Another try

Okay, today I am going to write this in Word

and cut and paste. Thanks to all the kind folks who suggested that I try Firefox. I did use the earliest version for a while, but had trouble with sites that wouldn’t load. If this business with Netscape doesn’t improve, I will have to download the newer version, which is said to address that problem.

Anyhow, back to yesterday afternoon

. I was Sundaying it up in fine fashion and acting very un-farmerly. Feet up, handmade (by my wonderful mother, who never met a stranger) lap robe keeping off the chill, first book of the Outlander series in hand, I was enjoying a few comfortable chuckles and some genuine, pure-D relaxation.

Enter my son, in an incoherent panic

, "Mom, will you talk to the sheriff for me? They are over there at the barn yelling at dad."

Well, I got out of the chair

a lot quicker than I got in. Visions of my volatile husband in a one-man standoff against the local authorities leapt to mind. He was armed only with a skid steer and a bucket load of corn, but handicaps like that have never stopped him before. It is nothing for him to get in a screaming match with trespassers bearing shotguns when he is totally unarmed. So far he has come out ahead, but I worry.

When I finally got the kid calmed down

, I discovered that someone driving a Jimmy had come creeping up the barn drive and, when he saw the guys, took off in a swirl of gravel. He drove into our sand pile trying to get gone. He saw the boss coming down to confront him and screamed some words that will not be typed here and threatened to run over him. That is when the kid ran for the phone.

Anyhow, the policeman

who answered my summons was a wonder. In this increasingly urban area you don't find too many people who understand just how much trouble prowlers can get into on private farm property. This officer was real understanding though and I sure appreciated that. By the time he arrived the guy in the Jimmy had stopped cussing and was claiming to be looking for Argersinger Road. (Yeah and there is a bridge downstate that I could sell you cheap too.) Argersinger Road is a nice, smooth, paved, public highway. Our barn driveway washed out in all the rain we have had, so it consists of a couple of nearly impassable ruts winding straight up the mountain. You can barely get a tractor up it. And at the bottom, there is a FARM SIGN for Pete's sake. It does not say Argersinger Road on it, I promise.

We will probably

never know whether he was looking to pick up a heifer calf, as some local youths recently got caught doing, or if he wanted to get into the abandoned farm house half way up the driveway. Had he not threatened to run over the boss and actually pulled his car right up to him, we would have just told him to light a shuck and let him go. The sad thing is that he had kids with him. Nice example to set for them.

At any rate

, he will be going to court next week, down in town, and even if he only gets a warning, hopefully he won' be back.