Old Iron Disease

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1998. All rights reserved.

Retired farmers are particularly vulnerable to this affliction, but it's also seen in generous numbers of those hobby ranchers who have professional city jobs and a handful of country acres in pasture.

Look for the full onset of the illness once the victim arrives home with a John Deere Model B or something similar purchased at auction for just $2,500. Hours spent in the shop will immediately double and there will be persistant talk of PTO drives and three-point hitches and remote hydraulics.

Continued at... Old Iron Disease 

Rural Delivery
Tractors and Tractor Parts
Farm Supply
Artwork: Early Model Mccormick-Deering Tractor by Sharon Pedersen

The Dog Days of Summer

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1997. All rights reserved.

These are the dog days of summer, a time of year when creeks run dry, the air stands still and the sun beats down relentlessly, day after day, or so it seems.

These are the days when we rediscover shade, pools, and the contents of our freezers. Cooling off becomes an obsession.

Over-heated hounds do lounge beneath porches and trees on hot afternoons, but it is not for them that "dog days" were named. Instead, this parching period pertains to Sirius, the "Dog Star," which rises and sets with the sun from mid-July until September. Sirius is also called "The Scorching One." Its lurid presence on the horizon evokes desperate memories of withered crops, raging wildfires and infernal droughts.

Continued at... The Dog Days of Summer 

Rural Delivery
Out of the Past
Outrider Reading Group
Artwork: Hot Summer  Night

When Cowgirls Rode the Broncs

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 2001. All rights reserved.

Before there was Venus Williams or Nancy Lopez or even Billie Jean King, there was Lulu Belle Parr and Bertha Blancett and Lucille Mulhall.
   
The true pioneers of women's professional sports gripped reins instead of golf clubs, rode wild horses and bulls instead of thoroughbreds, and competed in dusty arenas rather than on grass courts. America's first female pro athletes grew up on farms and ranches of the West, like Lorena Trickey of Oregon, who started competing as a bronc rider to support the family after her parents died. They were cowgirls competing head-to-head with cowboys in rodeos all across America.

From the late 1890s through the 1920s, cowgirls like Dorothy Morrell and Tad Lucas were popular stars of big-time rodeo competitions like the Calgary Stampede, the Pendleton Roundup and the World Series Rodeo in Madison Square Garden of New York City.

Continued at... When Cowgirls Rode the Broncs 

Rural Delivery
Out of the Past
The Corral
Artwork: Cowgirl With Horse

The Northern Spy and Other Edible Antiques

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1998. All rights reserved.

A Rhode Island Greening is about as common in the contemporary American kitchen as a butter churn. It's as likely to be used as a woodburning cookstove or an icebox. Few of them have ever been microwaved.

The Northern Spy, once a standby at neighborhood grocers, is rarely seen in today's supermarkets. It's gone the way of the horse-drawn carriage and the stagecoach. Just try to find one.

The Greening and the Spy are both apples, two of the finest-tasting varieties ever to touch the American palate. But today they are "antiques," each more than a century old. Each has been replaced by varieties of apple better suited to the mass-production technologies of the modern era: Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith.

Continued at... The Northern Spy and Other Edible Antiques

Rural Delivery
Apples
Home and Garden Center
Out of the Past
Artwork: Northern Spy

Pushing Progress

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1998. All rights reserved.

Bought a new lawn mower recently, my first ever, and I'm not sure I did the right thing.  I hated to give  up on my old one, you see, since it's served me faithfully the past ten years since I bought it at a flea market for $5. It's an old (1940s?) Montgomery Ward manual reel mower with a wooden handle that's splitting. The well-worn blades chatter like crickets as I push them gainfully across the lawn.

A push mower doesn't trim grasses as readily as one of those self-propelled motorized models, nor does it cover as much ground as quickly as those riding mowers can, but it has its advantages. Starts every time, for instance.

Continued at... Pushing Progress.

Rural Delivery
Lawn Mowers and Yard Supplies
Home and Garden Center
Artwork: Industrious Boy Mowing Lawn

My Own Stories

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1996. All rights reserved.

My little boy stops me in the middle of a story I am reading.

"I don't want this story; I want your story," he says.

"My story?" I ask.

"About when you were a little boy."

I pause, trying to figure out where this is coming from.

"You were once a little boy, weren't you?"

"Yes, I was a little boy a long time ago."

Continued at... My Own Stories.

Rural Delivery
The Animals Within
Out of the Past
Artwork: Alexander Cassatt and His Son Robert Kelso Cassatt by Mary Cassatt

Any Given Name

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1998. All rights reserved.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.

Juliet, upon her balcony, wishes Romeo would give up his family name and change it to some other. He, in turn, offers to be "new baptiz'd" with some other name than Montague? But does he follow through? Does he change either his Romeo or his Montague? Naw.

Not for love or for the sake of their two warring families do the
star-crossed lovers change their names. They'll go to any extreme, even drink poison if they must, to avoid that end.

What's in a name? Just about everything.

Continued at... Any Given Name.
Rural Delivery
Outrider Reading Group
Out of the Past
Artwork: What's In A Name?