Living in rural (OK, suburban) East Tennessee, you see some things that you probably won’t see other places. If you see a gun on rack in the back of truck, you don’t think twice. If you hear a gunshot, you figure Joe Bob from up the street is doing some target practice or has varmints in his yard. No big deal, happens all the time.

The other morning, my wife awakens to the sounds of the dogs raising Hell. She looks out the window to see what’s got them fired up. A herd of cattle (about 6 or so) is walking across the unfenced portion of my backyard. She says she watches them as they meander up the side yard, through the driveway and on across the street. Eventually, they settle in one of my neighbor’s yards until the farmers (who had a tree fall on their fence) come and get them. The dogs came in and were obviously proud of having deterred these invaders.

Then, this weekend, I was smoking some ribs on the old barbecue when I hear an odd sound. I look up and see a powered parachute flying over my house. If you don’t know what those are, you can see them here. To me, they look like someone strapped a parachute onto a lawn mower. The guy is low enough to the ground (I figure within 100 feet) to see me staring. He waved. I waved back. I’m pretty sure he mouthed the word Howdy but I couldn’t hear him over the engine. A few minutes later, here comes another and then another. Apparently, they were taking off from the field behind my house.

Just thought I’d share.

Posted in uncategorized on August 31st, 2004 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |