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09/99 - The
Lord Gave
From
nowhere along the dirt road where we drive to work every morning
orange-eyed yellow daisies have suddenly bloomed. Out of the dust
and terrible dryness, daisies have turned our road into a royal
path.
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11/99 - Justin
Raises Highland Cattle
My son, Justin, decided he wanted to raise cattle, but not
just any cattle, Highland cattle.
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12/99 - Old
Cars & New Grandchild
I drive old cars. I do this because I like
them, of course, but mostly because they are cheap. I got in the
habit when all my seven children lived at home.
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01/00 - Taking
Grandchildren to Church
Our daughter Liberty, her husband Johnny, and their sons
Tucker (2) and Bedford (3 weeks) came to spend the
holidays.
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02/00 - My
Appeal, Jack Meets His Match, Our Little Red
Wagon
All
right, I made a mistake last month about Jachin and Boaz. Now hear
the correction, as seen from behind (riding on the wagon
seat): The lead horse is always on the right, and is
always the taller of the pair.
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03/00 - Trip
to Eugene, Oregon
Oregon’s state motto is, "We know what’s best for you."
Their old state motto was, "We never met a rule we didn’t like." I
almost got thrown out of the Oregon Coast Aquarium for
absent-mindedly chewing gum.
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04/00 - Tragedy
Strikes Susan's Chickens
For some time they’ve been living in the big
barn. Over a week had passed without our finding any eggs. Finally
Susan went climbing through the hayloft, and found not only three
and a half dozen eggs, but also the setting hen.
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05/00 - Swallows,
Tulip Poplars, Mower Trouble & Chicken
Cathedral
A
swallow would swoop in under the carport up to the nest. I
believe the little birds (Swallowlings? Swallowettes?) could
hear their parents flying in because they set up such a
ruckus to be fed.
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06/00 - Getting
in the Hay
Nothing went right. We don’t have a tractor or a baler,
but we have two big Percheron horses, a horse-drawn mower, and a
Hochstettler wagon that’s eight feet wide and sixteen feet
long.
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07/00 - The
Ponderosa, Swine Time
After last month’s letter Georgia subscriber TC wrote, "I
love to read about your family. I see you are getting a new
education. I was raised on a farm and most everything will – bite
you – kick you – run over you – or make you itch.
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07/00 - Life
on the Farm, One Year Later
It has been a year since we said good-bye to
urban Shelby County and Memphis. It seemed to me appropriate that
while you are scratching your head over my choice of epigraphs for
this article I should recount to you our impressions and
discoveries.
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08/00 - Reader
Responses, Nearly Blew Us Away
Writing a newsletter is something like
spending the night keeping watch on a defensive perimeter. You
hear something out there and shoot into the dark, but seldom find
out whether you hit anything or not. Very few people ever write or
comment.
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09/00 - I've
Been Pondering Daisies
I’ve been pondering daisies. The roads here are a
wild riot of daisies, stretching in solid walls for half a mile
and more on both sides -- short daisies, tall many-branched
daisies, and tiny white daisies bunched like puffs of
smoke.
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10/00 - On
Ambition
Maybe
I’m not sorry as gully dirt after all. I’m always flagellating
myself for lacking ambition, but maybe I have just misunderstood
it. Maybe the ambition I’ve been taught to admire isn’t the right
kind at all.
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11/00 - Christmas
is coming
Christmas is coming, the hog is getting fat, and I’m
usually stuck for Christmas gift ideas. Here’s a great one if you
want to give someone a taste of the South: Smith’s Farms in
Cullman (actually Holly Pond), Alabama.
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11/00 - Madstone
During the 1940s most of the people in the
country carried water from a spring near their house for cooking,
drinking, and washing clothes. Most water springs were located in
a low, marshy area with lots of grass growing
nearby.
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12/00 - Animals
& Lessons about Life & Death
Y’all may remember that on one terrible
September Saturday a year ago a string of accidents took off our
Great Pyrenees puppy, Kaiser, and Justin’s horse, General in a few
short hours. My friend Charlie Ritch runs a farm down in Alabama
with his wife Laura and two charming daughters.
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01/01 - Haircut,
New Fillies, the Holidays, Bragging
Susan kept after me about changing my hair
cut, something that hasn’t happened since the Yankee army released
me in 1972. I was told it would make me look like Sean
Connery
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02/01 - Planning
for Spring
On a
farm you can’t just do things whenever you get around to them. If
you miss some things– like planting clover – you miss them for a
whole year. So we sat down to organize and work out an agenda for
the spring.
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03/01 - Pig
Killing
Can you
believe this? A subscriber from Ohio bought something from us that
cost five bucks. When he came time to pay us, he sent five dollars
all right - in genuine Confederate money!
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04/01 - Dogwoods
in Bloom
I had
been watching the dogwoods because our spring has been so late and
they always know to bloom before Easter. When I was seven we lived
in the mountains of southwest Virginia, where I first learned
about dogwoods.
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05/01 - The
Nose
I have a
cousin who nearly failed organic chemistry one summer because the
lab professor caught him sniffing unknowns for the other students.
His nose was so accurate that he could sniff the unknown chemicals
they were supposed to identify as their lab assignment, and then
go to the shelf of reagents and sniff through them one by one
until he identified the same one as the unknown.
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06/01 - A
New Kind of Whippoorwill
Every morning about 3:00 the bird flies to
our windowsill, perches, and commences a loud and unending
repetition of his call. He kept on waking Susan and me up, but
there was something strange about his call.
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07/01 -
Hoedowns
and Haying
I am
just about plumb sick of dogs and pigs. I pulled up at the
Top a few days ago and got out of the truck. The carport
sounded like the waiting room at a bus station right before
suppertime. Susan’s three little pigs – Bertha, Penelope,
and Mabel, world’s hairiest, hungriest, and ugliest piglets – were
snorting and oinking. Eight – yes, eight – Great Pyrenees
pups were moiling around them whimpering and complaining for
breakfast.
I’m no more than a
waiter at the zoo.
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08/01 -
Summer
in Tennessee
. Normally it hardly rains here in July and August. This
year it hasn’t stopped. From Friday to Friday last week it
rained nearly four inches. During this rain I have made a
discovery about the purpose of air conditioning. It is not
to keep the air in your house cool, but dry.
