A Redneck Love Poem

Well, as usual, the author of this little poem is unknown... I wish I had written it, but it wasn't me this time...

Susie Lee done fell in love.
She planned to marry Joe.
She was so happy 'bout it all
she told her Pappy so.








Pappy told her," Susie gal,

you'll have to find another.
I'd just as soon yo' Ma don't know,
but K'Joe is yo' half-brother."

So Susie put aside her Joe
amd planned to marry Will.
But after tellin' Pappy this,
 he said, "There's trouble still.

You can't marry Will, my gal,
and please don't tell yo' mother.
But Will and Joe and several mo'
I know is yo' half-brother."

Redneck Doorbell

But Mama knew, and said," My child,
just do what makes ya' happy.
Marry Will or marry Joe;
you ain't no kin to Pappy."

Kinda' brangs a tear to yer eye,  don't it?

Shalom  Y'all - Twyla

A Whale Story

           A relative sent me this story per email.  It seemed like a good one to pass along... so...




   ...The Whale... If you read a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso and a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands  (outside the Golden Gate ) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.

               

 When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around as she was thanking them.
                Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

              

  May you and all those you love be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude..I pass this on to you, my family & friends, in the same spirit.

                Life is good.







Shalom  Y'all - Twyla

Seven Amazing Home Remedies

1. AVOID CUTTING YOURSELF WHEN SLICING VEGETABLES BY GETTING SOMEONE ELSE TO HOLD THE VEGETABLES WHILE YOU CHOP. 

2. AVOID ARGUMENTS WITH THE FEMALES ABOUT LIFTING THE TOILET SEAT BY USING THE SINK. 

3. FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE SUFFERERS ~ SIMPLY CUT YOURSELF AND BLEED FOR A FEW MINUTES, THUS REDUCING THE 

PRESSURE ON YOUR VEINS.  REMEMBER TO USE A TIMER.

4. A MOUSE TRAP PLACED ON TOP OF YOUR ALARM CLOCK WILL PREVENT YOU FROM ROLLING OVER AND GOING BACK TO SLEEP AFTER YOU HIT THE SNOOZE BUTTON. 

5. IF YOU HAVE A BAD COUGH, TAKE A LARGE DOSE OF LAXATIVES. THEN YOU'LL BE AFRAID TO COUGH. 

6. YOU ONLY NEED TWO TOOLS IN LIFE - WD-40 AND DUCT TAPE.  IF IT DOESN'T MOVE AND SHOULD, USE THE WD-40.  IF IT SHOULDN'T MOVE AND DOES, USE THE DUCT TAPE.

7. IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.

SOME ADDITIONAL ADVICE: 

NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, TAKE A LAXATIVE AND SLEEPING PILLS ON THE SAME NIGHT!

SHALOM  Y'ALL - TWYLA

So God Made a Farmer

Paul Harvey wrote this many years ago.  It seemed appropriate to use it on "Green Acres".  Hope y'all will enjoy it as much as I did.


And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said I need a caretaker- So God made a Farmer

God said I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk the cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board-So God made a Farmer


I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs,tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to await lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon, and mean it-So God made a Farmer

God said I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt, and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say maybe next year. I need someboby who can shape an axe handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe straps, who at planting time and harvest season will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, will put in another 72 hours- So God made a Farmer





God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain, and yet stop in midfield and race to help when he sees first smoke from a neighbor's place-So God made a Farmer

God said I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales,  yet gentle enough to wean lambs and pigs and tend to pink combed pullets; who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadowlark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, feed, breed, and rake and disk and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church. Somebody who would bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing; who would laugh and then sigh, and reply with smiling eyes when his son says he wants to spend his life doing what dad does-
So God made a Farmer


      SHALOM  Y'ALL - Twyla

It's Baaack!

Well, it's not up here in the North Georgia Mountains yet, but it will be in a coupla' weeks.  Friends and family from Atlanta to Gainesville, GA are already experiencing the ubiquitous,  lovely,  yellow-green  powder which dusts everything from vehicles to picnic tables to old men's toupees...

photo by JKiersow

Lots of folks get hay fever at this time of year, and most of them blame the pine pollen.  But, truth be known, most of those with allergies are actually allergic to oak, which blooms simultaneously with the pines.  I don't know why that is important to know, but now we all know it!



      SHALOM  Y'ALL -


              Twyla

Chickens On Crack!

Blondie, on crack... look at his mouth closely...

Okay... last week I went to the feed store to get laying pellets for the chickens.  A couple days later,  Moshe opened the bag and we realized that the fellow who carried the bag of feed out to the Jeep accidentally gave me chick mash rather than laying pellets. The bags look identical, except for the name printed at the tops of the bags.

Please,  Sir,  we want MORE...

Having already opened the 25-pound bag, and knowing that we had 21 hungry poultry out in the coops, we made the decision to go ahead and feed them the chick mash until it is used up... Now, I don't know what's in chick mash, but - wow - do chickens ever love it!  Is it the ingredients?  Or, is it because that's what they had as babies, and so it's comfort food? You know,l  Like hot chocolate.  Or applesauce.  Or cookies.  Or ?????

Bottoms up, y'all

The first day, I scattered the mash on the ground the same way I throw corn or pellets.  The chickens were literally jumping on top of each other to get it!  I thought must be unusually hungry, although I didn't know of any reason why they should 've been...

Get outta' my way...

The second day, Moshe suggested that I mix the mash with water like I did when the chickens were babies.  It's been windy, and he had seen some of the mash being swept away in the wind.  So, I mixed it and carried the pail of wet mash out to the coops.  Again, the chickens literally jumped up and down at the smell of the mash!  And, as I put spoonfuls of the "chicken porridge" into the feeders, they were like crazed junkies!  My gosh, now I know the definition of  a "feeding frenzy"!

Having heard from me about our crack addicts, Moshe came with me the third day  to observe their behavior.  Not only did they act the same, but one chicken literally rode piggyback on another trying to be first at the feeder.  And, not wanting to feel left out, our new cat,  Pickles, got into the act.  Imagine, one small cat and a hungry mob of chickens eating  mash out of a bowl.
Such is life at the Ben-David farm...  I', still shaking my head and asking myself, "Exactly WHAT is in that chick food???"



Shalom  Y'all - Twyla

Banana Convention, Anyone?

So, we were in the local supermarket this morning and spotted this sign:

My question is, were these bananas at a convention of some sort?  They seem to be seated in an arena or stadium, as if eagerly awaiting a guest speaker???  Just how long will they have to wait?  How many days will the convention last?  Are there banana hookers at the Banana Hilton???  What in the heck is banana cream?  Are banana chips the results of  too much banana cream?  If so, why are banana chips more expensive than bananas or banana cream?

Inquiring minds want to know...

The other - equally important - question is,  "If it's not a conventional banana, then, just what kind of banana is it?"  A civil union banana?  A cross-dresser banana?  An idiosyncratic banana?  Avant-garde bananas? Unorthodox?  Eccentric?  Or, merely odd?  These questions and much much more will no doubt be discussed over dinner tonight at the Ben-David Ranch... Don't you wish you were here?

Canned Butter? You Betcha'!

As I mentioned a few days ago, we have been doing spring cleaning - redoing cabinets, closets, drawers, and those horrible spaces beneath the beds...  In my "travels", I ran across an item in one of the kitchen cabinets that I had all but forgotten... Canned butter.  Yes, you CAN can butter!
Many books and Internet articles have been written about the subject of "What If?"



What if we were suddenly transported back to "Little house on the Prairie" days?  What if we had to live with no electricity, no running water, no electronics?  Would this make us better people?  Or worse?  And, so many people nowadays are studying preparedness, and trying to be as prepared as possible for either short-term or long-term emergencies.



Since we live on a small farm, have a few chickens, etc., we are perhaps already more in sync with this type of living.  Even so, there are things I would certainly miss if there was suddenly nothing left in the local grocery store... Butter is one of them.
So, here is how to can butter.  The jars I ran across in my cupboard were canned about eight months ago, and are just fine... Canned butter should last about three years as long as it isn't opened.




Ingredients: *** High-quality Full-fat Salted Butter    (Low-fat butter will not work; it will separate into water and solids.   And, unsalted butter is  unsafe to can, because the salt  is what kills botulism spores.)

Preparation:  Heat jelly jars in 250 degree oven for 20 minutes.  (Do not heat rings and seals in oven.) While jars are heating, melt the butter SLOWLY, until it comes to a boil;  reduce heat, and cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Pour the melted butter into heated jars, being very careful not to get any butter on the rim of the jars.  Add lid and ring;  close securely.  The jars will seal as they cool.  Put into the refrigerator until the butter hardens. After hardening, store in a cabinet and the butter will be good for 3 years.




SHALOM  Y'ALL - Twyla

The Girl With The Apple

If you have ever think you are at the end of your rope, think again.  God can and will rescue you from the most dire circumstances... and, often, bless your socks off as well!  This is a true story;  it happened to the author,  Herman Rosenblat of Miami, Florida.  It is being made into a movie, which will be called  "The Fence".  The pictures and clip-art are, of course, my addition.




The sky was gloomy that morning as we waited anxiously.  All the men, women and children of Piotrkow's Jewish ghetto had been herded into a square. Word had gotten around that we were being moved.  My father had only recently died from typhus,  which had run rampant through the crowded ghetto.  My greatest fear was that our family would be separated.  'Whatever you do,'  Isidore,  my eldest brother,  whispered to me, 'don't tell them your age.  Say you're sixteen.   I was tall for a boy of 11,  so I could pull it off.  That way I might be deemed valuable as a worker.  An SS man approached me, boots clicking against the cobblestones. He looked me up and down, and then asked my age.  'Sixteen,'  I said.  He directed me to the left, where my three brothers and other healthy young men already stood.


My mother was motioned to the right with the other women, children, sick and elderly people. I whispered to Isidore,  'Why?'  He didn't answer.  I ran to Mama's side and said I wanted to stay with her.  'No',  she said sternly.  'Get away. Don't be a nuisance.  Go with your brothers.'  She had never spoken so harshly before. But I understood:  She was protecting me.  She loved me so much that,  just this once,  she pretended not to.. It was the last I ever saw of her.

My brothers and I were transported in a cattle car to Germany.  We arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp one night later and were led into a crowded barrack.  The next day,  we were issued uniforms and identification numbers.  'Don't call me Herman anymore.'  I said to my brothers.  'Call me 94983.'  I was put to work in the camp's crematorium,  loading the dead into a hand-cranked elevator.  I,  too , felt dead. Hardened,  I had become a number.





Soon, my brothers and I were sent to Schlieben, one of Buchenwald's sub-camps near Berlin.  One morning I thought I heard my mother's voice.  'Son,'  she said softly but clearly,  'I am going to send you an angel.'  Then I woke up.  Just a dream.  A beautiful dream.  But in this place there could be no angels.  There was only work.  And hunger.  And fear.

A couple of days later, I was walking around the camp, around the barracks, near the barbed-wire fence where the guards could not easily see. I was alone.  On the other side of the fence,  I spotted someone: a little girl with light,  almost luminous curls.  She was half-hidden behind a birch tree.  I glanced around to make sure no one saw me.  I called to her softly in German,  'Do you have something to eat?'  She didn't understand.  I inched closer to the fence and repeated the question in Polish.  She stepped forward.  I was thin and gaunt, with rags wrapped around my feet,  but the girl looked unafraid.  In her eyes,  I saw life.  She pulled an apple from her woolen jacket and threw it over the fence.  I grabbed the fruit and, as I started to run away,  I heard her say faintly, 'I'll see you tomorrow.'

I returned to the same spot by the fence at the same time every day.  She was always there with something for me to eat - a hunk of bread or, better yet, an apple.  We didn't dare speak or linger.  To be caught would mean death for us both.  I didn't know anything about her,  just a kind farm girl,  except that she understood Polish.  What was her name?  Why was she risking her life for me?  Hope was in such short supply,  and this girl on the other side of the fence gave me some,  as nourishing in its way as the bread and apples. 

Nearly seven months later, my brothers and I were crammed into a coal car and shipped to Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia.  'Don't return,' I told the girl that day. 'We're leaving.'  I turned toward the barracks and didn't look back,  didn't even say good-bye to the little girl whose name I'd never learned,  the girl with the apples. 

We were in Theresienstadt for three months. The war was winding down and Allied forces were closing in, yet my fate seemed sealed.  On May 10, 1945,  I was scheduled to die in the gas chamber at 10:00 AM.  In the quiet of dawn,  I tried to prepare myself.  So many times death seemed ready to claim me,  but somehow I'd survived.  Now, it was over.  I thought of my parents.  At least,  I thought,  we will be reunited.  But at 8 A.M. there was a commotion.  I heard shouts,  and saw people running every which way through camp.  I caught up with my brothers.  Russian troops had liberated the camp!  The gates swung open.  Everyone was running,  so I did too.  Amazingly, all of my brothers had survived;  I'm not sure how.  But I knew that the girl with the apples had been the key to my survival.  In a place where evil seemed triumphant, one person's goodness had saved my life,  had given me hope in a place where there was none.  My mother had promised to send me an angel,  and the angel had come. 

Eventually I made my way to England where I was sponsored by a Jewish charity,  put up in a hostel with other boys who had survived the Holocaust and trained in electronics.  Then I came to America,  where my brother Sam had already moved.  I served in the U. S. Army during the Korean War,  and returned to New York City after two years.  By August 1957 I'd opened my own electronics repair shop. I was starting to settle in. 

One day, my friend Sid who I knew from England called me.  'I've got a date. She's got a Polish friend. Let's double date.'  A blind date?  Nah, that wasn't for me.  But Sid kept pestering me,  and a few days later we headed up to the Bronx to pick up his date and her friend Roma.  I had to admit,  for a blind date this wasn't so bad.  Roma was a nurse at a Bronx hospital.  She was kind and smart.  Beautiful,  too,  with swirling brown curls and green,  almond-shaped eyes that sparkled with life.  The four of us drove out to Coney Island.  Roma was easy to talk to,  easy to be with.  Turned out she was wary of blind dates too! We were both just doing our friends a favor.  We took a stroll on the boardwalk,  enjoying the salty Atlantic breeze, and then had dinner by the shore . I couldn't remember having a better time. 

We piled back into Sid's car, Roma and I sharing the backseat.  As European Jews who had survived the war,  we were aware that much had been left unsaid between us.  She broached the subject,  'Where were you,'  she asked softly,  'during the war?'  'The camps,'  I said.  The terrible memories still vivid,  the irreparable loss.  I had tried to forget.  But you can never forget.  She nodded.  'My family was hiding on a farm in Germany, not far from Berlin,'  she told me.  'My father knew a priest, and he got us Aryan papers.'

I imagined how she must have suffered too,  fear a constant companion.  And yet here we were both survivors,  in a new world.  'There was a camp next to the farm.'  Roma continued.  'I saw a boy there and I would throw him apples every day.' What an amazing coincidence that she had helped some other boy. 

'What did he look like?'  I asked.  'He was tall,  skinny,  and hungry.  I must have seen him every day for six months.'  My heart was racing. I couldn't believe it.  This couldn't be. 

'Did he tell you one day not to come back because he was leaving Schlieben?'  Roma looked at me in amazement. 'Yes!'  'That was me!'I was ready to burst with joy and awe,  flooded with emotions.  I couldn't believe it!  My angel.  'I'm not letting you go.'  I said to Roma.  And in the back of the car on that blind date,  I proposed to her.  I didn't want to wait.  'You're crazy!'  she said.  But she invited me to meet her parents for Shabbat dinner the following week.  There was so much I looked forward to learning about Roma, but the most important things I always knew: her steadfastness,  her goodness.  For many months,  in the worst of circumstances,  she had come to the fence and given me hope.  Now that I'd found her again,  I could never let her go.  That day, she said yes.  And I kept my word.  After nearly 50 years of marriage, two children and three grandchildren, I have never let her go. 

Shalom  Y'all - Twyla

April is Spring Cleaning Month - Yippee!

God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done.  ~Author Unknown




Did you know that April is officially spring cleaning month?  I wonder who decided this?  And, why?  Well, anyhow, I guess we got a jump on it 'cause we've been spring cleaning for two or three days now.  (And, yes, it's been rainy... no chance of working outside.)  So, now that it's started, we pretty much have to finish it. We've been emptying  and reorganizing closets, the spaces under the beds, cabinets, the laundry room... you get the picture.  It's kind of fun, what with finding treasures long since forgotten or thought to be gone forever... And I really like for things to be clean and organized... So, despite my sore feet,  I'm glad we're spring cleaning.
Apparently a lot of people don't like to clean, as noted in the collection of sayings below:  I found it interesting how many sayings there were about cleaning - and the general dislike of doing it.  This is a small sampling of what I found.  Enjoy!

My second favorite household chore is ironing.  My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.  ~Erma Bombeck

Nature abhors a vacuum.  And so do I.  ~Anne Gibbons

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.  ~Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints, 1966

Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you don't do it.  ~Author Unknown

Our house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy.  ~Author Unknown

The Rose Bowl is the only bowl I've ever seen that I didn't have to clean.  ~Erma Bombeck

The trouble with living alone is that it's always your turn to do the dishes.  ~Author Unknown

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.  ~Author Unknown

The obvious and fair solution to the housework problem is to let men do the housework for, say, the next six thousand years, to even things up.  The trouble is that men, over the years, have developed an inflated notion of the importance of everything they do, so that before long they would turn housework into just as much of a charade as business is now.  They would hire secretaries and buy computers and fly off to housework conferences in Bermuda, but they'd never clean anything.  ~Dave Barry



My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be.  No one else cares.  Why should you?  ~Erma Bombeck

You don't get anything clean without getting something else dirty.  ~Cecil Baxter

We labor to make a house a home, then every time we're expecting visitors, we rush to turn it back into a house.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

I like hugs and I like kisses,
But what I really love is help with the dishes!
~Author Unknown

Three-fourths of the Earth's surface is water, and one-fourth is land.  It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn.  ~Chuck Clark

If the shelves are dusty and the pots don't shine,
it's because I have better things to do with my time.
~Author Unknown


SHALOM  Y'ALL - Twyla