Some Corny Stories

We really do have some "corny" stories to tell you. Maybe all of you have heard about the time when your grandfather and some of his boyhood friends thought they were going to be famous when they found some large bones sticking out of the ground in a neighbor's cornfield in Custer Park, Illinois. They really and truly thought they had found a dinosauer skeleton and went ahead with their archeological dig right in the middle of the field. The budding scientists had no idea they were doing anything wrong. After all, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry would be interested in their find. And it would be all over the newspapers. This picture of Gramp was taken many years later beside that very cornfield.

Back to the dinosaur dig: Gramp tells me the excavation was extensive and the man who owned that field next to the pastor's house (where gramp lived as a preacher's kid) was NOT impressed. Their motives were honorable and their hearts were pure, but Gramp and his friends had not yet learned much about logic and reason. We think it is funny now, but back in the early 1950s, it was a crisis in the corn field. Moral of the Story: if you see a big project like this, check it out with Mom and Dad first.

This fall Aunt Jeannie, David, and Samuel invited Aunt Jeannie's friend Christy and me to go on a field trip with them. We went through a huge corn maze at a nearby farm and had SO much fun! We also saw goats, rabbits, and even had homemade ice cream. I bought a book of puzzles and activities about farms for the boys to use in homeschool and we took some pictures. It was a beautiful, fun day! While we walked and walked throught the maze it made me think about other encounters with corn: Uncle Merle's corn boils that he sponsored for the Church people in the fall. Stephen singing "the corn is as high as an elephant's eye" when he played Curley in the musical, OKLAHOMA (first time Jeannie ever saw him was in that role).  I thought of the huge harvests of corn from our home downeast when we literally filled wheelbarrows FULL of corn and wheeled them into the kitchen for preparing and freezing as whole kernal corn. And I thought of the year that Everett Gray's cows did a number on our corn patch.

One day in the 1970's, I looked out at our huge and beautiful corn patch and was absolutely stunned by the sight of 4 or 5 robust cattle chowing down on our prize crop! Since I was a farm girl with more than a little familiarity with cattle, I decided I could rid my garden of these critters and save some of the precious crop that was meant to help feed our six children for the winter. On the way down over the hill to the garden, I tore a handful of sugar plum branches from the bushes to make a formidable weapon. As I closed in to whip the first cow on her rump, the nearest cow spotted me and took off with her legs flying high behind her, coming down with a regular tempo onto the standing corn. Her panic caused the others to do a quasi-stampede up and down the corn patch until only a few straggly stalks remained. It seems I hadn't learned enough about logic and reason, either, but chose a knee-jerk reaction instead. Moral of the story: the corn patch is not the place to teach cows a lesson.

To make matters worse, after I thought they had fled back home the miserable creatures could be seen tip-toeing through the tall grass across the road from us. They were circling to make a sneak attack from another front. I ran across the road roaring and waving my sugar plum branches and this time they went home to the safety of their own pasture. Good thing I didn't have a gun (or know how to use one) or I would have been in jail for murdering an entire herd, I think. Those cows were on my black-list after that. I was SO angry! 



Poor Mr. Gray! He stopped by our house the next day with some beautiful peas from his garden and delivered them with his deep and profuse apology. He told me it would never happen again (and it didn't). I don't know how he managed that, but he must have installed an electric fence. This year (2010) we had the best crop of corn since those days of infamy! One day we had an impromptu corn feast with Bethany's three oldest: Timothy, Kyle, and Rachel -- what fun!

 

On Our Deck in Glenburn