The conundrum of it all

Sasquatches are often the topic of conversation up here in the bush. On occasion all the dogs hide their tails, the cows come into the yard and form a ring around the young ones, and even the black bears give up their bashfulness and approach the perimeters of our human habitats. Those long mournful moans in the middle of the night are enough to put visions in anyone's mind. We've taken the precaution of erecting a sign for the lost tourists and odd hunters who manage to navigate our rock strewn network of perilous roads. It's just down the road a stretch from Johnny Be Good's shack because that's where most of them get seen, from a healthy distance of course because sasquatches disappear into the bush as soon as anyone approaches. You never know though, one might trip over a rock.

The truth and Johnny Be Good do walk rather loosely hand in hand, however. He still denies it was him and his two dogs all dressed up in black woolly suits that Halloween long ago, ill threatening treats or vengeance from our outlying denizens. And Johnny has been seen with a moose call strung around his neck in the most untimely seasons. Now we're not going to be the ones to start a conspiracy theory here, but it does make one think.

Anyone who's shared a swig with the good widow Rachael from her little still down the hill will recount, in their willies, wondrous tales of her wanderings in the bush and being lost for days on end to be guided back to civilization by the most gentle and noble giant creatures imaginable. She says they do smell a tad though. On one journey when she twisted her ankle she was actually carried home by a huge male who tenderly set her on her doorstep and then disappeared without a trace. And she is utterly convinced that the many small gifts left on her path to the biffy such as Saskatoon berries from the patch three miles away, or a row of neatly placed stones have been left by her hairy friends.

Then again, no one takes the good widow Rachael all that serious as she recalls her ventures in odd shaped craft which take her to Mars and beyond to sit in the galactic bars with eccentric beings whose sole purpose is to enlighten her on the opus of our universe. Mind you, she has disappeared for some pretty good stretches over the years and her old Harley was parked right beside the house, so go figure.

We have all seen some really hard to explain lights in the sky though, over the years, usually far off on the horizon out over Suckers Marsh where the geese nest. We've been told of course that it's swamp gas or northern lights but we weren't born yesterday and have a good surmise that those type of lights would not come in the flashing or steady patterned forms they often display, sitting still for aeons and then hurtling off to new adventures in the great white north. Oh the conundrum of it all, eh?

Now you keep that pot covered, and don't go spreading this all around.

Pain and rectitude

The time of atonement is nigh. Oh the wrath of the invincible. The overpowering encumbrance dwelling in the bowels of the vanquished. To seat on the throne of martyrdom and strain for release of all circumscription. To agonize in forbearance with inflaming intestinal fortitude. Have mercy upon mercy upon us for we have sinned, we have sinned. We have eaten from the tendril free brawn of the earth and have been loath to drink from the rippling brooks of deliverance. Oh, woe is us, woe is us, these infernal hemorrhoids.

We seat ourselves on our beloved D7 and bounce on the cold metal seat in anguish. Does anyone hear our voice and supplications. No one hath inclined his ear unto us, therefore will we loath compassion as long as we live. The sorrows of anguish compassed us, and the pains of hell gat hold upon us, and we found only trouble and sorrow. So called we upon our thundering ancient D7, oh omnipotent D7, we beseech thee, numb our bum to this abhorrent torment.

Gracious is our D7, and righteous; yea, our D7 is merciful. It has walked us through the valleys of the shadows of despair, we will not be afraid of the throes of adversity, because it is with us, it's palpitations and ice chilling podium, they comfort us. Our D7 preserveth the simple, we were brought low, and it befriended us. Return unto rest, oh our entrails, for our D7 hath dealt bountifully with us. For it hast delivered our soul from tribulation, our eyes from tears, and our feet from writhing.

We will walk again in the land of the living. We believed, therefore we were vindicated. Yes, we were greatly afflicted. We said in our haste, all beasts are traitors. What shall we render unto our stolid D7 for all it's benevolence toward us? We shall take the cup of STP, and anoint it upon the grease permeated fissures in our beloved engine, in hopes a little will betroth itself within the voluminous oil pan. Thusly will we pay our vows unto unto our omnipotent D7 now in the presence of all it's sublimity. Oh our D7, truly we are thy servant, thou hast loosed our bonds. We will offer to thee this sacrifice of thanksgiving, and in our hour of need we will surely again call upon thee to bestow upon our bottom the freedom from tribulation. Praise to our D7.

We instill upon ye all to keep the pot covered, harken ye all.

The Vale of Tines

As hosers we rely on Hoserpedia for much of our enlightenment on the mythology surrounding our local names and customs. Even our federal politicians consult it's vast wealth of submissions in an effort to gain insight to the voting habits of us less than beguiled denizens of the bush. Someone, probably a disgruntled salesperson, submitted this little piece regarding our neck of the woods which we proudly call The Vale of Tines. “Over the last 150 years many have tried to clear a little patch of bush in this unique little community, perhaps for a garden or even a field of oats for the more ambitious. Now the land being a tad rocky, an ancient ice age moraine, a tine or two was oft broken in the digging, or perchance a plow shear, in fact everything that tried to scar the earth got broken and the result has been a sea of metal, yes the valley of tines. Yet the inhabitants love their little vale, and this love must prevail over the ambition of a rocky prosperity.”

Valentines day is quit the wingding here in the Vale of Tines Municipality at Schmoes Diner, as we fancy this as the day to solemnize our community representatives as our servants of undertaking to fleece us of our taxes. We've never had a vote here, as the biggest challenge is to simply to get our advocates to let their name stand for election and if they do no one in heir right mind would challenge their wisdom. Bob and his brother Bob and his other brother Bob make the perfect team for running the ancient 649 Champion grader, and that's really all we need a council for, to keep our twenty three miles of road navigable. The Bobs have been our councillors for nigh on fifteen years, and they don't seem to mind too much because it gives them a legal foothold to be seen any hour of the day in all sorts of perplexing locations. And they have this serene demeanour which allows them to calmly assemble all the local tractors and plow mares in a campaign to free them of being marooned in the ditches which they frequently attend, which usually takes two or three days of supplication.

They have worked out quite the systematical approach to snow clearing, these Bobs. Bob, he goes ahead with a long pole to mark where the ditches are, and his brother Bob, he knows what all the levers and pedals do inside the cab, and Bob's other brother Bob, well he sits on the hood and bangs two pots together to scare away the black bears in case the battered muffler isn't intimidating enough, or when the engine dies and the bears come by for a bit of lunch which the Bobs always have in good supply. They make a pretty good racket, these three, and it is rather entertaining to watch the parade with all the local bears trailing behind.

Creating the school board was a challenge as we needed at least two trustees to make it official. Joe with his nine kids was keen to run, as his kids partiality towards book work was often vanquished by mutiny, and getting a little school established might just free him and his good wife from this struggle. Cultivated Herb was the obvious second choice, but to get him interested a budget large enough to allow him to attend a yearly educational convention in the south had to be assured. Transparency was the key issue among most residents, and it was finally ratified that they could set their own mill rate as long as they promised to stay out of fancy cafes and eat bologna sandwiches on their pedantic missions. After our two trustees were officially solemnized, they were overheard discussing completion of the little church for a school house, the one which the good Baptist missionary had abandoned in his quest for atonement as he fled the community several years ago. And speaking of the good widow Rachael with her her gracious good charm, she was resolemnized as treasurer, and it will be rather interesting to see if she wants to help out with the rafters again, Cultivated Herb being a bachelor and all.

Now you hosers all keep that pot covered, eh.

Drivel

We encourage independence here in our enchanting illusion of paradise in the bush. It's really a thrill on a tranquil morning if Bessy can get her stripling calf to do the milking, or if one of our more acrobatic chickens can fly up to the loft and peck a hole in a handy feed sack so it trickles down for everyone's breakfast. It has taken several years of tolerant trust, dawdling patiently over our morning coffee, to allow our critters to achieve that needed inner strength to gain this liberty. It really shows though in the equanimity they bestow upon life and their condescending attitude towards those mortals who view them as servile creatures.

To embellish on H.L. Mencken, we champion the thinking that the urge to nurture critters is almost always a false face for the urge to rule them. John Locke wrote, also with a sprig of floridity, that in the state of nature, liberty consists of being free from any superior power on earth. Creatures are not under the will or lawmaking authority of others but have only the law of nature for their rule.

Now you may think, Garlic Hornswoggler, you're just full of drivel and your making all this up because your just too damnably lazy to get up in the morning and do your chores. But you know, Aristotle, he wrote that fiction is more philosophic and more serious than fact, because it speaks of universals rather than particulars; there is more truth in understanding the soul of a man like Homer’s Odysseus than in knowing, to quote Aristotle, what “Alcibiades did or had done to him.” And with our perceptions of truth and fact being so dependant on upbringing and environment, who's to say that fiction doesn't incarnate in the eye of the beholder? So we bet that puts you in your place.

So, we have installed this motto in the hen house and the barn which says “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin.” Our biggest challenge here is that they really have taken this all to heart and we're all having a tough sell in finding the fitting philosophical bent to endow them with the liberty to clean their own pens. You all keep that pot covered now, OK?

Hanlon's razor

Our chickens are pretty much free range, because it would really be a lot of work to fix all the holes in their fence, and they do complain a lot when they're stuck inside. Even on the nicer days in winter they like to strut their stuff, pecking at the gravel up and down the drive although we think they might also have a hankering after the ice worms since we have overheard their tiny iPods playing Jenny Omnichord's “When the ice worms nest again.” Yes, they are a tad concerned with the environment, and have been seen blockading the logging trucks barrelling down the road past the end of the drive.

Now those assiduous truckers consider this as a bit of animosity, on the part of our chickens' ecological leanings of course, as they always have to keep a watchful eye out for these unorganized demonstrators as chicken feathers tend to plug up their radiators quite effectively. We have had many bracing conversations with these drivers regarding these capricious incidents, and try to persuade them that they should not attribute malice on the part of our chickens to that which can adequately be explained by their stupidity, always out of hearing of our sensitive chickens ears of course. Even Charles Darwin surmised that ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. And all this doesn't even begin to beg the question of why our chickens are on the road. It probably never even crosses these truckers minds that our chickens may simply have environmental concerns and would be very willing to discuss the consequences of clear cutting on their more wild cousins, and may then listen to the insight that becoming flattened against overpowering forces is only survivable in cartoon format.

Musing over Dunning and Kruger who were awarded the 2000 satirical Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology for their paper, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments," we found scientific proof of our conjectures. The Ig Nobel awards come with little cash, but much cachet, and reward those research projects that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Conversely, highly skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.

Now this is scientific proof of Hanlon's razor, which stipulates you should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. We have therefore implemented a truck driving course for our chickens, to enhance their metacognitive ability so that they may at least recognize their ineptitude and stay out of harms way, environmental concerns of course notwithstanding, whether they get hired on as truckers or not. Yes, higher learning affords many benefits beyond degree-ocracy, that emergence of a new kind of social status, a modern day version of aristocracy based not on a chicken’s heritage but on their level of academic achievements. Our poor coddled chickens, trapped into social darwinism more and more by the hour.

Now you keep that pot covered, eh.

Superbowl Sunday

We were all over at Schmoes Diner last Sunday evening for the super bowl. That's quite the occasion for us all up here, with no TV reception and telephone dial up internet that takes 3 hours just to download the news. Schmoe phones up his bud in Pelican Junction, that's about 70 miles down the road, he gets the Sunday long distance rate, and his bud puts the receiver down beside his TV and the sound makes it's way through the wires strung along the 2814 telephone poles, and this number has been verified many times, to Schmoe's phone where he lays it beside his little amp. And then just to make the whole event more realistic Schmoe has this rectangular table all divided up with masking tape into end zones and all the yard lines labelled with a black marker, and he gets out his box of white and green toy army guys and a black checker for the football, and we all stand around the table trying to keep the lines in the right place according to the sportscasters. There aren't enough plastic soldiers for both offence and defence, so that makes it a little easier. The most fun part is taking turns whenever there's a field goal, trying to flick the checker between the salt and pepper shakers set up for goal posts. For halftime, Schmoe brought out this cute little doll, he does get teased for his fetish, and set her on the centre line as we listened to Ms. Perry sing her tunes.

Speaking of fetishes and dolls, our handsome Fritz who's this cross between an Irish Wolf Hound and a real wolf, well he has this thing about our wife's great stuffed pink teddy bear, and he's neutered, Fritz that is. He stole that teddy bear out of the house and spends hours humping it out behind the barn. Never mind, a Watkins man stopped by and our wife was out in the middle of the yard discussing soaps and detergents. Our Fritzy would not allow that Watkins man to come within ten feet to our wife, and then just to make sure that fellow got the message he lifted his leg and pissed all over our wife's foot. He sure told that guy whose property not to mess with. She felt so impregnable.

Since we're several thousand miles from where either of these fabulous football teams stem, us being about halfway between Boston and Seattle and just a tad north, we don't have much loyalty to either one. This kind of gets obvious when someone comes in from outside and asks who's winning and the answer is “The little green guys.” Even the exalted commercials lose a thing or two without the video. We're all just there for the camaraderie, us all not being that concerned over our Sunday penitencies since the young Baptist missionary left his little church half built after the widow Rachael showed up every day in her most salacious attire to help with the rafters. We guessed he didn't wish to become a farmer having to pastor on the side. That would be an undertaking.

So it was back to work on Monday and Schmoe could put his Barbie dolls all back in the closet. Keep that pot covered now, eh.

Johnny Be Good

This morning our cattle came home all in a row from their daily fence inspection. All was good on the perimeters said Bessy, the provider of the cream for our coffee and the dominant matriarch in her stable little hierarchy. They had been chatting with Johnny Be Good's cows out on fringes of the northeast quarter section. Apparently Johnny Be Good had been living up to his moniker, again. Johnny's cows had cornered him in the coral after he lost his temper with them for being a little pushy at his shiny new tractor when he brought them a fresh bale of hay. Seems like they got him stuck in the muck, and he had to make a run for it and jump over the nine foot high coral boards, Johnny being the butt of his cattle's joking around about extremists, and Johnny, not tolerating any of this incitement to joviality, had put them all in the chute and promptly trimmed their horns all off. This had destabilized their dominance hierarchy so much that their glucocorticoid levels were running rampant and this had caused much infighting, all over a bit of horse play. That Johnny Be Good.

Bessy, she's pretty smart, she asked us if we'd check out on the net what the root cause of their friends problems were. So we gathered info from many different sources, some possibly a tad less reliable than others. Applying it all to this situation we found there was a given amount of food and resources available for Johnny's cattle on his homestead. If it was divided evenly among them all, they would all have enough for their needs. It was all in this game of distribution.

Present day conjecture assumes that all cattle have the same opportunity to eat and take care of their needs. Those who are stronger or a bit smarter or have more desire to, can however eat more than others. What arises from this is that once they eat more they may produce more milk or gain more weight and become the favourites of their champions, and this can influence the astuteness involved in allowing them to eat even more and produce even more milk or gain weight even faster. Those with this influence have thus modified their customary feeding habits and their champions are content to enforce this adjustment, in fact, it can become quite an autonomous culture, this enforcement thing, especially with shiny new armaments involved. When other cattle question these conjectures this enforcement culture can get a mite uptight.

So, it would seem here the problem is Johnny's new tractor. Some of his cattle were not too keen on his feeding strategy. Johnny Be Good's dogma which purports to value a shiny new paint job over the needs and desires of his fellow creatures may herald forth a few dissenters. So we were able to give Bessy this information to pass on, that if Johnny Be Good's cattle want to be treated civilly, they must dent and scratch that shiny new tractor till it looks like a a piece of junk. Only then will the dogma evaporate into a sustainable relationship for all parties involved.

As a disclaimer we must add that this solution we passed on to Bessy involves absolutely no conflict of interest. Just because the pile of fence posts we had stored along side our adjoining fence line were slowly disappearing, and Johnny claimed he didn't even know they were there when they were in plain sight, does not mean we have any other interest at heart, other than the well being of his cattle. Now you keep that pot covered, eh.

The good widow Rachael

As you may gather, Schmoes Diner (that is without the apostrophe because that is the way his sign is writ), is the focal point in our neck of the woods out here since the municipal yard just has one shed with no heat. Anyhow, Schmoe has a bulletin board by the door which is used mostly for buy and sell stuff and major notifications. So, one fine morning there was this poem tacked up. It had no title but it didn't really matter as everyone buzzed around cracking up in merriment. The speculation was that one of the local wives had become a trifle vengeful and had taken to heart the saying that the pen was mightier than the sword. This is what the wrathful one had writ:

There was a nice lady who lived on a farm

She raised chickens and pigs with elegance and charm

Had a big garden and fruit bushes too

And big fuzzy cats who meant no one harm

And on her wee farm she had a wee still

In a wee shed at the bottom of the hill

She had three husbands all buried in a row

They all died most blissfully from drinking her swill

She talked with droll umbras when she was want for enthrall

About life in the Orient and high in Nepal

She knew all the vices of wise men she'd desiderate

In her journeys to remote places she had quite the ball

She'd been on a space ship that took her to Mars

Always been enraptured since visiting the stars

They'd taught her of magics and premises disquisitive

And showed her their wonders in macrocosmic bars

Her dress it was ornate as was her thought

And she bamboozled her neighbours with tales well wrought

Wives would find broomsticks to beat their behinds

When husbands were tempted to have a small drought

There was a nice lady who lived on a farm

It's a mystery to fathom her gracious good charm

So good luck to you weasels if she finds you enthralling

Best wax as inscrutable and head for your barn

Just as everyone was settling down a bit in walks no one other than the good widow Rachael herself. Of course she has to stop by the pin board to read the latest and there is definitely a hush in the atmosphere. Well, composure being a trait of elegance and charm, she simply sits herself down and asks Joe how his kids are doing. Everyone thought maybe she hadn't bothered to read the little poem so the place got to humming with our local gossip again. Later on after the good widow Rachael had made her way on, someone eyed a new little line at the bottom of that vengeful lyric and everyone gathered to read  “cause she just loves a dare.”

Try to keep that pot covered,eh.