Here on the forum we have discussed just about every topic, so I want to hear those real life funny ones. We all laugh at some of the treads from Hoot, but I'll wager we all got a little Hoot in us. My funny true one has to do with my wifes Gran , all 98 pounds of her. Seems her and my wife went blackberry pickin in a thicket in the middle of a cow pasture. While they were picking the bull of the run decided to check em out. My wife and the others took out for safe ground while her gran decided no bull was gonna keep her from her picking. My wife said for the next 2 hours she watched granny and the bull waltzing around the 40 ft thicket. She picked, she peeked, the bull peaked, she moved. When she peeked and the bull peeked a little too close , she repicked the bushes further away. My wife said after the picking, they all zig zaged out of that pasture like crazy people avoiding "curious george" the bull. I crack up every time I hear it and when I see her gran , I can imagine her playing "peekaboo with a bull". Well that mine, how bout yours.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 11, 2000

Answers

I used to work at Nordstrom and live a country lifestyle at the same time (paid the bills!). It was SO UTTERLY schizophrenic, and I have many stories, but I can tell you that there were a number of occasions where I would be all gussied up for work and then remember that I had to do some chore or other. I was always running late, and had a long commute, so no time to change clothes. I remember going out to feed the chickens while wearing white wool gabardine pants, light colored suede shoes, and most importantly, and hilariously, a long white Calvin Klein mohair coat. You may well imagine the gyrations I went through to not touch or step in anything just to feed those 6 hens! Wish I had recorded it!I also had to do things like start the car engine by using a blow dryer on the manifold (froze up) etc. I always felt like Lucy! WAAAAHH, Ricky! SO glad that nonsense is over!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 11, 2000.

It was several years ago and we had two bucklings that need to go to the sale! My husband was going to take them but got a call to go in to work~~ I worked for a small womens apparel shope! We had a designer and I was the go-between her and our factories! He tells me as I am walking out the door in a "designer outfit" , that I would have to take them! Here I go all dressed up, in the old pick-up and trailer with the bucklings! I am backing up to the stock-yard gate when the large kid jumps out over the trailer gate and runs like HE__! I am running right behind him trying to talk to him! This went on for about 20 minutes! I finally gave up and start back toward the stockyard as I topped the hill I could see about 20 old farmers "rolling" laughing at me and my goat! I had chased him down the hill and he was chasing me up the hill! It wasn't funny then but it is now. But I had to throw the outfit away and my hose and shoe also!!I broke even ~~after selling the goats I had enough to pay for my clothes! As I started to leave the stockyard , one of farmers ask "when are you bring more goats?"

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), August 11, 2000.

My children and I have determined that to write down all our funny experiences on the farm we would actually fill a book. but here are a few. Once when I was pregnant my father came down to help out as my mother was busy. Well I hadn't been homesteading very long when Dad came down and had just got my first goat. I had been looking for a goat for a while when I found this one whom I promptly name midnight as she was solid black. I actually bought her because I felt sorry for her. When I got to this small farm to look at her, she and about 20 other kids were in a ten by ten stall with very little light, and very little room. In addition she was being traumatized be a group of young children. It was such a horrible situation, that I just wanted to take all of them. Unfortunately I could only afford one. Well I brought midnight home and needless to say, she just didn't trust people. Well while my father was there someone left the gate open and she got out of the pen. Keep in mind this was a residential neighborhood. Now this goat wouldn't even come near you for food. She would wait until you left the food and then come eat. Well I was on ordered rest from my doctor, so my father had to catch the goat. Well my Dad had not had much experiance with livestock. So there we were trying to come up with a way to catch this animal before she ran off down the street. We tried everthing. We tried roping her. Have you ever seen a bunch of city people try to rope an animal. We tried feeding her. We tried calling her nothing worked. So finally, my dad decided the only way was to chase her until either she dropped or he did.We finally got her into the neighbors pen, and then the chase began. Around and around they went, my dad chasing and periodically going for the dive only to come up with a face full of dirt. This circus went on for at least a half an hour. Dad giving chase, and Midnight evading him in the easy way that goats do when they want to. Finally when both of them were worn out, Dad finally caught her and put her in the pen. That trip to my house will forever stay in Dad's mind. Or howabout when we moved up here and before we moved into our house we spent six weeks in a campground with our two dogs, and four children in an 18' trailer. Well we looking daily for property to live on. One day we were out looking in the middle of nowhere when my oldest son said, "Mom, the dog is having puppies" and our dog delivered puppies right in our van. So here we are with two dogs that became 9. The only problem with that was we had to pay an extra fee for every dog we kept. We paid an extra $2 per night per dog. if you do the math you can see why we spent the rest of our time(which was five more weeks) hiding our whining, noisy brood. Pretty soon our camp became the most popular place in the campground as one by one every child in the camp figured out our little secret. All the while we are searching for a place to live praying we find something before our puppies start to crawl out of the box, and begin making themselves known. Our last day there the first one crawled out of the box. Whew! That was a close one. We have had so many things happen since we began to homestead. it has truly been the most wonderful adventure of our lives. Nothing can compare to hauling a ram lamb home in the car with a one year old baby. Everytime the lamb bawls the child screams and everytime the child screams the lamb bawls. Or hauling goats to breed and watching the drivers faces when they see who is looking out the car window at them. Or how about our own version of Chicken Run with us building all kinds of weird contraptions to keep the chickens in the pen. Truly an adventure!

Little bit Farm

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@calinet.com), August 11, 2000.

First year we butchered chickens, my husband did the chopping of the head. (also new for him) I told him ahead of time, make sure you lay them immediately on their backs. Don't let them get their feet under them! Well - he was kneeling on the ground and (you guessed it) one bird got it's feet under it, came running & flapping (headless)right smack back into his chest. Blood splattered everywhere - I was laughing so hard, being thankful it wasn't me and he took it like a real pro. Needless to say, we changed our method of butchering the following year.

-- Pat (pmikul@pcpros.net), August 11, 2000.

One night, I was awakened by the weird yipping/howling of coyotes -- close! "Coyotes!" I shouted at my still snoring husband-to-be, "They're going for the ducks!" He leapt out of a sound sleep,saying, "Get a flashlight!" I said very clearly and deliberately "Put on some shoes." He did & I did. "Get me a weapon...here, this'll work," grabbing a two-foot carpenter's level. "No, take this cricket bat," I said. (That's like a short-handled oar.) I got myself a chunk of 2x4, and thus armed, we went out into the wee hours to defend our ducks, our homestead, indeed, our whole way of life. We shouted and beat the ground and thonked on trees and challenged the coyotes to come on out for a fair fight. (Augie, our bear/lion/Samoyed cross doggie, had never seen his people behave like gorillas and was most apologetic, thinking he had done something wrong, though he knew not what.) Eventually, as dawn came on, we could hear their hyena-like cackling drifting further away, and we went back to bed. I said to Allen, "Aw, honey, you were just great, not afraid or anything!" "It's all about livin' big and feelin' good about it," he replied in his deepest, most macho voice, "You can't show coyotes any hesitation, any soft spot, or they'll go right for you." "Well, then," I said, "maybe next time you better put on some pants before you go out to fight them again..." The whole time, he had only tennis shoes and a T-shirt on!...

-- snoozy (allen@oz.net), August 11, 2000.

I am a softy for animals and one day my friend that I worked with and I found a stray dog so we droped it off at the animal shelter, a couple of days latter I went to check on it and It had been adopted, Well thay had the cutest two chickens there that thay were going to put down so I adopted them [ had a peacock and planed on getting some some day any way]well we lived in the middle of town[still do]so I put my new chickens in the cage and thay were happy.went to bed that night and the next morning[ 5 am] our neighbor turned on her living room light which shone right on the chickens cage and the next thing I know my husband is waking me up because my big chicken is crowing LOUDLY, we tried putting him in a rabbit cage in the garage and you could still hear him. Luckly I found a guy who sold fertile eggs to take fiasco[ my name for him]sure taught me how to tell the diference, and i kept the polish batam as my pet[ she went to convelesanct homes with me].

-- kathy h (saddlebronc@msn.com), August 11, 2000.

above story is suposed to be peacock cage not peacock.

-- kathyh (saddlebronc@msn.com), August 11, 2000.

My husband, who does not do the "animal thing", once offered to learn to milk the cow in case I was unable to do it at some point. We hunkered down on each side of her and went to town, me milking and giving instructions on my side, he trying his side and getting more frustrated with every empty squirt. Finally he stood up and said accusingly, "I know why I cant get any milk! You're taking it all over on your side!"

-- Julie Capasso (julieamc@excite.com), August 11, 2000.

Many years ago, my mom and I set out for Washington to bring a new buck kid home to Minnesota in my Volkswagen Rabbit. Heading west, I noticed a billboard advertising the "Flickertail Inn" along I94 in North Dakota. Why I noticed it, I am not sure.

Well, (as most goat purchasing trips go) we headed back to MN a few days later with the buck kid AND a yearling doe. There was no good way to carry two goats, luggage, and two people using just a VW Rabbit -- but we managed.

The luggage was stuffed into the large animal kennel we brought for the buck and stowed on the roof. The sellers helped us fashion a way to contain the waste that the goats generated in the back of the Rabbit -- but it did not work for every occasion.

Many times, the doe would back up to the space between the seats and drop her berries over the edge of the container. Many times I would have to tell my mom to move her tail before she got close.

On the way back, we were really tired by the time we got to ND again. I was driving and my mom was sleeping as we passed the advertising billboard again. I exclaimed' "Flickertail Inn" as my mom drowsily awoke to "flick her tail in" once again. One of those magic moments that you just can't script...

-- Mike O (olsonmr@yahoo.com), August 12, 2000.

When I was a yungun, we had a large house with a shed attached off of a sleeping porch by a breezeway and for a while, we kept chickens in the shed. One night, we were all sleeping out on the porch (Mo. summers are like Louisianna, without the style) and there came a tremendous racket from the shed about 2am. Just so you can picture the following scene, here is the set up: 3 girls, all young school age, one single Mom, armed with a big ol' flashlight, and to top it off one of the girls, L., was sick with a fever. Okay, so Mom comes running out in her t-shirt and men' whitey tighty undies (always her first choice, for comfort and non-riding up) with her teeth out and her hair all gnarled up, wielding the light to see the source of the clamor. Turns out there's a raccoon in the hen house, and the light blinds it and it freezes. Since Mom can't move without "releasing" the coon, us two hale daughters have the chore of catching the chickens, who are nowhere near as groggy as we are, and hauling them out under our arms and into the porch, all in near darkness relieved only by the blinding farm-sized light in Moms hands, which of course only served to kill what night vision we had while not actually illuminating anything but the coon. To top it off, sick sis, in her fevered state thought that the fuss was because of her and our efforts were accompanied by her continual bawled reassurances that she was okay and not dying. To this day, I have no idea how we got those chickens out of there without being attacked by that poor terrorized racoon (it was very tight in that itty bitty shed), let alone how we got enough sleep after to be of any use the next day. And I still have a mental image of Mom as Joan of Arc with her white fly-front briefs and honking big flashlight leading her brood into battle!

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), August 12, 2000.

Yeah, this is what I was talkin' about. I think one reason we all went to country style is when you do this kinda stuff in the rat race world you turn red from embarassment, but here you turn red with the giggles and feel great about it, ITS CALLED LIVING. This morning, I experienced our latest most funny. My wife , son and myself work our garden and I work a regular job too, so when it comes to weeding, I worry about up to the plants first, let the grass grow where it aint causing trouble till I can hoe it out. Any how, today I'm weeding and notice the most perfect growth of morning glory Iever saw. 'm talking "carpet" not a weed here and there. After pulling it all out, I find out our son has been fertilizing it, thinking it was beans. Sure brought back memories of when I was younger and cleaned the grass from around it in my mothers garden.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 12, 2000.

When I was a teenager my dad kept a travel trailer in a fish camp near Cedar Keys, FL. Bathroom access was to one added on the backporch of a nearby house. I used it one night. On the way back I missed the back steps and step down right onto a sow with a litter. I don't know who was more scared, more or the sow. Took a flashlight along everytime thereafter.

-- Ken S. in TN (scharabo@aol.com), August 12, 2000.

I had a group of very young schoolkids here for a field trip. I had Beth, my German Giant angora rabbit, on my lap for the kids to pet. I asked "does anyone know what kind of animal this is?" There were no answers for about 30 seconds, and then a little girl piped up, "it's a poodle!"

-- Shannon (Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary) (gratacres@aol.com), August 12, 2000.

Just days after moving from the 'sidewalk'(and i mean that literally- as the front door was exactly 7ft from the curb on a busy street!) to 3 acres of wooded paradise, my great big bear of a son was headed out to meet friends on a beautiful spring nite, he wasn't out 1 second, when he came flying back thru door SCREAMING "There's something OUT there!" He was terrified! Grabbing a flashlight, I ran to the window- and the beam shone on a beautiful, tiny spotted fawn! I laughed so hard I thought I'd split! We promtly installed 'flood lights', to keep the kids from scaring themselves to death.

-- Kathy (catfish@bestweb.net), August 12, 2000.

about ten years ago i was living in the az mountains near prescot. i was living in a 16' travel trailer with a lean to built on. i found a rattlesnake near the triler and it struck without any warning i remembered the indian belief that if a rattlesnake struck without warning you should kill it which i did. then following my uncles practice of cutting the rattles off which i placed on a shelf. the next day i was cooking a pot of beans over a wood fire and i heard the rattle of a rattlesnake right behind me with what little bit of sane thinking all i could remember was rattlesnakes come in pairs but just before i tried jumping over the fire i turned and one of my cats had the rattles i had cut off in its mouth and was shaking his head. gail

-- gail missouri ozarks (gef123@hotmail.com), August 12, 2000.

Just remembered this one from my mothers childhood. Not specifically homesteading humor, but definitly country: It seems that after church or some such gathering, on a hot summer's day, the whole extended family (would have to have been at least 10 grown-ups and half a dozen kids) went to the local swimming hole to cool off for the afternoon. Well this was all well and good until it got cooler and the kids got bored to tears. After many pleas of "Can we go home now!?!" and other attempts to relieve the boredom, my mother, along with the cadre of cousins, found an old, dead gar on the banks of the creek and figured out how to hurry the elders along. Within minutes, the air was redolent with the pungent odor of ROASTING GAR! Whoooeeee, such a stink was never before smelled on those lovely banks, and soon enough the whole gaggle came a runnin', only to find that the kids had locked themselves in the car, partly out of fear of retribution and partly out of self preservation in the face of the gas attack, amd would not let the adults in for quite a few desperate minutes. The tale of the roasted gar is still told around the reunion table to this day and my mother swears whe had nothing to do with it, but I know her better than that. It's just the sort of thing that is right up her alley!

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), August 13, 2000.

We had just moved into our country house from the 'burbs. My wife, daughter and I were unpacking boxes in the house, when my wife looked out the kitchen window and yelled "Oh, my Gawd!" Across the pasture that separated us from our neighbor, 60 piglets had broken through a fence in the neighbor's pig barn and were roaring across the meadow with the family in hot pursuit. We rushed outside to find piggies everywhere. The front yard, the back yard, the garden, the driveway. Then they headed for the street, a busy state highway. There were screeching brakes and smoking tires in both directions. Traffic came to a dead stop. Drivers jumped out of their cars, vans and trucks and and joined other neighbors in the chase. Up and down the street, in and out of driveways, yards, culverts and ditches. It was all over in about 10 minutes and not one fatality. As my family sat on our front steps catching our breaths, a man totally exhausted from all the running came up and introduced himself. "Hi, I'm John, you next-door neighbor with the pigs. Sorry 'bout that, and welcome to the neighborhood!"

(:raig

-- Craig Miller (CMiller@ssd.com), August 13, 2000.

Craig-you WIN! Thats a riot! and this little piggy...........

-- Kathy (catfish@bestweb.net), August 13, 2000.

Jay this is great thanks for starting it, heres another one [ come on guys add more there great]my two daughters bought baby goats[ we live in town with neighbors on all four sides]we had checked with the neighbors first.My husband had just had surgery on his shoulder and was wearing a sling, in the back yard next to the fence I have a rubber made shed which is about four feet high, on the other side were mavrick and madona my neighbors rotwielers, thay often looked longingly at the tasty morsils on the other side, well one day I heard my husband laughing in the back yard so I came to the back door and looked out, there was mocha[the baby nigerian] on top of the shed, Had the sinking feeling you get just before a crash] and before I could open my mouth to say, dear grab hold of her colllar[ he was standing right next to her laughing]she turns and leaps up and over the fence into the rotties back yard. Before I could get out the door husband[ sling and all] leaps over after her, Well I am picturing the head lines, rottis eat neighbor and have goat for desert and the next thing I know mocha is appearing back over the fence, and husband didnt get eaten either,Mavrick was in the house and when madona came barreling out of house[ dog couldnt belive the goat snack was in her yard]to eat mocha husband appeared and yelled[ he has a very loud voice] and took the snack away so she went back in the house and hubby was able to get back over fence.that Is what I would call homestead physical therapy!

-- kathy h (saddlebronc@msn.com), August 15, 2000.

All right, I'll add two! When I was about 8 we had a new Pastor come to our church. We invited their family over for dinner one winter night and afterwards sat about talking for some time. Finally they bid us all good night and the Pastor's wife was the first one out the door....She paused on the first step, turned around with a gentle smile and said "I believe your cat has brought you a present" and lifted up her pointed heel pumps to show us a poor bunnie that was quite expired and now impaled on her left shoe! I thought my mother was going to die from embarrassment!

Next one....When I had first moved to my homestead a friend gave me three chickens, which was really nice! I had a bag of feed in the back of my truck which had a camper top on it. I had gone out to do some things out side and as it was winter, it was a little bit cold so I left the tailgate open to go inside and warm up before I unloaded the corn for the chickens. I had showered and was all ready to go to work as I had forgotten about the corn, when I walked out there was the largest bull I have ever seen with his head in the back of my truck eating the corn! I swear that his head took up the entire entrance to the truck...he was big! I yelled at him and he didn't flinch. I tossed a rock at his butt and he lifted his tail and let loose his earlier browse. I tossed another rock at his butt harder and he pulled his head out and gave me the most disinterested look a bovine can muster and stuck his head back in the truck. I was already running late and had no phone to call and tell anyone that as soon as this cow was full I would be on my way. All I had was a single picket from a 2 foot picket fence so I picked it up and went at the bull to preserve some of the chicken feed. It worked but he did turn on me and cause me to jump over my fence as he shook his head at me. I had about 3 pounds of corn left all covered with slobber. I s'pose by now you know it wasn't my cow.

-- Doreen (liberty546@hotmail.com), August 17, 2000.

About twenty or so years ago, I met a nice, sweet lady who needed someone to caretake her farm for two weeks so she could go to Idaho to see her husband and look at property to move to. I said, "yes."

When I told my friends I was going to caretake O'Brien's farm, the could not stop laughing and snickering long enough to tell me what was so funny. "You'll find out!"

The day before Mrs. O'Brien was leaving, I drove the five miles up the bumpy dirt road to the farm for the first time to learn what I needed to do. There were no windows in the cabin and chickens were roosting everywhere indoors. A 300 pound pig, named Henry, lived under the front porch.

Mrs. O'Brien instructed me, "The goats will line up at the door at milking time. Milk them over the kitchen sink, then they'll jump out the window and the next one will hop up over the sink. And if the horses come in the house, just give them a jelly sandwich and they will leave." "The outhouse is full, there is a honey bucket under the kitchen table. You'll do just fine. Good-bye."

The goats did as she said they would and the horses did come in for jelly sandwiches. My dog spent 12 hours trying to put the chickens in the coop, but it had a hole on the backside of it. She had enough of the place when three billy goats were standing on top of my car.

I drove up there daily to take care of the critters, but my dog would run five miles back to the bridge and wait for me there.

O'Brien's did decide to move and were giving away most their animals. That sweet goofy lady was trying to coax 300 pound Henry into the backseat of her car. Saying, "I don't understand this, Henry loves to go for rides in the car." They got rid of all the animals, but left their horses behind.

The next spring, my neighbor got a call from Mrs. O'Brien asking if womeone would go out and see if the farm was okay. A prospective buyer was coming ut to look at the place next week.

That farm had the most lush, green grass I had ever seen! It also had a very bad smell. A horse had gone in for a jelly sandwich, shut the door behind him, and pulled the knob from the door trapping himself inside the house and died. We were left with the task of figuring out how to get the dead horse out of the kitchen.

I am sorry it doesn't have a happier ending, but this is my experience at O'Brien's farm.

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), August 18, 2000.

Wow!This has been interesting reading.I didn't grow up in the country. My Dad was a career Navy man,and we lived in Navy Housing mostly. We live in the country now;I love it!My husband calls me "farm girl" occasionally and facetiously.If you real Countrysider's could but see me go through my days,you'd probably laugh yourself to tears half the time.Just one example:It was wonderfully crisp out.I was thoroughly enjoying the cooler weather and thinking about winter coming- wondering if we'd get lots of snow...My Mom and I went to a bulk store that day and I spied chestnuts.Oooh!Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,jackfrost nipping at your nose...Well,I had to have some chestnuts don't ya know,and so I bought some and took them home.I figured I'd just roast them in my oven and see what was so special about them.So,I spread them out on a cookie sheet and set them in my oven(probably around 450deg-can't remember exactly).After just a little while,I heard a POP!So,I came out of the other room to investigate.Nothing.Then as I was leaving the area again-BANG!BANG! BANG!BANG!My heart just seemed to stop within me;all I could think of were gunshots-too close!Then I realized the sounds were originating from within my oven...the chestnuts were exploding. Well,my kids are getting fussy;I need to be with them now. Bye and may God bless, Tracy

-- Tracy Jo Neff (tntneff@ifriendly.com), August 18, 2000.