It has been one of those weeks.  Rebekah, finally big enough to ride one of the racing bikes, was practicing in the neighborhood behind us, and fell, getting several nice scratches from the teeth of the sprocket down the inside of her thigh. 

^This is a pic we took when we were fishing on a windy day when the family was up for Granny's funeral.

Below are Rebekah's battle scars.  The stripes on the right leg are from the chainring on her bicycle and the bandage covers her recent stitches.

      I worked Wednesday and Thursday, chipping off a piece of one of my molars during that route.  I interviewed Friday morning, then had to go back in to learn to route the next day's trucks that evening.  I had a nice bicycle ride around BWI airport after routing.  The trail around the airport is just over 10 miles, but I continued riding for another 8 and was rewarded just before getting back to my car with a very rare sight, an almost completely white deer. I used the iphone to get a pic, so I couldn't zoom in, but it was an amazing thing to see, and he stood there and let me take his picture.  I rode off and he was still standing, eating grass from the meadow.

The little white speck is the white deer about 50 yards away.

     I slept in one of the trucks at work Friday night and headed out on my route Saturday morning, only to find that a filling had fallen out on the other side of my mouth.  Already had an appointment with the dentist for this coming Tuesday, so no worry.  I made two uncharacteristic mistakes on my route, and I had to go back and fix them, adding over 100 miles to my route, but the bosses prefer that to having to send out another truck, so they typically give you a pat on the back for finding your own errors and fixing them.   I rolled back in to our yard just in time to do the routing for Monday's routes, then jumped in the car and headed home.  Today, as evidenced by the bandage in the picture above, Rebekah fell off her scooter onto a piece of metal which scooped out a nice little divot of skin, so it was off to the urgent care to get stitches, then out to Cracker Barrel for dinner with just she and Tina and I, just  as a little comfort for all her trouble this week. (She, too, lost a filling yesterday, and will accompany me to the dentist tomorrow.)

     Now, it is a waiting game.  I have to continue to practice routing the trucks two days a week and cover my regular routes until they hire a new team leader within the month.  I'm sort of hoping that team leader is me, but either way I'll at least know where I stand in the company and what my chances are of moving up.  Also, when the process is over, I'll be back to doing just one job, either learning to run the transportation department or being a delivery driver.  This waiting is killing me, though.  I'm really trying not to get my hopes up, but the team leader job would mean not only steady pay but also most weekends off, so it is a difficult thing to suppress the rising tide of hopefulness.  As with any other endeavour in life, time marches slowly on, and the process will end whether in my favor or that of another candidate.  Though I will be disappointed if they hire someone else, the process has been a real joy.  I have loved the challenge and the intense effort of learning quickly how to write a resume.  Enumerating the things that would make me a good leader has been an enlightening exercise and if nothing else has given me a confidence I did not earlier possess.  Also, the interview process is a huge challenge to me and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it.  When your turn comes, you have one chance to get it right.  Every word and expression counts and can't be undone.  It is a heady experience.

     Yes, times are exciting at our house, but we will be glad for them to calm down a bit.  How is spring 2013 treating you?

       Several days of hectic resume preparation. Two weeks of waiting and then the call, "Can you come in this Friday for an interview?" So I spent the week preparing for the interview. Digging around my "sources" for information to give me a leg up.  Going to the back of the closet and the local Jos. A. Banks outlet for stuff to put together a suit.  When you work every weekend at a blue collar job, you find you very seldom use formal clothing. Getting through the nerves all week, and then you park the car and you're on! 

       What do you expect when you walk into an interview with the administrator of the facility where you work?  How about, "Hey look at this!  Dan's wearing a suit!  Wow Dan, you gotta go show XXXX!"  Then down to business.  I'm applying for a job managing 50+/- drivers, three office staff and all the company's deliveries to the surrounding states.  (NJ,DE, MD, PA, and some of WV and VA.)  The interview was conversational and a little odd, but more like what I was expecting  thana traditional job interview.   Odd questions that had a correct answer, but more concerned with the process of getting to the answer than the actual answer.    I came out feeling more confident than when I went in, and with a little better perspective on what I'm up against.  This was the first round of interviews.  There were 4 internal applicants and 3 external.  It appears all the internal applicants were given a shot at the first interview, and the 3 best were selected from the outside applicants.  I'm more worried about the outside guys than any current employee I can imagine would have any interest in the job, but today's job was to get into the top 2 or 3 of 7 and I came away with the feeling that I did just that.  Guess I'll know more soon.  The last interviews are next week and then we'll be notified as to who made the selection, so until then it's back to work.

       One good thing about going through this process.  I had to sit down and enumerate the things in my past that qualify me to lead a transportation department and having done that, I find my confidence increasing.  I'm the guy some company is looking for to lead their transportation department.  I hope it's the company I work for, but if not, it's just a matter of time.

    I have been off Xanga for a while.  Haven't even had a chance to sit and read blogs.  Through a series of unfortunate events we lost our team leader and an assistant team leader (that's what they call our transportation manager and his assistant.), which left our department's management team at one assistant manager and one secretary.  After a couple weeks of holding down the fort, they called to see if I would come in and train to be able to provide some relief when it was needed.  Meanwhile, I spoke with our facility director to see if it would be worth my time to apply for the team leader decision.  He replied neutrally (as would be expected considering there may be other in house applicants), but recommended that I apply. 

     I went home and proceeded to attempt a resume.  As DOT regulations indicate the information necessary to apply for a truck driving job, most truckers go their whole career without ever needing a resume, and up to this point I was no exception.  I proceeded to scour the internet for  ideas.  Meanwhile, between working in the office and running my scheduled routes, I was on the road two days at a time for my normal routes twice a week and then in the office the other days. Today is the second day off I've had in the last fifteen days, so researching ideas and creating a resume was pretty difficult, but I finally got it submitted last Monday.  I have been trying to keep it on the down low in the office, but today in a phone meeting with the facility director I spilled the beans not knowing that he had me on speaker phone and the rest of the management team was in the room.  It's going to be a little awkward, but I'll just have to deal with it.

     Tina quit her job recently to have more time at home and (this coming autumn) to have a crack at going to college, so now that I finally got a day off, we got all the kids off to school and took our time getting ready, then headed off to Easton to get some lunch at Panera and run some errands.   I had to drop a bicycle off at WalMart.  Whoever built the bike had cross threaded and completely stripped one of the pedals and while Rebekah was riding it the pedal fell off, so I'm trying to get it fixed or replaced.  We had to pick up some supplies for the pool, too, so we ended up making a day of it. After we got home and the kids got off the bus, we were sitting in the living room and my phone rang.  It was the human resources lady to inform me that they'd like to schedule me for an interview for the team leader position!  I'm still not sure if it's just a gesture, "Well, he does work here, so at least we should give him the courtesy of an interview" or truly an interview based on my qualifications as laid out in my resume.  I guess it doesn't matter.  I've got a few minutes of the boss's time to convince him that I'm the man for the job, and that's more than a lot of people who applied have at this point.  I'm very nervous, not knowing what to expect, but I know I have the experience to do the job, so I think I have at least a long shot.  I'll definitely keep you posted. On a more practical note, I'll be glad for the selection process to be over, no matter how it turns out because it'll mean I can go back to working a regular schedule and see my family regularly again.  Hope you all are well.  When I get back to normal I'll catch up on all your blogs. 

     (Best pictures are below my ramblings)

     Got out with Rebekah and Gracie tonight to an empty parking lot to get them more familiar with riding the racing bikes before they take them to the road.  Yep, my 9 and 11 year old girls are both big enough to ride racing bikes now! My wife is (for now) once again a stay at home-mom, though it seems like there's so much to do with running around kids and catching up with all the things that didn't get done while she was working, it seems like "stay at home-mom" would be more aptly described "drive the car-mom".  

     That's me letting Gracie get some sports photography practice, while I had some fun trying to get back the skill of riding wheelies.

     Watched some exciting bicycle racing over the past weeks (broadcast on TV, of course). The weather in Europe has been horrible and so bad in fact at some races that the riders have had to get into buses to cross some snowed in mountains, then restart on the other side.  The Paris-Roubaix race, though (aptly named the "Hell of the North" because of the many miles of brutal cobbled roads traversed), saw good weather and tailwinds which meant super high speeds and exciting racing. Best part was, Fabian Cancellara, who had won two previous races by simply riding away from the peloton and leaving everyone far behind, was struggling all race and yet still dug in and made it up to the finish.  He got away from all but one rider and it looked like he'd have to take second, but at the last moment when they both set up for the final sprint, his opponent, Sep Vanmarcke stood on the pedals and had nothing to give, losing the race by less than a bike length.   Cancellara stepped off his bike and fell on the ground, needing the assistance of two men to stand back up again, and Vanmarcke broke down in tears at having come so far only to run out of energy at the final moment.  Both men should be proud of their hard won spots on the podium, though people will certainly remember the winner.

      I'm procrastinating as I write this.  I need to be putting together a resume.  On Friday, our facility director said that I should apply for the recently vacated team leader position.  There are a lot of applications, and the competition will be tough, but this particular job would actually be a promotion in position and pay.  I have never, though, written an actual resume, except the ones we wrote in class when I was younger, so it (the resume writing) will be a new experience.  I have trained in a lot of the duties of the job, and I do have the benefit of having run my own business, which meant that my executive decisions, right or wrong, were reinforced by either profit or loss of my own money.

      The news from Boston today was terrible, and I'm so sorry for the people affected. I hope our government doesn't see it as an opportunity to grab even more of our freedom.

     I still need to look over the pictures from our last month, what with the family being up for the funeral and then our vacation, but I'm procrastinating on that, too.  I've actually found that since my wife is home,  I'm not getting a lot done either.   We've just been enjoying spending some time together.  I know it won't last forever, but for now, it's good.  We had been talking about moving closer to family, but for now that's on hold 'til I see about the team leader position.  Pretty sure it's not gonna happen since they have some super qualified guys applying, but I know I would do a good job at it and it would mean nights and weekends home.  I just have to convince the team leader of that.  Anyway, if I don't get the job, plans to move closer to Florida or Texas will be once again open for discussion.

Plans today involve, resume writing, taking Danny to the doctor, and trying to procure a lawnmower.  

Here are a few more pictures I either took or found taken on my memory card.  One of the things I love about having gotten my kids into photography is the surprises I find when I download pictures.

Still not sure who took this one.  We have some type of tulip poplar out by the pool and that proved enough inspiration for some experimentation.

This is one of the little pests that keeps tearing up our bird feeders.

An example of poor framing because I was in a hurry.  There are so many things to remember when you are trying to learn to make every shot count.  Anyway, if you are my age or older, you may have used one of these in high school or at your job. (a much smaller one, of course)

I struggle to get the white balance and exposure right in the snow.  I go through the settings until one works.  I guess I need to buy lunch for a pro friend of mine and just let him explain to me the nuts and bolts of the concept.  I shoot in manual mode (except I mostly let the camera do the focusing) because I like to have control over how the picture turns out, but there are still some details that are wizardry to me.

We had a late snowstorm and decided to have a snowman building contest.  I called the kids' entry Dragon v Wizard, but they were more descript, "Puff the Magic Dragon v Samuel Gregory Baryshnakoff Badonkadonk the Hun".

Tina and I made "Wahine, the Hula Girl".

I took some pictures of Maya, the daughter of a friend of ours and Grace's best friend, for her parents, and afterwards took a couple of the girls together.  I liked how this one came out.

There are so many pictures to post, and so little time, so I guess I'll just leave it at this.  I hope you all have a good week, and I hope to post more regularly in the future.  I really enjoy reading your posts, and I love the comments you leave on mine.

Wow! I haven't posted in a while.  We have had a funeral for my grandmother which included feeding more than 20 people several times at our house, our first fishing expedition, my sister's family up for a visit of several days before and after the funeral, a vacation to the Jersey shore and another effort by my bosses to get me to take a management job, all since my last post.  I will be back. I promise.  Meanwhile, here are a few pics. BTW, I have been sneaking a few minutes here and there to read your blogs.

      I was out on the truck last week on my required 10 hour break, using some of the time to catch up on my Xanga friends' posts, and one in particular by @Elizabethmarie_1 brought back a flood of memories.  She told about revisiting her first date with her husband and asked if we remembered ours.   

       For several months in 1995, while waiting for a training slot at the Air Force's medic training program in Wichita Falls, TX, I drove a taxi in Austin.  Life had brought me to a point where I traded my last active year of service for two in the reserves and since I wanted to travel, the recruiter and a recently discharged friend had talked me into joining a unit at Bergstrom AFB.  When I was notified that my school would start, I took a few of my things and my bicycle up to Wichita Falls, came back and turned my taxi in and caught a bus back to the air base.  

       After getting settled in and starting classes, I began to look for a church.  It was springtime in TX and the weather was hot, so I'd ride my bike in shorts and tshirt, then find a bathroom at the church where I could change into the good clothes out of my backpack to make myself presentable for church.  A couple weeks went by and I had not found a church I liked, so one evening I decided to try Burkburnett, the next town over.  About halfway there, I realized I had misjudged my time and I would end up being a half hour or so late, so as I was weighing my options, about halfway between Wichita Falls and Burkburnett, I came upon a small church called Cashion Baptist Church.  I figured one church I didn't know would be as good as another, so I turned into the parking lot, found the bathroom, got changed and headed into the service, just a little late.  Afterwards, I was introduced to most of the congregation and I changed back into my cycling gear and rode back to base.  I had enjoyed the service and the people and would probably come back.

     Next evening after class, my roommate said some lady from the church I had been to yesterday had called.  They were having dinner and would send a car to pick me up.  I was several weeks into my training.  My pay had been messed up, and they couldn't give me an exact date as to when I would actually get a check.  I had to my name, a few dollars, a sack of potatos, a couple pounds of butter and a couple blocks of cheddar cheese.  My diet was baked potato for breakfast with butter.   Baked potato with cheese for lunch, and baked potato with butter and cheese for dinner.  I may have switched from that exact routine, but you get the drift, so I was waiting eagerly at the appointed time.  When the car showed up, I found out it wasn't a church dinner, just dinner with a family from church who had gotten my info from my visitor's card, and my ride (their 18 y/o daughter) was not happy at being put in this position.  Obviously, her Mama was having the new military guy over with high hopes.  

      I, knowing I would only be there for 3 months, had decided this would be a girl free summer.  I would play on all the intramural sports teams, ride my bike and enjoy any and every adventure I could come across, while not entangling myself in anything that would ultimately be doomed by my transfer out at the end of the summer.  Tina, the girl who was my ride to dinner, after a shotgun wedding at 16, was living the life of a single mom at 18,  waiting out the time required by TX to complete a divorce when one spouse cannot be found.  Both of us saw the setup, and both of us were a little irritated, but both of us were dead set against any romantic entanglements at that point in our lives, and we had already discussed the point and rolled our eyes at her mama's attempts before we got to the house.

      Her daughter, Sandra, was just shy of 2 years old and was a big eyed, dark haired, energetic little doll.  While Tina and her mama fixed dinner, I played with Sandra.  I can't remember everything that was served, but Tina had made her favorite pea salad.  I apologized that I didn't eat foods with mayonnaise, and it was over and done.  Conversation thereafter was between her mama and I while Tina sat sullenly with angry eyes.  Everyone liked her pea salad, and I wouldn't even deign to give it a try.  What an ungrateful jerk I was, and why was her mother trying to set her up with another man when she wasn't even legally rid of the first one yet?  We awkwardly finished dinner and though I wasn't about to eat that pea salad to make things right, I thought I should do something.  I made a proposition. If we could use her mother's car, I'd buy ice cream down at Baskin Robbins in town.  Tina was reluctant, but her mama insisted, so I picked up Sandra and carried her out to the car, and Tina followed us out.    She didn't know that the three ice cream cones represented the whole of my remaining earthly treasure, but it was an olive branch.  I was sorry to have offended and she accepted the token.  Since her mother was not with us and  we had established that neither of us was interested in romance, the conversation was remarkably comfortable for two people who had, a couple hours before, been strangers.  We finished our ice cream, I drove them home. Her mama said come back anytime (her dad was in Korea) there was plenty of food and they needed things done around the house that a man would do.  Tina drove me back to the base, and our first "date" was done.

      I didn't find out 'til later that her mama had tried several times to set her up with new men.  Several of these men had been very nice, but none of them had included Sandra in anything.  My playing with Sandra while they cooked dinner had struck her as unique, and then when I offered ice cream, Tina thought I was another guy trying, despite what I had said, to start a romance.  She was dumbstruck when I picked Sandra up on my way out the door.  That was when, unbeknownst to either of us, the hook was set.

      I simply assumed that if I was to make things right, buying her daughter ice cream might do the trick, and if Tina was going for ice cream she would obviously take her daughter along anyway, right?  I had a good evening, and Tina was easy on the eyes, but her little girl was what caught me.  I was taken.  The offer of daily dinner in exchange for chores to a now penniless soldier was a powerful draw, but I had been charmed by a little girl.

     By the time my pay came through a couple weeks later,  there was a little girl who had stolen my heart and Tina and I were beginning to admit there might be an affection blossoming between us as well.

     A few days ago, I had to go over and do some work on the water heater at my mom's cottage, and since I had the day off and had brought the camera in case inspiration struck, I thought I'd go home the long way, through the small town where I spent most of my childhood.  From the time I was three, til my thirteenth year, we lived in this house on the edge of Greensboro, a little, one stoplight town on the eastern shore of Maryland.  "Eastern shore" describes the parts of Maryland and Virginia east of the Chesapeake Bay.  Since Delaware is entirely east of the bay, it is not included except when the area is referred to in its entirety as the DelMarVa Peninsula.  

    It was designed and built for an egg farmer named Nagel, and has many interesting idiosyncrasies.  For instance, the rooms on each floor were 1' 1" shorter than those on the floor below, 10'2" on the first story, 9'1" on the second, and 8' on the third. It had 11 bedrooms, library, huge foyer with a massive, rare, rectangular grand piano,  living room in the shape of an egg, huge dining room and a large kitchen with an attached back room.  Because of the cost of heating with the old radiator heat, we only heated the kitchen with a wood stove unless there was company, and so lived mainly in that room until summer.  I remember rushing down to get dressed in the morning by the fire.  It was condemned when we bought it and had seen service at various times as a hospital for war wounded and as a nursing home. I'm remembering many stories about that house, but they are for another post.

    When I was thirteen, my parents moved us out to five acres at the junction of a stream and the Choptank River.  The Choptank is on the left in this picture and the stream on the right, both flowing to the right of the frame.

    One of our neighbors was an unfriendly farmer who let us know in no uncertain terms that we were not to dare step foot on his property.  His property started just a bit to the right of the rivulet which dumped its water into the river through the clay banks.  This man set out bear traps around an enclosure full of pheasants in order to lure our dogs off our property onto his, because it angered him that they ran free on ours.  Wow dark memories, I'd forgotten.

      On the other side was the lady who had sold us our property and who allowed us free run of hers, thus doubling our already large playground.  The best part, though, was that the other side of the river was a small, 70 acre state park, enlarging our territory to 80 acres.  This was Red Bridges.  There were, at the time, two bridges, but I'm not sure why they were called Red Bridges.  In the time since, the bridges have been removed, and the dirt road from one direction closed.  Here is the location of the more prominent of the old bridges.

    We spent many summer afternoons putting inner tubes or the old john boat in the water above the waterfall and riding over, only to pull it out of the water carry it back up the shore and ride again.

  We would pull out at a concrete slab ramp, that more likely than not on any given summer night or weekend would be seeing double use as a car wash.  People would bring fishing poles or picnic dinners and hang out and play until a car pulled away from the ramp, and it was their turn to pull out the dish soap, buckets and rags, and clean their car. 

     Many times, the state would put barbeques and picnic tables out for public use, but they would always get taken during the night.  The tables became heavier, then chained down and the barbeques sunk in concrete, but one night you'd hear a bunch of loud voices and engines and you'd know the local kids or drunk men acting like kids had used their 4X4s to pull up the latest ones, and the picnics would be on the ground for the rest of the summer.  It looks like times have changed, because there were some nice concrete picnic tables with some apparent age scattered around the park when I visited this time.

      Where the bridges used to be, the USGS has erected some sort of tower and pulley system, though I'm not sure of its purpose.

     Wet, mossy roots, always made walking (or more likely for us, running) a treacherous exercise.

     Small ponds, formed when the waters of the last big rain or snowmelt had receded, were fun places to look for signs of whatever had been unlucky enough to stay a little too long. Most of the time, there would be just tadpoles or minnows, but every so often, we'd find a fish.

     I can remember running out to the river every afternoon in winter with an axe, to chop away at the ice and see if it had reached the 8" thickness required before we were allowed to skate. In springtime, when the dogwoods bloomed, the herring would spawn, and run so thickly you could snag them just by throwing out an unbaited line and reeling it in, or by holding a dipnet in the water until several fish just swam right in.  The water would sparkle and flash in the shallow spots, as schools of herring turned this way and that and reflected the sunlight off their shiny sides.  We would catch large numbers of them and use them for fertilizer for the garden.  A few weeks later, if the weather was just so, the perch would run and we'd have several more weeks of excellent fishing for a fish we could actually eat.

    It's amazing, the memories you dredge up as you visit places from your past.   

      Today is one of the last days for the backyard bird count, so I began the day sitting at the window with the girls, watching the feeders for all the different kinds of birds we could find.  Just after lunch, I took the girls out to their birding teachers' house for a group bird counting hike.  As we were driving to his house, we looked off into a field and saw a bunch of birds feasting on a deer carcass.  I did a double take, and sure enough, they were bald eagles!  Four adults and two juveniles.  I slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car with the camera.  As I began to shoot, one adult and one juvenile spooked and flew off, and as I walked slowly toward them the rest flew away one at a time, until only one remained.  He stayed and while continuing to eye me warily, all the while tearing away at the deer carcass.

      On the way home from dropping the girls off, I stopped back and tried for a couple more shots, and got a text.  My son was feeling cooped up in the house and wondered if we could take a walk.   Isabel decided to come along, and we took the camera.  It may be cold still, but apparently springtime is just around the corner.  Trees are sending out their first buds.

Some berries still remain from the fall.

We saw the first robin!

But it is, after all, still winter, and Danny and I bullied each other for time with the camera.  First, he got this picture.

and this one, of a tree felled by a beaver.

The geese have decided this will not be a hard year, and are wintering over.

I got these two shots through the trees when I heard the geese honking crescendo, knew they were taking to the wing and began to pan along with the first motion I glimpsed.  

and finally, Danny got a few shots of me and Isa.  I look like I got hired to be the little girl's bodyguard. I love the overcoat.  It's a soft, draping wool and very comfortable, but it was bought for me years ago for Christmas, and had I bought my own, I might have ended up with a coat that actually buttoned up the whole way to the collar. I like that I've had it long enough that I'm not uncomfortable wearing it just about anywhere as long as I won't be playing in the dirt. Only thing about coats for guys my height is they're made to accomodate much heavier men, so if you don't take them in they hang a little.  I knew that, but until I saw these pics I didn't realize how big around this coat really is.  Guess I'm gonna have to see if the local dry cleaner does alterations.  I used to use have to do that all the time when I was in the military, and at least in New Jersey and Texas, where I was stationed, most of the local laundries altered as well.  Isa had seen some pine cones and I asked her if she wanted to gather some to make feeders for the birds.  She thought it was a grand idea, so we gathered some, and she thought it would be best if I carried them, so guess who had a frozen hand when we got back to the car?

My wife tells me this morning that the coat fit me well when I got it for Christmas that year, and it's only since I lost weight that it hangs so badly.  Guess that's not the worst of problems to have.  She also told me that if I spent a penny having that old coat altered, she'd not be happy and then proceeded to show me several places where the stitching has begun to unravel.  Guess it's time to start looking for another coat.  At least winter's almost over, so maybe I'll find a good deal this spring or summer when they're out of season.

Once in a lifetime chance today to take pictures of several eagles.  Here's a teaser.

Almost every time I look at my stats, several people have looked at this post.  I'm fairly certain it's not what they are expecting, because out of over 2500 visitors, most identified only by the search engine they used, only two Xangans have bothered to comment. I think it's worthy of another go around, so those of you who read it already, cut me a little slack so I can share it with the rest.  

A buddy of mine posted this on Facebook and I couldn't quit laughing, mainly because it reminded me of a true story that happened to me a couple years ago.  Here's his story.  Maybe I'll post my own story another time.

"Late again!" the third-grade teacher sternly said to little Johnny.

"It ain't my fault this time, Miss Russell. You can blame this 'un on my Daddy. The reason I'm three hours late is my Daddy sleeps naked!"

Now, Miss Russell had taught grammar school for thirty-some-odd years. Despite her mounting fears, she asked little Johnny what he meant by that. Full of grins and mischief, and in the flower of his youth, little Johnny and trouble were old friends, but he always told her the truth.

"You see, Miss Russell, out at the farm we got this here low down fox. The last few nights, he done ate six hens. Last night, when Daddy heard a noise out in the chicken pen, he grabbed his double barreled shot gun and said to my Ma, "That fox is back again... I'm a gonna git him!'' "Stay back," Daddy whispered to all us kids!

"My Daddy was naked as a jaybird -- no boots, no pants, no shirt! To the hen house he crawled, just like an Injun on the snoop. Then, he stuck that double-barreled 12-gauge shot gun through the window of the coop. As he stared into the darkness, with a fox on his mind, our old hound dog, Rip, had done gone and woke up and comes sneaking up behind Daddy. Then, as we all looked on, plumb helpless, old Rip done went and stuck his cold nose in my Daddy's crack!"

"Miss Russell, we all been cleanin' chickens since three o'clock this mornin!"