Drinkin Coffee. [stories]

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Fall in the country. The cool morning breeze filterin through the pine trees and lightly flowin past ones old "mug". With a BIG cupa coffee in hand and a sandwich of fried "Spam" in tother, it's nice to just set, look, listen and contemplate the next few months. The old birds flyin around gettin ready for winter, hollerin and fussin with each other.It brings to mind the cold north winds that will soon be blowin angerly against the trees, house and outbuildings. Snow will soon follow pelting us with those little hard balls of ice. Fires will be kept stoked with wood that's stacked just outside the door on the porch. Just to step out to get a stick is undesireable to the old hide. Outside everything seems to be FROZE UP or FROZE DOWN! Waterin pans, troughs, kettles, buckests are all frozen. The ruts we made last fall are now frozen and hard to walk around or over. Makes us wish we'd taken a little time to smooth'm out before the cold hit. The livestock needs more feed this time of the year just to generate more heat to stay warm. We look in the shop and dream of the upcoming summer with all it's heat, sunshine and MOWIN! We also wonder just how much longer the old Troy Bilt rider will last. It wasn't too great of a mower when it was new. Kinda like buyin a name. Our garden hoe and rake are hangin inside the shop from nails driven in the wall. On the shelf right below the tools sets our dustin stuff. Sevin in the bag and the big plastic container with holes drilled in the lid -all just a waitin till spring. Lookin around towards the wood furnace we see the alternator settin on the floor-at the ready! Very soon we'll be needin it. REA isn't too reliable out here. If it's an ice storm we will be out for a week or more-gotta make sure we have our propane line all ready to go to feed this genset. No electric-no heat or water! When the temps hit in the sub zero range, vehicles will have to be considered. Some just won't start when it gets that cold unless we plan ahead and kind prepare'm for it. Blanket over the hood, while parked in the "car pocket" and a light bulb layin on the engine block. And thats just for Lil Dumplins S10. It HAS to be ready to go when she's called out. She's an X-Ray Tech and much in demand-even when she's not on duty. My little S10 gets to set outside amongst all the undesirable attributes of winter's fierest fury! Oh well, such is life in the country! It most certainly has it's drawbacks, I'm sure--but then again-are these really drawbacks? Naw, don't rekon they are. The worst thing about winter's fury is the old folks, poor and of course the little dudes. Lack of heat, food, medical in addition to being stranded, sure works on a person. Still, I wouldn't trade all these cool, fall mornings for all the Tea in China. Sure, winter's acomin, but don't it every year? We survive and actually enjoy more of it than what we dislike. California, Florida, South Texas-all fine places to visit in January for a week-but believe I'll jest stay here on my "paid for" 24 acres, down a dead end road, next to the Little Wabash river bottoms and kinda shut out the rest of the world. Everybody should be so Blessed! Matt. 24:44

-- hoot (hoot@pcinetwork.com), August 31, 2000

Answers

While settin here thinkin I was reminded of the time pap was hurt. He was crankin an old Wisconsin V-4 air cooled engine on a Woods Bros. combine. Those old dogs had a Wico magneto way back then and you just couldn't retard the spark enough. When you cranked those old dudes they would almost always "kick". Even knowin this and being careful and watchin out for it--sometimes it happened and there was absolutely nothin you could do to prevent it. Well, pap was crankin that old dude and it kicked. The little short handled crank spun in paps hand and ended up hittin him in the head right above the right eye. This happened at the old Rogers farm pap later bought from Geo. Rogers that i wrote about awhile back. Mrs. Rogers had an old 46 Ply. sedan. She took pap and mom to hospital in Olney where they stitched paps head up. At least I t hink she was the one that took'm--course, it's been about 50 years ago that this happened. I do remember he bled like a "stuck hog" from that head wound. Seems to me that the old Woods Bro. combine was short lived at the Gibson farm after that little affair. The next one he bought was an old Massy Harris combine and it was a purty good rig. It didn't have the engine on it but was powered by the tractor's PTO. It didn't last too long either. Couple years later a storm came up and pap was settin in the back yard watchin it approach from the south west. I was settin out there with'm a watchin too. It turned out to be a tornado and it was headed right straight toward the house. After hollerin, bawlin and everything else, pap finally stepped onto the back porch. I was already in the house but could see that twister as it headed toward the house even closer. It passed a hog barn and corn crib-where the old Massy Harris was parked. It picked up the corncrib and deposited it right on top of the combine! Needless to say-it destroyed the equipment before raisin up and goin over the house. He found another Massy Harris and bought it. In 1990 another twister came up the same way and done a bunch of damage. No outbuildins are present there anymore but it sure created distruction for about 10 miles. Trees, house trailers and even some houses were destroyed. A big machine shed was leveled with an older man and his grandson inside. They held onto the bottom of a big tractor as it passed over and took the bilding with it. It was so intense it sucked the breath out of both people almost to the point of them passin out. Nobody was hurt in that one either. I'm an anxiously awaitin fall. Hickory nut huntin, fall colors in the bottoms, outside cookouts with lots of coffee. It beats the 'rat race' hands down. Matt. 24:44

-- hoot (hoot@pcinetwork.com), August 31, 2000.

Hoot: You really have a talent for writing! I can almost visualize your Pap on the porch! Thanks for taking time to let us all "see" a part of your past! Jan

-- Jan in Colorado (Janice12@aol.com), September 01, 2000.

After a very cool night last night it warmed up a little today but the temps are droppin again. I couldn't get awake enough last night to shut the window and turn off the big box fan settin if front of that open window. I froze all night!! A BIG cuppa HOT coffee sure was welcomed this mornin --and I didn't even go outside to drink it. It would've been nice tho, blackbirds by the bazilions were flyin around again this morning, hollerin like mad, as usual. The old white female cat of lil dumplins [named calvin] layin on top of my little s10 wishin and thinkin of a blackbird dinner. Of course, ole calvin is too lazy to even move let alone catch a bird! After it warmed up some and I'd done all my paperwork [business stuff] it was off to Olney to get truck parts. My chev 4wd was a 3 wd. It works ok now so let it snow! I'll have transportation now! It is also required when we go hickory nuttin in the bottoms. Its' been so wet here this year those blasted skeeters from the bottoms are HUGE! Called "saltwater" skeeters, Deep Woods Off won't even turn'm totally! Crops are all lookin fine-don't know if I've ever seen'm this good. Also saw the market reports today. About everything was off .06 a bushel. Forcast for winter in this area is colder and wetter than normal. Lots of SNOW! Propane is expected to go for minimum of $2.00 gal and maybe even $2.50. Natural gas is expected to TRIPLE!! No wonder we're takin more calls than ever before for the wood fired boilers we sell. In about another 3 weeks lil dumplin and I will go to the bottoms with our 5 gallon plastic buckets a lookin for hickory nuts. Until then-it's more hot coffee every mornin while listenin to the birds flyin over and hollerin! Fall! I can hardly wait! Matt. 24:44

-- hoot (hoot@pcinetwork.com), September 06, 2000.

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