Dogs, Guns and Miles O' Crap

Had a great weekend with all sorts of business. Played a great gig on Friday evening that generated a pretty good story (of course), but later on that. This is about Saturday. Sal and I went up to Rutledge, MO. to the Hillbilly Gun and Dog Auction and Flea Market. This is the epitome of redneckedness. My friend Kim woulda went into a major seizure I'm sure as that girl lives for a good flea market. This one is the grand daddy of 'em, the largest in the state of Missouri. I guarantee you can buy at least one of everything in existence at this thing. I also guarantee you'll have an urge to obsessively wash your hands and not touch your face in between washings.

We got some pics of the whole fracas and yes, there are literally MILES of flea market crap. Miles.






Wait, here's some nice crap! I can still smell the aroma of plastic toys heating up in the sun. Mmmmmm




Most folks are walking but you gotta stay on your toes or you'll get run down by folks in beat to hell golf carts and ATV's loaded with women folk sucking on a Bud Lite riding in the back... some pulling trailers loaded with their bootie. (purchases, not the women folk) (sometimes).







Several permanent and semi permanent trailers and outbuildings are splayed out over the whole mess... most will make you giggle.



DING DONG!! I'm sure the Avon corp. would be thrilled with this handy outlet for personal hygiene and toiletry products. You can almost smell the Wild Country aftershave from here.







Just outside a doll tent was this sad little scene. I'm guessing the Land Of Misfit Toys is just too good of a place for this little beauty.







Need a dog? Plenty of 'em for sale here! These little German Shorthairs were cute as buttons. $50 sends you home with one... unless you wanna deal for less.







And now, on to the good stuff! Yeah Sal and I have a blast at these things and of course we spend our hard earned money very very wisely. Such as these 2 awesome cast iron indian banks... made in China. There were only 2 of 'em at this lady's (loose term) booth. I looked at 'em and started laughing. I asked her how much for the 2 indian banks with the insane eyes that looked as if they were about to mutilate themselves with their tomahawks. They had $10 apiece marked on 'em. I got these beauties for $8 bucks for the pair. They weigh 'bout 3 pounds each and I wished I was closer to the car after carrying the damned things around for too long.









Onward we went and some folks were packing up their crap and there was a full sealed bottle of McCormick whiskey in the ugliest KC Royals decanter I ever saw. $35 marked on it. The dude said $5 bucks. Ha! I'll let you know if it makes me go blind... looks to be 1971 vintage.











"Hmmmm Firewater!"











And of course a fight broke out...










Sally got a cool cowboy purse, made in Mexico of course, for $3 bucks. We promptly spilled something on the front or got some sort of flea market goo on it. It oughta clean up. lol










"On 'em lookout for paleface with white beard"










I got a cool ugly shirt made from gen-u-ine polyesters. 50 cents. I know, what a bargain.









Sal snagged a few tops for 50 cents each, I grabbed a dozen Jersey gloves for $5 bucks. Got a box of sanding disks for $3 bucks but I think we left them on the table in the excitement of the whiskey purchase... so I guess that kicks the whiskey up to $8 bucks for the fifth. 'Bout the goin' rate for fresh cheap whiskey... kinda nullifies that bargain.

Anyway, lots of fun. Met up with our friends Ronnie and Mary Beth for awhile. Ronnie had a humdinger of a coffee pot and miscellaneous other prizes.

We headed for home, I got thirsty and pulled over to grab a water outta the cooler in the trunk. Sal never misses an opportunity for a picture... I seem to be looking at something on the ground.... :-) Objects are closer than they appear.






And that's 'bout it!
Nite!









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Breast Milk Ice Cream, Bacon Flavored Vodka, And Squalor

Just some random stuff tonite that I've had bookmarked as I ran across 'em. I can't say that I saved these articles because they'd improve my life... or your life in any way, they just struck me in an odd way that made me save 'em and now I can delete 'em outta my bookmarks.

Ta Dah!

The first is the whole Ben and Jerry's vs. PETA thing from a week or so ago. Seems PETA (whom you all know I must surely love and adore... I'm just not spitting out this hunk of T-bone to tell 'em how much I love them) got a brilliant idea for ol' Ben and Jerry's to use human breast milk in some or all of their ice cream.

My first reaction to this is "Yuck". My second reaction to this is "How the hell are you gonna set up a dairy operation like this and how long is the line to get a job there?"

Sometimes my head just swims with things like this. Here, read the freakin' article. Let's see how many freaks get dragged into Sawdust and Cowpies from a Google search on "breast milk ice cream" on this post.

*shudder*

*Gahhh*

My next foray into internetal savability is... Bacon Flavored Vodka. As you all know, I love bacon. I also have a fondness for distilled spirits in various forms. For this guy to combine the two... he must be a genius. Seriously. I bet his mom brags on him all the dang time. Bacon. Vodka. *Forrest Gump voice* "Lak peas and carrots."

You can read 'bout it on this other dude's blog. I don't know him... the original news article ran out and this is where I found it. He seems a bit bitter, just going on his banner tag. Probably liberal, he mentions "neocons". In spite of that I might like him, you never know. He apparently is in Hawaii so... hang loose and peace out man.

And finally, I'm a sucker for a good human squalor story and this one is epic. Seriously man, how many burnt butts and pizza boxes does one need to own to fulfill their OCD? Dang.


No really finally now. I just finished up a custom piece for a guy... turned out pretty nice even if I do say so myself and I just did. Real nice to get to do some stuff like this once in awhile... lets me flex my artsy fartsy muscle just a touch... then back to gluing up busted chairs. lol Here, take a look, it's on the wood working forum.



I've never ended a blog post with this word and I kinda want to... so here.




Groovy.




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My Finger! My Finger!

Okay, so y'all know by now that accidents follow me around somewhat, but the way I look at it... usually I don't get hurt real bad and it's good for a laugh from the fam. Que sera sera.

I was in the woods this morning, happily chainsawing up my little corner of North America, minding my own business. In the process of sawing down a hickory, that had done nothing to offend me, I was just claiming it as mine... my trusty Stihl chainsaw derailed the chain about halfway. Now the bar (that's the thing that sticks out in front of the saw that the chain spins on) is worn out on my saw, it's got a few years on it... but I thought that I could get another year outta the thing. That's mostly why the chain did a sideways walk and got itself lodged half on/half off. When the bar gets worn down pretty bad, they have a tendency to throw a real nice razor sharp (literally) edge on the bar.

I traipsed over (I'm a helluva traipser by the way, I come from a long line of professional traipsers) to my truck, un-sawing saw in hand. Now keep in mind that the saw is not running. Even if it were running it would non-cutting because of the condition of the chain. I have on leather gloves, I grab hold of the chain and give it a little tug to finish the derail offa the bar, and it comes right off. I pick up my wrench to loosen things up to get the chain back on and notice blood running outta my glove.

Now that's curious. So I pull the glove off and OH HOLY CRAP!! I am bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig, as it were. I'm trying to get a look at what I've done but there's just too much blood... and I'm starting to get a little nervous. I'm a looooonnnnnggggg way from civilization.

When I yanked the chain, it came on off so easily the top of that razor sharp bar cut right through the leather glove and sliced my index finger in a pretty spectacular fashion right across the middle knuckle on my right hand.

So I did the first thing I usually do, I go into the stationary panic spin. This is where you just turn around in one spot like 4 or 5 times trying to rationalize the situation out... 'cause everyone knows you can't do this standing still.

I grab a roll of paper towels outta the truck and wrap the thing up and hold it for bout 5 minutes trying to get it to stop bleeding. "Lord please dont' let me die of a cut finger in the wilderness 'cause there won't be a straight face at my funeral if I do!"

I can't imagine the humiliation that my family would suffer if I were to die like that. Criminy.

So I toss all my tools in the back of the truck and head for home. Now I know that Sally was gonna make a run into town so I called home and told her to hang on for a few minutes and I'd be right there. When I pulled in the driveway she was sitting in her car ready to leave. I get outta the truck and I'm in kind of a mess. I hadn't really taken stock of myself yet but my denim shirt was coated pretty good with blood, as were both hands and the fronts of my jeans and some on my shoes.

Sally is the love of my life, but that girl can't take the sight of blood and here I come walking in like a Boris Karloff birthday party clown.


Sally: *trying to make light of the scene* Got some red paint on your shirt honey.

Me: Uh yeah. *holding my bad hand behind my back*

Sally: Get in the car and lets go to the ER.

Me: Let me run in and clean things up a bit... I don't really know what it looks like yet.

Sal then just kinda leans forward on the steering wheel and doesn't look so hot. I run in and start cleaning things up and sorta triage myself (I gotta lotta experience at this.) and decide I ain't going to the ER.

I head back outside and Sal says again "get in the car, let's go". Like she could drive... she looked like Casper the Ghost in mime makeup. I tell her I'm just gonna tape things up and keep it clean and it'll all be good. The band's gotta big private party gig this weekend and If I get stitches it's gonna be hell picking with my right hand. I've been sewn up enough times to be on the cover of a quilt magazine. I know how it works.

Sally: I need air.

Me: *just standing there with my hand behind my back* * I wish I had a bouquet back there*

Sally: *getting outta the car* I really need air.

Me: *just bleeding*

Sally: *slumped over the fence with me hanging on to her* I need to sit down.

Me: *still just bleeding and bloody*

Sally: You really gotta get that shirt off.

Sally: Seriously, you need to get rid of the shirt Jace.

Sally: I'm gonna faint.

Me: Want me to get you something?

Sally: Go stand somewhere else. Over there behind that shed is a good place.


Eh she finally collected herself and got un-faintly. I went in and bandaged the thing up, put all sorts of neosporin on it. It's a wee bit sore tonite, but it'll all be good. Sally went to town, bought some stuff at an auction, got groceries and beer. All is good.

Oh yeah she got me a present. Looky! Just for the truck!





Is that awesome or what? It's even got a glow in the dark light stick in it! I'm just guessing if it's getting dark and you feel like you're gonna die, you bust that thing open and pour the glow goo all over yourself so the search party can find your carcass. Pretty cool stuff. They think of everything these days.


And now... the horrors of my bandaged finger. And yeah... typing this was weird with that thing, but I did it anyway for alla y'all.






Wonder what tomorrow brings me.....






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The Junkyard Millionaire Venture May Be Coming To A Sad Close

Me and my buddy Gary loaded up a mighty impressive load of iron goodness this morning... I mean we really worked at it. Ended up with about 5000 pounds of good ol' made in the USA iron on the trailer. We hauled it over to the scrapyard, already thinking about blowing our earnings on beer, cigarettes and candy... and then we got word of the current price. $95 per ton. Our fortune dwindled to about $100 bucks apiece after taking out gas money.

We shuffled outta the scrapyard office like 2 little guys that had just experienced rejection from the girl of their dreams. The girl of our dreams in this case was a falling empire of ner' to be had riches beyond our wildest desires.

After divvying up our meager funds we both decided we were half starved to death and went to a local restaurant that we both like... it was closed. Rejection closed in darker than a moonless night around us. We drove over to Casey's.. I said "It's close to noon, they'll have pizza's coming outta the oven!"

Casey's was pizzaless. Not only pizzaless, but cookless as well. I stared at the beercase and contemplated Millers for lunch, but chose to take the high road.

Gary, in a stroke of near brilliance said "Hey, I saw an auction going on downtown... let's go see if they're cooking!" Now here in Missouri, when there's an auction, there's usually some pretty dang good homecooked food to be had.

GAZAANGGOOOOO!!!! We struck pay dirt. The local ladies service group was doing hotdogs and hamburgers and all the other stuff that goes with that. Bonus points, I knew most of the gals there AND my friend Tim was flipping burgers on the grill. I asked him to please not spit on my burger.... he may have anyway. It's hard to tell when you're that hungry.

So then we got to Gary's and I ended up buying his old livestock trailer with my junkin money... had to kick in some extra. You can read all about that saga here if you wanna. LOL


Alright... please feel free to carry on and got 'bout your business.




Nite!
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Hey... HEY!! I'm right here!

Man I apologize in advance for being derelict in my blogful duties... but it's been a whirlwind around here. A brief rundown of what's taken place.

Son visited from San Diego for a few days.

Daughter visited with 3 grandkids for a few days.

We went to an awesome blues festival one evening.

I chased cows.

We had a BBQ with a buncha friends here at our place.

Played a buttload of music in between stuff.

Got the kids sick of one song by my constant singing of it.

Oh... it's "White Freightliner Blues" by Townes Van Zandt.

It's really a cool song and the kids are being dumb.

Had a big calf get acorn poisoning and die.

Moved all the cows away from all Oak trees. (that's a tough one)

Chased cows some more until I had a heart attack in my knee.

Jake got my old 72 Chevy truck running.

It's awesome and you'll be treated to a photograph essay of this blue beauty.

I worked in the shop a gob and built and restored things made of tree wood.

I drank waaay too much one night. (same night as BBQ) (note: Impress your friends by just saying to hell with glasses and drink right outta the Half Gallon bottle of Wild Turkey.) (Note: "impress" is a very loose term) (Note: Be careful when you're walking in your yard after the Wild Turkey trick.) (Note: Clorox removes grass stains from the front of T-shirts just dandy)

Got invited to and attended the presentation ceremony of a cross I built for a student chapel at the local university.

Had poison ivy all on my arms from my wrists to past my elbows.

Took a steroid pack to get rid of the poison.

Sweat a lot, acted hyper and talked real loud while I was on the steroids.

Really sweat a lot. A whole lot.

Played a gig last night with the band that was an excellent evening.

Martina got me Baxter Black autograph. Pics to follow.

Martina rules.

And finally... had a slight case of constipation this morning.



That's 'bout it. Details later!

VP debate coming on... gotta git.




Rock on!



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A Castrating We Go... A Castrating We Go... Hi Ho The Dairy Oh...

No... no... no.... it was calf working day today. Last set of vaccinations for the calves, castrating for the bull calves, doctoring a few old cows with ailments and dodging one particularly belligerent old rip not once but 3 times, over the course of the day.

I deal with a lot of sarcasm from my vet's assistant. We've known each other since waaaay back and he continually brings up the time that (according to him) I tried to throw him off a gate he had climbed up to escape a psycho killer cow with murder in her soul. The fact of the matter is, this happened so many years ago it's like a moot point... BUT... as he had climbed the only climbable thing in the near proximity of Charlie Manson's cow... and I had doubled back around this cow with my hand on her forehead so many times I was starting to get winded and dizzy, I had grabbed the end of the gate that Jason was standing on top of and hung on to him so he wouldn't be thrown to his death, as I swung the gate. I got around the gate, hung on to Jason as C.M's cow plowed the gate about 3 or 4 times.

I swear... save someone's life and you live with "Let me tell you 'bout the time Jace tried to throw me to killer cow."

Lordy...

Anyway the psycho cow of today had made a halfhearted charge at me... but enough of an attempt on my well being that I was keeping an eye on her in the sorting pen I was in. Then she made a real honest to gosh good run, I flung my self up a gate and she tagged me a bit on my feet. I'd pretty much lost interest in sharing space with her and was trying to figure out how the hell to just get her on down the chute and out to the "sell pen" without bloodshed. Meanwhile the alleyway to the vet's chute had grown empty of calves to work on while I was thinking this whole mess out and the cow just stood and throwed dirt. Jason, the vet's assistant started chanting "Anytime Jace. We sure could use some calves to work on! Could you pick up the pace a bit?"

Jackass.

We exhanged salutes and I swung a gate, the killer cow stepped through it, I got in the alley way as human bait... she gave it a pretty good effort, I sidestepped, shut a gate... and out she went. Ha! I win! Totally intact of all my human parts in fairly pristine condition too!

She'll be well on her way to McDonaldland, appearing in a Happy Meal... possibly near you, this time next week.






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My Camping In A Tent Days Are Over. Finis!

Actually, I haven't camped in a tent since I was about 17 or so. I'm 50 now. A whole lotta water has went under the bridge since then and I've fell in it a few times, nearly drowned a couple of those times. I cemented the fact forever in concrete this past weekend. I will no more, forever, sleep in a tent.

I ain't made that way these days.

I've got this cute little tent. Pretty nifty actually, and a dream to set up and take down compared to the old tarp material job I had as a kid. Heck I can carry my tent a mandolin, a guitar, my duffle bag and a 12 pack of beer all at once. My old tent was like dragging dead bodies around. Smelled nearly as bad too, which brings me to another part of this camping experience.

I'd set up my tent kinda in behind of this ominous looking POS cube van. Now keep in mind I still felt pretty crummy from my sickness and my sense of smell wasn't too keen.... but something stunk. Not like a feedlot or poop type of stink... more like a zombie delicatessen. I'm talking serious amounts of P.U. My friend Ronnie comes walking by...

Me: You smell anything wrong?

Ronnie: *sniffing* No... I don't think so. Like what?

Me: Like a dead body.

Ronnie: *sniffing* No.. maybe a little bit.

I'm just walking around trying to figure this one out and finally kinda pinpoint it. Mary Beth and Louis show up and they're looking at my tent.

Mary Beth: Does it stink back here or is it just me?

Me: It stinks.

Mary Beth: What is that?

Me: Rotten meat.

Mary Beth: Well where the heck is it coming from?

Me: *Just looking at the creepy cube van*

Mary Beth: *shivvers*

Me: I'm moving my tent. Gah!

So I did and the smell was better over in Louis' neighborhood where he was pitching his tent. I then pulled out my brand new air mattress that Sal and I had got for the coming up week of a houseful of people here... and the brand new pump that I'd got at Wal Mart on my way thru to the music festival.

The hand operated pump wouldn't hook to the mattress, of course so I sat in my chair and drank beer while I whittle on plastic parts with my knife until they fit... sorta. I held it in the mattress hole while Louis and Ronnie took turns stroking the pump... that made the most vulgar, overtly sexual noise, in an otherwise calm and docile camp ground. Of course me encouraging them loudly with "FASTER, HARDER, OH YEAH BABY! THAT'S ITTTT!" caused Mary Beth to go hide in the camper, and pretend that she didn't know us, until we were done with our adolescent antics.

When it was done, this damned mattress was like 1/4 as tall as my stupid tent. It's like the high rise air mattress. Here let me show you my hacienda for the weekend.





Top that monstrosity off with the heaviest dew I've ever seen in my life... coughing my fool head off all night long, getting cold because I was damp... and the new mattress stretching out during the night so it wasn't tight anymore... and being on a slight slant...

It was like trying to sleep on top of a fat woman on a rainy precipice... desperately hanging on for dear life all night long.

I slept like what seemed to be 20 seconds all night long. Having gone to bed pretty well sloshed as well from having a good time you know, I woke up in a near emergency state to go pee at 6 AM and nearly tore the front of the tent off, had my shoes on the wrong feet and fell off the front end of the fat woman onto the dew soaked grass, as I exited my ever so humble abode with the grace of a tap dancing walrus.

Lord, I am done camping. I mean it. I ain't made that way no more. I slept like a baby in my own bed last night. Thank you Sally for not waking me up while I snored. I love you with all my heart and will never forsake you for an air mattress ever again. I was crazy.



We had fun though in spite of a horrible bed. Got some excellent stories. Had one real magical night of music... at one point about 10 or 11 musicians were in our jam session. Some of them VERY gifted individuals that were a pure joy to play with.

I didn't get many pictures, I was too busy having fun, but here's a couple. The first is our regular gang of Louis, Mary Beth, Ronnie and a fellow on the right named Ron that was an excellent guitar player and had a great song that we're stealing... "White Freightliner Blues" by Townes Van Zandt .




And as I was getting in the car to leave, some ol' boy that seemed to have had a stroke, but was still making music, stopped by with his percussion stick. Go gettum tiger!





A great weekend all in all, but the Super 8 is getting my money next time! :-)





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