeeded in lodging the broom between two forked branches about 14 feet above the ground.



This feat could never have been accomplished if it had been a deliberate intent. For a moment, I was quite proud of myself.

I decided not to throw any more items at the raccoon, not because I was afraid of lodging more items in the tree (that was inevitable), but because a light bulb illuminated in my little pea brain and I realized that the raccoon would get down all by himself and would wander off all on his own.

Brilliant.

I also realized that I didn't really have to get the broom down right away, and I didn't really have to tell Pam about this either. I could get the broom down after I got home from work and as busy as Pam is she probably wouldn't even notice the broom was missing from the back porch.

And I was right, she didn't notice the broom missing from the back porch. Instead, after the sun came up, she noticed right away that there was “something different” about the walnut tree. She told me later she wanted a picture of it as evidence of my "endearing little quirks" (not her actual words, and not even close to her meaning, but you kind of get the idea).

We are now back to normal. The broom is out of the tree and returned to the back porch. Bailey has forgotten the raccoon and is again feeling secure within his personal dog kennel. And the raccoon is presumably consulting with other species as to the best way to pilfer dog food while avoiding flying brooms within a gated kennel occupied by a cowardly dog.

Bailey got run over by a pickup

I arrived home Thursday, October 1, 2009, and entered the gate as usual, and as usual Bailey da Hound Dawg bounded toward me and met me at the gate. He gets excited when I come home because he knows it is play time.

I drove very slowly up the drive because I knew Bailey was walking near the truck and I didn’t want to hit him. But, somehow Bailey did get underneath the right rear wheel of the truck – I felt him get run over – and he started to yelp in that pitiful way injured dogs do.

I felt bad. I stopped the truck and jumped out and circled to where Bailey was. He was yelping and lying abnormally and I was sure his back was broken. I felt sick.

Pam came running out and together we took Bailey to the nearest vet. On the way, Bailey stopped yelping and allowed himself to be cradled in Pam’s arms as I drove.

At the vet, we were immediately admitted and the doctor examined Bailey. By this time, Bailey was walking around the examination room, but the doctor thought that x-rays were in order just to check for a broken pelvis or other broken bones.

The x-rays came back quickly and revealed . . . absolutely no damage whatsoever to this dog. The doctor examined Bailey once again and assured us that except for a couple of minor abrasions, Bailey was fine.

The little faker.

Well, Pam could scarcely contain her relief, while I could barely hold my temper. It appears that Bailey merely wanted to go for a ride in the truck. Pam originally didn’t want me to see the vet bill, but finally had to give in. Let’s just say that Bailey got a nice expensive joy ride.

I’ll get even. Pretty soon, Bailey has a scheduled date with the vet to be neutered. And in spite of what that’s going to cost me, I’m gonna laugh.

Dog lipped thing.

20 Word Limit, Including Title

A friend of Pam said these blogs are too long. This one is for her.

Dogs and Cats, living together - MASS HYSTERIA!

Here is a recent picture of Bailey da Hound Dawg. For those of you who saw him when I first brought him home you will remember that he was no bigger than Petey da Wiener Dog. At that time he was two months old. He is now four months old. I suspect he will grow a bit more in the coming months.

Bailey is the same age as Jackson Danger, right at four months. But, since Bailey da Hound Dawg is a dog, there are obvious differences. Right now, Bailey is the human equivalent of two years old - and he is acting the part of a terrible toddler in his two’s.


Uncle Tom accurately predicted his destiny, saying that Bailey is certainly a "porch dawg". The back porch is Bailey's domain whenever he is not in his kennel. We do not feed Bailey on the back porch, we feed him exclusively in his kennel because we want him to consider his kennel his home. This logic has had no effect on Bailey considering the back porch his home away from home.

We do feed the cats on the back porch, putting their food on a table. Two months ago the table was tall enough to keep Bailey from raiding the cat's food. Again, that was two months ago, when Bailey was a cute little puppy. Now we have to come up with a taller table, or some other food arrangements for the cats. I suggested to Pam that one way to solve the cat feeding problem was to get rid of the cats, but she just looked at me in that same intolerant disgusted way whenever I come up with any logical suggestion.


Two months ago, we built a large dog house for Bailey and at that time it swallowed him up. Now, it looks like Bailey could swallow his house. Before this year is out, we will have to get him a larger house. He'll probably want one with jacuzzi.

We put Bailey's dog house in a 10x20 foot kennel, and that is his home after sundown and while we are away from the farmage for extended periods. He is safe there, away from potent polecats, rascally raccoons, and chupacabra attacks. The downside is that he can't really keep varmints off the property if he's in his kennel, and that is the primary reason we have him. Before we adopted Bailey, Pam and I had agreed that we wanted a large dog to stay outside to keep critters away from the garden, especially deer away from the fruit trees. Pam insisted we get a short haired dog - she didn't want a lot of shed hair to deal with. Well, Bailey meets all the primary criteria - he is a short haired dog, and he is certainly going to be a big dog. But, I'm not so sure about his potential aggressiveness to keep critters away, especially if he is always in his kennel. That is a dilemma – but after what happened to Petey earlier this year with the skunk, I most certainly don't want a repeat incident – I do not relish the thought of giving a tomato juice bath to a large dog full of youthful energy who is hyped up from being sprayed by a skunk. So, keeping him in the kennel at night would prevent most encounters with a nocturnal polecat.

But, nighttime is also when the raccoons and deer do the most damage. It's a trade off, I suppose - Bailey does most of his damage during the day, raccoons and deer mostly at night. If Bailey were allowed to roam free at night, we MAY be assured that raccoons and deer discontinue causing damage BUT would have the knowledge that Bailey would be free to do even more damage. I guess the best thing to do would be to keep him in his kennel at night. I did make the usual logical suggestion to Pam that perhaps the best way to limit the damage caused by Bailey would be to get rid of Bailey, but she just gave me the usual response (i.e. an intolerant disgusted look). The woman has no vision.


We have two outside cats, Large White Cat and Small White Cat - that's what I call them, but Pam calls the Large White Cat "Abby" and the Small White Cat "Minnie". Like "Minnie Me".

Abby followed us home one day along with another white cat who was apparently her brother. The stupid things wouldn't leave us alone and followed us right to the gate of the property. I suspected Pam was dropping small treats from her pockets to entice them, but I could never prove it. Pam wanted to keep them and had named them even before we entered the gate - "Able" and "Baker". I'm glad there weren't three or four, we would have had "Charlie" and "Delta" as well. Regardless, I reluctantly agreed to take the stupid cats in because I rationalized that I did need a barn cat to keep the rodents under control. Nobody warned me that I would also need a small dog in the barn to keep the cats under control. The silly things kept throwing parties in the barn inviting other stray cats over for some catnip and cream. Occasionally, I'd walk in on some of these parties and see about three or four other cats bolt out the cat door dropping their drinks as they scurried off. And I swear I saw an entire litter of mice whooping it up with the cats. So much for rodent control.

Once, while I was working in the barn, something flew passed my head and Abby rushed by me in chase. Turns out it was a wren, a poor defenseless little bird. Abby cornered it under the lathe, kicking up a great deal of dust. Ordinarily I wouldn't really have minded much, but at the time I was in the process of putting a nice finish on a pair of tables I was building and I didn't really want any dust in the air. So, I chastised the cat, who flipped me the bird (literally) and I carried the bird outside and released it into the wild, which is what I call the west side of the barn.

Abby's brother, Baker, eventually got sick. Pam took it to the vet -- she TOOK - A - STRAY - CAT - TO - THE - VET -- and it was diagnosed with some fatal virus that only infects white male stray cats (apparently). Yes, I said "fatal" - the cat died a few days later, AT THE VET WHILE IN HOSPICE CARE. I got the vet bill a few days later and almost wanted to put Pam in hospice care.

Minnie is one of the kittens of Abby. Apparently, some of those wild barn parties with the other cats got out of hand (if you know what I mean) because Abby had three kittens. After they were about three months old, though, two of them disappeared and never returned. Pam has hopes that they were picked up by a benevolent philanthropist who is now lavishing luxury upon the dear little things in some mansion somewhere in the northwest side of the city, feeding them roast duck and Fancy Feast all day. I rather doubt that is what happened to them, but I don't want to burst Pam's bubble of joy-thoughts with the pin-prick of reality, so I play along and assure her that the cats are in the feline equivalent of heaven on earth (fat chance).

Abby is not too crazy about Bailey da Hound Dawg, but Minnie absolutely loves him. They play in the yard together and are always together following Pam and me when we take walks around the property. In fact, all the dogs and cats will follow us on our walks. I'm glad we live out away from nosey neighbors who can't readily observe the menagerie: a wiener dog, a hound dawg, two white cats, and occasionally a brain-damaged Siamese bounding around a middle-aged couple waddling through a field, one wearing lady-bug boots and the other a droopy hat (feel free to imagine who is wearing what).


As most of you know, Petey da Wiener Dog went lame soon after we moved to Newalla. Although he still has considerable trouble getting around, he recovered some use of his hind legs and can move about over level terrain. Good thing, too, because if he generates many more vet bills I’m going to have him stuffed and make a door stop out of him. But, Pam hates it when I say stuff like that - she loves that little rat dog more than she loves me, and that's no joke.

Petey da Wiener Dog and Satchmo the Brain Damaged Cat have always had a weird relationship. When they were younger, they would play together, sleep together, and generally cause plenty of household problems and vet bills. I think there was some sort of inter-species gay relationship going on, but I never saw anything beyond mutual butt sniffing from the two, so I wasn't concerned. Now that they are both up in years, things have quieted down between the two boys. Petey, being partially lame, and Satchmo, ever so overweight, are now in their respective middle-ages and are acting more like sedate grumpy old men (I should know). Mostly they just eat and sleep and poop - kinda like me and little Jackson Danger right now.

Satchmo H-A-T-E-S Bailey da Hound Dawg and lets everyone within earshot know it whenever Bailey comes around. Bailey, on the other hand, seems to not have a hateful bone in his rather large body. To Bailey, everybody is his friend, whether they want to be or not. He just can't take a hint that his presence is sometimes not wanted. Heck, he can't take a direct statement to that effect. Don't get me wrong, he is a very smart dog, he is just still quite young and playful. Pam and I sometimes forget his age because of his size, so we're trying to modify our own thinking about training.

Like I said, Bailey really is intelligent, for a dog. He has already learned some basic commands, like "sit", "stay", "fetch". Of course, he doesn't "sit" for very long, and he can't "stay" in one place for more than a few seconds, and he will "fetch" only what he wants when he wants, but I see progress being made. He can get the morning paper for us, but I do have to walk down Danger Lane to open the gate for him. My future plans are to install an intercom in Bailey's dog house, and a remote kennel gate opener and another remote for the main gate so that I will be able to open both the kennel and the main gate and have Bailey fetch the paper for us while we are still in bed. We could also put the coffee maker on the back porch and teach him to make our morning coffee for us. I've often wondered why it wouldn't be possible to teach the dog to feed himself and the cats. Lord knows he already knows where the cat food is. And dogs like to eat, don't they, so I don’t see any reason why Bailey couldn't be taught to feed himself. Seems that the difficult part would be to teach him portion control, but that shouldn't be too hard. As smart as Bailey is I'll bet we will soon have him doing all sorts of chores for us.

I mentioned that Pam and I are trying to modify our own thinking about Bailey's training. Pam has been watching the "Dog Whisperer" to get some ideas. And to her credit she has been taking much of what she has learned and applying it to a daily routine. When she goes outside, she takes a pocket full of dog treats with her and attempts to teach Bailey not to jump on her and rip her throat out. She wants so much for Bailey to be conscientious and courteous and to give other living creatures "their space", as the Dog Whisperer puts it. But, if "space" was chewable, Bailey would have ripped it to shreds by now. That dog has torn up virtually every indestructible object we have on the property, including the air conditioner - yes, Bailey chewed the wiring running to the air conditioner and we had to call a technician to repair it.

So far, the only real lesson Bailey has learned is that he can get a dozen treats from Pam just by pretending to be a good dog for a few minutes. Once the treats are gone it’s back to muddy paws on the shirts and throats being ripped.

Bailey has not yet learned the bad habit of chasing cars, and I hope he never does. I'm certain he would catch one and take it to the north acre and chew it into scrap metal, sticking me with a huge damage suit and a possible manslaughter charge.

Whenever Pam and I begin thinking about getting cows or goats or sheep, we go outside and try to have a nice quiet chat about it. Invariably, after fighting off cats and dogs longing for attention, we thankfully come to the logical and sane conclusion that we already have more animals than we want or need.

Everyone should do what they're good at, and we are perfectly content being the best cat herders and dog feeders in Newalla.

Passing the Torch

I have been having trouble with the weed wacking portion of my grass cutting routine. Every time I use the gas weed trimmer to cut back the grass and weeds near the fence lines, I end up having to replace the line every few feet because the fence tears up the line way too much. I thought about using weed killer along the fences, but even though I am anti-environmentalist (I am a conservationist), I could not bring my self to spray herbicide along a quarter mile of fence every six months.

Then one evening, Pam and I were watching our new favorite show on the Rural Channel, "The Country Farm Life", and I saw a farm woman using a torch to burn weeds along a fence line. Immediately I knew that this was what we needed. And Pam agreed. So, during our next trip to the local farm and feed and hardware store (we go about once a week for "date night") I bought the biggest propane torch in stock.

As Paris Hilton would say, "It's hot." Now, in place of the weed wacker and changing line every few feet, I can easily burn the weeds along the bottom of the fences with a simple swipe of a portable propane torch. The only thing I have to watch for is creating a wildfire that would engulf the neighborhood, but besides that small inconvenience what can go wrong?

When I first got the thing, I noticed that the instructions were not complete and had to do some research on the internet on just how to hook it up. (Note: When anyone says the instructions "were not complete", they really mean that their ignorance prevents them from understanding the instructions. I freely admit that was my case here - I just didn't know what I didn't know.)

Through internet research, I decreased my level of ignorance about propane blow torches. I found out that there are two types of propane tank connectors, the POL (named after the company that invented the connector, now no longer accepted as completely safe), and the Type I ACME fitting used on most if not all current propane bar-b-que grills. The torch I bought did not come with either the Type I fitting or the POL fitting, but had other fittings that I did not have a clue how to hook up. I thought I needed a high-flow Type I ACME fitting to hook the thing up to my current propane tanks. So, I researched the internet, which is chock full of information - except the information needed to hook up this particular torch.

From what I found, it seems that everyone knows by instinct how this thing gets connected using just the materials packaged with the torch. I must have some sort of genetic flaw, because I sure couldn't figure it out. So, I began contacting some local propane stores, explaining just precisely what I needed. And they all seemed to know just how to hook up anything to any propane tank, but they all seemed confused by my explanation and request.

Finally, Pam took me to a local propane dealer (she took me because she happened to be driving at the time, not because of any lack of male superiority I may or may not have . . . so there). At the time of our visit, the dealership was staffed by two female clerical type persons, not technicians who could answer my extremely technical question. And in fact, neither person appeared to have a clue as to what I was talking about. After I patronizingly dismissed them, Pam asked them about a totally unrelated topic of the possible cost and equipment needed to install a propane tank for our house if we wanted to convert our hated electric stove to a much more appreciated propane stove. While Pam and the clerical type person were engaged in this conversation, I meandered around the store and happened to see the exact same torch I purchased a few days ago, and thought to myself that if they sell the thing here they may actually know how to hook it up and were merely playing games with me earlier. I patiently waited for Pam and the clerk to finish their conversation (you family members know what I mean by "patiently" under these circumstances). Holding up the packaged torch, I informed the clerical type person that this was the very product I was attempting to connect to my current propane tank. She informed me in turn that that particular item had been hanging in the exact same place for over three years and that she didn't know a thing about them, except that "this thingy here" (she pointed at a connector within the package) looks like it should fit on "this tank here" (she again pointed at a display tank that looked exactly like the one I have at home). Trying to be as condescending (I mean, "patient") as possible, I pointed out that the outer threads of the tank's connector required a Type I fitting, which was not included in the torch packaging, and which I was attempting to obtain. She shook her head slightly and (again) pointed at the tank, and explained (again) that the fitting included with the torch should fit these threads "right here" (she pointed emphatically). Upon closer inspection, I realized that there were in fact internal threads as well as outer threads on the fitting normally installed on the propane tank, and that I had the proper fitting all the time.

Now, I'll be the first to admit (to myself) that I never before noticed that a conventional propane tank has both external threads to fit a Type I ACME fitting as well as internal left-hand threads to accommodate a POL-type fitting. So, I pretended to ignore the apparent smug look on the face of the female clerical type person, politely expressed my thanks and gallantly escorted my bride from the premises.

On the way home, Pam verbally reviewed what the female clerical type person said about cost and equipment needed to convert to a propane gas stove, and I pretended to listen - I was thinking about how easy it would be to connect my torch to my propane tank and couldn't wait to fire that puppy up.

As soon as I got home, I bee-lined it to the workshop to connect the torch to the propane tank and immediately dragged the tank and the torch to the garden area to try it out on the fence line weeds.

Now, if you've never used on of these things before, be advised that this torch is designed to flow 500,000 btus and can produce temperatures in excess of 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is a tool and not a toy, but it happens to be one of those tools that would provide certain people with a great deal of fun, especially those with a bent toward arson. So, keeping in mind the inherent hazards associated with any tool, here are some important safety tips gleaned from practical experiences with said torch:

- Do not use this torch if you are a certified pyromaniac. An uncertified pyromaniac can use this torch if supervised by a paranoid pyrophobic. Normal mentally stable people should at least know the location of the nearest fire extinguisher.

- Do not look down the business end of the torch when lighting the thing. Think of looking down the muzzle of a loaded gun with your finger on the trigger. Same thing.

- Do not use a match to ignite the torch. Think of what it would be like to hold a match while using the match to light a small amount of gasoline that is in the bottom of a barrel. Same thing.

- Do not use a butane lighter to ignite the torch. Think of a cherry bomb going off in your hand. Same thing.

- Do not fully open the flow valve before lighting. Open it ever so slightly before striking a flint. Lighting the torch with the flow valve fully open will produce a loud explosive roar similar to the noise of a jet engine in afterburner. If unduly startled by this sudden noise, you may scream and drop the torch. Dropping the lit torch could cause a wildfire; screaming like a girl would make your wife snicker.

- Do not try to dry your boots with the lit torch.

- Do not use the lit torch to evaporate moisture from the top of your propane tank.

- Do not use the lit torch near a clothes line when clothes are hanging out to dry, or your wife will surely hang you out to dry.

- Do not tease the dog with the lit torch.

- Even if you hate cats, do not attempt to set the cats on fire with the lit torch. You will succeed, with unintended consequences.

- Use the lit torch to exterminate weeds along a fence line or an open garden area. Do not attempt to kill weeds along the foundation of a house, gazebo, barn, workshop, well-house or shed as there is abundant evidence that these structures are flammable.

- Do not use the torch along the edge of a vinyl fence, plastic pipe, rubber hose, or anything you do not want to repair or replace afterwards. This includes air conditioning units (soldered joints melt at about 400 degrees F, and what did I say about the temperature output of this thing?).

- After using the torch to kill weeds on your driveway, allow the flames to subside a bit before re-parking your automobile on the driveway.

- The torch, being extremely hot, has the potential to make other things extremely hot. Do not heat a rock with the torch and then expect it to be immediately cool enough to grasp barehanded to lob at the cats.

- Use caution when using torch near metal tools, such as shovels.

- If curiosity exceeds caution and you desire to see if the torch will make a shovel red hot, be assured that it will. The red glow indicates heat transfer from the torch to the shovel, making the shovel too hot to grasp until normal heat dissipation has occurred quite a few minutes later.

- Do not heat a shovel as a practical joke knowing your wife will be using said shovel prior to equalization with the ambient temperature. Unintended consequences will occur.

- Do not attempt to shoo away flying insects from around your head or your wife’s head with the lit torch.

- Do not use the lit torch when operating a lawn tractor, automobile, or other conveyance while texting and drinking soda and fiddling with the radio knob. No matter how well you "multi-task", you will experience unintended consequences.

- Do not use the lit torch while sober indoors, or while inebriated indoors or out. (See rule number 1).

- Do not attempt to pee in the compost while holding the lit torch. (You have been warned).

Well, after learning most of these rules through the compulsory courses of trail and error provided by the school of hard knocks, and after four unannounced visits from the fine men and women of Oklahoma City Fire Station No. 36 (God bless 'em), I can honestly say that this little tool will help alleviate one of the more arduous chores I have been plagued with since moving in.

So, in closing, let it be said that fire can be a very effective tool in the hands of the competent user. Fire has enabled mankind to become civilized and to create culinary delicacies such as roast pig and bar-b-que. Fire has provided light in the hours of darkness, heat in the midst of snow covered environs, inspiration for poets, and ambiance for lovers. Fire has provided the energy for all the manufacturing processes mankind has ever produced. Without fire, modern transportation would be at a standstill, modern houses would not be homes, and modern woodworkers would have no way of getting rid of all the scrap material left over after turning expensive wood into sawdust. And now, thanks to this fabulous torch, fire takes the tedium out of weed control, injecting a bit of zest and thrill to an otherwise boring task.

How great is that?

Don't know the difference between Mr. Bean and a legume in the ground

Pam and I wanted to start a bean garden, so we did what any self-respecting couple would do in this day and age, we researched the internet to find out all about beans. For those of you who haven't tried it yet, the internet is chock full of good information. You should try it sometime.

Anyway, we did a little research on the internet looking for information about legumes and ended up finding a web site for some company in Maine called ‘LiL’ Bean (or something like that, I forget). The web site had a lot of nice expensive gardening clothes, but we couldn't find any information about legumes. So Pam called their 1-800 number and the guy on the other end of the phone listened politely for a few minutes while she explained what we were looking for. He then asked for our address - he said he would send us a catalog. I guessed even though the internet is chock full of information it must not be all that chock full if they have to send us a catalog. But, I figured it would come in handy when we were planning our garden, so we gave him our mailing address.

When we got the catalog, I knew right away there was some mistake and said to Pam, “This ain’t got beans.”

I explained there was nothing in the catalog about gardening - it didn't even have a garden tools section, and nothing about legumes or any seed plants whatsoever. So, Pam did what every woman would do when faced with this situation: she grabbed the catalog and immediately filled out an order for two pairs of pants, a jacket, three shirts, two pairs of gloves, and a woolen scarf.

Meanwhile, I turned back to the internet for more research.

I did find out the peanut is a legume. You would think that some botanist somewhere would suggest changing the name. It sure would be awfully confusing for people who don't know how to use the internet to see the word "peanut" and then not know the plant is a legume. I guess the prefix "pea" might give it away, but the suffix "nut" puts you right back in Confusion Class wearing a silly pointed hat.

We grew some peanuts in our garden last year, just as an experiment, just to see if they'd grow - and by gum they did. We should have let them stay in the ground a bit longer, but they tasted pretty much like peanuts, except they weren't salty. I guess to grow salted peanuts you have to add salt to the ground when you plant the things. But, the peanut web site said that some peanuts apparently are “with sea salt”. There's no way we could grow peanuts “with sea salt” - we're in the middle of Oklahoma, for pete's sake, not any where near the sea.

We tried to grow some peas this year. Pam set up some wire in a frame that looked like a short mountain. I asked her what that was for, and she replied - and I'm quoting- "for the pea thingys to climb up" - that's what she said. I still don't understand that concept - made me think of little pea plants wearing little rock climbing shoes and using rope and carabiners and yodeling when they get to the top of the little fake mountain frame. We did get some peas, but it looked to me that the ragweed beat the little guys to the top of the mountain and threw most of them over a cliff.

Pam did the same thing with the cucumbers this year, except the wire frame looked more like a sheer rock face, and the cucumbers seemed to be much more out of shape than the peas. If the peas were slim trim Swiss mountain folk, then the cucumbers were rotund middle-aged American has-been rock climbers more interested in drinking beer while looking up the rock face and saying, "Yep, looks steep."

But, I digress – cucumbers are not legumes, they’re in the gourd family (I think the ones we grew were disowned by their family – but I still digress).

Pam wanted to grow some green beans, but that didn’t work out too well this year. Last year, she put in some bush beans, and we got quite a few, enough to last through the winter. This year, though, she decided to experiment and put in a different variety. She seemed to be on this trellis kick for some reason and put up another wire frame for these beans to climb up. Apparently, they came ill-equipped for climbing and got discouraged and just decided to hike around a bit before littering up the garden. So, to summarize the results of Pam’s experiment, “bush beans are easy to plant, they grow well, they’re easy to pick, and they’re tasty, so remember what succeeds and darn well don’t let that happen again.” If Pam had been Edison, she would have chucked the first successful light bulb into the trash bin to start work on an improved lantern wick.

But, I again digress – where was I?

Legumes, that’s where I was. And we didn’t get any this year, that’s where I was going.

But at least we learned all about legumes. Legumes have been a staple of the human diet since pre-history. They’re hardy, easy to grow and very versatile and nutritious.

If you can’t grow legumes, you can’t grow beans.

Visitations

Soon after moving to our house in Newalla, we began having some wildlife visitations. We never saw any animals, but most mornings we could tell that something had been rummaging around, mostly getting into the cat’s food and water. Things would be scattered around and broken, and I even wondered if something was trying to cook a bird on the grill at times. Pam stopped leaving cat food overnight on the back porch. The cats complained, but Pam explained the situation to them and they seemed to have accepted that.

Petey da Wiener Dog cornered a possum once, and lame as he is, he latched on to it and howled and barked and carried on to such a point that Pam went into a panic about Petey’s safety. She hurried to where Petey and the possum were, yelling hysterically for me to help Petey, but when I arrived I saw that it looked as if the possum needed help instead of Petey. The poor little possum was doing what possums do when attacked, that is, playing possum, but Petey was continually lunging to bite the thing. Pam finally scooped Petey up and babied the little dog, while Petey kept growling and baring his teeth and made every effort to get out of Pam’s grasp so he could finish the job.

A couple minutes after Pam “rescued” Petey, the possum got on his feet and lumbered off as if nothing had happened.

A few weeks after that, Petey woke us up at two in the morning. I climbed down the stairs and saw Petey barking at the back door and making as if he wanted to go out and make war. I thought it was just the possum again, and almost opened the door for Petey just to see what would happen. I peeked out the door, and saw a shadow in the dark moving near the rocking chairs. Hoping to surprise whatever was there, I flipped on the light, and saw a black and white kittie-cat-looking thing, and thought better about letting Petey go outside. Petey and I let the skunk do whatever it wanted to do on the back porch, and eventually it wandered to the side of the house and into the front yard, with Petey following his every move from inside the house until it disappeared to the south.

Petey wasn’t so lucky about a month later. I was working in Danger Lane Workshop one evening, and Pam came out to see me, carrying Petey (Pam does that sometimes – she can’t resist me). While we were in the workshop, Petey got a bit agitated, like he wanted to go outside, so Pam absent-mindedly opened the door and let him out and she and I continued our conversation.

The next minute we heard Petey barking and howling, and the next moment we smelled the same smell you would smell when you drive over a polecat road kill (skunk for you suburbanites). Pam looked at me, and I looked at Pam, and we both knew in an instant what had just occurred. We rushed to the door.

Now, the workshop used to be a barn. And a barn being a barn naturally attracts various types of animals. I knew full well that animals were used to going in and around the barn and would continue doing so even after the barn became a workshop. And I did see a skunk wandering around the barn a couple of times after we moved in, but I didn’t really think too much about it.

But, now, the reality of skunk habitation sunk in, along with that distinctive overpowering smell. When Pam and I got outside, Pam immediately called for Petey, but Petey was in no shape to respond. He was writhing on the ground, rubbing his poor little eyes with his paws, then writhing and rolling on the ground again. Pam rushed to him and got about five feet from him – that’s when the full force of the smell hit her nostrils, and she stopped like she had been hit with a brick (not that I would know, I’ve never hit her with a brick before). At this time, the skunk came from around the other side of the workshop and scampered away into the darkness while we were left to tend to Petey.

Petey submitted to a tomato juice bath, a peroxide dousing, and an industrial strength detergent scrub, but the peculiar smell stayed on him for weeks.

We know now that Petey cannot go out by himself after dark. And Bailey da Hound Dog gets put in his kennel when it gets dark.

And we always turn the porch light on before we go out after dark ourselves. I’m not so worried about things that bite as I am cautious about things that could make me an unpleasant subject of conversation at work the next day.

A few nights ago, while ruminating on the events of the day, we heard a racket on the back porch. Petey the Wiener Dog rushed to the back door and began growling and barking. Sachmo, the Brain-damaged Cat, joined him and also began growling in that weird way cats do sometimes.

Well, I just had to see what the boys were concerned about, so I turned on the light to the back porch and looked out the door window.

There, rummaging around, were no less than four raccoons. I half expected to see them make themselves at home in the rockers, stoke up the grill and bar-b-q some chicken.

I ran to get the camera and captured this Pulitzer Prize quality snapshot.


Cute little things, aren’t they – the chicken-stealing, cat-molesting, garbage-can-tipping vermin. They didn’t run off when I was taking pictures, quite the opposite. As I snapped away, they were approaching me enmass and trying to out-flank me. I didn’t know what they would have done if they had caught me, but I got the distinct impression they wanted my camera. This was confirmed a few days later when I found a note on the porch, in recognizable raccoon script, offering a substantial payment in exchange for some digital copies of the pictures I took.

So, that night, I burned a CD with the pictures on it and set it on the porch along with a note of agreement about the price. The next morning it was gone.

That was a week ago, and I’m still waiting for the “substantial payment”.
Raccoons may be cute, but they have no integrity.