• Yesterday Blogspot saved my blog without any spacing between the paragraphs and I didn't care enough to change it back. This morning I saw that one of the writers for the local paper put bullets at the start of each paragraph to make each paragraph look more important. I don't know how important they are but here it is.


• Yesterday was work on the tractor day here at Rabbit Run. Normally in the spring, I have to push the tractor over by the driveway and jump start it or put the battery charger on it for an hour or two. I went out, set the choke, cranked it for about 10 seconds and it started up like a champ. I thought so far, so good. I drove down by the tiller to hook it up. Again, it went smoothly. I drug the tiller down by the driveway and fastened it securely to the draw bar. Again so easy that there just had to be something worse waiting. I hooked up the tiller and the hydraulic hoses and bang, one of the hoses busted and sprayed hydraulic oil all over the place. I reached for the ignition switch to shut it off and bumped the lever to let it go forward. The only part of the Crown Vic that wasn't oily got that way quick. The good news is that my next move got it all shut down quick. In the end, tractor Supply Company had the correct hoses and it didn't take me as long to fix the hoses as it did to wash the car. On to the real reason I hooked up the tiller. I drove out to the garden and made several passes to turn in the compost and manure in. It was just on the wet side but because of all the straw in the compost it worked. Once I set the gate post it will be all good. Barb wants to get the early plants in the ground and then have them protected from the rabbits.


• The other day, Ethan, my great nephew, changed his profile picture to that of a squirrel. He said Beware of the Squirrel. It reminded me of the story about my daddy and his trip to the park as a boy. Someone had taught the squirrels to come right up to people to get handouts. For some reason Dad thought this meant they were tame and wouldn't mind being handled. He reached out and grabbed one. It bit the end of his thumb off. It wasn't too noticeable unless you really looked at the end of that thumb and saw the nail growing around the end. I guess the point is if they can bite through nuts, they can do real damage to fingers.

If your hoses look bad, replace them and don't pet the squirrels.

MUD