Yippee, the winter solstice has passed, summer and spring are just around the corner and we welcome in 2018. Who knows what the New Year of 2018 will bring to each and every one of us, but here’s hoping that it’s mostly good stuff.
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I have a heart-warming Christmas gift story that I’m telling you about a week too late. But, it’s still worth telling about.
My good extension agent buddy, Avery Ware, loves Beagle hounds. He’s raised and hunted them for years, but he’d gotten down to one female Beagle. So, he decided to get back into the game by getting his female bred to a high powered Beagle stud. The result wuz a fine litter of seven puppies — one male and six females.
The female’s whelping date wuz Halloween, but the puppies were born a day early. But that didn’t keep Avery’s three grandchildren from deciding to name all the puppies around a Halloween theme.
Consequently, the male puppy that Avery kept is Casper. The females got named Candy, Trixie, Pumpkin, Hershey, Boo Boo, and Ghost Buster.
The week before Christmas the puppies were weaned, thriving, and ready to find new owners. The owner of the stud got his pick of the litter. Another field-trialing and hunting Beagle fellow came and Avery says he used his smart phone to check on the lineage of Avery’s female. He wuz so impressed to find two Beagle Hall of Fame dogs in the pedigree that he took two puppies.
Avery advertised the puppies for sale and fielded phone calls from a wide area, including a lady in Wichita who desperately wanted a Beagle puppy to give as a Christmas present to her four-year-old daughter. Avery told her that he’d quickly sold all the puppies but one. The lady begged him to “hold that puppy for us until we can drive up after work.” Avery said he would.
Well, later that evening the lady and her hubby drove up from Wichita and when the lady looked at the sole remaining Beagle puppy, she burst into tears and sobbed, “It’s perfect. Our daughter will be the happiest girl in the world Christmas morning. Now, all we’ve got to do is find a way to keep the puppy a secret until the big morning.”
Avery said that of all the dozens of Beagle puppies he’s raised and sold through the years, he’s never sold one that made him feel better about seeing it go to a new home.
That’s the end of the story, but I’ll bet you there’s a little girl in Wichita who couldn’t be happier in the new year. Happiness truly is a warm puppy.
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Farmer Joe’s best friend ran off with Joe’s wife. All of Joe’s friends watched warily and waited to see how Joe would seek revenge.
Finally, one friend asked Joe, “Your friends can’t believe how well you’re taking this betrayal. Don’t you want to get revenge?”
Joe grinned big and said, “I am. I’m letting him keep her!”
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Overheard at the coffee shop, “My New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. So, I plan to do five laps around the gym every day in January. Then in February, I may even get out of my pickup a day or two and go inside.”
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Well, the Republicans finally got their act together and pushed a complicated tax revision and reduction plan through Congress. It sounds rosy, and I hope it turns out that way.
But, unless the law of physics is rescinded that something always quickly fills a vacuum, I’ve a hunch that some new state or local taxes will quickly fill the federal tax void.
Still, I give the Congress credit for trying. And, who knows, maybe it will turn out to be a good thing.
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One of my good Missouri friends sent me an e-mail with pictures of various metal or plastic signs containing pointed personal messages. Here are some of the messages:
• Sign posted near a private hunting lease: “Is there life after death? Trespass here and find out.”
• Sign posted near a construction site: “Please do not enter the dangerous area beyond this gate. You quite possibly will get hurt, then you will sue, then a protracted court battle will ensue exhausting your financial resources and you will lose because this sign that warned you will be ‘Exhibit 1.’”
• Anonymous sign: “I only do what the voices in my wife’s head tell her to tell me to do.”
• Sign near a helicopter landing pad: “Helicopters operate in this area. If you find yourself walking toward a big noisy thing with spinning blades, turn the hell around, Einstein!”
• Two signs on industrial machines: “Caution. This machine has no brain. Use your own!” And, “Danger. Do not touch. Not only will this machine kill you, it will hurt the whole time you’re dying.”
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I only made one New Year’s resolution and that is to only make one New Year’s Resolution. So, Happy New Year and he’s hopin’ it’s a good ‘un.
