A farmer, ol’ Downen D. Dumps, goes into his bank and finds a new ag loan officer who brisky wants to see his cash flow. So, the farmer piles his records on the loan officer’s desk and presents his case for borrowing money this year.
The banker is skeptical about loaning him money and offers this, “I’ll tell you what. I have one good eye, and one glass eye. If you can tell which is which, I will loan you the money.”
The farmer looks in the bankers eyes and studies them for quite a while. Finally he says, “Well from what I can tell your right eye is the glass eye and your left one is real.”
The surprised banker replies ” Why, that’s right. But how did you know? Most people can’t tell them apart.”
“Well” says the farmer, “your right eye is softer and warmer than the left.”
***
Down in the Missouri Ozark hills a city slicker type was looking for morel mushrooms by driving slowly down the road, but he accidentally drove his new Volvo, complete with mountain bike on the top and Greenpeace bumper sticker, off into the ditch beside the road.
After some persistent begging by the poor stranded fellow, and with $50 in hand, a local farmer decided to pull the guy out with his big strong Missouri mule. So, he hitched his ol’ mule, Buddy, up to the car and yelled, “Pull, Nellie, Pull!” Buddy didn’t move an inch. Then the farmer hollered, “Pull, Buster, pull !” Buddy stood motionless. Then the farmer bellered out, “Pull, Coco, pull!” Still nothing.
Then the farmer nonchalantly said. “Pull, Buddy, pull.” And the ol’ mule easily dragged the car right out of the ditch and back onto the road.
The “greenie” motorist was most appreciative and quite curious and asked the farmer why he called his mule by the wrong name three times?
“Simple,” said the old farmer. “Buddy is blind and and if he thought he was the only one pulling, he wouldn’t even try.”
***
I’d like to say, this is a for sure true story. In fact rumor has it, my good pal, ol’ Willie Jay, may actually know these people in the next story!
A new rural preacher arrived at his new church and decided to call on a few nearby residents to see if he could help any of them out. When he approached the front gate at his first stop, a barefoot teenage girl with pigtails met him.
“Could I speak to your father?” the preacher asked.
“Nope, he ain’t here”, the girl replied.
“Well, where’s he at?” the preacher asked.
“He’s not here. He’s in jail,” said the girl.
“Well then, can I speak to your mother?” asked the preacher.
“Nope, she ain’t here. They came and got her. She was a seeing wild things again,” the girl said.
So the frustrated preacher asked if he could maybe talk to an older brother. “Nope,” the girl again answered, “He ain’t here. He’s at college”.
The preacher began to think that things might be looking better for this poor family, so he asked, “Well, that’s really good. What’s he studying?”
“Ain’t studying,” the girl said, “He’s being studied.”
***
Meanwhile, out in Colorado, it’s legal to possess, grow, and use marijuana. But, most of the farmers there have no desire to grow the wacky week.
A farmer, who had rented a new farm, just that morning had been joking about growing weed to a farm store friend. He got a nasty surprise when he discovered 80 rods of the stuff growing magnificantly in the new farm’s fence line.
After his recent anti-weed rant, the farmer thought he’d better do something immediately to get rid of the stuff. But there wuz a problem. On the other side of the fence was soybeans belonging to a neighbor and on his side was new alfalfa.
He couldn’t decide what herbicide to use to on the Mary Jane and not hurt either crop. So, he called the Colorado State University agronomy department and the weed expert said, if he sprayed it with any broadleaf herbicide, it would likely kill the neighbor’s soybeans and his own alfalfa.
So, his next stop wuz to visit with a neighboring farmer’s son he who wuz a U. of Colorado graduate. He told the kid about his problem. The kid immediately called the University of Colorado, even though it doesn’t have any ag programs.
Finally, the kid connected to his old CU botany professor, who announced in his class about the 80-rod MJ problem. The botany prof got an immediate solution. He called the kid back and said he and the class would give the farmer $25 a plant and be there to pick it that very afternoon.
***
Below is my paragraph of wisdom for the week. I’ve figgered out why the metric measuring system hasn’t caught on in rural America. These old sayings just lose their punch in metrics: “A miss is as good as 1.6 kilometers.” “Put your best .3 meter forward.” “Spare the 5.03 meter and spoil the child.” “Twenty-eight grams of prevention is worth 453 grams of cure.” “Give a man 2.5 centimeters and he’ll take 1.6 kilometers.” And, finally, “Peter Piper picked 8.8 liters of pickled peppers.”
Have a good one.
