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True life-like farmer stories:

It's a sunny day in the Butternut Valley and Farmer Bob is tending his spread. It's spring and all the little flowers and tree buds are being reborn after the angry blue winter. The bunnies are hopping from the woodlot looking for fresh little clovers and chance sexual encounters and Mrs. Farmer Bob is thinking of repainting the breakfast nook a cheerful semigloss sunbeam yellow.


Yes, its springtime in the Butternut Valley once again.

Here come two of the bunnies now. Hopping in the dewy fresh clover on this dewy early morning. The golden sun warms their cheerful twitching ears as Farmer Bob and his fat dog Tiller get ready to dig-in the tater tubers and pick some fresh June bearing strawberries.

Hi Farmer Bob! Hi Tiller!

Farmer Bob likes to mow the fresh green grass with his Colton-White ride-on twin bagger tractor mower with mulcher baffle. Farmer Bob also likes to drink vodka with real imitation lime mist diet soda while mowing the fresh green grass with his Colton-White ride-on twin bagger tractor mower with mulcher baffle. Even though its only 10:45 in the morning and Mrs. Farmer Bob has threatened Farmer Bob with an ugly separation and lawsuit and further emotional abuse if he continues to do so. Ha!, that Mrs. Farmer Bob, always making mischief. Hey, lighten up Mrs. Farmer Bob, this is not a day for hurtful naysayer negativity.

Afterall, it's the first nice sunny day since several powerful early spring tornadoes ripped through the valley bringing torrential downpours, hail the size of snowplow lug nuts, and flash flooding which caused 1.5 million dollars worth of catastrophic damage to the Henry Cabot Lodge Elementary Skool for Regional Fonicks. Even sucked Mildred Thompson's brand new used Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Explorer into Screeching Preacher Creek. Heck, even damaged the Tom Brokaw Home for Aging Greater Generations where three teenage interns were electrocuted while stealing an inkjet printer and some aerosol inhalants from a flooded basement storage room. Well dang, who needs more bad news? Besides, there will be plenty of time for gloomy thoughts when the local liberal crybabies begin whining and moaning and blubbering about that local public library closing it's doors. But never mind that, its too nice a day for angry petty partisan politics.

Here come the bunnies, hop-hop-hop... those bunnies are going straight for Farmer Bob's freshly sprouted patent protected garden greens. Uh oh! those naughty frisky bunnies.

Uh-oh again, Farmer Bob has had two too many lime mist tonics and has failed to connect the dots between here and there and pretty much everywhere else in between and has unfortunately steered his Colton-White Twin Bagger mower with mulcher baffle into a craggy drainage culvert located on the fringes of his modestly vast private property holdings. It looks like he's ok though.

Oops!, not so fast, the tractor has flipped over on Farmer Bob and crushed several of his vertebrae! Better call the EMT guys Mrs. Farmer Bob, thats a Briggs & Stratton Vanguard OHV engine, 8hsp and hydrostatic transmission, 46" cutting deck with side discharge, 27" turning radius, 53" wheel base and 3.5 gallon fossil fuel capacity, standard key start, ammeter, halogen headlights, bitchin' side-by-side gyroscopic twin cup-holders, disk brakes, high frequency reverse position audio warning signal, custom dual Advent Toby Keith Nashville Suburban country western music extreme outdoor entertainment system, and infinite speed selection... all resting right there smack dab on top of Farmer Bob's crushed and wheezing chest cavity.

Meanwhile the newly acquainted Mr. and Mrs. Bunny are real hungry and eating the tender clover growing near Farmer Bob's baby Purple Knight asparagus. Those naughty bunnies! Chance sexual encounters will give anyone a hearty appetite.

But not to worry. Farmer Bob, earlier this very morning, sprayed those particular unlucky clovers with several gallons of recently deregulated EcoClarity Final Solution[TM] RadiKill Weed Defoliation agent. The very same corrective environmental solutions U.S. sponsored death squads and private national security contractors working in Latin America have been hurling into small savage jungle villages for decades! Mr. and Mrs. Bunny should start to demonstrate severe neurological side effects any minute now.

Rrrr, rrrrrrrrrr, here come the emergency rescue guys, rrrr, rrrrrrrrr ...Yay! Everything will be ok now. Farmer Bob is still ok, he still hasn't drifted off into any kind of traumatic shock event or any feminine weakling thing like that. Thank God he was pretty oiled-up and wirey-like (if ya know what I mean. ;-) heh, when he landed in the rebar infested dead paupers culvert that he rents out to a local multinational funeral and burial service contractor. Whew! Over here EMT Mike! Over here EMT Doug!

Hey? Where did Tiller, Farmer Bob's undersexed dog, get off too?

Here he is! --- Uh oh, Tiller has latched on to EMT Mike's left thigh and is violently shaking EMT Mike back and forth like a sack of meat. No-no Tiller, don't do that... bad dog! Hurry, someone fetch the kink proof family garden hose!

Meanwhile, Mrs. Farmer Bob has gone to the kitchen to search for her Red Letter Edition of King James. Always planning ahead that Mrs. Farmer Bob.

Mr. and Mrs. Bunny are feeling uncomfortable too. Mrs. Bunny is convulsing wildly and Mr. Bunny is hallucinating like a dirty hippy from Eugene and it looks like a howling wall of severe supercell thunderstorms with mesocyclonic updrafts and hail the size of croquet balls is developing just to the west. There goes this sunny day. Shit. But the All America Winner Bush Celebrity Hybrid tomatoes with superior disease resistance will enjoy the refreshing rain. That's just the way nature is.

Luck has it! Farmer Bob appears to be OK! Whew, he's out of the culvert and still conscious. Yay!

Hey, where did Tiller go to now? Oh-no, he's run off into a stand of deer-tick infested honey locust at the first sight of the garden hose. But EMT Mike is ok, Tiller didn't sever Mike's femoral artery and the bleeding has been stopped by EMT Doug who expertly applied pressure to the bubbling gaping gore splattering wound. Nice work EMT Doug! Just all in a day's work for the heroes who are EMTs.

Here comes the sheriffs car now! Rrrrr, rrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Hi Sheriff Walt! Sheriff Walt knows Farmer Bob from the old days. They attended selective vocational training seminars together where they both learned how to file spurious property liens against the local librarian and some secualar humanists - and some other stuff like that - and Sheriff Walt once had a chance sexual encounter with Mrs. Farmer Bob in a motel room in Ocean City Maryland when they were restless young teenage romantics yearning to have a chance sexual encounter on Maryland's eastern shore.

"Is everything OK?" asks Sheriff Walt.

"Old Bob will be fine once we get him airlifted to the severe spinal injury emergency reception center in "Shining City" says EMT Doug, who is jostling Farmer Bob into the back of the EMT van. No problemo!

"Nice day, eh" says Sheriff Walt to Doug. "Bout time" says Doug. "But looks like it could get pretty rough in about 40 minutes".

"Ah, don't be such a gloomy Gus" chimes in Sheriff Walt "now where is Mrs. Farmer Bob anyway?"

"Here somewhere" shrugs Doug. "Anyway, I better get a movin', see ya at the Larry Pratt Legion of Jesus Handgun Raffle and Christian Survivalist Expo on Sunday!"

"You bet" shouts Sheriff Walt, raising a clenched fist in righteous solidarity.

"Mornin' Mrs. Farmer Bob" says Sheriff Walt, "sorry bout Farmer Bob's mishap but he should be good as new once them boys at ConAgra Community Freedom to Farm Hospital start-in to pokin' and fiddlin' and rearrangin' stuff around with him. How are you holding up?"

Mrs. Farmer Bob drops her head and begins to sob uncontrollably into her frilly farm woman apron.

Suddenly the phone rings. Its the Big TransNational Global Insurance Corporation (BTNGIC) headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut - and sometimes headquartered in Singapore - and sometimes headquartered aboard an Indian cargo freighter drifting around in the Arafura Sea - calling to remind Mrs. Farmer Bob that her insurance policy was canceled just last week due to a catastrophic outbreak of Dengue fever in Hungary's Bakony Forest and a big chemical fire at a vinyl windbreaker factory in Sumatra which tragically asphyxiated nine hundred children. The free market is a funny like that. Ya just never know where it'll pop up next.

Not to worry though! A new colorful glossy twenty eight page brochure outlining Big TransNational Global Insurance Corporation's latest policy updates and options and plans to restructure and relocate its key operating personnel to a brand new state of the art facility deep inside of a reacclimated synergy efficient state of the art former zinc mine located somewhere north of the Yangtze River is available for fast (PDF) download on the internets.

Mrs. Farmer Bob glances out the window at the eerie ochre colored sky and resumes sobbing into her apron.

Sheriff Walt reassures Mrs. Farmer Bob. He has a lot of experience dealing with traumatic situations and simple rural women folk from America's traditional heartland who require reassuring. Just like that David Brooks feller who lives in that trailer park near the Midtown Skyport and writes for that fancy newspaper.

"There there now," Sheriff Walt consoles. "Oh by the way, your son, the freshman at Southern Illinois University, has just been arrested for assaulting a secualar humanist with a claw hammer and threatening to set fire to the county courthouse in Pickneyville unless they agree to remove the gold fringe from the flag in the traffic courtroom. The FBI is holding on to him in Decatur. That's in Illinois you know. I thought you might like to know that," reassures Sheriff Walt.

"Now now, don't be upset Mrs Farmer Bob, I'm sure the FBI recognizes a little college prankster funnin' when they see it. Hey, remember that road-trip we took to Ocean City back in....," Uh oh, Mrs. Farmer Bob has collapsed in a heap on the tiled kitchen floor in an unflattering untraditional way!

Sheriff Walt reaches out a helping public safety officer hand. "Oh now now Mrs. Farmer Bob, you're hyperventilating, here, let me help you sit back up. Don't be a such dowdy rumpled unfeminine grumpus on such a sunny day," says Sheriff Walt sympathetically. "Everything will turn out just fine, you'll see. Character matters. Here now, let me help you up from that greasy unkempt floor of yours. After all, I came all this way out here to specially lend any comfort and compassionate kind words I can. It was such a nice sunny morning in the Butternut Valley and I thought the fresh air would relieve the stress I encounter daily as an important authority figure and compassionate example for young people. Say!, you've lost some weight haven't you?"

Rrrrrr..... rrrrrrrrrrr ..... Mr. Famer Bob is on the way to the severe emergency spinal reconstruction and neurological rehabilitation center in "Cupcake City" only a short 750 miles away. Rrrrrr....rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

A hair raising bolt of ground to air lightning streaks across the blackening sky and emergency storm sirens begin to blare their mournful ominous warnings in the distance. An annoying high-pitched electronic shriek comes from the TV at about the same moment the power goes out.

Mr. Bunny looks over at Mrs. Bunny. Her confused wet eyes are now lolling wildly about in her head. Mr. Bunny notices the warmth of the sunshine against his ears and tingling on his fur and wonders if Mrs. Bunny can feel it too. Then he closes his soft brown eyes for the last time as the raindrops begin to fall among the clover.

Meanwhile Tiller has put 6 miles between himself and Farmer Bob's crazy spread. He finds himself overcome by an intense fear of water as sheets of heavy cold rain begin to soak the warm freshly renewed earth. He begins to salivate and shiver uncontrollably. In a final moment of lucidity Tiller thinks back to the raccoon that he encountered near the tool shed only days ago. There was something not quite right about that raccoon he thinks; then he takes off in a loping snarling frothy stagger toward a glowing yellow school bus delivering small hopelessly economically unproductive low income elementary school children to a local emergency storm shelter located inside an abandoned tool and dye factory.

Sheriff Walt gently gathers a sobbing Mrs. Farmer Bob in his arms and rocks her back and like a tortured war orphan.

He listens quietly as the wind begins to peel the shingles off the roof of the modest single level modular farm home. He listens to the roar of the rain and the rapid metallic pelting of pea stone sized hail against aluminum siding and he the thinks about the way fate takes its toll on God's chosen people. He thinks about the awesome power of sensory deprivation interrogation tactics and his new bolt action Savage M-40 Varmint Hunter and he thinks he'd like to git hisself one of them John Deere Trail Gator high performance hydroformed steel frame all wheel drive vehicles with Clear Channel Outdoors all weather Sean Hannity Signature 24 hour talk-news radio satellite communications console.

He tries to remember if he rolled up the windows on the patrol car. He worries that homosexual marriage will lead to more frequent outbreaks of dangerous climactic change. Or is it climatic? Whatever. He wonders if the Gipper would share his concern for the future. He thinks that he may try to pick up some extra cash later in the summer by offering to help Mrs. Farmer Bob replace the roof on her potting shed. And he thinks about a motel room in Delaware or Maryland or wherever the hell it was - and claw hammers - and scowling elitist librarians sucking at the teat of the American taxpayer - and the stress of being an important compassionate authority figure.

And he thinks of fields of clover and the smell of fresh picked sweet corn and fresh mowed grass and traditional summer thunderstorms and fertile springtimes yet to be born, again, in the Butternut Valley.

- The Fertile End.