Farm Macheenery Exploding?

Welcome to another fun-filled edition of "Dumb Poetry in a Card Type Trash".
Today our theme is musical. So sit back and enjoy. And remember, the
opinions expressed here are not necessarily shared by the Geeks with Guns
Association.

"Clarinet"

With a wild look in her eye,
she snapped the long
clarinet into playing position--
with spit flying, she played
a furious rendition of
"Christmas in Poland"
only to realize later
Her mouthpiece was
missing.

No, I did not write the above poem. I give credit to either Melissa or Renee, creators of the best newsletter you've probably never heard of------Farm Macheenery Exploding. I came across their creative works nearly ten years ago while surfing the web. Being so taken with the offbeat newsletter title, of course, I contacted them, figuring they were definitely of my ilk. I learned they were a couple of high school girls from Wisconsin's dairyland; then, I no longer had to wonder where they got their inspiration.

The poem above appeared in the second issue of FME, along with movie reviews and surveys and their wisdom tidbit: Where there's duct tape, there's hope. I had a personal subscription to their newsletter for a couple of years and even used their title in one of the stories in my second book. I know that since those days, Melissa has moved to Australia, while Renee lives in Georgia. Last I heard, she and her husband Daren still worked for Delta Airlines. Bill and I even met them once when they came to Sandpoint on one of their many excursions. We had a great visit over pizza at Second Avenue.

For some reason, I thought of Melissa and Renee this morning because we'll soon have a "farm macheenery" project underway. I'm hoping for no explosions as Dan hauls the stuff to its destination. As I write, Bill is putting labels on the brush hog, the antique manure spreader, the hay elevator, two plows, one old hay with a bent wheel and several spike tooth harrows. The farm macheenery assemblage is sitting in our old driveway awaiting Dan Smith's Evergreen towing truck.

Some will go to Pacific Hide and Steel for recycling, while other items will come out here to be used as farm equipment and yard art. Bill anticipated quite a job removing those harrows from the hog pen where they had resided for at least 15 years, at least since the last set of hogs fattened up within the pen, only to escape on the rainy, muddy day when they were supposed to be transported to Woods Meats for slaughter.

I was lucky enough to be gone that day while Willie and Bill pursued the porkers around the barnyard and while Rambo escaped the barnyard and ended up in the hog pen. Eventually, the hogs were encouraged to get in the truck, meet their maker and eventually land on our dinner plates. I won't soon forget the two pairs of stinky, muddy jeans that could stand by themselves in the laundry room and tell the tale of chasing pork through knee-deep pig slop. For some reason, that was the last time Bill wanted to raise swine.

Anyway, the task of loosening the harrows from the knotted grass that kept them firmly attached to the ground wasn't nearly as bad as anticipated. Bill also was able to move the buck rake and plow with apparent ease, so Dan can just drive in, look at the line-up and their labels and deliver them to the appropriate sites.

I'm hoping that by day's end, we don't have any Farm Macheenery Exploding tales to share. If so, I'll contact Melissa and Renee, who long ago abandoned their newsletter, and tell them they may want to revive it for one more issue.