The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Greetings ta ever one in western Illinois and all readers of "The Quill".
Here we are in ta August already. County fairs, State fairs and many other events are upon us.
The oats are all harvested, fungi cides pretty well all applied, bugs killed in the crops at least one time around, so, why not take some time off and attend one of them traditional events. Fish'n and camp'n trips probably would be out of order.
Mrs. Bruke's cook'n
Our peach trees furnished us out of our home orchard, a goodly crop last week.
Applied to Mrs. Bruke's home made ice cream (an extra special ole-time favorite recipe) and it becomes mighty hard not ta over indulge.
I was afraid at one of them sittin's I was gonna "founder" on the whole process.
Preceded by her special way of fix'n zucchini squash, it looks like this feller needs ta forget about the waistline size for a spell.
Combined with all the sweet corn ya-can-eat and the calories just compound. But ummm...what a way ta go.
Bird Watch'n
I've mentioned before, I feed the birds in my backyard.
I spot birds of ever kind indigenous ta Western Illinois. It's a please'n sight early ever morn'n and their sounds throughout the day and in ta the even'n hours is quite relax'n.
It's worth ever bit of time, effort, and feed dollars to attract 'em.
One morn'n early last week, I noticed a brown thrush hopp'n around the ground under one of my feeders followed by two young English sparrows fresh off the nest.
They followed the much larger thrush so close they were touch'n it most of the time.
Fer a short while, I was mighty confused as to what was go'n on.
Then it happened- the Thrush found a morsel of somethin or another and directly fed it deep into the little sparrow's beak. That Thrush was a feed'n them two little confused sparrows. She had adopted them, it appeared.
Isn't nature entertain'n, especially the mother'n instinct part of it.
New Technology
Here is another somethin enterest'n that a good retired friend forwarded me on Facebook. Hope you enjoy it.
Should I Join Facebook?
When I bought my Blackberry, I thought about the 30-year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter.
I signed up, under duress, for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, my 13 grandkids and 2 great grandkids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.
My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation.
I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library.
I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Bluetooth (it's red) phone I am supposed to use when I drive.
I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me.
I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.
I mean, the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-u-lating!" You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me!
She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then, if I made a right turn instead. Well, it was not a good relationship.
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and, while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.
To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house.
We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions, checking bathrooms, and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings. The world is just getting too complex for me.
They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves, but this sudden "Paper or plastic?" every time I check out, just knocks me for a loop.
I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.
I was recently asked if I Tweet! I answered "no but I do fart a lot."
Well there ya have it then. That feller added that his level of senior citizens don't need any more gadgets. The TV remote and the garage door opener are about all he can handle safely.
That's it fer this week. Hope it brightened yer day.
Hope ta see ya in church with family and friends.
Remember, wherever ya are, whatever ya be a do'n "BE A GOOD ONE!'
Keep on Smile'n
Catch ya later
Barnyard Bruke