Saturday, August 11, 2007
Weeds, goats and Wanda Quick
" ... cursed is the ground for thy sake ... thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ..."
--Genesis 3: 17-8 (partial)
Call me crazy, but I've spent the morning pulling weeds and grass from the flower beds and the wilderness protection area that used to be my vegetable garden -- and I've been diggin' every minute of it.
Not that long ago, my knees were so "bad" I couldn't even get down on my hands and knees.
Pushing 300 pounds, I didn't have any stamina at ALL for something like that.
Unlike most of the things I do in life, pulling weeds is quantifiable: They were there. Now they are gone. Very cool.
Even with the heat -- it's hitting 100 here now in the afternoons -- I'm tickled because its DRY. I'm still not over the week-after-week deluge we had half the winter, all of spring and the first of summer.
Man, I want to move to Colorado and start a goat farm -- or something. I like writin' and editin' for a livin' -- but I do miss me some manual labor. After two days at my desk this week, I felt like Bailey droppings warmed over.
I've just got to figure out to make a white-collar wage as a redneck ditch-digger, or goat raiser, or something!
Goats because 1., you don't need much land, and 2., increases in ethnic populations for whom goat meat is a staple continue to rise on immigration and birth rates.
And if I ever do get goats, I'll find Wanda Quick, the smart-ass little beeyotch who first introduced me to socio-economic-cultural bias, on a school bus in fifth grade, and tell her to kiss my redneck ass.
She'd moved to my one-horse, two-dog town from somewhere "big" -- like Muskogee! -- took one look at me one day, and said, "You're a goat roper."
Being pretty literal-minded, I remember saying something like "Do what? No, we have cattle on our place."
She laughed and made fun of my clothes:
Jeans, boots and a button-down shirt with those rhinestone-type snaps -- and I learned the feeling of being on the receiving end of derision before I knew the word "derision," and before I knew that "goat roper" was supposed to be an insult.
That episode with Wanda Quick, as much as anything, started me on the road to empathy for what the eggheads call "the other" in society. She marginalized me.
Weeds? Goats? Wanda Quick? "The other" and social marginalization? Whew! Both my E and my R are in good workin' order today, I reckon.
Back to the weed pullin'.
--ER
--Genesis 3: 17-8 (partial)
Call me crazy, but I've spent the morning pulling weeds and grass from the flower beds and the wilderness protection area that used to be my vegetable garden -- and I've been diggin' every minute of it.
Not that long ago, my knees were so "bad" I couldn't even get down on my hands and knees.
Pushing 300 pounds, I didn't have any stamina at ALL for something like that.
Unlike most of the things I do in life, pulling weeds is quantifiable: They were there. Now they are gone. Very cool.
Even with the heat -- it's hitting 100 here now in the afternoons -- I'm tickled because its DRY. I'm still not over the week-after-week deluge we had half the winter, all of spring and the first of summer.
Man, I want to move to Colorado and start a goat farm -- or something. I like writin' and editin' for a livin' -- but I do miss me some manual labor. After two days at my desk this week, I felt like Bailey droppings warmed over.
I've just got to figure out to make a white-collar wage as a redneck ditch-digger, or goat raiser, or something!
Goats because 1., you don't need much land, and 2., increases in ethnic populations for whom goat meat is a staple continue to rise on immigration and birth rates.
And if I ever do get goats, I'll find Wanda Quick, the smart-ass little beeyotch who first introduced me to socio-economic-cultural bias, on a school bus in fifth grade, and tell her to kiss my redneck ass.
She'd moved to my one-horse, two-dog town from somewhere "big" -- like Muskogee! -- took one look at me one day, and said, "You're a goat roper."
Being pretty literal-minded, I remember saying something like "Do what? No, we have cattle on our place."
She laughed and made fun of my clothes:
Jeans, boots and a button-down shirt with those rhinestone-type snaps -- and I learned the feeling of being on the receiving end of derision before I knew the word "derision," and before I knew that "goat roper" was supposed to be an insult.
That episode with Wanda Quick, as much as anything, started me on the road to empathy for what the eggheads call "the other" in society. She marginalized me.
Weeds? Goats? Wanda Quick? "The other" and social marginalization? Whew! Both my E and my R are in good workin' order today, I reckon.
Back to the weed pullin'.
--ER
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Ain't it a bitch what those extra pounds will do to you? You've done good on the weight. Keep it up even after the chemicals are withdrawn. It is a long term battle, and for a man like you that loves him the basic redneck cusine it will be on going. Break a leg!
Goats! Goats are the devils own. They eat everything, grass shrubs, trees, everything. I resurrect the goat based property claeaning system idea. Coloradians would go for it. But as a farm animal, they are an ecological nightmare.
By the way when you get out there and need a wierd story to write, remind me, and I will give you an intro to Farmer Bill who raises Yaks in the foothills above Denver.
Goats! Goats are the devils own. They eat everything, grass shrubs, trees, everything. I resurrect the goat based property claeaning system idea. Coloradians would go for it. But as a farm animal, they are an ecological nightmare.
By the way when you get out there and need a wierd story to write, remind me, and I will give you an intro to Farmer Bill who raises Yaks in the foothills above Denver.
Hey, I got all my outside stuff done by 1 p.m., then went to the Sonic and got an orange slush and drove around slupring on it with the window down. My dang AC is out in my truck.
YAKS?
And, so, then goats are like little camels. Camels, likewise, will eat anything that looks like brush, including rough-cut lumber.
YAKS?
And, so, then goats are like little camels. Camels, likewise, will eat anything that looks like brush, including rough-cut lumber.
SBM: "Erudite redneck" is just the beginning of the contradictions, oxymorons and latent but slain fo' dye-cot-o-me's that ride around in my head alla time! :-)
Stogies. Soon.
Stogies. Soon.
Yeah, they are like camels except that camels don't climb trees to eat the leaves, fruit, and new stems. Goats do.
Ditch diggers make more than most white collars most places you go. Sweat = Money
# posted by 
: 3:16 PM
: 3:16 PM
Hmmm. Ya know, I did make more per hour workin' in a unionized factory as a kid than I did for the first four years I worked in newspaperdom ...
True about ditch diggers in comparison to many entry level hite collar jobs. They also die younger and never get much more usable income than they started with.
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