So today a stranger showed up at J&H’s with a dump truck to pick up a load of manure. If only they knew where to find someone with a loader. Of course J had asked earlier if I wanted to bring Ian’s tractor by and make a few bucks.
Ian was up for the weekend, so we figured we’d make it a twofer. We put the Jeep’s trailer on the back of his pickup, and he met me after I’d filled the big truck. I was kind of hoping we’d remove at least one Mount Shit entirely, but it turned out we barely put a sizable dent in one of them. Anybody need horse shit? We’ve got lots.
Anyway, while I was filling the big truck a dollop of manure and straw fell out of the bucket onto the hood of the tractor. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but while I was bumping back and forth some of that stuff found its way to the base of the exhaust pipe. Took a while before it started smoldering, but one thing about a big pile of horseshit is that once it starts smoldering it’ll burn for days or weeks under the surface. It’ll burst into flames when you least expect it. Sooner or later you’re gonna have the local fire department in your yard, and when does that get fun?
So I couldn’t just push the smoldering horse shit off the hood and get on with my work, because it’d start a bigger fire even though it wasn’t really burning at the time. I reached out and knocked it away from the exhaust, then dumped about half the contents of my half-gallon canteen onto it and made sure it was good and out before cleaning off the hood to keep it from happening again.
I ended up going to town twice today. Ian wanted lunch at Subway, and I wasn’t going to call that a bad idea even though I was already supposed to go in later with neighbors D&L. And since we were going to town it only made sense to buy some gasoline. And since we’d been working in the boonies all morning I was wearing the full bat-belt, right? And my every-day holster isn’t merely OC, it’s really quite sincerely OC.
And so I’m standing in line at the convenience store to pay for my gasoline, and I meet this guy I sort of know, we say hi, and he gets in line behind me. And then some guy I never saw before gets in line behind him. And the new guy says to the other guy, real quiet but I’m not deaf, “Isn’t it illegal for him to be carrying that gun?” Must have been an out-of-stater.
And the local guy goes into this absolute spiel about how it isn’t illegal in any proper state, nobody needs a license, nobody should need a license, it’s legal and moral and non-fattening to carry your gun right up firm and proud by god.
I didn’t really remember where I knew that guy from, but wherever it was I should have been nicer to him because he’s my kind of guy. I do believe the newbie was made more nervous by him than by me.
One of the biggest satisfactions I got when I lived in AZ was watching the out of staters have heart attacks when one of the locals would come into the place where I worked and order a Blizzard at the next door Dairy Queen with a big ole bad gun on their hip.
Miss Violet
Ah, yes… the look on that Masshole busybody’s face the day I explained that — statistically — she was far more likely to kill someone with her car than was I with that gun on my hip in the grocery store.
And being a Masshole, I suspect her odds were a lot higher than mere statistics would suggest. I’ll give her credit for having the metaphorical balls to challenge me to my face, but subtract a lot for being exceptionally (even for a Masshole!) freaking clueless.
Joel, Sounds like you live in a real nice neighborhood. Although OC is legal where I live I always keep mine concealed just because I’m a sneaky bastard.
I become more and more convinced every day that our major border problem isn’t with Mexico — it’s with California.
Yes, tourist season can be lots of fun here. [grin] Thankfully, we don’t share a border with California. Colorado is bad enough. 🙁
I don’t keep current on Colorado laws, Mama, so I suppose they’ve changed from the days when Bob K. and I went down to the San Jauns to shoot at mulies. We OCed sidearms, and the only hint of a hassle was being asked to check them before bellying up to a tiny bar in some wayside settlement.
Damn, Joel. I’d pay money for your enriched straw. About half of my little place is clay from an old dredge-and-fill operation. If I had more shit I could have better tomatoes.
“and the only hint of a hassle was being asked to check them before bellying up to a tiny bar in some wayside settlement.”
That goes away once you are considered more or less a local resident. In fact, once I began the OC thing in Hesperus people quit asking where I was from. They assumed I was simply NOT from California once they saw a Blackhawk in a very old holster and a distinct lack of Ugg boots. And NOT being from California was all that mattered.
Technically it’s illegal to have one hanging on you in an establishment of social drinking but no one seemed to mind including the Highway Patrol characters who would drop in for whatever at the General store/lunch counter/unofficial bar/gas station/ trailer park office.
Of course we never snitched about them having the occasion to sneak a nap in one or another of the driveways down CR 124 now and then, either.