I don’t always share:

            I was getting ready to mow when I noticed some swimwear drying on the line. So rather than getting into trouble for getting them covered with clippings I took them down. While wrestling with clothespins a Japanese beetle fell into a pair of my trunks. You can bet I dropped the armload of towels and Avon’s things to get it out of there. Normally, I’m pretty much a live and let live sort or person, but I knocked that bug out of my trunks and stomped it into insensebillious convulsions. Bugs in my bushes is one thing, but bugs in my shorts is quite another.

 Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – Ace High – Blue Norther

And now available –  Cain

Things that go together:

            According to an old Frank Sinatra song “Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage”. Another pairing that goes together is blackberries and chiggers. We all know what blackberries are. They’re about the size of the end of your thumb, black, bumpy, juicy, and come in a carton for about $8 a quart. Mine don’t come in cartons they come on vines called canes. They don’t cost me anything, and they have the added benefit of coming with chiggers. All of my Midwestern and Southern friends are familiar with chiggers, but I’m afraid my northern and west coast friends may never have experienced them. A chigger is a tiny bug; actually it’s a mite, almost invisible with the naked eye and harmless. The chigger babies (larva) are the true villains. These creatures were not made in Heaven. Although microscopic in size, they must have a three inch proboscis which is filled with about twenty gallons of itch. When I say itch I really mean ITCH! It is inconceivable to me how anything so small can produce such an itch – but they do, and they live in blackberry patches. So the next time you pay $8.00 for a quart of blackberries, consider it money well spent.

 Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – Ace High – Blue Norther

And now available –  Cain

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

TV commercials:

            I noticed that Charmin has updated their commercials. The concept of cute blue and red bears doing their business in the woods is dumb, but I don’t miss Mr. Whipple at all.

Kids tell it like it is:

            When our son, Chris, turned 40, his friends threw a big party for him with lots of gag gifts. Among the gifts were some adult diapers, which of course were received with a good deal of laughter. Our grandson, Luke, was sitting with us; he was 7 or 8 at that time. He just gave a snort of disgust and said, “Now that’s just a waste of money. Dad’s not going to wear those diapers.”

 Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – Ace High – Blue Norther

And now available –  Cain

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

From the editor:

            Have you ever taken a good honest look at yourself? You know what I mean; those long serious self evaluations where you weigh all of your plusses and minuses, and you find that your minuses are winning. You probe into the deepest cracks and crevasses of your conscience. You know all the things you’ve done wrong, the things you wish you hadn’t done, the things you’d like to forget, and you hope that no one else remembers. Have you? Well, I sure haven’t… Let sleeping dogs sleep is my motto.

A perpetual question:

            When our son Chris was little, he sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider song from morning till night. Only, he pronounced it Itchy Bitchy Spider. Now I can’t look at a spider without wondering if it is suffering from poison ivy and a bad attitude.

 Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – Ace High – Blue Norther

And now available –  Cain

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

 It’s That Time Of Year:

            Yesterday the wind was blowing and leaves were flying in all directions, so I decided it was a necessary trip to the roof for a good gutter cleaning. I needed to get some sticks and branches off the roof anyway. We have over 40 mature oak trees on the place, and most of them are bunched around the house. That number doesn’t even begin to cover the other trees like maple, hickory, ash, elm, and walnut… well you get the idea… we got leaves.

The whole time I was up there with a leaf blower making those gutters usable again for what they were intended. I noted that the lovely Avon was not out there supervising, which is her usual job when I’m doing some type of maintenance. So when the gutters were clean and the only leaves on the roof were those that had fallen since I had started for the ladder, I climbed down.

When I reached the deck, she was waiting for me, and I asked her why she hadn’t been supervising. She said, “I thought it best to be inside ready to call 911 than be out here trying to catch you when you fell.” If nothing else, the woman shows good logic.

 Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – Ace High – Blue Norther

And now available –  Cain

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Top 10 Kayaking Tips:

10. If the beer cooler takes up too much room – throw out the life jacket.

9.      When you go into rough water look for the V and go right to the center of it.  If that V looks like a 12 point Times New Roman capital V don’t go in there, or you could come out looking like a Times New Roman ampersand –> @.

8.      If you see a huge boulder at the end of the V – learn to back paddle and start reflecting on your past sins.

7.      Never go kayaking in a tuxedo – a cummerbund is not an approved flotation device.

6.      Lean forward if you want greater speed, but be sure to lean back when passing people on the shore – that makes your pot belly less noticeable.

5.      Going through rough water, it is a good idea to lean back so as to keep the nose of the kayak up. It also gives you an opportunity to look toward Heaven, whose help you may soon need.

4.      Attach a strap from the beer cooler to your ankle, so that if you’re dumped out and swept downstream, you’ll survive until Search and Rescue find you.

3.      Standing up to wave at friends is not a recommended activity.

2.      If you don’t have a wet suit – paddle naked, otherwise you’ll get your tuxedo all wet.

1.      If you are cruising along and hear a faint roar which seems to get louder by the second, and you notice that you can’t see anything but tree tops beyond a certain point – there is only one course of action. Duck into the kayak, curl up into a tight ball, and trust medical science to put the pieces back together – if they can find them all.

Bonus Tip:

When coming up to a flock of geese, never try to intimidate or scare them. A large bull goose does not have passivism written into his DNA.

 Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – Ace High – Blue Norther

And now available –  Cain

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

It’s a fact:

            It’s a commonly accepted scientific fact that bird feathers contain no blue pigment. I’ve written about this before. It seems that blue birds, humming birds, blue jays, and etc. get their blue coloring from light color rather than pigment color. Not being one to accept these things just because smart people say it’s true; I performed my own scientific experiment. I took a bright blue primary flight feather from an unfortunate blue jay, which is now flying only in left turning circles, into a light tight bathroom. There I studied it carefully and noted the beautiful blue hue. I made sure that no outside light could get in and turned off the lights. Sure enough, there in the total darkness the color was gone… in fact the whole feather was gone.

Risky business:

            Yesterday, I was driving down highway 65 when I passed a woman with her neck stretched toward the mirror and she was putting on lipstick of all things. Let me tell you, I got all upset at the sight of her dabbing her puckered pout with that little Q-tip thingy. In fact, I became so unsettled that I spilled the eye drops I was using.

I'd like to discuss something serious for a moment, but unfortunately I have no experience with that, so I won't.

 Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – Ace High – Blue Norther

And now available –  Cain

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts