Roast Neers! - Continued

The bedtime story would not be complete without mentioning our adopted sister, Brenda Galiher, that helped us shuck the Roast Neers.  I got all caught up in telling the story and forgot.  She really enjoyed it and is making plans to move to Nebraska...and help the Cornhuskers...and I'm just kidding...

Little Brother Ray enjoyed shucking the Roast Neers so much, he decided to go out in Mr. McGregor's Corn Patch and get some more Roast Neers!

The End

Roast Neers! - The Bedtime Story Version

Once upon a time there was a family named Riggs.  There was Big Brother Ralph and his family and Little Brother Ray and his family.  They lived in a wonderful place called "The Plains West of Thomasville".  However, some of the Riggs family had forsaken this wonderful place called West Plains and had moved to the far-off land of "Texas".  The Riggs Family had many pets.  There were dogs; Sadie, Sherlock and Lilly. And there were kittens; Jake and Izzy.  However, none of these pets belonged Little Brother Ray.

One of the things that the Riggs family REALLY loved to eat was Roast Neers.  They would go far and near searching for Roast Neers to eat.  One day they heard that there was an abundance of Roast Neers in a far off land called "The Bootheel"!  So Little Brother Ray hooked up the wagon to his powerful beast called "Ford F-150" and took off on a journey to "The Bootheel" in search of the Roast Neers.  They traveled many miles and finally found an abundance of Roast Neers!  They were not in "The Bootheel" but close by in a little meadow called "Diebold Orchard."

Little Brother Ray's wife, Tami was SO happy that they had found Roast Neers!!

So happy in fact that she wanted 600 Roast Neers!!!
 
Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami were very hungry after they had loaded the 600 Roast Neers.  So they decided to eat in a little village nearby called "Sikeston".  There were many places to eat in "Sikeston".  Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami were going to eat at a place called "Lamberts".  However, many, many, many people were standing on the front porch of "Lamberts" and not going inside so they decided the food must not be very good.  Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami decided they would eat at a nice place called "Dexter BBQ".

Little Brother Ray had the Large Rib Plate.

Little Brother Ray's wife Tami had the Beef Brisket Plate.

Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami were so full after they had finished eating, they wished they had stopped at a nearby restaurant called "Subway".

Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami drove the "Ford F-150" with the wagon load of 600 Roast Neers back to Big Brother Ralph's house which was east of "The Plains West of Thomasville".

Everybody was so happy that now they had Roast Neers to eat!  Everybody in the Riggs family helped shuck the Roast Neers.  One of the little Riggs', Claire Marie, helped out by shucking and taking the "hair" off of the Roast Neers!  She also helped Little Brother Ray by handing him the Roast Neers out of the back of the "Ranger".

It took two days for the Riggs family to shuck the 400 Roast Neers.  They shucked it, took the "hair" off, cooked it, cut it off the cob and put it in bags to put in the freezer.

Now what happened to those other 200 Roast Neers?  Well, some of the relatives of Little Brother Ray and his wife Tami named "Joe and Juanita Bean" wanted 100 of the Roast Neers.  Some more of the Roast Neers were sold at a bake sale in a beautiful building called "The Junction Hill Pentecostal Church".  The rest of the Roast Neers  were either given away or cooked by Big Brother Ralph and eaten by the Riggs family while they were shucking the Roast Neers.  The Riggs family was now very happy because they had lots and lots of Roast Neers in their freezers!

The End

Mississippi Mayhem.....

Since I posted a picture on my Facebook page, thousands of my Facebook friends are eagerly anticipating this blog post. The major news network may even pick this story up...you never can tell....

I am a duly licensed Mississippi Land Surveyor and “due” to that fact, I found myself in the Mississippi delta, on the south side of the metropolis of Marks, in the company of Ralph Riggs and Bob Shotts. We were surveying a “problematic” tract in a USFWS refuge area. We were going to “tie in” the center of a road for analyzation purposes when MAYHEM broke out!!

I pulled my truck (trailer with four-wheeler attached) to the side of the road...and the edge of the road caved off! Truck and trailer laid over in a 3'-4' ditch full of mud!!

 

(Ralph and Bob were following in Ralph's truck with trailer attached and so were spared being directly involved in this catastrophe)

Since the drivers side door was up in the air, I had to have help holding the door open so I could crawl out. We “surveyed” the situation and decided that Ralph could just pull me out front-ways. We hooked up and tried it but my truck only slid deeper in the ditch! This time I couldn't get out and was observing the beautiful clouds from the drivers side seat.

It was decided that we could probably pull out backwards...however...this involved getting the trailer off my truck. They un-hooked and pulled the trailer back, pulled the tongue out onto the road, hooked up and pulled it out of the way. Ralph hooked on to my back bumper, “poured the coals” to his Ford 7.3 Power-Stroke diesel and she came right out!!

There was a problem however...when we pulled it out backwards, the tail-pipe caught and wrapped around the axle! So... we hooked on to it (the tail-pipe) with said Power-Stroke diesel and bent it back straight as a pretzel...so Bob and I got the hack-saw and proceeded to “hack” the tail-pipe of right behind the muffler. We loaded up, hooked up the trailers and finished out the day.

 

I wish I could say that this was the end of the story....

Last night I drove home through Jonesboro AR and was gonna eat at Cracker Barrel. I pulled into the parking lot and completely forgot about the trailer being attached...Yep..I was gonna back into a parking spot and jack-knifed the trailer into the side of my truck!

 

 

The only bright spot is, that I was not trying to back in-between two cars and so was spared demolishing someone else's vehicle. I parked away from civilization, changed out of my sweaty shirt, put on some deodorant, used the Cracker Barrel facilities, got back in my truck and went to IHOP and ate!! (I may never eat at a Cracker Barrel again...) I pulled home, got out, kissed the ground, kissed my wife, took a shower and went to BED!!!

Fairy Ring(s)

There is a huge Fairy Ring in the grassy area right in front of Great Southern Bank in West Plains.  I took this picture on Sunday and after I got back in the car Tami noticed other rings without mushrooms.  One loops into this fairy ring on the right and there is one in the background by the ATM.  One is not shown in the picture to the right of the Pizza Hut.  I always thought these were caused by decaying old tree roots that still remain in the ground but actually there are a couple of theories regarding their formation. (read about it here)   But I did find one site that backs up my theory (read about it here)

Summer Rain

Thank you Heavenly Father for the rain!

I am presently sitting by (one of) my garden(s) watching it grow.  I got my gardens out real late and I guess you could call it a "hail Mary" attempt. I figured it would dry up and be like last year but I sowed anyway with little faith and lots of disgust.  Well, this "Thomas" has canned 8.5 quarts of green beans, had our  first ripe tomatoes for supper, the beets are ready to pick an I just spied at least two cukes ready to pick!  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Postage Stamp Lawns

Now if you don't know what a "Postage Stamp Lawn" is, let me enlighten you.  It's a yard the size of a postage stamp...Some of the thousands of readers of my blog are saying right now, "What is a postage stamp?"  OK, OK, I'm blogging about a very very very teensy tiny yard.

I see the most amusing things when I am out and about.  There is a guy with a huge beer belly (amusing), half-dressed (NOT amusing), mowing the lawn/yard with a RIDING MOWER!!  He can't even turn the mower around without executing a seventeen point turn!  He is very near to defying one of the principles of Quantum Physics - the Pauli exclusion principle. (clueless? - read about it here)  The only way this could get worse is.... if it is the wife doing the mowing....and I won't even go there...

My yard is small.  Not postage stamp size but definitely monarch envelope size.  I do have a belly.  Not a beer belly but may be a root beer belly.  I do not have a riding lawn mower.  This is the reason.  It is commonly referred to as the "Yard Enlargement Rate Theorem" or YERT.  It states:  "The size of the yard is in direct proportion to the size of the equipment used to mow said yard"  Hence:
Tiny yard - push mower (no engine)
Small yard - push mower (with engine)
Medium yard - conventional style rider
Large yard - Zero Turn mower
Humungous yard only a deranged person would have - A Tow-Behind Golf Fairway Mower

So...in keeping with the YERT, I have purchased a new lawn mower.  The picture below will give you some idea of the size of my yard.

It is a Sears Craftsman with 190cc OHV self-priming engine.  It has a bagger and the little green thing on the deck is a hose hookup to wash the underside after mowing.  Purty neat!

Hope you have enjoyed my rant and happy mowing!!

Redburn Peaches

One of my old friends passed away a couple of weeks ago.  Carl Redburn was a good man that served the Lord in his own quiet way.  We lived neighbors to the Redburn family for a few years and went to church with them basically my whole life.  When I think of people like Carl and Elaine Redurn, the song "Good People Are The Salt Of The Earth" by Ricky Skaggs comes to mind.

A year or so ago, Brother Carl gave me some peach tree seedlings.  I planted a couple and gave some to my father-in-law.  The drought last summer put the hurt on them but as you can see in the picture below, they are thriving.  I dubbed them my "Redburn Peaches" and am looking forward to my first peach cobbler!

In the picture below, Brother Carl is on the right and Brother AE Young (with cup) is on the left.  Thank the Lord for good, Godly examples like these men!