its a good day...

Yeap, that's what I said to myself this morning. It's a good day. I am trying to adapt to the mindset that any day that you can wake up, see the green side of things, is going to be a good day. Its up to me to keep it that way or let in circle as it goes down the toilet. Today is going to be a good day.

I'm off this morning to visit my parents in north central Missouri. They live on a farm 20 or so miles north of Kirksville, Mo. in the summer time. My Dad, in his mid-70's still gets out every morning and does a full day's work of gardening, mowing grass, tending to chickens as well as anything my Mom wants him to do. His biggest challenge this time of year is keeping the raccoons out of the corn patch. He has spent a lot of time trying to accomplish this goal. He has the corn patch surrounded by a high tech electric fence. Its not the normal "trickle fence" that a lot of us are familiar with, its an impulse fence. In other words it hangs on its posts all day long with no juice in it, then if something touches it, a charge of atomic proportions surges through the wire to the poor unsuspecting creature. It is not fatal, it simply zaps you with a jolt. Its hilarious unless its you being zapped, then its just slightly amusing until the numbness wears off. My Dad also has regressed to the time and true method of trapping them, raccoons are plentiful, they are a lot like rabbits in that sense. There is a dangerous overpopulation of the critters on the farm. Local Conservation folks say its because they have no natural predators. They will strip a row of corn every night, they kill every little chicken they can catch. House cats and small dogs are not safe and with over crowding rabies becomes an issue. So yes, when they are trapped they are....sent to the big corn field in the sky. The problem in doing this is the buggers are smart. They learned how to by pass the fence and the traps are effective in moments of lapsed memory on the raccoons part. So my Dad is ever vigilant and thinking of new ways to protect his corn.
Look out coons, reinforcements are on the way.

My Judy cannot go with me and I'm not real happy about that. She has insisted that I go and explained to me that she is very OK with me being gone. She kissed me goodbye this morning saying she would miss me. it is good to be missed. I'm still at home writing this and I miss her.

So, anyway, I will be absent for a couple of days. When I get back I hope to have a few stories to share and some pictures to post. Did I tell you that the farm has two ponds with very large bass.......