Search results

Did you send me a postcard? Is your name here? Did you send two and I have you down for three OR vice versa? Are you listed in the correct city? Is your name not by your city? My daughter helped me catalog these, so there may be some minor errors, but as closely as I can tell this is the updated...

Jake's been pestering me to buy him a lasso for Christmas. Claims he can rope a pig. I just laughed at him. "Son, it's impossible. Look at the way their heads are shaped. Like a cone. The rope won't set. It'll slide down his neck, and over his head, and off the end of his nose. It would be like...

Two or three years ago I had the bright idea to mount a five foot length of one by six across two posts by the front door to hang rubber boots on. The idea was to keep the boots handy, while neatly out of the way. The use of this 'shelf' lasted about three days before the boots ended up once...

Oh crap. Fred and I went out to put out hay last night, and Bear met us at the fence, coughing, a streamer of snot a foot long hanging from his face. He's got the penumonia. This is my nightmare come true. Giving shots to the sows is one thing, but the boars. Yikes. I won't do it. Fred thinks...

somethin\'s been worryin\' me It's even worse now that I work third shift and have been traveling the back roads in the dark on an almost nightly basis. I was talking to a man night before last. He came into the store at about midnight to buy an aquarium for his sister for Christmas. Said...

It was about eight days ago when Fred called me outside and said, 'listen to that pig'. It wasn't hard to know right off what he was talking about. She was breathing badly, sounded like a freight train going up hill. "She's won't make it through the night." He said, and he was right. She was...

....and left the old Red Dog behind. This is a hundred pound plus, square headed dog that seems friendly enough but is not a tail wagger so it's difficult to tell. Anyway, I know he has been laying on the front porch of this empty house for three days. The first day I was not alarmed because I...

I had some folks show up at the house to buy a couple of little hogs for 4-H. I made a deal with my son Jake. "Yes, you can go hunting, but please be back here by five thirty this evening to catch these little hogs for me." Sure enough, at five thirty-one, here he came walking across the...

Thank you very much. It brings back memories I used to live on Broad Street!

I'm only here to share this because I have to. I noticed a man and a woman sitting on a bench when I arrived for the night shift at 9:45 p.m. I didn't think much about them. I was too busy thinking of myself. Facing another shift with tired feet and an aching back, dreaming of my bed. Besides...

...a few weeks ago to take an internet sabatical, and now it is official. Between sleeping and working and cleaning house and working on two novels and keeping up with two weekly columns.....oy. So, if anyone wants or needs to get in touch with me here's my e mail... robomom39@aol.com To check...

Girl could not be consoled last night. No matter how many times I went out and yelled at her, she would not stop barking. For some reason, she had got it into her head that Star, one of my nubian mix nannies, was a threat. Star didn't take well to being barked at, so in turn, she kept slamming...

I tried so hard to ignore it. I knew Fred couldn't hear it, he was way in the front of the house. It was about seven thirty, dark already, and the pasture dogs were going nuts. Dang. I stepped out on the back porch and listened. It sounded like armageddon. Big hogs squealing and raging, sheet...

Jose\'s Hog I seperated out a hundred and fifty pound barrow yesterday, and penned him up in a holding pen for pickup this morning. Somehow during the night, he escaped. Seven a.m. the customers arrived. A hispanic man named Jose, and his two brothers. The pig was for a fiesta for his...

I made a new blog for anyone who is interested.... my blog

so far in my collection I have....UPDATE North Carolina (Greenville)....snapdragon (the one with the hunk) West Virginia (Weston)....Betty Colorado (Colorado Spr)...cowgirlj Minnesota (Duluth)....buffalobunny (BB is it Cook?) Montana (Butte)....deesygirl South Dakota (Sioux...

speakin\' the lingo We have a friend of the family, Wesley, who is one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet. I visited him yesterday and he was as pleasant as ever. My only problem with him is that I only get about every other third word that comes out of his mouth, which makes for an...

I left the house early one day last week to go fill out a job application for the phosphate mine. Jake wanted to go with me so that he could get a haircut before he went to school. That's when I saw the massive dent in the side of my pickup at the end of the bed right behind the passenger door...

so far in my collection I have....UPDATE North Carolina (Greenville)....snapdragon (the one with the hunk) West Virginia (Weston)....Betty Colorado (Colorado Spr)...cowgirlj Minnesota (Duluth)....buffalobunny (BB is it Cook?) Montana (Butte)....deesygirl South Dakota (Sioux...

I think I finally figured it out. I am taking another break from the internet. I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to compile my writing into a book and I think I have it. I am going to do a self help book. 'How Not To Farm' (or something like that) It's kind of in keeping...

I was supposed to be on jury duty yesterday but I was excused because I can't stay gone during breeding season. Jill's boyfriend Paul has to go today. His mother had to go last week. I don't know what's going on, but it seems like they are going through every person in the county trying to build...

All DAY long to pull one lousy t-post out of the ground. Well I didn't work on it steady all day, just when I was feeling particularly brave. Why did it take so long? Fred, the human pile driver of Hardee county. The man can put any mechanized post hole digger to shame. He can put in posts...

That boy got another hog yesterday evening. What a nightmare. He comes up to the house at a dead run wanting me to open the safe so he can get the 30-30. I didn't hear exactly what he said, he and Fred were talking excitedly on the Nextel. I did hear something like...'buncha hogs...buncha...

so far in my collection I have.... North Carolina....snapdragon West Virginia....Betty Colorado...cowgirlj Minnesota....buffalobunny Montana....deesygirl South Dakota....bugstabber If anyone wants to contribute to my collection here's the address.... C J Mouser P O Box 101 Wauchula, Fl...

so far in my collection I have.... North Carolina....snapdragon West Virginia....Betty Colorado...cowgirlj Minnesota....buffalobunny Montana....deesygirl South Dakota....bugstabber If anyone wants to contribute to my collection here's the address.... C J Mouser P O Box 101 Wauchula, Fl...

During wet season, we are literally crawling with frogs. The little lime green ones paste themselves to the front of the house by the hundreds, waiting for mosquitos or whatever to fly by. Somehow it seems to improve their bug catching odds, when they have the light from the windows of the house...

Fred sat down on the couch and then pinned me with a questioning stare. "Why are there towels draped over the arms of the couch?" "Because the arms are still damp from where I washed the chicken poop off of them." His arm came instantly up off the of the couch and just hovered there. "How did...

Yeehaw! Countryside Magazine, November-December issue. Thanks Chet for letting me know!

I could have gone my whole life without knowing how flies make a meal, but everytime one lights anywhere near the kitchen Fred launches into his speil about how nasty they are and where they were last and so on and so forth. Out here we have such a variety of flies that I seem to discover a new...

Fred and Jake built a very respectable hog trap in the woods out behind the house and Jake and I went out to check it this evening to see if it had caught anything. Nope. On the way back there Jake stopped to pick a bunch of oranges to use for bait. By the time he got done prying them open...

Okay I have seen something and it took me a long time to screw up enough courage to tell anyone about it it but it is driving me nuts so here goes. This was a living breathing creature of some sort. It had a body shape like a paper clip, oblong. I saw no recognizable head or legs, it's belly...

But I need a title for it. I don't know if any of you guys get IFC or the Independent Film Channel, but if I can do a good enough job on it I may submit it to their hometown films showcase. I have so far, gotten footage of Jenifer Lopez, and the other swine and the pasture dogs, and Jill and...

sir \'taller tales\' Our crossing guard at the corner where I wait to pick up the kids is a very sweet lady from Cuba. Her mother is the one who wanted the chickens that I brought to town last week, which she said by the way, were delicious. Anyway, I love to listen to her talk in her specially...

bang bang you\'re dead Listen folks. I'm up on a soapbox, but I think it's important that I share this. Much like someone would spread the word of God or the news of an epidemic. I think that bullying is what leads to the columbines in this country. When you isolate a kid and pick, pick...

Jennifer Lopez is a red duroc sow. The history behind her name is that there for awhile, I seemed to be hearing a lot about how Jennifer Lopez the singer, was very picky about her environment, everything in her work trailer had to be white, special kind of bottled water, no this, no that...

I have recently been overwhelmed by a desire to own a postcard from every city in the United States. I think that would be the coolest thing. It doesn't have to say anything, just be a postcard with the city's name on it. Would it be too troublesome to ask people to send them do you think?

Fred and I went out to do castrations yesterday on a litter of pigs. Eight in the litter, six males, four weeks old . Four of these little pigs are spoken for and the new owner has given us a two hundred dollar deposit on the four. We got the first one done, disinfected, worm shot, tail banded...

Just informed that one of our local counties is in a bind for show pigs and are looking at lowering the initial weigh in requirements. We were thinking we missed the boat for this county now we are getting calls for piglets as small as twenty pounds. Woohoo! Our little porkers are averaging...

Two years ago almost to the date, Joe Nickerson from the dairy down the road gifted me with a scrawny, scoury, little bull calf. It was only a couple of days old, small enough that Joe could carry him easily in his arms. "You want this thing?" I had been pestering him to sell me a calf, I can...

Jake came into the house one evening last week, a very determined set to his shoulders. "Mom, I'm gonna use your .410 to shoot a cat." "What? What are you talking about?" "There's a cat out there, and he's been eatin' the chickens." "How do you know it was him?" I knew it was him, but I...

....and let Jill go on an all night hog hunt last night. This is a first. Jake's been on all nighters and even though she has asked before I never let her, but last night she really put the pressure on. "Mooom! Pleeeease?!" Her voice went up three octaves. "John and Wendy are finding a...

Despite the rain, despite the mud, despite the problems with the electric fence, I have to say without a shadow of a doubt, I am having a blast. It's not obvious when I have to wade through the shin deep mud and leave a rubber boot in the mud behind me. Then my language tends to get a little...

....is one of the best things ever invented. Until it quits working. Which ours seems to do about once every two months. A fact that Fred and I were lamenting last night from six thirty to nine o'clock as we walked every square inch of it looking for the short in the rain and the dark. We...

Fred came into the house one evening last week carrying the runt of Hannah's litter. The difference between Fred and I, is that I knew on sight that this little pig wasn't going to make it. I would have left it where it was, and gone about my business. I've seen too many runts go the same way...

Rocky the steer was banished yesterday from the pasture, and I live for the day that we can cut him up into bite sized chunks and get even for all the mischief this steer has created. Our sows all birth wherever they choose. They pick a location, and it's not always geographically preferable...

Jake spent the night at a friend's house Friday night, the next morning he was out with the friend and his dad cutting cattle on horseback, and he came home yesterday afternoon with his eyes swollen, runny nose, sneezing his head off. I vaguely remember back when we had horses him sneezing when...

My poor pasture dog, Sugar, must have been stepped on by one of the sows. I caught her out there limping around, and when I tried to move the injured leg she cried out in pain, so I hefted her up and carried all eighty pounds of her into the house and the bathroom, which is the makeshift surgery...

...all day long pushing mud from one place to another trying to divert water from where it shouldn't be to where it will be better tolerated. Another litter of baby pigs waiting on us first thing this morning so that's three down and twelve more to go. The good news is a nice man from...

....piglet to his momma after another penicillin shot. He's the one that had to get the stitches. I just discovered by accident that if you invert a feed scoop over a baby piglets head it's messes with them so bad that they don't make a sound! Ain't that special? It was reflex. When I went to...

I think I finally learned how to handle roosters. We have a big mutt rooster called Brewster. I'm not so sure if he's actually mean or not, but he is not above trying to intimidate you if he gets the chance. He's gotten the chance from me several times. One look at his spurs and you would...

For fixing this signature! You did everything to it that I wanted to do myself but didn't know how. It was made for me for free and I didn't want to ask for more asistance with it, felt like a begger. Thank you so much!

the radio interview for successful farming magazine is done and available online, so here's the link...... SF interview

We keep an ice maker on the back porch, like one of those that you see in some of the older restaraunts. It has a copper wire that hangs down inside, once the wire comes in contact with the ice it shuts the ice maker off so that it doesn't just keep making ice indefinitely. This wire is all...

I was gifted with a double barrel J C Higgins .410 by a freind of the family. My son has been cleaning it in and out, and it is now leaning against the door frame with my single shot .410. Living out here where we do, the need for a shotgun has come up over and over again. To run off wild...

It's almost as still and quiet here as it is at home today, it's so blazing hot the animals have all bedded down in the shade somewhere and I don't think you could drag them out with the tractor. I let Elvis the mutt in, when it gets this hot he sometimes has these weird palsy incidents, shakes...

to my photo album, for those who want to see: (bottom of the page) Rocky the steer Red the pup Newest litter The attack sow from last night Part of the pig herd on the front pasture Hercules the boar new pics

one of you nice folks suggested I get a blog....(Mike?) I thought I had one, checked my closet, but I was wrong. So I went on the web and I found, 'make a blog'. So I followed the directions. I now have a blog. Still have no idea what it is or what to do with it. I did a search for CJ...

I stopped on my way home from town and tried out a new mexican food place. I am always searching for that special place that serves food like I grew up on in Texas. Judging from the smell wafting out of the door I suspected that I might be close to finding it after all. I walked in and was...

I knew it was coming when I had to turn on the light to see the keyboard, so I went for a look-see and there it was. Off to the South. Forks of lightning sending feelers out in all directions up, down, sideways, the only light in an otherwise black sky, a massive sheet of rain skirted by dirty...

To my son Jake.. "Hey, wanna make five bucks?" "Yeah!" "Okay go out there and catch me a hundred pound pig, barr or gilt it doesn't matter. It's sold, the guy's picking it up on Friday." This was Wednesday. He and Jamie ran around half the night and finally caught one. The five bucks was...

and make those annual repairs and check fittings etc for four months of hunting coming up in SC. The first thing to be tried on was Fred's heavy duty down filled camo jumpsuit that keeps his nether regions warm and frost free during those early morning stincts to the stand. Per normal, it was a...

I was being tailed, I knew it. Jake broke down five miles from the house on his three wheeler and I had to go get him in the truck and haul him and broke down cycle home. A man passed us just as we were pulling out of the dirt road where I had picked Jake up with the three wheeler, and he gave...

I hope I don't get in trouble for this. It doesn't have to do with tractors but it does have to do with rural living... I think. I don't know what it is that's so attractive about getting in the truck and driving around in the dark half the night, but my kids love to do it. Alone, with me or...

It should be quiet around here. On a typical Saturday morning everybody but Fred sleeps late. I'm next up, then comes Jill, then at some point in early afternoon the other two kids drag themselves, whining, complaining, and stretching out from under the covers. I'd just as soon they stayed in...

.....the fourth of July doesn't have anything on what happened around here this afternoon. A storm blew up, you could see it coming for miles, gray ribbons of rain falling out of a sky almost purple black. It was obvious it was going to be a bad one. Fred and I looked at each other...

I dropped my trimmer off at a Snapper dealership in town to have the primer bubble replaced. I was warned that this particular repair shop was expensive, so I made sure to get an estimate before I left. I was quoted not over twenty dollars. There was a man in the shop dropping off a piece of...

What a dope I am. I discovered what I thought was ticks on my pigs. All this time and we have never seen external parasties on our pigs, so I took one look at the little brown bodies and the crab like legs and said, them're some ticks. The odd thing about it is they never swelled up. A tick...

...that I have begun to stray off topic with some of my posts. Now that I look back over them and compare them to others, I see that that is glaringly obvious, so I will try very hard to limit my posts to rural issues and/or tractor related topics. We finally had our well water tested last...

I'm going to try and relate this as it happened, and hope that I can somehow portray the impact this event had on Jill and I. We were in a huge argument. Lots of tension, teenage angst versus maternal bitterness battling head to head in a gritty take no breaths and give no lee way fight to the...

I guess for every couple there is the up person and the down person. Sometimes the up person is kind of forced into the position by the down person. I mean if both sides of a couple tend to see a situation from the negative point of view, well then neither one of them would get out of bed in the...

I took my television in for repair in (counting on fingers) February, I 'think'. I called first, the guy said sounds like your (television repairman terminology that is way over my head) has gone bad. Should run you twenty five or thirty bucks. Okay, I toted this hundred plus pound television...

I\'m going to miss all this fun someday I had to go to Sarasota today and my son Jake wanted to stay home. Fine. That means I don't have to listen to bickering between him and Jenny in the truck for three hours. I get there and hubby Fred starts hollering at me that the truck is overheated and...

Jamie\'s back... My son Jake's best friend and partner in crime....he's been gone for a month to Michigan on a fishing expidition. This boy is a trip. Some of you might remember him from 'the mushroom boy' story. This morning he and Jake are going hunting out back and Jake has his 20 ga and...

I was really surprised today to be approached in Walmart by a man asking for ninety nine cents. The way he went about it led me to believe that he had done it before, the way he began to step away when he saw the expression on my face, looking over my shoulder, lining up the next person to ask...

the power guy\'s power play There's not a worse feeling in the world as far as I'm concerned, than going to sleep in a nice cool, almost cold house, all snuggled under a comforter, with a fan blowing full blast on you, and then waking up under the same comforter all sticky and sweaty, not...

Well here I am back again to enjoy the rural life forum and have I missed it. I didn't realize how much until I had to go a week or two without it. I said way back when that this was one of my favorite forums and I meant it. It's been a wild couple of weeks, I'll just touch on the highlights...

...on our Sarasota County Grand Champion gilt. We sold her to a boy name of Brown and he really put her in fine shape. Made us all proud!