Born To Be Rural

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1992. All rights reserved.

It makes a difference what you're born to, of course, whether its the black sod of Kansas prairies or the slick sidewalks of Fifth Avenue. Places put things in your head like those silly tunes that you hear once and can't shake. They get in your dreams and wake you in the morning. You find yourself humming them in the shower, at breakfast, on the job. Who can say why?

The song of open spaces stuck with me early on, and though I've known my share of cities -- Kansas City, London, New York, Seattle -- it's in rural places that I've been most at home: wheatfields on the Palouse, the lush dairylands of Tillamook, wind-swept high desert country on the Snake River Plain, the timbered Ochocos of central Oregon....

Continued at... Born To Be Rural.

Rural Delivery
Artwork: The Edge of Town by Steve Smith.
Outrider Books
Outrider Reading Group
The Nature Pages
Farm Supply

A Wing and a Prayer

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

This time it was an oddly-striped finch that caught my attention, perched on the feeder outside my office window. The bird has thick bands of orange on either side of his pecan-sized head and looks like he is wearing one of those tear-shaped fiberglass  bicycle helmets.

Never mind the dozens of goldfinches fluttering about or the bold crowns of the Pine Siskin, it is the odd bird, the rarely-seen-in-these-parts critter that gets the most notice. It is this uncommon sight that gives me pause.

Isn't that the way it is with birdwatching? It's not the everyday bird that draws enthusiasts to bogs and barrens with their binoculars and field guides.

More than 60 million Americans feed and watch birds. Many do this in their backyards, but many are willing to travel great distances and endure physical discomfort to participate in the activity called "birdwatching." Recently ranked with other American recreations, birdwatching placed second ahead of gardening.

Continued at... A Wing and a Prayer.

Rural Delivery
Artwork: Birdwatchers Retreat by Janet Kruskamp.
Outrider Reading Group
The Nature Pages
Outgoing

The Cast Iron Skillet

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

Next to barns and old tractors, the most distinctive artifact of the old-style American family farm is the cast iron skillet. There was a time before the aluminization of cooking utensils that these skillets could be found in almost every rural kitchen. These days, they're not so common.

You can find cast iron utensils at hardware stores, kitchen supply shops and some grocers, of course, but no new skillet measures up to a well used one. Like fine wines, these culinary implements get better with age.

A well seasoned skillet with decades of experience producing hundreds of batches of corn bread and fried chicken is practically priceless. My wife recently found one with a shiny black patina in an antique shop and presented it to me on Father's Day. What a prize!.

Continued at... The Cast Iron Skillet.

Rural Delivery
Out of the Past
Kitchen Supply
Artwork: Cast Iron Skillet.

Privy to Privies

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1993. All rights reserved.

Live long enough and many of the everyday skills and experiences you take for granted become virtually obsolete, like operating a manual transmission or dialing a rotary phone.
   
Outhouses are like that. You don't see many privies any more, even on the most remote farmsteads, and few folks can claim to have sat in one.

I'm not talking about those industrial "Johnny-on-the-Jobsite" rental toilets or even the Forest Service's government-issue campground restrooms. True outhouses are homebuilt wood-plank structures with personalized features like crescent moons cut into the door or a shelf for the Sears and Roebuck catalog.

Continued at... Privy to Privies.

Rural Delivery
Out of the Past
Home and Garden Center
Artwork: Morning Commute by Billy Jacobs.

Good Fences, Bad Neighbors

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1993. All rights reserved.

"Good fences make good neighbors," said the poet's neighbor, as if a wall could improve on human nature or protect one from its failings.

The poet was not convinced, and from what I've seen lately his neighbor had it backwards. Only good neighbors make good fences.

For the past several months Neighbor B has been feuding with Neighbor A over the size and appearance of his fence -- eight feet tall and a hundred feet long, sculpted from old barn wood.

An eyesore, says Neighbor B.

A necessity, says Neighbor A.

Neighbor B, you see, bought land next to Neighbor A a few years ago and built a home there.

Then he started landscaping and, as neighbors often do, questioned the property line. Neighbor A's fence was trespassing, said Neighbor B. That's where its always been, said Neighbor A, whose favorite apricot tree grew from the contested soil.

Continued at... Good Fences, Bad Neighbors.

Rural Delivery
Artwork: Old Wood Barn with Fence.

Winter Visitors

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1994. All rights reserved.

Among the most common sounds of winter in the country, along with rustling leaves and crackling fires, is the scratching and scurrying that can be heard inside walls and rafters of almost every rural dwelling.

These are the sounds of the house mouse, mus musculus, one of the least welcome of guests and most difficult to dissuade. This uninvited visitor will eat, or chew on, almost anything and defecate everywhere. He contaminates food, causes damage to structures and property, and  carries dangerous diseases.

Introduced by 16th century pilgrims in the holds of their Atlantic-crossing ships, house mice followed the progress of Europeans in the New World, traveling in wagons and rucksacks and saddlebags and trains and trucks and planes across the continent and back, occupying pantries from Maine to Malibu.

Grayish brown with a naked scaly tail, the pointy-snouted house mouse puts down 50 droppings a day, on average, and gives off 300 squirts of urine in between. Messy, ugly, and presumptuous, this uninvited guest inspires desperate measures.

Continued at... Winter Visitors
Rural Delivery
Home and Garden Center
Artwork: Hairless Mouse - Mus Musculus.

Solar Reflections

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1994. All rights reserved.

If all the Earth's fuels -- petroleum, wood, coal, etc. -- were lumped together and burned at the rate the sun emits energy they would last, at best, four days.   

What a bounteous source of power, this sun! Would that I could pry open my truck's gas cap and pump it in: fill it up with light, please!
   
The promise of solar energy has been homilized since I was in grade school. By now, we imagined we'd be driving solar cars and flying in solar planes. Photovoltaic cells were going to make conventional fuels obsolete.

Continued at... Solar Reflections
Rural Delivery
Energy Farming
Artwork: Frost-Covered White Birch Trees with the Sun Rising Behind.