Howdy friends and neighbors.  Can you believe that they up and put summer in July this year???  It’s funny to hear everyone talk about it being hot.  Yeah, its summer time, it seems to do this every year.  I’ll bet money right now that in January folks will be talking about how cold it is!  Oh, its human nature and it’s something that everyone has in common. 

Now it’s my turn….  Man, it’s been hot!  It’s so hot the cows are giving evaporated milk. (Rim shot)  It’s so hot grasshoppers are working at night. (Rim shot)  It’s so hot that catfish in shallow water are already fried.  (Rim shot)  It’s so hot that I saw two trees fighting over a dog.  Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs. You discover it only takes two fingers to drive a car.  Prime parking spaces are determined by shade not distance.  Squirrels are handling their nuts with potholders.  (Rim shot)  For the road crews, it’s so hot that I have discovered that asphalt has a liquid state.  (Rim shot)  And finally, it is so hot that OSU cowboy basketball fans have taken the bags off their heads!  (BIG RIM SHOT!)

I have also heard from many wise folk that mid summer is the only time people in Western Oklahoma lock their car doors.  Because if you don’t your neighbor will put a sack of yellow squash in it.  Well, it could be worse.  We could have high humidity!  But we are blessed with it being dry.  (I’m joking of course.)  The only dry joke I’m going to share is one my granddad used so say.  “It’s been so dry that if it started raining we have three year old catfish that would have to learn how to swim!”  He also always said that here at Sunny Point during Noah’s flood, we just got an inch and two-tenths.  But then he would always remind me that the good Lord will let it rain five minutes before it’s too late.

Don’t believe the news casts, people are still good.  I have a neighbor that shared a funny yet heart warming story with me.  Scott decided the other day that he needed to bush beat the entry way that led into his house.  Make it look good for the passers by on Highway 6.  So he’s out near the highway showing pigweeds, mare’s tales and sandburs who’s boss by introducing them to high RPM flailing steel as he made a pass over his water meter.  He thought to himself that it would be an opportune time to read his meter.  The only problem is that the actual read out is pretty deep inside this meter box that is somewhat out in the middle of nowhere next to a busy highway.  Dust, dirt, insects and all other critters that like the underground habitat cover the dial one needs to see to record the month’s usage.  Scott’s arm is about two inches short of being able to wipe the dust off the dial to see the numbers so he twitches his mustache, removes his latest style of palm leaf cowboy hattery, somewhat lays on the ground with his face cheek planted in the sand and sand burs.  His other cheeks of the posterior end are sticking skyward as he gives it all he has to reach the meter and wipe the lens clean for a reading.  If you can picture a plainsman about one hundred years ago with his ear to the earth listening for buffalo, you have somewhat of a picture of what Scott looked like.  The tractor motor was still running as Scott lay in this awkward position for a spell.  As he arose from his water meter expedition, his mustache took another position as a crowd had gathered around Scott.  He somewhat startled the good Samaritans (if you can imagine their view of the situation) that had stopped because they saw a tractor setting there with some poor fellow laying on the ground, missing a hat and exposing his wisdom dome (bald head) plus it appeared he had one arm missing and his rear was stuck up in the air.  A family on a trip in a van plus a trucker had stopped because they thought Scott had been in a bad accident.  It just proves that people are still good and willing to stop and help.  This situation turned out to be a funny story and Scott told me that other than being embarrassed, he felt good all day about Friends and Neighbors.

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my, it’s so hot my hat needs a hat, hat!

Howdy friends and neighbors.  Wheat harvest ‘09 is in the bin!  We finished about mid week last week as did a lot of other folks in this part of the world.  Yields were off this year but at least there was some yield.

This year we at the Tucker farm continued on with a tradition that started back when my Granddad and Great Granddad Tucker were involved in a harvest crew that used a stationary thrashing machine.  It was the kind of machine that was powered by steam tractors, and then later gas or diesel tractors, that were connected by the long, flat belt.  The wheat was bundled in the field and then pitched into a wagon that hauled it from the field to the thrashing machine.  There the bundled wheat was pitched into the throat of the trashing machine where the grain was separated from the straw and chaff.  The grain was either sacked in 100 pound burlap sacks, lifted onto another wagon and hauled out or ran onto a wagon with short sides and hauled out.  They would either take the grain to town to sell it or back to the barn to store it for seed or to sell at a later time.  Either way it had to be scooped or lifted off the wagons into the barn.  From the stories I heard it was hot, dirty and long work.  A far cry from pressurized, air-conditioned cabs with finger tip controls, belly dumps, power lifts, and powered augers.  Yet the job was the same as it is today.  You still have to get the wheat from the field to town as quickly as you can.

The story that granddad always told us was that they wore their old straw hat during harvest because the work was dirty and it stuck to the hat due to sweat, grease, or the water they soaked it in to cool off.  The hats got stomped and thrown when the thrasher broke down, a wagon lost a wheel, or the kids put frogs in the drinking water.  A lot like today when a combine circuit board fries, the A/C quits working, the truck blows a tire or the kids put frogs in the ice chest.  When the last bundle of wheat for the year was separated the entire thrashing crew would line up and throw their old nasty straw hats into the thrasher.  This was the true signal that harvest was over.  Then the guy who owned and operated the thrasher would buy the crew new hats for the rest of the summer and the next harvest the new hat would meet the same fate as the old ones did.

My Granddad continued this tradition when he got his own pull-type combine and then again when he got a self-propelled combine. One of my favorite memories of harvest with my Granddad was laughing as he would toss his old hat into the header of the combine.  We would watch the hat disappear into the combine and then would run to the back where we would watch with anxiety as we waited to see if the combine would spit it out.

My dad got to continue the tradition with my four-year old son last week.  Dad, Mason and I all tossed our old straw hats into the 200 horse power, turbo charged combine.  The main thrashing cylinder was spinning about 1100 rpms as our hats were sucked into the feeder house.  We all laughed as our hats were spit out the back of the machine.  Mason’s hat was crumpled and flattened.  My hat is more like a sun visor now as the combine separated the brim from the crown.  And PaPa’s hat…is still missing in action.  We figure it will make a nice home for the pack rats that invade the combine this winter.

I may never have a penny to my name, but I’m so lucky to be part of a tradition that has now been passed down five generations.

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my newly converted convertible sun visor hat, perfect for the lake this coming holiday weekend.

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  Missed ya last week.  Bill Gates and I had little disagreement but it seems he was right and I now realize that I’m a PC…. and it crashed.  Oh well, with the help of a local computer whiz, I’m up and running again, for now.

It’s going to be a short one this week as well.  We are smack dab in the middle of wheat harvest and I have to get my wheat cut before the idiots in the US congress decide that wheat dust is causing climate change and I’m forced to buy a hybrid combine.  I can see it now, a 4-foot header, a 40-foot solar panel and no air conditioner.  Duct tape, 900 amp batteries, and jumper cables will be outlawed as well due to the fact they might have been used by a terrorist who had planned to wipeout a major city.

Well I’m glad I’m not in DC trying to win arguments with idiots.  Instead I’m just trying to convert God given natural resources (soil, water, sun and wheat plants) into consumable products (flour, bread, pasta, etc.) while using natural resources that my neighbors produce (oil, fuel, and grease) using machines that other neighbors built (combines, pick-ups, trucks, augers, and bins) so they can buy my consumable goods.  And all this couldn’t be done without duct tape, high-temp grease, a nine-sixteenth wrench, brake fluid, and a water jug.   The difference between what I do and what Congress does is that at the end of the day, I can wash all the dirt and grime off.

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my hat covered with wheat dust and high-temp grease.

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  I ended my last written mess with a comment about explaining windmill leathers, and I did so jokingly.  But, I have received more response from folks all around that want me to continue my explanation of how windmills work.  One thing that keeps me here at the keyboard is the response I get from all of you out there that take the time to read this mess. Thanks.

I love to hear all your stories and how something that I wrote made you remember those past memories.  I have heard and read some funny windmill stories this past week and I’m going to try to include a few of them this week.  Well, I could write about another subject that goes in circles, squeaks constantly, has their heads stuck up in air, are extremely high maintenance, and really need a good whack or two from a shovel, but congress has just bored me to tears lately….

Windmill leathers: yep, there actually are little round disc like seals that are made from leather that make a windmill pump water.  Leathers make a watertight seal in-between the check valve that moves up and down and the working barrel that remains stationary inside the water well.  Another set of leathers seal the bottom check valve to the bottom of the working barrel.  If you have ever been around someone that is headed to “pull a windmill,” chances are that they are in route to a windmill in a remote location to physically and manually pull the sucker-rod along with the top check out of the well to replace these fifty cent leathers.  The ones in route usually are not in a humorous mood and you should avoid them unless you wish to volunteer your back to help pull the rod.  My advice is not to walk away, but run.  As one of my readers told my the other day, he loves looking at windmills, he loves listening to windmills, he just loves windmills, but he absolutely hates to work on them.

One of my favorite stories about a windmill, other than fixing one with a shovel, is the one about an old cowboy that had a windmill down.  (Down means broke, tore-up, leathers out, or just plain not pumping water.)  Anyway he thought he would climb the tower and have a look see as to what the problem could be.  He had seen others do it that had less cowboying skills than he, so what could be so hard about it? As he made his way almost to the top of the twenty-foot or so tall tower he quit looking down and looked up through the fan of the non-functioning mill.  It was a pretty day, a few clouds in the sky and a nice light breeze.  As his eyes began to focus on the fan, it started to turn.  The clouds were moving as well and the novice windmill man was convinced that the tower wasn’t going to support his weight like the buckskin gelding that he rode up on.  With the fan turning just right and with the illusion of the clouds passing overhead, he was truly convinced he and the windmill were toppling over.  The cowboy grit his teeth, rode it halfway to the ground and jumped off.  After he came too and caught his breath, the windmill was still perpendicular to the earth but he wasn’t.  Even the buckskin had a confused look on his face as the cowboy looked around to make sure no one else saw what he had done.

I’ll leave this week with a poem that a good friend wrote several years back and sent to me. 

Windmill

Now you are older,
And thinking of that windmill,
And the steady rhythm it would keep,
Wishing you had one right outside,
Lulling you to sleep.

Burton Harmon

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my, yyaaawwwnnnnnn, hat.

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  On to the lighter side of things, the other day I was talking about the need to pour oil into some windmill heads and the guys with me gave me a blank stare like they had no clue what I was talking about.  Then it me like a 20 pound pipe dog, there are lots of folks out there that have no experience or knowledge of how windmills work. 

This all rattled a story out of my medulla oblongata about a time when I was in college at Oklahoma State University.  Several buddies and I were socializing at and around our makeshift 10-acre ranch within the city limits of Stillwater.  Then another ol’ chap drove up looking to beg, borrow or steel a water tank so he could haul a load of H2O to the cows he was employed to look after while in college (money for text books, probably??)  Anyway, I asked what was wrong with the well. He allowed it was a windmill and it wasn’t pumping.  Here is where my years of riding around with my dad and granddad working on and fixing windmills paid off!  Not cash though, just bottled rocky mountain spring water.

Like a trained surgeon I started asking questions.  I asked, “Is the fan on the head turning?”  A few other buddies gathered to listen.  The answer was, “yep.”  Translation: The “fan” is the fan at the top of a windmill; it’s the thing that spins.  The next question I asked, “is the rod going up and down?”  He thought for a second and grabbed a chew, “yep.”  Translation: the “rod” is a metal, fiberglass, or wood rod that by connecting the spinning fan through the gear head at the top of a windmill converts circular motion into vertical motion and the rod goes up and down in about six to ten inch strokes.

My next question to him had the entire bull session attendees listening.  I asked the highly technical question “can you hear the checks rattling?”  His reply, as he spit between his boots, “pardon?”  Everyone else looked about for clarification.  Now I wasn’t among city folks at this meeting.  It was a clear majority of country kids.  I asked again if he could hear the checks rattling and his reply was “I’ve bounced checks but never heard them rattle!”  Translation: the rod is connected to a check valve down in the water well, which opens on the down stroke and closes on the up stroke.  As water rushes through the open valve on the down stroke, a steel ball rattles against the little cage it’s held in. Below the moving check valve is a stationary check valve that lets water into the “working barrel” on the up stroke and then closes on the down. It rattles as well.  When a windmill is working properly you can hear a rattle on both the up and down stroke. 

By this time everyone present allowed that we should take a road trip and go see if my friend’s windmill was rattling.  Only in college!  Oh, also, my friend offered to buy refreshments if we could fix the dry situation.  Off we went.  Three pickups, a Ford Explorer, and a 1981 caddy all entered the property at which the windmill was located. (The owner and employer was gone out of town.) 

Yep, the fan was turning, the rod was stroking, but I put my ear to the two inch steel pipe and alas, there was no rattling.  That is where years and years of riding shotgun and fix’n windmills with my granddad remedied the situation.  The crowd had a puzzled look and some were even putting their ears to the steel pipe to confirm my diagnosis.  Again like a surgeon would ask for a flesh cutting apparatus, I asked for a hammer. In all those farm boy rigs there was not a single hammer.  Only a shovel and I said it would do.  An array of questions fired in from the gallery.  But silence fell as I explained that I was going to just give it a good whack or two.  Side bets were placed as doubters wagered against the believers. 

WHACK!!!  I hit the steel pipe that the rod traveled through into the depths of the well.  Silence… then rattle, rattle, rattle and water began to pour from the pipe.  Thunderous applause on one side as the doubters began to count the cost on the other.  Translation: as the checks wear from thousands and thousands of strokes, the steel ball starts to wear the cage it’s housed in.  Thus, after a while the steel ball can get stuck in the cage.  By hitting the pipe at ground level, vibrations travel down the pipe and can cause the steel ball to fall back into it’s seat and start pumping water again.  I was forever famous among the Oklahoma State alums as the one that fixed a windmill by hitting it with a shovel.

So, now if the nerds up in I.T. start talking computer lingo, just start explaining how a windmill works and you can stump ’em.  At least I did, once.  Next week I’ll explain “leathers.”

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my, “I’m a lover, a fighter, a wild bronc rider, and pretty good windmill man” hat!

Howdy friends and neighbors.  It’s been a while since I wrote a red hot one, so you better grab your leather gloves to read this one!  No wait, leather wouldn’t be right because some poor animal was exploited to provide the leather.  So, grab your cotton gloves and…  no wait, a by-product of cotton is cottonseed and that is used for animal feed that fed the animal that could have been used for the leather.  So, grab your synthetic PVC gloves… no wait, petroleum products make synthetic material and millions of years ago some poor animal lost it’s life in a tar pit caused by global cooling because man wasn’t burning enough dinosaur chips to create a greenhouse effect.  Petroleum products are made from dead animals so I guess you should hold this article with your bare hands and let them burn!

The other evening I was making the rounds though my new mama cow pasture when I discovered a recently converted heifer who was learning to be a cow had gotten herself on the wrong side of a hot wire fence and her baby had not figured out how to get over there with her.  The poor calf was badly de-hydrated and it wasn’t the calf’s fault or the mama cow’s fault.  It was my fault because I hadn’t been doing my job of making sure my animals were cared for in the proper manner.  Anyhow, no need playing a blame game, the situation I had at the time was a sick calf and a worried new mama cow.  The calf was to the point it could not stand on it’s own and nurse the cow that was licking it and trying to encourage it to stand.

To the Tucker Cattle Co. hospital we went.  Tan (my now famous feed truck) was instantly converted to an animal ambulance complete with siren and a flashing yellow clearance light.  (I’m going to tighten that alternator belt and fix that electrical grounding issue one of these days.)  I took the weak, dehydrated calf out of the front seat and proceeded to my makeshift emergency room.  “Get me the tuber S.T.A.T!” I hollered to the red headed nurse (my wife) and we got some fluids down this little heifer’s throat as quickly as we could.

Then we put the new mama cow into the squeeze chute so we could relieve the pressure off her swollen bag.  We hand milked her in the headlights of the ambulance (Tan), we caught the mother’s milk in the tuber bag so we could give it to the calf.  Sweat poured off of me as I tried everything to save my calf.  And what do I hear on the radio?  Carrie anti-animal agriculture Underwood singing some crap about ripping some guys leather seats and carving her name in his paint job on his four-wheel drive pick-up truck!  It’s close to ten o’clock at night, I’m bent over hand milking a new cow while trying to keep her heifer calf alert and going and my local radio station is playing a song from a bunny hugging, Humane Society of the United States contributing, air head!  I apologized to the cow and the calf for submitting them to the torture of her singing and I quit what I was doing and un-plugged that stinking radio!

It hit me at that point that all the hundreds of millions of dollars that the anti-animal agriculture groups have weren’t going to help this one little calf at all.  HSUS has a budget of over 160 million dollars that pays lobbyists, politicians, and supports anti-animal agriculture legislation.  Many of you reading this may not even realize that little if any of that huge budget goes to fund local animal shelters.  Their marketing campaigns trick you into thinking that the donations they receive go to help little Fido that lost his home and has found himself in the local shelter.  In reality, they do nothing for the actual care of animals; their purpose is to end animal agriculture, hunting and meat eating in general.

Here is the truth!  Yes, I am trying to save this heifer calf in the dark on a Saturday night during a holiday weekend because it is the difference between profit and loss for me!  The sole purpose of this animal is to convert God given natural resources (grass and grain) into consumable protein products for human consumption at the same time providing my family with a profit.  PETA, Farm Sanctuary or HSUS are no better than me.  We all use animals for profit! At least I’m trying to tell you the truth and all I have is a $200 computer!

My friend Trent Loos says that death with a purpose gives meaning to life.  If that little heifer dies tonight, she is going to die without purpose.  Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton, or even Rush Limbaugh who support these anti-private property, anti-agriculture, and anti-meat eating groups know absolutely nothing about what I do!

Another truth comes from Genesis 9:1-3, “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the Earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all beasts of the Earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea: they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.”

It’s my job to take care of the animals in my care!  Not singers, actors, politicians, or lobbyists.  It’s my job!  I thank the good Lord daily that I’m blessed with a task of caring for animals and I ask Him daily to provide ME with the wisdom to do the best I can!

And yes, I even said a prayer for that little heifer calf.

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my COWBOY hat!

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  Look out!!!!  High School seniors are being turned loose!  It’s graduation season around here.  Tassels, gowns, ties, and flip-flops are in style.  These ot niner’s are planning to take over the world. Well, I’m about ready to just give it to them!

All the ot eight’s are looking around and saying, “Big deal,” as the o’ tens are just saying, “Get out of the way!”  No different than when I was a graduating senior.  I wish the newly freed high school grads all the best of luck.

The rest of us just look at them and say, “Oh, if we had it to do over again, but with the knowledge I have now!”

If I had a chance to talk to some graduating senior I would simply pass on this little bit of information that I’m not sure is taught in any class.  Seniors, or anyone else that cares to read, if you have dreams of becoming wealthy and successful someday, you should study wealthy and successful people!  You should do what wealthy and successful people do!

What’s my definition of a wealthy and successful person?  That’s a fair question.  In my pea brain mind a wealthy person is not someone with a large estate and huge bank account.  They’re not the ones you see on T.V. living what Hollywood considers wealthy and successful; because if you watch that same channel and hour or two later, you’ll see the, “has-been Hollywood and sports elites” going into or coming out jail, rehab, or court.  I consider wealthy and successful people the ones that live just down the road a bit that have been married for 50 plus years, absolutely love what they are doing and have been doing all there lives, have many loving friends, neighbors, and/or family, stay active in community groups or projects, belong to a loving church, and by the way, when they have all the above, they usually have plenty of money to maintain their lifestyle and to give like congress only wishes they could give. 

Now, you may think I have flipped my lid, but according to the book, The Millionaire Next Door by Tom Stanley, PhD and William Danko, PhD, I have just described ninety-four percent of the first generation millionaires in America today!  These people are labeled millionaires due to the fact that they have a net worth of at least one million dollars.

Danko and Stanley studied millionaires and the people I descried above were and are the common threads of millionaires.  Next, the most common theme was they had no debt and constantly saved a portion of their income.  No magic get rich quick or sophisticated investment schemes.  They persistently saved and lived within their means.   Other commonalities included that they bought only used cars and lived in modest houses – not exactly what you had in mind when you thought of a millionaire, is it?

The last common theme among wealthy and successful people was that they all loved what they did for income.  In other words, they loved their job and most of them never consider retiring.  They also never consider what they did to be work.  They just simply did what they loved to do and figured out a way to make money at it.

The last common thread of first generation rich millionaires is that once they reach a certain point in life, spiritually and financially, they try to give as much of their success away as possible and all of them say it is the most enjoyable thing to do with wealth.

Seniors, simply go at life with enthusiasm and find what you love to do. The money will then find you.

I’m Monte Tucker “PhD,” and that is what’s under my tassel.  (PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper with a minor in Post Hole Digging.)

Howdy friends and neighbors.  Well, Sunny Point, OK is living up to its name.  I would sure trade anyone out there who has gotten too much rain some of my sunny and dry weather for about a week of the good wet stuff.  It seems that we have a chance of rain about every day this week.  I hope we who need it can hoard it all up so some of you folks hip deep in it can dry out a little.

My Granddad always said that during Noah’s flood, Sunny Point just got and inch and two tenths.  I like his other saying that when a good downpour hits Western Oklahoma, we’ll have three year-old catfish that need to learn how to swim!  I’m on a roll.  When asked what our annual rainfall was, his response was, “About 20 inches a year, and you ought to be here on that day!” Oh why not?  I’m still on a roll.  One rare occasion when he and I were trapped in a barn while the rain poured down I looked at him and said it sure was raining hard.  He smiled and threw this one at me, “The precipitation is of that of a mature, post-partum ruminating bovine urinating vertically and perpendicularly onto a perfectly level piece of geography!”  I replied, “What?!?!”  He shrugged his shoulders and said, “You know, it’s raining like a cow %#@&ing on a flat rock!”

The only other thing I can come up with this week for my little article, other than making fun of politicians, is a story that came back to me as my wife and four-year-old discovered a snake in our barn the other day.  I’ll be repairing that barn’s roof and sidewall tomorrow.  But anyhow it jogged a story.

It was mid morning in muggy South Texas when I tried to call an old friend to check on his prediction of the cattle market, but he didn’t answer.  About an hour later my phone rang and it was my South Texas connection returning my earlier call.  I was looking for guidance on where August feeders were headed and he told me that he had just been part of a miracle!  My need to lose even more money in cattle futures was going to have to wait because the man who read a bible passage at my wedding was going to witness something larger to me. 

Marshall was still trying to catch his breath as he spoke to me.  I was preparing myself to hear whatever tale I was going to receive.  My mind wandered to thoughts of him escaping a raging bull, or narrowly missing an oncoming and speeding render and tallow truck.  I held the phone tight to my ear and Marshall started to explain. 

He told me it was a fast and furious morning as he started his day.  He needed to grab a half empty (or half full) bag of cubes out of a small shed so he could try to trick some cows into coming to the lot.  As he bent over to grab the sack, a rattlesnake made his presence known to my friend.  The rattler was inches from Marshall’s feet, coiled and ready for battle.  Marshall stood straight up in this short shed and hit his head on the rafter above.  He now had a coiled snake at his feet and a bump on his head.  

The cool cowboy didn’t panic though, not yet anyway.  Instinct took over and he told himself to back out slowly.  He gently turned his head to plan an escape and discovered that when he hit the rafter above, he stirred up a wasp nest that was now at eye level and inches from his head.  He said the snake was rattling and the yellow jackets were warming their wings to prepare for an aerial attack. 

In the middle of all this, a dumb Okie (me) tried to call him.  He found himself with a snake at his feet, wasps staring him down and a cell phone ringing in his shirt pocket.  Marshall said when his phone rang, he couldn’t stand steady anymore, with one eye on the snake and another on the wasps, he gently backed out of the shed. 

He told me that neither the rattlesnake nor the wasps bit him.  I exclaimed that that was indeed a miracle. He replied that not getting bit wasn’t the miracle; in the heat of the moment he forgot to grab the cow feed.  The miracle was that he was able to lot all the cows and their calves without a sack of cubes!  God works in awful funny ways!

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my hat!

 Howdy friends and neighbors.  I just returned last week from the big farm show in Oklahoma City and there were miles of neat stuff that I would like to have.  Not sure if I need it, but it would be fun to have.  Of course there were even folks there selling big barns that I could put all that stuff in.  I enjoy a good farm show.  I get to walk around like I’ve got money and bug and question exhibitors.  It’s lots of fun.

My favorite thing to do at a farm show is look around and see all the new inventions that people come up with to solve different problems.  Just walk around a farm show and you will see that the American spirit and capitalism are alive and well.  Everywhere you look while at a farm show you can see products and services that raise the standard of living on the farm or ranch.  From the sham-wow to a sprayer that holds 1600 gallons and covers 120 feet at a time and is capable of speeds of fifteen to twenty miles an hour!  That’s cool!  New plows, new drills, new leather gloves and there were even some free yardsticks.

Of course to be a true farm show junkie, you must carry around a plastic sack complete with pre-manufactured handles all so you can lug around sixty pounds of sales brochures, business cards, price sheets and tootsie rolls.

My “What’s Under My Hat” best of show livestock award goes to some guys from Indiahoma, Oklahoma who have figured out how to make a sixty foot feed trough that transports easily.  A guy could (this is technical farm and ranch lingo for anyone engaged in agriculture activities who is about to do something in theory, in suggestion, or hypothetically,) I’ll repeat; A guy could simply manually fold this invention up, hook it to a truck, ATV, or hover-round and move it to the next desired location.  They get my atta-boy award.

My “What’s Under My Hat” the wife would like it award goes to… drum roll….No, it wasn’t the propane powered grass trimmers or the 1262 page pamphlet on understanding your ’09 schedule F tax code.   It was this invention called “Gecko’s Toes.”  This little plastic thing-r-m-bob neatly holds garden hoses and “a gal” could pull the hose off this snap in device as she goes around the yard watering flowers or breaking up two cow dogs that have a misunderstanding.  All for the low price of 2 for $25.

My “What’s Under My Hat” most impressive award goes to the hard working ladies at the beef booth.  They were toting around ice chests full of hot rib-eye sandwiches and cold soda-pop.  They were promoting beef while raising money for a scholarship fund, I think.   The smell of them rib-eyes had most all of my attention.

Well, I left the farm show feeling more educated and more informed as well as re-assured the farm economy is steady as she goes.  My feet hurt, my belly is bigger and my wallet is lighter.  I’ll throw that sack of farm show propaganda in the back seat where it will stay until we accidentally open both doors on a breezy day.

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my hat.

         Howdy friends and neighbors.  There is just nothing like the smell of rain.  The clean, crisp, damp air enters your nose and tickles your toes.  It is amazing how this country I live in can go from miserable and mean to absolutely beautiful overnight.  We finally caught a little rain this past week, but we could always use a little more.

I’m ready for the wind to slow down a few knots now.  Sunday, the wind was doing what wind is supposed to do, blowing, and as we started to get out of the pickup to go into church, instinct took over and it was automatic that I wait until my wife got out and shut her door before I opened mine.

         To folks that don’t habitate in wind prone regions, that might seem a bit odd.  But for those of us that live where the “wind comes sweeping down the plains,” this bit of prairie knowledge keeps the entire, unsecured, inner contents of your vehicle from being displayed across the church parking lot.  Even the Bible says that we are to keep our business out of the church.

So, by letting my wife and kid exit the south side of the pickup while I kept a vacuum lock on the north by keeping my door shut, I kept the “wind tunnel” effect from happening in the front seat.  Folks, NASA could do space shuttle re-entry nose cone research in the front seat of my pickup on what native plainsmen would consider a “breezy” day.

If naïve, unsuspecting, victims of the high-low pressure war were to open both doors at the same time, the naugahyde seat covers could be in Padre Island faster than spring-breakers on a Friday afternoon. Not to mention, old man back row might see what you were giving for 20% cubes off a two year-old co-op ticket and demand the manager give him the same deal at today’s price. 

Worse yet, my wife could be in her new Sunday dress and the Doppler effect coupled with the unknown phenomenon of lateral dash board lift could reveal the true color of her under garments to the deacon on call as visitor greeter of the week. 

But that’s not the worse that could happen.  An entire decade of ranch records that include calving dates, open cows, bales of grass hay barrowed from a neighbor, dog shots, unused deer tags, toothpicks, an agenda for an extension meeting, a napkin with an ol’ boys number on it for a used head gate, and four sun damaged rubber bands could be scattered for three and half miles.

         But even worse, and it involves my wife again, If I were to open that north door at the same time she opened the south door, the dried out mud and other particulate matter that might accumulate on the floor-board could get stirred up worse than congress over a pay raise.  Black Sunday from the dust bowl days could be re-enacted as a thick cloud of fine bits of a daily commute to pastures sticks to the hair spray, mascara, number 304 base, and the latest signature series lip gloss of my first wife.  The poor Deacon has ignored Miss Widow Smith, as his mouth is agape. Old man back row is praying the coop manager is a no-show and my wife is standing there, leaning into the breeze with a face full of whatever was on my floor boards as her dress does a Marilyn Monroe all while she dodges my ranch records, loose 16 gauge needles and my four-year-old’s Sunday School project from last week that included un-cooked macaroni.  Me, well my hat blew off and she said she didn’t have time to go get it for me!

I’m Monte Tucker, and that is what’s under my hat, along with a sore lump.

Public Service Announcement from “What’s Under My Hat:”  For the sake of your marriage, use the one-door-at-a-time, a.k.a. “ODAAT,” method on windy days.  If you don’t, ODAAT can hurt!