Well, Kansas proved once again to me that it’s got few peers in terms of changeable weather patterns. While we in the Flint Hills escaped the horrendous bad winter weather in Texas and elsewhere, we still had our fair share.
A week ago yesterday, we had 3-inches of powder snow and the temperature wuz 16 degrees below zero and the windchill wuz in the upper minus 30s. Yesterday, one week later, the snow wuz all melted and the temperature rose to 72 degrees above zero. Folks that a temperature spread of more than 90 degrees in a week.
Why, yesterday wuz so nice, I started the tractor and turned my partially-frozen compost piles and I got the lawn mower out and mowed some dried silage sorghum canes in two food plots from last fall, so I can till them when it dries out bit more.
Today, the weather is still pretty nice with temperatures in the mid-40s and sun shining. I went to Cottonwood Falls this morning to get my second Covid shot — the Moderna brand. Hope I don’t get as puny sick as some folks get from their 2nd shot. I even stopped at ol’ Nutsan Boltz’s hardware store in Strong City and bought some new blades for our lawnmower. That proves that I still think spring is just around the corner.
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A week ago ol’ Avery Ware and I were returning the “borrowed” stud Beagle hound to his home near Osage City. He’d brought the dog home to hopefully “make” a litter of Beagle puppies to be whelped around April 10.
On our way home, Avery and I were flappin’ our lips and gums telling stories and lies about country life and he told me a good, funny one that he swears is the truth — and I think he can be trusted on this story.
It seems that years and years ago several rough and tumble cowboys hired out for a day to the owners of a run-down, poor-farm in the southeast corner of Chase County to help those folks work some cattle in some make-shift, cobble-up facilities. It wuz a raw, chilly day.
They started early and by noon had most of the bunch of cattle worked, and all the hands had worked up a a big-time appetite. So, they were most grateful when the little lady of the home announced that she’s prepared a big pot of homemade chicken and noodle soup.
She set the hot pot of soup on a board and handed each cowboy a big bowl into which she ladled a hefty helping of steaming chicken and noodles. The aroma had the ‘boys mouths watering.
However, as they started eating, first one cowboy and then another and then another were covertly spitting bits of chicken feathers to the ground. Before long, all the cowboys were spitting feathers they’d found in their soup and the lady of the house noticed.
Wiping her hands on her apron, she issued a sort of apology to the hungry hands.
“Boys,” she said, “I apologize for the chicken feathers in the soup, but there’s a good reason. Those sick hens were dying in the coop faster than I could get them scalded and picked.”
I guess the rest of the chicken noodle soup tasted far less tasty from that moment on.
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I said two weeks ago that I would on occasion re-release the information on some of my avantgarde’ aggie inventions. I have a bunch of them — in fact, a whole line on farm and ranch inventions. I collectively call them by the long description of “Milo’s Aggie Line of Best Solutions.”
However, that’s quite a mouthful for rural folks to remember, so I just normally call my inventions “Milo’s Aggie Line of B.S.”
Here’s my re-released invention for this week: “THE HOG DO-DO DEODORIZER.” Here’s the deal on how it works:
Anyone who works with hogs or lives downwind of a hog farm knows for certain that hog manure has more of a stench than an aroma. And, all the scientific folks have tried numerous expensive ways to eliminate the stench of hog manure — covered lagoons, changing rations, etc. None of it works.
Well, folks, the problem is all the experts ignored the fact that it’s always easiest to solve a problem as close to the source of the problem as possible. And, in this case, the best solution is also the cheapest.
All that’s needed is to order a bunch of my cardboard Hog Do-Do air fresheners — in any aroma you choose from evergreen to rose petals, to peppermint, to lemon — and attach it to the tail of every pig on the place with a twistee-tie. That solves the hog manure stench just inches away from its source. It just proves that ingenuity is often better than deep pockets
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My words of wisdom for this week: Hire Amazon, Fed-Ex and UPS delivery drivers to give Covid vaccines. The whole U.S. population would be vaccinated within a week. Have a good ‘un.
