Battin' the Farm

Although I am not normally a gamblin' man, I have done a 180 for this weekend. I have some friends that are attending the Kentucky Derby and I've sent the deed to the farm along with them to bet. All of it on Scat Daddy... all of it. Granted, as a gentleman farmer, it only amounts to about 1/7th of a bushel of soybeans, but if the odds don't change and Scat Daddy wins, I will wallow in 2 full bushels of soybeans.

As a youth, my brothers and I had only one standing order in the summertime... pull weeds in the soybean fields. I still have nightmares inhabited by thistles, velvet weed, cockleburs, milkweed, and stray corn plants. I still wish that Hillary would have sent the migrant kids up from Illinois to help us while she babysat the little migrant children.

But we had our fun, too. We would stick a water hose down a rat hole under the cement slab leading up to the chickenhouse and wait on the other side. It must have been quite a sight with us boys, a dog or two, and some cats all waiting like vultures for some fresh meat to emerge. When the soaking wet rat emerged and fled we would pummel him with our Louisville sluggers. It may sound cruel, but the dogs and cats needed to eat and the soybeans and weeds needed fertilizer. And we soon discovered that rat is greasy and didn't really taste like chicken. We were pretty lucky that we didn't whack each other or one of the farm critters. I laugh at the kids nowadays that vicariouly play the violent and bloody video games.