Hubba Hubba Versus the Stinky Beefy Boy, Part 2

Quilt Stone Mountain NC SP 4021The stinky beefy boy slowed to a walk with a skip and happily patted his game bag full of the-brixton-ona-bags-2-560x379Hubba Hubba. Whistling a giddy tune fit for the tone deaf, he left the path through a gap in the hedge to cut across a freshly ploughed field. Chirp and Squeak followed ’round the 5469802698_278de1b2e3_zoutside in the tops of trees grown up in the hedge. The boy scampered through new oats, a meadow and a fresh cow pile, pausing to rinse his feet in a gurgling creek before dashing triumphantly across an orchard to a fiery haired woman and two boys, hoeing in a broad vegetable garden.

“Mom!” hollered the stinky boy as she bent to pull a weed. “Get wood on the fire! I bagged fresh meat for supper!”

She stood up, brushing the dirt from her skirts and hands.504_slingrocks

“Look Mom! I got him with my sling! I knocked ‘im clean out of the air! I’m gettin’ good, aye?”

“I’ll say Frankin,” she said, peering into his bag. “I’ve been watching you get better day by day. This is game to remember, all right, particularly when you may go the rest of your life and not get another on the wing like that.”

images (14)“So all you think is I just got lucky, isn’t hit?”

“Well Frankin, someone without your sharp eye would certainly have an empty bag right now…”

“Ha!” he crowed with a leap. “I’m really somethin’ with my sling, and you know it.”

nVrhp1e“I’ve just hung the tea-kettle over the fire,” she said, ruffling up his hair. “You could wash up for a nice cup o’ tea before you dress your bird, if you don’t dally.”

Frankin raced to the back door, hung Hubba Hubba on the latch and wheeled ’round to go to the well in time to find his little brothers following. “Hey Poopkink!” he snarled. “If you and Poopdink have to sneak along behind me, don’t you dare touch the game bag.”

***

“Help!” cawed Hubba Hubba, coming to in total blackness. “I’m dead again! I can’t see!” He hysterically thrashed and flogged his wings against the insides of the cramped box thetver_angry-crow_7219y had him in, pausing to go light in the head, gasping for want of air.

Someone heard his cries and threw open the box. “Kawk!” he cried as four chubby hands crowded in after him. “Have some respect! Can’t you idiots tell I’m wounded here?”

Both boys squealed and yanked back, dropping the lid on Hubba Hubba.

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“Hey! I object! This is abuse! Here I am, smashed in the head…”

“Hit does talk!” they cried in wide-eyed chorus.

“You got it!” shouted Hubba Hubba. “And do you ones listen? Here I am smashed in the head, some drooling gnoff strangles me ’till I black out, maybe die, and here you ones whack me in the head again… Is this the stinkin’ Pit, or what? Well?”

Suddenly they lunged at the box. Hubba Hubba exploded into frantic flight about the room, landing on a quilting frame drawn up by twine to the overhead beams. “All right,” he rattled. “At least I can see this is some rotten old kitchen, somewhere, and not the Pit. And whatever you two are, I am not some kind of ‘it!’ I’m one right proud crow and I’m traveling with a young man who ought to here directly to cut off your stinkin’ heads for doing this to me…!”

“Hey you little gwrteithiau!” yelled Frankin as he threw open the door. “What’d I tell you about my game bag? And why weren’t you out helping us drive in the six sheep which just now got out in the garden? Which one of you left the gate open anyway…?”

“It’s loose!” cried Kink.primitive-vintage-wood-box-original-old-paper-fruit-crate-label-Placerville-Maid-Laurel-Leaf-Farm-item-no-b912117-7

“Close the door!” cried Dink.

“I am not an ‘it,'” rattled Hubba Hubba.

“Taran!” shouted Frankin as he slammed the door and began glancing about. “So you not only let the sheep out, you got into my bag and turned the crow loose! If he gets clean away, you’ll not only be cachu, images (1)I’ll find something really disgusting and make you each eat its cachu!”

“He’s right over your head,” said Dink.

Frankin wheeled ’round and looked up. “Mom!” he bellowed, “Come in here and see what they did now!” He lunged and missed Hubba Hubba, whacking the quilting frame madly about on the ends of its short twines.

“Kawk!” cried Hubba Hubba, as he crouched to hang on3021358_1_l (1)

Frankin leaped again, snapping a twine and knocking down the frame to smash a 17-cottage-cheesehuge crock of soupy cottage cheese onto the floor.

“You bloated idiot!” cawed Hubba Hubba, springing into flight about the room. He spied a board nailed across the timbers and landed on that with his back to the ceiling. “You stinking armpit maggot…”

“So you’re some kind of magic crow, aye?” he said, taking out his sling. “Well it doesn’t matter, bird-o. You’ll never get out of this room, ’cause when I knock you down, I’m goin’ ‘o jerk your ugly head out o’ your shoulders!”

“No!” cried Kink and Dink together.

“Frankin!” cried their mom as she stepped in the door to go apoplectically wide eyed. “My stars! That’s fifteen gallons of cottage cheese, all over!”

“They did it!” wailed Frankin. “They got into my bag when I told them not to and turned loose the crow. I’ve got to kill it quick…”

“No!” cried Dink. “Hit’s magic…!”

“Hit talks!” cried Kink.

“And they’ve gotten windy as kites in the process, too, I see. Well you two, what have I told you about making up things…?”

“But it’s true!” wailed Kink. “Frankin knows it, too!”images

“I think you two need to take this stack of bowls and scoop up as much clean cheese as you can get off the floor for your next several meals. Then, you need to mop up every bit of what’s left.”

“But we aren’t making it up!” wailed Dink, as his mom thrust a stack of bowls into his arms and steered him toward the slumping mound of cheese and crock chards.

“Now, freak bird, hit’s your turn,” said Frankin, fitting a stone into his sling.

“Kawk!” cried Hubba Hubba. “Lady, lady! Please listen to your little fellows!”

“That’s not the least bit amusing, Frankin,” she said, wheeling ’round to glare at him.

“But I didn’t…”

“No, no, no, no!” cawed Hubba Hubba. “I did! I’m not some game animal to be beaned and chucked in the kettle. Hey! I’ve got brains here.”

“Mercy!” she gasped. “You do talk!”

“Hit’s a trick, Mom, said Frankin.

“Right. So where’s the minstrel puppeteer?”

“Come on, Mom! Somebody taught him to talk…”

crow“Absolutely!” rattled Hubba Hubba. “Just like they did you, only I didn’t need to be taught how to think, and you’ve yet to manage.”

“Don’t touch the bird,” she said, snatching away his sling. “Do not harm him, understand?”

“But he’ll get away!”

“We’re going to be real good to him ’till we figure him out,” she said. “Now go fetch me a good sized box to put him in, and make sure there are a right smart amount of air holes in it.”

“Air holes?” cried Hubba Hubba. “What kind of ‘real good’ to me is that? No wonder you haven’t taught maggot boy here how to think, yet! And I don’t care what he brings back, you’re going to have to come up here and get me!”

The Burgeoning

 

 

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

FREE for the FIRST TIME EVER and the ONLY TIME this year. THEN… Timewalker Book 2 6/15/19 – 6/ 17/19.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

 

FREE for the FIRST TIME EVER and the ONLY TIME this year. THEN Timewalker Book 2  getbook.at/THEN 6/15/19 – 6/ 17/19.

Please share on social media. Here are my Facebook https://www.facebook.com/carol.phipps3 and Twitter https://twitter.com/Car01am links

Will Pandora and her World Alliance rule from Atlantis, under the sea… until the world above no longer breathes?

The much awaited sequel to the highly acclaimed dystopian fantasy novel, WHAM! is here.

“Zipping from the gorgeously enchanting to the darkly terrifying, THEN… is dystopian fantasy at its finest. And it’s even better than Book 1.”
–Stuart Kenyon, author of the SUBNORMAL series & SWIFTLY SHARPENS THE FANG

While the underground frantically works to mount a resistance against Pandora and the World Alliance, the potentate’s evil grows.

She stages withering chemical attacks wherever the underground may survive. She passes more laws to hamper their movements.
And new inventions to control their minds.

And as Nia grows heavy with the potentate’s child, her desperation to escape before the birth turns to panic.

Get ready for hours of entertainment, from the busy pens of Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps.

Get your copy!

AND

 

 99 SALE…WHAM! Timewalker Book 1  getbook.at/WHAM  6/15/19 – 6/17/19.

 

They took her world. They took her family. They said it was for the greater good.

They lied… 

From husband and wife writing team, Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps, WHAM is an imaginative and original dystopian fantasy where technology and magic stand side by side.

“Rarely have I seen fantasy and science fiction married so successfully.”

When Children and Family Assistance police drag her mom, her dad and her beautiful sister out the door into the night and beat her senseless, Tess Greenwood finds herself alone, her every move watched by the hidden World Alliance. Almost blind after her beating, she flees to the forbidden Broadstreet compound and a troll named Maxi.

So begins Tess’s journey from quiet teen at home to fierce young woman, determined to get back her family any way she can. Even if she must travel time itself.

But time is one thing she has little of. Those arrested in the night seldom live for long, and beautiful young women are destined to become toys for the elite.

Frantic, Tess tries to pull herself together to save her loved ones and her world… and the clock is ticking.

Get your copy and enter the world of the Timewalkers.

“At first, I thought this was your typical dystopian story, but I quickly learned it is so much more. Layer upon layer was peeled back as I read, revealing themes of corruption, power, and greed as well as familial love and loyalty that spans the ages.”

 

WHAM! Timewalker Book 1 AUDIOBOOK is NOW AVAILABLE

 

We are very excited to announce that Wham! Timewalker Book 1 audiobook is NOW AVAILABLE on Audible.com, Amazon.com and iTines.

And you can get the audiobook of WHAM! absolutely FREE with a NO RISK 30-Day FREE TRIAL on AUDIBLE

They took her world. They took her family. They said it was for the greater good. They lied. 

From husband and wife writing team, Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps, WHAM is an imaginative and original dystopian fantasy where technology and magic stand side by side.

“Rarely have I seen fantasy and science fiction married so successfully.”

When Children and Family Assistance police drag her mom, her dad and her beautiful sister out the door into the night and beat her senseless, Tess Greenwood finds herself alone, her every move watched by the hidden World Alliance. Almost blind after her beating, she flees to the forbidden Broadstreet compound and a troll named Maxi.

So begins Tess’s journey from quiet teen at home to fierce young woman, determined to get back her family any way she can. Even if she must travel time itself.

But time is one thing she has little of. Those arrested in the night seldom live for long, and beautiful young women are destined to become toys for the elite.

Frantic, Tess tries to pull herself together to save her loved ones and her world… and the clock is ticking.

Get your copy and enter the world of the Timewalkers.

“At first, I thought this was your typical dystopian story, but I quickly learned it is so much more. Layer upon layer was peeled back as I read, revealing themes of corruption, power, and greed as well as familial love and loyalty that spans the ages.”

 

You may have had the pleasure of listening to our amazing narrator’s mesmerizing voice as she read “Time Does Not Exist”,  the intro to WHAM!

NOW listen to the enchanting voice of SKY WILDMIST,  www.avalonstudiovo.com, as she narrates excerpts for our new WHAM! Timewalker Book 1 audiobook  trailer.

Hubba Hubba Versus the Stinky Beefy Boy

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The_Burgeoning_Cover_for_KindleHubba Hubba, Chirp, Tweet and Squeak were returning from a reconnaissance mission for Herio in The Burgeoning when…

“There are a slew of farmsteads, though,” squeaked Chirp as he bounced along in a madAerial Ballet flutter to keep up. “One of them might put us up…”

“That’s ground work,” chirped Tweet. “We can’t ask around from the air.”

“Let’s just go back now,” said Hubba Hubba. “If that’s all that’s left, we’re wasting time. I hate to think of another night of Herio’s scorched beans, or nothing at all like last night.”

“Couldn’t be that bad,” tweeted Squeak. “Those folks down there look pretty hard up. A little money would surely get us what we want…”

“Yea?” said Hubba Hubba. “And it could be right risky if they thought Herio was well-to-do. A young fellow by himself?” He clacked shut his beak with a shake of his head. “Someone might try to rob him…or worse!”

“Worse, master?” squeaked Chirp.

“Hey, I remember arrows and meat cleavers and ugly manners of all sorts out of people on the ground who weren’t even penniless and desperate. And don’t you dare call me master! Aren’t we chums these days?”

“Oh I forgot, you being a crow and all…”

“Crow! Well, I can’t hide from that, but reminders of the Ugleeuh days give me a headache…” And with that, he collapsed into a headlong fall.

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“Hubba Hubba!” squeaked Chirp, diving madly after him. “What’s wrong? Tweet! Squeak! Help!”

***

crows_japanHubba Hubba opened his eyes to find the ground shooting up to meet him. He began flapping furiously. “Help! Help! Help!” he cawed. “It’s too late! Pebbles, I’m sorry!”

Without warning, something strange was under each of his wings. Suddenly he was seeing stars, bouncing and rolling to a rumpled stop in tall new grass.

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“Oh, I hate being dead,” he rattled. “Throb. Throb. Throb. That’s my stinking head, but why are my wingpits doing it, too? Say! Why am I thinking?”

“It’s not thinking, Hubba Hubba,” squeaked Chirp, “It’s just you. Now could you please lift your wing? Squeak and Tweet are under here!”

“So you ones are dead too, aye?” he said, letting out a yelp from moving his head to peer under his wing.

“Good grief no!” chirped Tweet, with a ruffle of his feathers. “We’re not dead and neither are you!” He gave Hubba Hubba two or three one eyed inspections. “You sure have a knot on your knitty box. What the ding-dong blazes did you fly into up there?”

“I have no idea at all, but for some crazy reason it made me think of Ugleeuh…” And at that very instant he was yanked out of the grass by his neck.

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“Hey!” crowed a stinky beefy boy with a hateful grip, as he sprang into a dancing pell-mell run through the grass. “I got him! I got him! I got him! I got him!”

 

***

Chirp, Tweet and Squeak shot into the air from where Hubba Hubba had fallen and watched in shock from the top of a big walnut tree as the stinky beefy boy made off with him through the grass. “They’ll get away if we don’t get moving!” squeaked Chirp as they all dove into the air.

“He’d never let someone make off with us!” tweeted Squeak.

“Let’s keep up!” chirped Tweet.

“Hey!” squeaked Chirp. “Somebody tell me how we’re going to save him from a grabby boy a thousand times bigger than we are. He’ll pull our heads off!”

“Go for help!” chirped Tweet.

“And somebody still has to follow,” tweeted Squeak.

“Someone needs to find Herio and bring him here, while the other two of us follow Hubba Hubba,” squeaked Chirp. “When we see where the boy takes him, one of us comes back here and the other stays and watches…

“Yea,” chirped Tweet. “And hope to the Pit he doesn’t get et while we’re at it!”

“Don’t even think that!” tweeted Squeak.sparrow12

“Just for that, you go find Herio,” squeaked Chirp.

Tweet gave a wide-eyed nod and shot away with a bouncing blur of wings.

 

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

#RRBC Spotlight Author for August: Carol Marrs Phipps

Our most recent book, Wham! will be featured during my blog tour and interviews.

“WHAM! (Timewalker Book 1)”

Wham by Carol Marrs Phipps

BOOK BLURB:

When the World Alliance seized power from all the governments of the world, they said it was for the greater good. They said it was necessary to unite all the nations of the globe under one banner in order to bring universal peace, equality and prosperity to the world.

To most families throughout the world, the rise of the Alliance and their grandiose promises meant little. They had long grown weary of the lies of the corrupt law-makers and heads of state and were far more concerned with their day-to-day struggles to survive.

The Greenwood family was no exception, and for a time life went on much as it had before the rise of the Alliance. In time, individual cultural and racial identity were outlawed. They said it was for the greater good. They said it was necessary to create a more harmonious, homogenous world community. The Greenwood family adapted.

But then they took away freedom. They made it mandatory for all households and public buildings to have skinwelers, crystal spying balls in every room, in order to watch the people’s every move. They said it was for the greater good. They said it was necessary for public safety and civil order. And the Greenwood family adapted.

But then the state took their family farm and lands and moved them to Gollsport where they had built barracks for all the displaced citizens. They said it was for the greater good. They said the countryside had become contaminated by farm chemicals and the relocation was for their continued health and safety. Once again, the Greenwood family adapted.

But then they came in the night and took away seventeen year-old Tess Greenwood’s entire family. They said it was for the greater good. They said Tess would adapt and in time she would be far better for it.

But Tess cared not for the Alliance’s greater good. She did not adapt. She wanted her family back and vowed to do whatever she must in order to see them again. Little did she know, that to keep her vow, she would have to become a timewalker.

 

Itinerary for Month of August:

Blog Tour: 8/6/17 – 8/12/17

will be our “SPOTLIGHT” Author for the entire month of August.

Here is the line-up of my blog tour:

Sunday, 8/6/17

Room With Books

Monday, 8/7/17

Tuesday, 8/8/17 

Wednesday, 8/9/17

Thursday, 8/10/17

Friday, 8/11/17

Saturday, 8/12/17

“Bring On The Spotlight” Radio Show: TBA

“Who’s On The Shelf?” Interview: TBA

“SPOTLIGHT” Support Day: TBA

More details will be available daily, HERE: https://ravereviewsbynonniejules.wordpress.com/spotlight-authors/

 

Glimpse into the Home life of an Elf Killer Family

Fnarry-irrny was Dyr’s sow, which allowed her to choose the best place in the biggest cave to spread out her things, rear her children and to attend to Dyr’s whims and needs. She chose an airy alcove just inside the mouth of the Hooter Cave, well out of the weather, which allowed her the most convenient access to the fire just outside and the best place to flaunt her wealth of beads, shells and skins to all the envious sows who were forced to pass by her on the way to their respective spots further back in the cave. One troll evening (which is just before dawn), she rolled her bushy red head from side to side, gnawing and tugging on an Elf leg as she watched her family eat.
            “Boof!” cried her eldest son as he spat out a great cud of chewed Elf onto the ground. “Gnydy hee-hee-grabbed my grab-up-squeaker rump. Everytime, I get shin-bone-meat! I eat rump.”
            “You think like rump,” said his younger brother. “You snuff-snuff  like rump…”
            “Gnydy juicy-champs my rump, Da, and you let him,” said the eldest, as two wolf-dogs squeezed in to bristle at each other and snatch up his cud of Elf. “You be easy-let, Da. Gnydy will head-smash you, then he’ll be Thunder-man. And if Gnydy be Thunder-man, then I’ll no be Thunder-man. I’ll be hoo-hoo-crawl-animal.” He turned to the younger. “But you’d be hum-dee-dumdle with that, Fnana-fnyr. You already be crawl-animal for yuck-champs. Poofy-letter Da grand-showed you…”
            “Rump-jaws, Fnanar!” roared Fnana-fnyr as he shot to his feet to run at Fnanar’s head with a furious kick.
            Fnanar ducked as the kick flew by his ear, flinging Fnana-fnyr onto his back, the arm of Elf he was eating smeared all up one hip.
            Dyr stopped chewing and glowered at his sons from under his bony brows.
             “Ooot-ooot! ooot-ooot! ooot-ooot!” cried Fnanar as he flailed his chest with his fists. “That be proud-show rump-trick!” He wheeled ’round to leave the alcove and stepped right into Dyr’s stony fist which put him flat on his back, seeing stars. 
            Dyr was a-straddle him immediately, furiously strangling him. 
            “Duda! Nyr-vyr-nirr-trad!” screamed Fnarry-irrny, ropes of beads and greasy breasts flying about as she sprang at Dyr to claw at his gnarly hateful fingers. “No! Stop!” 
            “He’s begged for-this ever-since he wet-held Fnana-fnyr under the fast-water,” he said, growling spit between his teeth as he gave an extra shove and stood up. He tramped out of the Hooter Cave and past the glowing fires.
            Dyr paused to glance at some kids who were poking sticks and giggling at an Elf child who was well beyond utterances of any kind, tethered and trembling uncontrollably as she awaited her turn over the coals. “No be Fnanar and Fnana-fnyr,” he sighed. “Never-once have Fnanar and Fnana-fnyr giggle-romped that well-together. I can’t even hunt with them-together.”   
            He shook his head and walked out under the stars. A shivering owl called. “One-thing I know-be with all head-nod,” he said. “Fnanar has-had his last greedy-champ in the Hooter Cave. Let him yank-bite squeaker-rump from Gnydy. He got his hairy-face new-name cold-time, cold-time, cold-time, cold-time ago.
            “But I have-to slip-let Fnarry-irrny pincher-twist me so Fnanar gets-to stay until he’s giggle-grabbed a sow. But he grabby-wants the biggest milksow. Mudful hollow-head! He drool-dreams the wrong end. Hoof! He has sly-kids in every-other cave but the Hooter Cave and diggy-fingers his nose at me.
            “Ooot!” he bellowed into the echoes, silencing the owl. He gave his chest a good three thump drum. “And let Gnydy come at me for a good head-smash. He needs his thunder-stamp, too.”  
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Carol Marrs Phipps & Tom Phipps

Fun at the Ostrich Farm

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When Tom and I were both teaching and living on the Navajo Reservation near Gallup, New Mexico we liked to visit an Ostrich farm just east of Holbrook, Arizona where you could feed the ostriches. It was fun to watch the huge birds all run to the fence to try to be the first ones to get the feed, which they really seemed to love.

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There were several methods you could use to feed the giant birds. One way was to use the large PVC pipes in the fencing which were provided for that purpose. They made dandy chutes for the feed which ended up in troughs at the end of the pipe where the birds could easily eat it.

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Of course, if you are anxious to attract the birds you could always bypass the chutes and just dump the feed over the fence. (Not the best choice).

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If you are tall like Tom, you can simply hold the cup of feed up at the top of the fence for a more up close and personal experience. (Not advisable for the timid or anyone who doesn’t have a firm grip. The birds are most enthusiastic and can grab the cup from your hand or knock it from your grasp).

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If you are very fortunate when you visit an ostrich farm you may be treated to the magnificent mating display of a male ostrich.

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In this instance I was actually the object of this male’s display. He was obviously a very confused bird. Tom found it amusing, though.

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Carol Marrs Phipps

Ahead of Their Time

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In February we went to the woods for oak poles to build a new hay shed. Dad tramped all over the woods, measuring trees at breast height, carrying an axe to mark the ones which suited. He hauled out the cross-cut saws, setting and filing their teeth. He mounted aCrosscut Sawwooden box over the drawbar of one of the tractors and loaded it with chains, axes, mauls, wedges, a jug of kerosene, a sack of corn cobs and a small sack of potatoes, and we were off to the timber.

We crashed through a thicket that had grown across the lane where it entered the woods, following a large hogback. We left the lane well into the woods, making our way to a group of marked trees, saplings springing upright behind the tractor.

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“Here,” said Dad, handing me a cross-cut saw. He walked slowly around the first tree, looking fig01up into its crown. Presently he chopped out a wedge shaped notch from the side of the tree’s trunk facing where it was to fall. He took the saw and started it at the inside of the notch. “All right,” he said, “you take your end. Don’t struggle with it. You let me do the cutting. Just follow me back and forth to keep the saw from binding.”

Dust trickled into a pile on the roots in front of me. “That’s the time,” he said. “Now you’re a-getting it. Now let’s change sides. When I say, ‘timber,’ you run for the tractor, right now.”

Pulling out of the cut which was about a third of the way through the tree, we started from the other side, about an inch further up the trunk. When we reached the first cut, he took a quick step back away from the tree and hollered: “Timber! Go on, get!” With a groan and a pop, the tree slowly settled toward the notch. Then picking up speed, it furiously crashed to the ground.

I rushed back to smell the cut and stand on the stump.  

“Here. Hold this right here at the end,” he said, feeding out his measuring tape along the trunk. He marked a spot with his axe and stood, reeling in his tape whilst I scampered up and down the trunk.

We heard a tractor coming into the woods. Directly, Grandpa appeared with the hired hand on the fender. He dismounted and shuffled up with a mallet and a heavy spade-like chisel.

“What’s that, Grandpa?” I asked.images

“A spud.”

“Good,” said Dad, looking up.

Grandpa set to work at the opposite end of the log from Dad, driving the spud along the trunk under the bark with his mallet, quickly peeling it away.

Dad and the hand disappeared into the woods for a time, talking as they went. Grandpa fastened a chain around the large end of the log. I lay down on my back, idly shoving at the massive pole with my feet.

“Hey!” said Grandpa. “You don’t want to do that. If you get that thing to rocking, it could come down on ye. That old cu’se is heavy. It’d kill ye.” He gave a chuckle and slowly sat down on the images (1)stump. “When your Uncle Jake and I were kids, we were looking after some calves that we were a-running in the big hollow. There was a big old hollow gum tree, a-lying there, near where we were a-fooling around. It had its top cut off and was still a-resting on its stump, like this ‘n’ here. Jake went to lying in the leaves on the downhill side, a-doing just what you were a-doing. Well directly, it rolled off the stump and on over him. It’s a good thing he was in kind of a soft low spot, ’cause all it did was mash him into the mud and leaves.” He paused with twinkling eyes.

“Well, he wasn’t through. Directly he crawled clear up inside it. It rocked a little as he went along, and then, doggoned if it didn’t take off a-rolling and bouncing down the hill. It really went a-kiting! Boom, boom! Bang! It was one dickens of a long way down to the creek. I tore off down the hill to see if he was all right, about the time the log came up right smart again the trunks of a couple of large ironwoods that stood on the bank of the branch.

“When I got to him, he’d crawled out white as a sheet, just a-reeling, steadying himself again one of the ironwoods. I said: ‘Are ye dizzy?’ And he said: ‘This ain’t dizzy!'”

Later in the morning, I looked up with a start to see an old man who looked like a tall version of my granddad standing there, watching me work.

“Look ‘ee there at that rotten old carcass your dog just drug up, Tom,” said Grandpa.

“I had to walk over here to make sure that thing there didn’t cause Harry and his hand too many headaches,” said the old man with a spit and a nod at Grandpa.

“Grandpa just told me about you a-rolling down a hill in a log when you were a kid,” I said.

“I was just ahead o’ my time is all.”

“How’s that?”

“Well back before the first automobile, I had to come up with some way o’ going for a spin. ‘Course, your uncle Albert ‘as done one better ‘n that.”

“So what did he do?”  

“Well,” he said, “he and his older brother were down in the bottom early March, and they came across this crow’s nest, ‘way up in the crown of a yellow poplar. Well Albert’s older brother, a-being full of piss an’ vinegar, decided for to shinny up to it. He worked and scuffled and strained, and after so long a time, he peeped over the edge of the nest and hollered that theah was a mess o’ young ones.

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“Well by then, your uncle Albert was on his way up, too. He come up just below his brother and said, ‘Let me see.’ So his brother got hold of a fist full of young crow, all belly and pin feathers and held it out, as far as he could manage. Albert craned his head ‘way back with his mouth open like this, in time for the crow to kerdobble right square into his mouth. Well he let go right now and dropped clean to the ground.images (2)

“Now you might ‘ave allowed that I was ahead o’ my time, but Albert flew neigh thirty year before the Wright Brothers ever got off the ground.”

 

Tom Phipps

 

Hedges

It didn’t do it. It wasn’t enough. Dad managed his extra cows just fine, but the markets kept centralizing. Prices continued to fall. Soon we were paying for our milk to go clear across the state.

The United States Department of Agriculture  was a big help, vigilantly looking out for the farm equipment and chemical manufacturers in the name of public interest. Our local USDA inspector paid us his routine surprise inspection and found a clean wash basin sitting in the middle of our spotless concrete milk room floor. With a flourish of zeal, the little martinet turned us into a grade B dairy for a month, forcing us to borrow money to operate.

At last, the USDA decreed that stainless steel pipe lines were no longer sanitary enough for the public’s milk. We were ordered to replace ours with Pyrex glass pipes if we wanted to continue selling our milk. We sold our cows.

Dad went into debt starting a brood sow operation, just in time for the hog market to begin several years of depressed prices. With Nylon and Rayon, sheep were out of the question. He turned the hay shed into a battery chicken house holding several thousand layers before the egg market followed hogs. “They’ve got us,” he said. “It’s nothing but row crops from now on.” We could no longer afford a hired hand. We would have to trade our three small tractors for two new big ones. Dad went to Grandpa and Grandma to borrow the money.

I lay on the floor of Grandma’s kitchen listening to Dad and Grandpa. Grandpa gave his chair a scooted screech. He cut up a toothpick with his pocket knife and a gathered his brow as the clock in the other room ticked. “Harry,” he said. “We ain’t loaning you the money for the tractors. You can have it as far as we’re concerned, because you’re in a position where you need a second start. You won’t owe us a thing. But why on earth do you have to tear out the hedges?”

“I don’t have the time to go cutting them back every summer, for one thing. And for another, hedges take up farm land. I’d just as soon have the extra corn rows.”

“The ground will wash.”

“No it won’t. I can manage the soil.”

“How? By ploughing more in the fall? I just heard you say that you were going to do more of that. You won’t hold your soil that way.”

“I’ll put in terraces if I have to.”

“Dad burn it, Harry! There goes the ground you’d save from having the hedges gone. Besides, ploughed terraces wash anyway. If you’re fixing to let it wash for a little money now, what’s Tom a-going to do when it’s his time?”

“That’s his problem. Besides, new practices like terraces work or the University of Illinois wouldn’t be promoting them.” he said, catching by accident my look of astonishment.

Grandpa whisked his pieces of toothpick into his hand and dumped them into his glass. “Know who planted the hedges? It was your granddad and your great-granddad.”

“So? I know that.”

“Just wondered if you remembered, is all. Well, I can’t stop you if you’re bound and determined to take the hedge rows out, but you’re a-going to do it yourself. I ain’t a-helping you.”

“Suit yourself,” said Dad with an uneasy glance at me.

Grandpa pushed back from the table, found a particular Successful Farming magazine by the door to the dining room and flopped it open to a center-spread illustration. “What does the caption say?”

“It says: ‘Farming in the year 2010′” said Dad. “So?”

“Well, look ‘ee at it. See? They’ve got all the animals in batteries, covered by glass domes and fed by machines. And look ‘ee there at the crops, going clean to the horizon, cultivated by an unmanned contraption…”

“Well?”

“Well my question is: where are the people? Where are the people in that there picture?”

Tom Phipps