Farm Accidents

7th Installment

There was a direct correlation in doctoring our animals and our personal trips to the emergency room. With a few exceptions, Danny and I did all of the shots and medications. Most things went smoothly, but a few incidents left lasting impressions. One time, Jessie had mastitis, a mammary gland infection, and needed a shot of antibiotics. I hated giving shots so I had the syringe ready for Danny when he arrived home late that night. He told me that I had to give the shot while he held her with a headlock. Timidly, I tried to push it in. Jessie stomped her feet and swished her tail thinking she was being attacked by a horsefly. Danny yelled, “Damn it, jab it in!” I jabbed it in her hip. She threw her head, shook Danny loose and caught him in the butt with one of her horns. She ripped his pants from the bottom of his butt cheek to his waist.  If the tip of her horn hadn’t been rounded smooth, he would have spent another night in the emergency room getting his buttock sewn up. As it was, her horn broke off in his jeans giving him a 10-inch scrape and bruise. All was semi well until Jessie and Danny locked eyes. In a fit of idiocy, he tried to cold-cock her. She shook her head to settle her brains and walked away. Danny spent the rest of the night in the emergency room with his broken hand.

  Over the years, there were accidents that didn’t involve animals, just not many. Danny was losing interest in farming. His eye wandered to the neighbor -  a skinny drunk with a passion for pulp wooding. They began accumulating equipment:  chain saws, pulpwood trucks, and skidders. Danny knew how to use them most of the time, but he had a passion for altering or adjusting equipment and disengaging safety features which he didn’t put much stock in. I was in the kitchen one evening when Danny went to the garage to sharpen his Stihl saw. He filed each little tooth and then cranked it up to try out on some nearby saplings. The saw slipped from his oily hands and fell, still running, slipping into his cowboy boot alongside his blue jean clad calf where the chain proceeded to eat his leg and jeans. The Sunday evening emergency room nurses knew us on sight. I think I still get Christmas cards from one of them. It will probably be here soon. 

  We never had dogs that earned their keep as Australian Shepherds do, but from time to time we raised popular breeds that Danny thought would be cash crops, like Black and Tan Coonhounds. Just as with the large animals, we did most of the doctoring ourselves. We earned a reputation with animals, not of being good, just of being willing to try anything. One time, a friend asked if we could help him dock the tails of a litter of Doberman puppies. I was squeamish, so Danny said he would hold the babies and Frank, the friend, would use the straight razor on their little tails. Unfortunately, Danny could not keep his grasp on them either. One puppy squirmed in his big hand and Frank docked Danny’s pinkie. We spent another night in the emergency room.

  Nowadays my farming is limited; no big farm animals and no accidents—except for the yellow jacket and hornets.

Unless you count the time my son held a match to the spout of the gas can. Whoosh. Another trip to the emergency room. Or the time he swung on a vine across the dry creek; fractured his arm in two places. Or the time he ….

Working for Food

It was beautiful today. This afternoon I filled a plastic bag with green weeds for the chickens. I have to be careful opening their gate because there is a Rhode Island Red who is quite eager to relieve me of anything I have when I walk inside. She will tear the bottom of the plastic bag apart trying to get at whatever I have. I had just walked through the gate & was trying to throw bits of weeds in different directions. Red ran between my legs and out the gate. My first concern was a yard full of dogs watching us. She stopped within a few feet and began to scratch around in the leaves. I tried to entice her with weeds, but she was not interested. She was so intent on moving the leaves that I was able to catch her pretty quick. 
This particular pen has chicken wire across the top so no leaves dropped inside last fall. From outside their pen,  I gathered about 5 or 6 small bags of leaves. When I dumped them in the pen, the chickens went crazy. They were so excited to scratch around the leaves and find the same feed or weeds that they had just walked over. 

Chickens were meant to forage for their food. 

It is very touching to see the rooster find a goody and call his girls over to share. 

I try to throw treats near the roosters so they can fulfill their role. 

                   Happy Chickens!

                                                                               Red is in the foreground. She usually sticks close to me.

Something to Crow About!

When the world was perfect, before the fall, before sin, there was work and it was in a garden.

God placed man in the Garden to tend it. 

Enduring Romance - A Man & His Mule

6th Installment

I should have known when my boyfriend, Danny, said I had “an ass like a saddle horse” and meant it as a compliment, that my husband, Danny, might have a perverse love of the equine species. Kate was my husband’s ugly, brown saddle mule, a higher class of animal than a non-saddle mule, as any mule aficionado would know. For some reason Jack, our beautiful Tennessee Walking Horse, did not hold the same attraction for Danny, I think Jack was too tall. Kate was short—just the right height; his feet could drag the ground like brakes or he could just stand up and let her walk right out from under him, saving that strenuous step of having to throw his leg over her. Kate and Danny had a suspicious relationship from the beginning. She was demanding, like a spoiled mistress. At first, it was a new saddle, then a new trailer. She went through more shoes than I did. I guess I was jealous, she had a standing date every Saturday night for coon hunting, a misnomer for sitting around a campfire getting drunk. A mule is a necessary piece of equipment on a coon hunt. They are sure-footed and sturdy for carrying the cases of beer.

  Danny had the bright idea he needed to train Kate to stand still while he shot from her back. She needed to become accustomed to the noise of a bullet whizzing past her ears. One Saturday morning while the kids and I were getting ready to go to the mall, Danny rode Kate across the pasture to target practice. What happened next I had to piece together, because both Kate and Danny were notorious liars. Luckily, I could tell when they were lying; she resembled a bad ventriloquist with her dummy. Danny had pulled the six-shooter from his holster, steadied himself and fired a shot. Kate barely moved. He patted her on her neck and holstered the gun. Then with a flourish Danny did a quick-draw; spun the pistol around his index finger; bumped the gun on his love handle; and shot himself in the butt. Danny, like a whirling dervish in the saddle, startled Kate, who then walked out from under him and trotted on home. Lucky for her, the bullet lodged in Danny’s rear and didn’t pierce her saddle. Danny hobbled home behind her. We dropped him off at the hospital on our way to the mall. I got a lot of mileage from that accident. He was the butt of jokes for months, years actually.

  Kate was an innocent bystander with that accident, but she had a more active role in others. Whenever Kate and Danny got together, he usually got in trouble. One such Saturday, Danny stepped on a rusty nail. It didn’t cross his mind to take off his dirty boot or his nasty sock and clean the wound, because Kate was pressing him to go hunting and he couldn’t let her down. That night Danny and his buddies with their jennies went to the river to “hunt.” Danny guided Kate down a steep embankment and led her through a swift creek that made her nervous. (he walked) He sat around the fire, his foot beginning to swell and throb despite the beer and whiskey. If he only had a brain. Later, he pulled her through the creek and drug her up the hill to the horse trailer to head home. Danny hobbled in the house, in the wee hours of the morning, moaning and groaning. When the kids and I went to church, Danny called his dad to take him to the hospital. Staph, Strep, Gangrene, oh my. Twenty-nine days later, they let him out of the hospital.

  Danny liked to pass Kate off as an integral part of our farm, because occasionally he would plow a crooked row with her. If the cows or horses were out of the pasture as they were much of the time, he had a good excuse to saddle Kate and herd them up. One day, Kate decided to go to the creek on the back of the property. When Danny couldn’t run her down on foot, he jumped into my F-150 and sped across the field. Kate thought they were playing chase. She kicked up her heels and just like the cartoon of a jackass with both back legs in the air; Kate kicked and dented the front panel of the truck, my truck. It’s a good thing the freezer was about full, Kate nor Danny would fit in and I couldn’t see wasting his sorry a@@!

      Years later, Kate was mentioned in the divorce petition. Not as a contributing factor or Danny claiming her as his - he was going to leave the vile creature with me. No, one of my demands was that they ride off into the sunset together. Only fitting. 🤣

Farm Animals

5th Installment

  Animals are an important part of farm life. Animals are to a farm what children are to a home; a lot of trouble, a lot of money and usually a contributing factor in divorce. Our animals were much like our children; they wandered the countryside unfettered. Fences, we don’t need no stinking fences. Danny didn’t believe in any sort of boundary or constraint such as laws, marriage, underwear. Danny did not want to restrict or hinder our animals in any of their creative endeavors either. Chickens roosted on the deck railings; Geese slept under the outdoor furniture; Jessie, my milk cow, came to the back door to beg snacks; Rooter and Porker, two hogs, chased my truck down the drive like 500 pound puppies. They waited with bated breath for me to open my door and throw some fast-food morsel to them. Neighbors were a little put off when Rooter began to chase their cars. Danny said he would rather die than be locked up, so we ate him, Rooter, that is.

  Some things really do taste like chicken, besides chicken. Rabbit is one of them. I inherited my dad’s rabbits when he died, but could not look at those big bunny eyes everyday and know they were sentenced to death. We gave most of them away, but a few made it to a picnic.

  Of all the offensive smells on a farm, nothing quite matches a goat.  We had common goats, the basic kind that eat tin cans and climb trees. Later, my husband brought home a pregnant Nubian milk-goat. I delivered twin kids by myself. I had come a long way from the girl who fainted when first seeing a colt being born. The kids were unable to nurse because of her malformed teats, but this was typical of the “good deals” Danny brought home. I learned how to milk the stinky thing until we could pass her on to the next unsuspecting friend.  

When I was young and stupid, I wanted to raise milk cows. I started with two six-week old calves, Betsy, a Jersey, and Jessie, a Holstein. They were a present from my husband for my twenty-fifth birthday. I bottle fed them the first few months and fell in love with their big-old, brown cow eyes and sweet-feed breath. At about twenty months, they were ready to breed. I borrowed a bull from a cousin and waited for nature to take its course. Month after month, I was disappointed. I found out Betsy was a “gomer,” a Biblical reference. In current vernacular, she would be a “ho.”  No pregnancies, she just liked doing it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to feed the slut, so she went the way of all the troublemakers, the freezer. My sister said we were the only people she knew who ate their pets. On a farm, the animals have to pay their way.

  Jessie eventually became pregnant by a Santa Gertrudis. Lying on the ground, I held her head and cried with her as the vet used his calf-puller. The calf was too large for her to deliver and died during labor. We then chose adoption. I got a male calf from the local dairy. Naturally they wouldn't part with a girl. Jessie took one sniff and said "no thank you!" Her motherly instinct left something to be desired. The only upside was she produced plenty of milk.

  For the next baby, instead of borrowing a bull, I went shopping through the semen catalogue. I picked out a real stud and arranged a tryst for Jessie and “The Inseminator.” He was a strange man who made his living impregnating cows. On that Tuesday afternoon, he arrived in a good-looking dual wheel Ford. In the bed of the truck was a large refrigeration unit. When he opened the cooler, a white cloud of cold air wafted out. It reminded me of the dry ice we used to put in cauldrons for Halloween. He reached inside and brought out a semen-filled vial that he called a straw. We walked across the field in silence. Jessie was tied at the barn chowing down on a bucket of sweet-feed. Besides the small vial, Mr. Inseminator had what looked like a plastic suitcase of sorts. He opened the case, pulled out a black rubber apron and slipped it over his head. Then, he dramatically put on pair of rubber gloves that went up to his shoulders. Jessie and I were both fascinated with his performance. But she lost interest real quick when he lifted her tail straight up in the air with one hand and proceeded to stick his other hand up her butt. I thought the procedure would be a little more tender, special. Instead, it was violent.  He slung a handful of crap from his hand. Then he clenched his jaw, grunted and thrust his arm again. I backed up a little. Maybe I should leave them alone; I sure didn’t want to make it a threesome. Despite the head gate, Jessie did a lively two-step. Mr. Inseminator danced along with her while slinging more crap. Gobs and gobs of the stuff had to be removed before he could insert the semen. Jessie did not get off on any of this; he definitely did not appeal to her. The Inseminator was the only one that got anything out of the arrangement— a perverted rush and a lot of my money. Jessie and I just got screwed - no satisfaction, no baby. We chose celibacy after that.

 Jessie had a  great sense of humor!

Farm Equipment

4th Installment 

  Good equipment is essential on a farm. Our largest purchase was a John Deere 2150.  I love that tractor: 45 horsepower, diesel, live PTO, roll bar, seat belt and a gentle vibration better than any washing machine. It was so peaceful to bush hog a field or plow a garden; no screaming kids or spouse; this was probably the only thing Danny and I ever agreed on. When we divorced, he gave me full custody of the kids and agreed to pay more child support than the law required, but for 10 years we have battled for custody of my tractor because my lawyer neglected to put the serial number in the divorce decree. At present, Danny has the tractor and I have the attachments. But, it’s not over yet.

  Many small pieces of equipment make daily or specialized chores easier. A cute salesman talked me into buying a head gate, which is pretty much what it sounds like. When a cow sticks her head in the opening, the spring-loaded gate closes on her neck to hold her in place. Ideally, the gate is placed at the end of a narrowing chute contained in a corral. The cow is led with feed into the corral and herded into the chute. It works wonderfully in theory. Danny missed the part about the corral and chute though. His idea was to put the head gate free standing in the field. It was a little harder to herd a cow in to it that way. There seemed to be a force field around the gate that repelled our cows. With all of Danny’s injuries and the hospital deductibles we had to pay, we could have built that corral.

  What would farming be without crops? A heck of a lot easier. Over the years, we tried growing just about everything but settled into the rut of the tried and true: corn, peas and okra. My Dad especially liked to plant corn. He loved to give it to all of the relatives, friends and his bartender. Some corn was sold. Some corn was put in 55-gallon drums for feed and some corn was for making moonshine. Daddy and his friend, Billy, built a whiskey still and placed it inside their playhouse, a gutted Greyhound bus. The big still with all of its coiled copper tubing sat proudly in the front glass window of the bus’s make-shift kitchen. I was accustomed to Daddy doing crazy things and figured this was another phase he was going through. One Saturday, I had some Auburn students coming to shoot lines as to where we should put a lake. They were going to show me what needed clearing and how and where to build the dam. I didn’t think too much about it when  two dark blue cars with gold state seals pulled in the field in front of the bus. I knew the government cars were from the Conservation Department but Daddy about had a conniption. He thought the “revenuers” had arrived - one of the few times I got the best of him.

 Ray McClinton with his son, Perry, working on old tractor.

Farm Help

3rd installment

The family that farms together  - stays together, or some such nonsense as that. When you’re farming, there isn’t much time to get into trouble. Farming kept us busy. The only full time laborer we ever had was a transient named Chuck. He fastened himself to my husband as did stray dogs and drunks. Danny had the bright idea to bring Chuck home to live in our RV. Chuck had red, curly, clown hair and the kind of teeth kids buy for Halloween. Chuck was a tall skinny drunk, the kind that stands on the side of the road in the rain with the sign, “Will work for food.” Chuck was “that kind,” although that was not how my husband found him. I think they discovered each other across a crowded, smoky bar room; the beginning of their meaningful relationship.

  Chuck came to live with us to be a farmhand and my husband’s new best friend. Danny added the handyman position to Chuck’s resume to quell my objections to his constant presence. Because my husband traveled a lot with his work and was basically inept when he was at home, I needed a man to help with the farm chores. Danny gave me Chuck. I should have asked for a stray dog.

  Early in the morning, I would see Chuck walk across the field with Danny’s shotgun. Mid-morning he would return, grinning like a fool and swinging a couple of rabbits by the ears. He scared me. It wasn’t that he was intimidating, I could probably have taken him or at least stood my ground in a tussle, but he reminded me of a carnie and I found everything at the circus scary, except the animals. My young sons were thrilled with Chuck; they thought Bozo had moved in with us. In the evenings, Danny would spend hours in the RV “explaining” to Chuck the next day’s chores. I’m sure Danny did most of the talking because Chuck was a stutterer. Beer always helped their communication process though.

  Chuck got a bright idea. Bright ideas were catchy around our house - I found out later Danny was the contagion. Chuck thought if he had a truck he would be able to help haul feed and supplies from the co-op. So, with a skill saw, some plywood and black plastic, Chuck turned his classic blue Falcon into something totally, unbelievably ugly, but vaguely resembling a truck.

  Two heads are better than one. Then again, there is always that exception to the rule. Danny wasn’t much on rules and would be the first to agree that he was exceptional. Ever heard that saying, “If he had half-a-brain he’d be dangerous?” Chuck and Danny together bordered on half-a-brain. Somehow, one evening their conversation over beer naturally progressed to castration. I thought about it occasionally but in a different context. Danny had seen it done to a cat and thought they could do it to some young hogs.

  “Well, we need to get a stove pipe. It has to be snug fit. We’ll put the front half of their body in the pipe with their butt just hanging out. They won’t be able to move. ” 

  Chuck looked confused. “Www...wh...what? Th...th...that’s not h...how...” Obviously, Chuck wasn’t drunk enough yet.

  “Just sharpen your knife tomorrow and make sure you have plenty of lard.”

  “L..l...l..lard? 

  “Mountain oysters for dinner ‘morrow night.”

  I made Chuck nervous, which was okay because he made my skin crawl. Our contentious relationship must have reminded him of the wife he had left, because at the end of summer he announced he was going back to Florida to see her. Danny cried.

Adventures in Raising Fowl

(2nd installment from stories written about 12 years ago.)

I guess I had about every kind of fowl at one time or another. I asked Danny for a white gosling for my birthday.  He bought a dozen of them. Instead of having one goose that would follow me around like a pet, we had a pack, a herd of marauding geese. Actually, it was a gaggle of geese, but gaggle sounds fun like giggle and they weren’t the least bit funny. They were some of the meanest things we ever owned. My youngest son, Clint, stood toe to toe and eye to eye with them except it was usually beak to back, their beaks and toenails on his back. Clint would check to see if the geese were at the front or back door before he went outside and use whichever one was goose-less. They scarred him for life, he’ll forever be afraid of down.

  One of the geese was a leg flogger similar to what small dogs do, but a lot scarier because of an eight-foot wing span and a beak reaching about crotch high. At one family get together, I was standing with two uncles talking when the flogger walked up to one of them, Uncle Morris, and started nuzzling his knee. I knew what was coming next but couldn’t stop it. The goose latched hold of my uncle’s leg and proceeded to scale the pants with strategic beak and claw placement. Uncle Morris tried to slap away the serpent-like head that was bobbing in front of his face, but he was no match for the goose. Taylor took the broom that we kept for such occasions and began to beat them both. The goose lost interest. Uncle Morris just lost it. The bad thing was this uncle was married to the aunt that had been attacked by my raccoon a few years earlier in much the same manner, a mating frenzy.

  To thin the flock, we gave some of the geese to unsuspecting former friends.  Of course, the final straw came when one of the ganders flew up in Danny’s face.  He took his six-shooter out and blew that sucker away. Freezer Food. 

  Rhode Island Reds, "Domineckers," ones with top knots, ones with feathers on their feet - I love chickens of any sort because they are such fun to watch. Chickens enjoy sharing the moment of a friend’s found treasure then trying to take it away. After all, they are just chickens and everything has a pecking order. It was like an Easter egg hunt everyday with my free-range chickens. Luckily they were creatures of habit and tended to lay in the same spots. 

Our first dozen chicks were first run which means someone at a feed store grabs a box, puts newly hatched chicks in it, and a couple of months later you know what sex they are. Unfortunately, out of our first dozen chicks, there were only two hens; two hard ridden hens. One rooster is normally needed to “service” a dozen hens for biddy production but roosters are superfluous for egg production. Those poor featherless girls didn’t have time to eat or sleep let alone lay eggs. Danny didn’t have the heart to ring the roosters’ necks, so he and the .22 put eight of them in the freezer. 

  Turkeys were my best-behaved animals. They’re not nearly as stupid as the jokes imply; I never had a single one drown in the rain. I guess there are reasons why they lay over two dozen eggs in a clutch and only one or two reach maturity. The turkey moms are easily distracted and the babies are slowly picked off or lost in the woods. Turkeys are not quite the majestic bird Benjamin Franklin professed either, but when that gobbler strikes the ground with those wings, fans his beautiful tail and puffs out his chest, it is an awesome sight. Bird dogs eventually wiped out my small flock and broke my heart. Death is an ever-present part of farm life.

An Interesting Life

I was listening to a radio talk show while driving home this evening. 

He said something that caught my attention. "Lead an interesting life." 

I think over the years I have had some pretty fascinating adventures. 

But as with beauty, "interesting" is in the eye of the beholder. 

(1st installment from stories written about 12 years ago.)

Ridge Circle Farm, sole proprietor, female, farmer, that’s me: Lady Farmer. I guess it’s better than being the farmer’s wife, but not nearly as much fun as being the farmer’s daughter. I was a farmer’s daughter for a short while. My dad was a gentleman farmer, part of the landed-gentry. His farming involved the weekend trips to feed the cows someone else tended and pick the corn someone else planted. We had picnics, barbecues, quail hunts and dove shoots. Not quite the fun I heard farmer’s daughter had, but it wasn’t quite farming either. The real farming came later when I moved from the suburbs to the country.

  Once upon a time, there was a farmer’s husband. He was handsome in a red-neck sort of way, with curly black hair and green eyes that could talk me in to most anything; I blame those cursed pheromones. I cured that problem with a nose job and he became my ex-husband. Taylor, my oldest son, was born before Danny and I lost our collective mind and moved to the country. Taylor is a city child at heart. The pulse of the Birmingham’s Southside beats through his veins. He was fearless on the farm; fighting geese and protecting his little brother. Now, Taylor is a neurotic urbanite. He might as well move on to some unnamed northern city. My younger son was born after we began farming and as with most of our farm animals, his birth was at the wrong time in the wrong place. The lady at the 7-11 store told me that castor oil would coax that baby right on out and I thought it was worth a try. So, I drank two small bottles of castor oil, had two hours of labor, and then had to listen to two people in the truck saying, “you can make it, you can make it.” Of course, they were wrong. Clint came into this world raising hell. He’s a carbon copy of his dad. It’s nice to know I’ll always have a part of his dad with me forever, lest I forget the twenty some-odd years I spent with Danny. As a child, Clint was afraid of everything. Now, he is invincible, just like his dad.

 Fencing was first priority when we moved to the country. In order to string new fence, the vines, brambles and other underbrush had to be removed. One memorable Sunday, Danny and my dad were clearing around an old barn. Clearing is a euphemism for what drunks do with a lighter and a can of gasoline. I thought the fire was spreading too quickly. They assured me they could handle it. Our barn was not in imminent danger, just the Tree Farm on the other side of our property. Daddy, a short man with short little legs, was running in every direction at the same time trying to beat out the flames with pine boughs. As I stomped the jumping flames, I could hear Daddy under his breath, “**##**+# sh*t.” That was the evening when we met our neighbors for the first time. We also met personnel from two fire departments, Rangers from the Alabama Forestry Commission, and a Chilton County Sheriff. Neighbors’ kids brought marshmallows and played around the embers. Welcome to the neighborhood. We have a reunion around a fire about every three or four years, any sooner and there would be legal ramifications, i.e. jail time.

                          Seeing the humorous side has been important for surviving this life. 

Danny liked to read my stories about his crazy antics because he had a good sense of humor. 

Danny died at the tender age of 56 - just like my dad.

Ancient times - 1979

Treats

Food is intrinsically tied to Southern culture. Smells and tastes and treats are linked with our fondest memories. Of course, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are big feasts and traditions. But what about the small things? What food makes you smile?
Rarely does anyone leave my mother's house without a homemade cookie. She has about 4 canisters in different places so that there are always some somewhere. Her specialty is tea cakes - crispy and not too sweet. She also makes good Toll House. Because pecans are so expensive, she keeps a hidden canister for cookies with nuts. Those are for the adults because kids will eat anything.
When I was little, my dad's mom was addicted to Hershey's kisses and kept a bowl by her bed. Occasionally she would share and that was a real treat.
My other grandmother babysat us at our home. She and I would gather up loose change and walk a couple of blocks to Week's One Stop. It was our little secret. Granny Lucas liked Coca Cola and my mother didn't keep them in the house.
I don't remember eating any treats when I would visit Granny Lucas's home. They were poor. Not knowing the full details, now I would guess they were probably very poor but I didn't notice. They lived much like all the other country folk around them. My big treat was to go to the neighbor's and get roasted peanuts. I can still smell the fragrance of roasting nuts and see the smoky old fireplace in their dilapidated home. Aunt Kitty and Uncle Ben were the Colored neighbors. (Back then, Colored was the respectful way to refer to African-Americans.) All adults were either Mr. or Mrs. unless they were kin or close friends, then they were Aunt or Uncle. I don't remember seeing peanuts growing on their property, but Aunt Kitty seemed to have an endless supply. Uncle Ben raised hogs and was always eager to show us his new piglets.
When I went to Aunt Pallie Mae's house I could always expect boiled peanuts. Any time of year.  She had them in the big freezer and shared freely.
My dad will always be linked to grilled steaks - not your typical treat. Steaks were the answer for every visitor's meal. Daddy also had his favorite spots to take us. A strawberry shake from Highland Bakery. Greek Salad from The Bright Star. Bar-be-cue sandwich from the Stadium Grill. But the food that makes me smile I got with him at Woolworth's lunch counter. We would sit on the stools. They would place a glass of water on a napkin in front of me and ask what I would like. "A banana split, please, and no chocolate."

I love to gather all the fixings and have banana split parties for my company. (guests)

Banana splits are pretty, creative, have almost all the food groups, what???, delicious, and fun.

They are a temporary cure for whatever ails you. I promise you will feel better.

 Share a banana split with people you love.

Make a smile and a memory.

Reminiscing

We do not live in a vacuum. Everything we do affects those around us. Every decision has consequences - immediate and everlasting. Two men decided to rob our family business. The ripple began.

Since a lot of family and friends liked my Daddy's Clouds, thought you might like this true account.

The Letter

It came in the mail last week, an official letter from the government. I put it on the table with the rest of the bills. I just was not ready to deal with it. I’m still not ready. In June for the last couple of years, the letter has arrived like clockwork. Everyday as I have re-sorted the mail trying to decide what to pay, I have been confronted with the letter. I get a knot in my stomach when I think about opening it and the old wounds.

In December of 1976, my world turned upside down. The month started badly and only got worse. Two of my dogs were injured in a very rare and freak attack. One of them, Dago, was very special to me. Several years earlier my boyfriend, Danny, and I had rescued the wiry-haired pup from the highway. I had thrown open the passenger door and scooped him inside just seconds before he would have become road kill. Since then, my whisker dog had thanked me daily with his presence and protection. In that first week of December, a mountain lion had traveled southward along the railroad tracks, mauling and mutilating pets and livestock. Dago, who had a bit of a Napoleon complex, fought fiercely to defend his neighborhood, but was no match for the mountain lion. Dago spent almost a week in the hospital due to the loss of both ears, and severe facial and shoulder wounds. Blackie, my not-so-bright hound, fared much better. He received only superficial wounds on his hind flanks as he made a hasty retreat. I was happy to have them both home and safe.

My attention turned to preparations for a trip to the Soviet Union with my college Russian Civilization class. With only one week before departure, Mother and I had been shopping all day that second Friday in December. Normally Mother worked full time in my dad’s pawn shop. But being the owner’s wife had a few perks like occasionally playing hooky. When we arrived home, Mother called the pawn shop to remind my dad that they were supposed to go visit his dad in the hospital. That week, our family had a close call with my granddaddy. As far back as I can remember, Granddaddy had had a cigar growing out of the side of his mouth as a permanent fixture. He finally removed the cigar when the doctors removed his jaw and the cancer attached to it. The prognosis for him looked good.

Mother was calling to remind Dad about their plans. Usually the pawn shop closed by five and after a quick beer at his favorite local pub, Dad would wander home. To make it on time for the visiting hours, he would need to take the direct route home. I was in the kitchen when mother made the telephone call. After her first words, I knew something was wrong.
Dad’s small store, Bank Pawn Shop, had only three full time employees besides my family. Willis and Dee worked in the front part of the store with the guns, knives, and jewelry. Debby and my mother worked in the office at the rear of the store. My dad was the jeweler and pawnbroker and the personality that kept everything afloat. His casual customers called him “Mr. Banks.” The long time customers called him “Mr. Mac.” But for those who really knew him, he was Perry. That Friday, things had been slow so Dad let Dee and Willis leave early. At a few minutes before five o’clock, Dad and Debby were in the closing ritual: all diamonds and guns of value had to be put in the vault every evening; money counted; and the window displays had to be emptied. Alarms, steel bars and iron mesh were not enough of a deterrent for would-be burglars. Normally it took about thirty minutes to shut the store down. When the two men walked through the double doors, Debby was reaching into the window display closing jewelry containers. Dad had walked into the vault to put away a tray of blue velvet boxes, but heard the bells jingle as the men walked inside. One of them stood near the door looking around at the work boots and toolboxes. The other man looked in the glass display cases as he ambled toward the rear of the store. Dad called for Debby to come to the vault. He then left the ornamental iron-caged office to wait on the men. As he had for the past fifteen years, Dad stood waiting patiently, watching the customers browse through the two long aisles of the store. He was suspicious of these men; they never made eye contact; they walked without purpose. Over the years, there had been several attempts to reach over the case to snatch, grab, and dash. Some had even been successful, therefore Dad tried to watch carefully. After a few minutes of “shopping,” the men again assumed their original positions with one man at the front door. The other one approached my dad at the display case where the handguns were housed. The young black man—later identified as Leon Foy - leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and mumbled something to my dad. Then as if in slow motion, Foy stepped back and pulled his revolver. With no time to wage the consequences, my dad, a short man with the severe Napoleon complex that seemed to run in our family, acted from the gut and pulled a .38 Smith & Wesson from his pocket. Unfortunately, Foy had already taken aim. All but one of my dad’s shots went wild as Foy accurately unloaded his gun into my dad. The wounded assailant and accomplice fled from the store empty handed as Debby screamed into the telephone for help. Daddy slumped to the floor, never losing consciousness.

It was a strange voice that answered the phone. The pawn shop was laid back and any of Dad’s friends might answer the telephone in a pinch, but all knew to say, “Bank Pawn Shop” when greeting a customer. Instead of the customary greeting, Mother heard a tentative hello. She said, “Let me speak to Perry.... This is Doris. Who is this? ...  I’m his wife, Doris McClinton! Who are you? What’s going on?”

Mother went pale as her color drained. She held on to the receiver waiting for someone with authority or information to come to the telephone. She looked at me and whispered that something had happened. I stood with my heart in my throat watching, trying to read her face.
“This is Doris, Perry’s wife. . . . What has happened?”

The conversation was short. Returning the receiver to the cradle, mother turned to me and said in clipped, controlled words, “There’s been a shooting. Your daddy is on the way to the hospital. We have to leave right now. You’ll have to drive.”

“Has Daddy been shot?” I whispered.

“Yes.” I could barely speak. “How is he?” I asked.

“I don’t know, they said we need to hurry.” Mother was eerily calm going through the motions of getting her coat and purse.

“I can’t drive, Mother. I can’t.” I hurriedly called Danny who lived a few minutes away. He wasn’t in from work yet so his dad volunteered to drive us to the hospital. Mother and I rode like zombies in the car as he took his dear sweet time on the back roads to downtown. He chattered constantly totally unperturbed by the situation. My irritation with him kept my thoughts occupied. The obvious was too difficult to handle.

When we arrived at UAB hospital, it was not like in the movies. The people were not nice and helpful. They were too busy trying to save my dad’s life to care about our concerns. They said they were getting ready to wheel him into surgery and “no” we could not see him. I needed to say so many things. In the movies, they always have closure.

As we stood in the emergency room hallway talking to the doctor, I caught a glimpse of my daddy’s gurney heading to surgery. I knew with one quick glance why she did not want us to see him. His crimson face was caked with dried blood. I could see the hole in his neck. Breathe, breathe.

Doctors use a roundabout way of saying but not saying things. The doctor said that I might want to call in the family. As she walked away, a nurse presented me with the bag of Daddy’s clothes. His pants, shirt, underwear, and even belt had been cut from his body. Bullet holes were in every piece of material. The clothes smelled of blood. They were saturated with it. I felt nauseous and faint. I looked at my mother and realized I had to be strong. It was my turn to take care of her. For the first time in my twenty-one years, it wasn't about me.
In the waiting room, my mind raced. Who did I need to call? Aunt Lillian. She was loved by everyone and knew everyone’s telephone number. She would get the word out to my mother’s family and give me any phone numbers that I needed. My dad’s sisters both lived out of state and his mom was visiting the one in New Orleans. How do you tell someone that her brother would probably be dead by the time she arrived? When Grandma answered the phone, I tried to go through the pleasantries but she knew something from my voice. I thought it would be better for my aunt to break the news because at the time I thought 66 was old and fragile.
Each telephone call became easier as I became numb. Each repeating became less real, more surreal, a story — someone else’s story. Within an hour, family started arriving at the emergency room. Before the night was over, the almost fifty friends and family could not fit into the waiting room. We overflowed into the cafeteria where everyone tried to ignore the elephant in the room. As with a wake, there were lots of stories. Perry stories. “Doris, do you remember when Perry . . . blah, blah, blah?” Laughter would erupt, nervous laughter. Periodically a doctor or nurse would come talk to us for a minute and give encouragement as to how the surgery was going. The men tried to alleviate tension with nervous talk and laughter. The women seemed much more comfortable with silence. Daddy’s best friends, neighbors, my mother’s brothers, my cousins that he had employed at the pawn shop through their teenage years, people whose lives he had touched over the years - banded to hold my family together.

Sometime during the wee hours of the morning, a surgeon said my dad might live. The surgery was not over but Daddy had been very lucky. He had been shot six times with a total of eight holes in his body. There were holes from his neck to his thigh. Some bullets had shattered in him, while others went through him. By the grace of God, no major organ, other than a lung, had been hit. Daddy would carry a bullet in his lung for the rest of his life. The surgeon said my dad should have died from so many shots at close range and they were still looking for fragments. He had lost a lot of blood. They would know more by morning. My first deep breath in eight hours almost overloaded my oxygen-deprived brain. I felt weak to my knees. I hadn’t cried yet. I couldn’t cry yet, I still had to be strong for my mother.

About daylight, Daddy was critical but stable. In less than a week he would walk out of the hospital to my car. On the way home, we detoured by the pub for his beer and for him to show his war wounds. Daddy said he wanted to see which holes were going to leak.
For nearly a week, I tried everything possible to get out of the trip to the Soviet Union. How could I go? Everything in me wanted to grasp firmly to my life and not let go. Dago, my granddad and my dad were all in their respective homes recuperating. We survived the first two weeks of December. Mother said if I could get the money back from the travel company, I could stay home. Fate took control and two days after Daddy left the hospital I left for the Soviet Union.

Three days before Christmas, I arrived home from Moscow. I was excited to show my gifts and souvenirs to the family. Everyone was in the living room, except Dago. When I called for him, the room went silent. He had died. The autopsy showed gangrene had reached his brain. I had reached my breaking point. The tide of pain and fear that had ebbed in my heart now flowed from me. I finally cried. For three months I cried.

It’s all coming back, it’s all coming back to me now.
The letter is still on the table waiting, intimidating. The Alabama Department of Corrections Parole Board. For over twenty years, I had not given a thought to Leon Foy. For the last two years as an “interested party” I am forced to relive one of the worst times of my life. If I had a crystal ball, maybe I would know what to do. I don’t want to go to his hearing. I don’t even want to write a letter to the board although every other day my mother asks if I have mailed one yet. How do I know if he has served enough time? He did not even go to trial for my dad’s shooting. He was convicted of murdering a customer at a different store that he robbed. I am reasonably sure that the murdered victim’s family would still oppose his release. My dad, who died from an unrelated illness, has been dead almost as long as Foy has been in jail. My wounds and anger are gone now. As much as the memories hurt, I only have to deal with them that month in the summer. If Daddy had died from the shooting, I probably would feel differently now. But the more I think about it, I realize everything my dad did after the shooting was colored by that traumatic incident in his life. In return, I reacted to the ups and downs he suffered. At a time when I had never heard of the problem, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I was living with a sufferer. Some of the most awful things that happened in my life and in our family can be traced to my dad’s near death experience. Do I want to punish Foy for  the onset of my dad’s middle-age crazy phase? Or my first marriage and divorce?Then there was the sense of immortality that my dad achieved from his survival. If six bullets could not get him, why should he worry about his blood pressure? I guess I am still angry at Foy. He is alive and my dad is not.

Maybe Foy has changed, jailhouse religion. We never got a letter of apology though. He had no skills to make a living at twenty years of age, what is he like at forty-five? How has he spent these last twenty years that my dad and his other victim did not get to enjoy? Did he put himself through college with the law books in the prison’s library? Why did he get to live? How many lives does one have to destroy before . . . ? There are so many questions left unanswered, but the answers won’t bring back my dad or change the past.

My sister called to see if I had mailed my letter to the parole board. She too was in a quandary, not sure what to do. I guess I had hoped Joanna, a psychiatric nurse, would tell me what to do. My mother tells me everyday what to do. She would like to rip Foy’s head off, where as my sister and I would just prefer to stick our heads in the sand and never have to hear his name again. If they let him out of jail, I won’t receive any more letters. Then again, if they let him out he might just be on the evening news.

When in doubt, don’t. I didn’t know what to write to the parole board, so I didn’t write anything. In fact, I never even opened the letter this year. After a few weeks of being shuffled with the bills, the letter found its way to the burn pile. Outside, the fire licked up the letter and other discarded papers. My anger burned again, fueled by years of repressed rage. It will never be over. It will never be over.

My life today is intertwined and entangled with that fateful Friday in December; all the memories and all the consequences. Only a few more months and it will be summer again. The government letter will be here soon, with all the memories and pain. Once again, I will cry.

Written in 2004

Don't know or care what happened to Foy but the letters stopped arriving.

Thankful for running water

I was so thankful to come home to hot running water today. I kept water dripping the night of the big freeze and thought I would be okay. The bathroom faucets have 2 handles and they never froze. The kitchen faucet has 1 lever handle. I thought pushing it straight back the middle would keep some hot and some cold flowing. No, no. Yesterday morning when I found it frozen, I discovered that the hot water is about 1/4 of the lever range and the other 3/4 was cold water. Anyway I've got hot water in the house again and no broken pipes.
We are lucky to have so many conveniences like running water.
I collect enamel pans and chamber pots. I have them scattered around the yard and pens for water for the various critters. Since it has been below freezing for three days, the water is frozen solid in all the containers. It has been very time consuming to make sure there was water for all the animals twice a day. The 40 something degrees today did not melt it either. I guess it is what you get accustomed to doing.
When I was little, my maternal grandmother's house did not have indoor plumbing. They didn't have a well either. My granddad would go to the natural springs down the dirt road. He filled 5-gallon military water cans for drinking & cooking. They had giant steel drums to collect rain water for bathing and the animals. This was my grandparents normal but no frozen pipes.

The rain barrels stood below the back porch.

Movie Quotes

My niece and I were sharing movie quotes on Facebook earlier. One of her favorites was from the movie What a Girl Wants - Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?
As her favorite quote says something about her, my quotes resonate with something in my life. Maybe a time or circumstance, person or relationship, an aha moment. Of course, some of my favorite movie quotes are from the classic Gone With The Wind.
(The quotes were found on www.IMBd.com)

Rhett - Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Scarlett - I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.

Scarlett - After all... tomorrow is another day.

Prissy - I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies.

Insightful words are timeless. Wizard of Oz:

The Wizard - Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma

Auntie Em - I've been dying to tell you what I thought of you! And now... well, being a Christian woman, I can't say it!

The Wizard - A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.

Scarecrow - Well, some people without brains do an awful lot of talking don't they? 

The Wizard - ... you want a heart. You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable. 

From Something's Gotta Give:

Harry - I have never lied to you, I have always told you some version of the truth.  Erica - The truth doesn't have versions, okay? 

Erica - It's about a divorced woman, a writer. She's this high-strung, overamped, controlling, know-it-all neurotic... who's incredibly cute, and lovable.

Until Yesterday, the following quote was just a funny line in Christmas Vacation. But on Monday, I found out that my employer changed the pay date for December bonus and it wouldn't be on this pay period. Four days notice!! All I could think of was Clark's reaction to the jelly of the month club letter. His whole rant was rolling around in my head. But as Auntie Em said, "... being a Christian woman, I can't say that!" I bit my tongue and it sure hurt!

Clark - If this isn't the biggest bag-over-the-head, punch-in-the-face I ever got ....

You've Got Mail is one of my all time favorites. Rarely do I see people in real life who are as introspective as Joe and Kathleen who email some great lines in the movie.

Joe Fox  - Do you ever feel you've become the worst version of yourself? That a Pandora's box of all the secret, hateful parts - your arrogance, your spite, your condescension - has sprung open? Someone upsets you and instead of smiling and moving on, you zing them. 

 Kathleen - Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? 

Time for the chickens to turn in. Good night.

Live Long and Prosper. 

Chew Toys

As I said before, my dogs are junkers in their own right. I picked up all of their prizes yesterday getting ready for the snow that didn't come. The dogs weren't at the gate when I arrived from work today so I thought they were probably curled up in bed. After all, with the windchill, it was about 10 degrees. Nope. They were otherwise occupied. The first one I noticed was Dumplin with a deer leg. Cricket had a hide - tearing away, fur flying. No, they didn't kill anything. I'm sure it came from Tim.
Tim has a tractor and tills my garden. Also, he has planted several acres of watermelons on my land for the last two years - with no success. The deer eat the leaves and shoots until they destroy the plant. In my little garden, they mowed down the folieage of my peanuts and green beans. Later in the summer, they gingerly stepped through the field pea plants to pick the purple pea pods. That is amazing to me that the deer will walk over the pea plants to eat the bean plants. Is this innate in deer? I had always said that nothing bothers okra. But this summer, they even ate my okra leaves and chewed on the okra pods.  And corn? Between the deer and the neighbor's horse, the corn stalks were denuded.
As you can tell from my rant, I am not over the deer in my garden. Anyway, I gave Tim permission to hunt deer - not doves, quail, or turkeys though. He came by yesterday and told me he had gotten a big buck. Offered some meat but I declined. So I guess the dogs were the beneficiaries of his largess.
I think deer are beautiful and majestic. It tickles me to see one bouncing down my driveway so naturally I am conflicted about killing them. There are over 100 acres around me. Can't we just get along?
Allowing their population to go unchecked is bad for the deer and my garden.  I saw an un-managed herd at Guntersville State Park years ago. They were small and inbred. At the time there was no regulated hunting at the park.

Following that tangent, when I saw the deer I had been at Guntersville to watch eagles. January is the time. Check it out.
http://www.alapark.com/LakeGuntersville/EagleAwareness/

This is Dumplin. He is a sweetheart. Just his looks make me smile. 

His mom is the pit bull/boxer mix below.

Dumplin found a plastic tub of crochet thread in the garage. I'm still finding bits of thread.

Chessie cat loves to play also.

Working in the Yard

I was very excited this morning with the thoughts of snow and possibly being stranded at home tomorrow. I love to take pictures of the animals playing in the snow. Then I looked at my yard. Even with a decent snowfall, my yard would still be "lumpy" with detritus. So I spent my afternoon picking up wood scraps & dog toys. I put away the lawn tractor and saw horses. Moved the smoker grill and tea cart. Picked up the little presents the dogs scavenged like a yellow flip-flop, a piece of PVC pipe, and disgusting bits of diaper. I drew the line on the flattened dried-up remains of ... something. Just need the snow now.
Trying to give the girls a bit more protection, I made a few adjustments to two of the chicken houses. "House" maybe overstating it. They are more like chicken shacks. The chicks were so busy watching me & stuffing their faces with goodies that they forgot to do much laying.
But it was a good day.
A quick word on your outdoor plants. They are not affected by windchill but chances are there will be ornamental shrubs lost or damaged due to the extreme cold. Shelby County & most of south AL fall into Zone 8a which is supposed to only get as low as 10-15 degrees. If we hit 5 degrees as predicted, expect damage to zone 8 plants like gardenias.
By the way, the Norfolk Island Pine, potted for cute little Christmas trees, is tropical. It won't withstand any temperatures below or around freezing.
One bright spot - your hosta will love this. They thrive in climates that easily register -15 to -20 degrees. If you have seen pictures in magazines of monster size hosta, probably a northern garden. 99% of mine are in containers which provides better growing conditions & allows more chilling for them.

Some of my potted beauties.

"Striptease" hosta

"Fragrant Bouquet"

Container Hosta in border

Daddy's Clouds

This morning, on the way to an estate sale in Alabaster, (didn't buy anything) I noticed the interesting clouds in the bright blue sky. I mentioned photographing clouds in my post yesterday and had "liked" pictures of clouds afterward on Facebook. Being introspective, to the extreme, I tried to remember when I started noticing clouds. It was my dad. He was a pilot in the army when I was very young. I don't know if you would call it a fascination, but he had a necessary interest in clouds in relation to his flying. Daddy was observant and shared things he noticed. He would be driving down the road and say something like "Look at that thunder bumper. It has to be thirty thousand feet high. It will be raining soon." (I'm sure I am off on the height but it was a long time ago.) He would use words like cirrus or cumulus. It wasn't a lecture. He simply shared his thoughts.

My dad was a very smart man and he spent time with his daughters -
Although my mother dearly loves her flowers, it was my dad who took us to dig wildflowers in the woods. He took us to the strip pits in Tuscaloosa County to hunt for arrowheads, petrified wood, and interesting rocks.  He had a rock polisher. We would make jewelry out of the smooth polished stones. Later daddy went to jewelry school. He then taught me how to silver plate a copper ring. I learned about engraving.
In junior high, he took me to Valley Creek (a cesspool at the time) to dig Alabama clay for a school pottery project.
Daddy taught me gun safety and to shoot about every kind of gun.
When he wanted to be a weekend farmer, he drug us kicking and screaming every weekend to work "on the farm."
I was very young when my dad took me to a Barry Goldwater rally. Later we worked on the Nixon campaign in the Bessemer area.
My dad had a soft spot for stray animals - to my mother's vexation.
Daddy liked to read. He wasn't much of a breakfast person, but what little he ate in the morning was accompanied by the newspaper and some sort of political magazine.
My dad loved to cook and experiment with recipes. He wanted to be the grill master. I think his greatest pleasure was someone bragging on his food.
And Junk! Daddy had a pawn shop. Everything we had was recycled. He would bring home bags of coins for us to sort at night. Until about 1965, dimes and quarters were made from silver. After the introduction of copper sandwich coins, we would sort the change and pull out the silver ones. We also found Indian head pennies and buffalo nickels. Daddy bought the blue coin books for us to fill the various years and "S" or "D" or whatever. Sometimes people would sell bags of assorted metal "stuff" to him. I found all kinds of American coins, foreign coins, and even German medals.
Although he wasn't a whiskey drinker, he collected commemorative bottles, like Elvis.

For better or worse, the time my dad invested in me shaped who I am.
I still pick up rocks. There are quartz and amethyst beauties in my flower beds and geodes on my book shelves.
I have been known to pull over and dig flowers from a ditch alongside the highway. Don't judge.
I am an avid (not rabid) fan of the political process with a strong belief in the 2nd Amendment.
I live "on the farm" such as it is. I craft and am surrounded by my junk, garden, and strays.

I was blessed beyond belief to have Wm. P. McClinton as my dad. He died at the tender age of 56.

Calendars

Calendars, yes plural. I love calendars. Growing up, my mother kept a calendar hanging on the wall by the ugly green rotary-dial telephone. My father had a pawn/gun shop. He gave gorgeous nature calendars (suitable for framing) from Remington to his customers. The day blocks were a nice size for mother to schedule our lives. When my boys were in school, they each had a calendar in their room plus we used 2 dry erase-calendars on the fridge - monthly and 4-month. I like calendars that express humor, give inspiration or information, and as inexpensive decor. Except calendars are no longer inexpensive. My Outhouse calendar set from Tractor Supply was almost $20 with tax!!! But I love it! It piques my curiosity. Is that really an outhouse on a pier? It is sitting on roots, where is the hole?
 Gary Patterson's Cats calendar is a sentimental favorite. Gotta love those cats. Of course, I have to have a calendar with Bible verses. Nothing trite though. I have dreams of creating calendars. Dreams - as in aspirations. Weird, huh? There are places in Montevallo that need to be in a calendar. Not man-made buildings on the historic college campus. Nature.
I love to see the cows on Salem Road. By mid-July it appears the cows are snorkeling in their little lake with only their heads bobbing in the water. Driving to work at sunrise, I see some amazing things. The little creek on Spring Creek Road is breathtaking early in the morning as it rushes over the rocks with a mist above it. On Hwy 119 I have seen the fog so low that you could only see the deer shoulders and heads moving around the pasture. It would take a better photographer than me and much better equipment to put on paper what I see. I guess that is part of my fascination with some calendars, beautiful photography. Not mountains in the distance or the red barn or the white church. Photos that tell a story or inspire questions. One of my favorite calendars was black & white photographs of old cemeteries in West Virginia.

I have one last nail waiting. This weekend I'll find the perfect calendar for it.

This was my best shot of the vulture tree. The week before it had been a crow tree.

The cows did not care for the paparazzi and proceeded to leave.

I love interesting clouds but the photo pales in comparison.

Shamblin Cemetery

Our family cemetery would make a great calendar. A fund raiser??

Preparations

Thursday night is when I normally prepare my Saturday itinerary. I schedule the things I must-do and then everything else. Yard Sale-ing has crept into my must-do routine. It has pushed my Piggly-Wiggly meat ritual to the back burner. I no longer sit at McDonalds and read either. I digress.
On Thursday evening I check 3 websites:
my local Craig's list yard sales/garage sales
www.estatesales.net
www.yardsalesearch.com
All three of these sites are getting well known and used in the Birmingham area.
With the yardsalesearch.com, you put in your zip code and how far you will travel. All the sales pop up with maps and details. I love it. If I am already headed to my mother's or to Tannehill, I can put in a different zip code and find sales around where I will be. The only drawback is no pictures.
With the estatesales.net, I can follow liquidation companies I like. Usually there are a lot of pictures that help me know if it is a waste of my time or simply out of my price bracket.
I like Craig's List but while they are listing their sale they are also looking up prices on e-bay.
I try to remember to buy Mule Trader on Wednesday. Lots of good things in there.
I especially like the yard sales that put out signs as early as Wednesdays because that is their only advertising.

I decided that I needed to treat my junk gathering as a job. For about 2 years, I have been buying trash and treasures with this goal in mind -  I want to be able to refurbish, re-purpose, and re-sale junk and actually make money doing it. lofty? I'm looking for tangible American history or the Picasso in the attic.

I love metal things.

But for my yard, I especially love quirky!