The Lighter Side of rural life - share your stories (farm, house)
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My grandfather had a syndicated nationwide newspaper column until his death in 1938. He had something in one of his articles about a small town that still sticks today, but not necessarily by train. "If you're going out of town by train on a weekend, you better wear your Sunday suit and shine your shoes because half the town will be at the station to see who is going where and why."
When I was growing up (in the late 60's/70's), in upstate New York, my mom who grew up in New York City, decided she wanted to have a pair of pigs to raise for butchering. Dad was NOT into the farm thing, but he was the one who ended up building pens, cages, whatever was needed for her next project.
Mom took our station wagon, along with us 2 kids, to the pig farm down the road from where we lived. She came home with two piglets running loose in the back of said station wagon. Dad had to jury-rig a pigpen really fast from whatever we had available. He converted an old no longer used outhouse building for the enclosed area. I don't remember what he used for the outside pen fencing. Whatever it was, it never was sturdy enough and we ended up chasing down pigs a number of times before they were butchered the following January. Have you ever tried rounding up two reddish brown pigs that were almost full grown, in the dead of night? My brother and I were only 10 or 12 at the time and scared of them. DAD to the rescue, as usual. There were also a couple of times when the neighbors would call and tell us the pigs were in their flower beds or front yards. Again, dad to the rescue, leaving work early to round them up. I KNOW he was really glad when they got butchered.
Okay, so I was taking a semester off of school last summer/fall. I was working in this "country gourmet" restaurant and my boss is friends with my grandma (I live with her because my school is pretty close to the house here.) Anyways, we let my boss graze her cattle on our land every year.
Well, I had busted my ass pretty hard at work one week, and when Monday rolled around-one of my days off-, all I wanted to do was relax. I was gonna go to town and go to the movies... but then our neighbor called. Apparently, all the cattle had gotten through the fence somehow and they were about two miles away.
So, with that in mind, we went to go chase them. Drove up the road, me in my SUV and grandma in hers, and we finally found them about a mile up the road and another mile and a half or so down a dirt road on the neighbor's massive property. I drove behind the cattle, flipped a u-turn when I was behind them, and began herding them at the pace of 5mph. 5mph is damn near impossible with a stick shift.
I'd ride right up on their asses, nearly touching their butts with the bumper, and every fifty feet they'd decide to stop and get another mouthful of food. Every time they did that, I'd get out of the car, yell at them, smack their haunches with sticks, and throw rocks at their butts. They'd get moving again, I'd get into my car, and we'd repeat. Every hundred or so feet they'd try to shift direction, so I'd have to get out of the car, make them get back onto the road, and then run back to the car and herd them on foot with aforementioned methods until they decided to change direction again or stop and eat.
This continued for the next two hours. I ws damn near losing my voice from yelling obscenities at them, cursing their fat cow mothers and bastard bull fathers. All 14 of them would complain, but I managed to get them to our gate.
We finally managed to get them through the gate just as the neighbor's ranch hands pulled up. Imagine that you're a cowboy, rollin' up on a young man yelling at 14 cattle to "#@$^ing MOVE!" and other, more angry things, while an old woman with a broom is swatting their butts with a broom as they run through the gate.
Those guys were laughing so hard, and all I could say when they got out of the truck was "IT'S ABOUT ****ING TIME, YOU GUYS MISSED THE PARTY!"
Everyone thought it was hilarious but poor, tired me, who did 90% of the herding of the cattle on my day off. We later found out that the one bull that my friend had brought over with the herd PUSHED over a 30-foot section of fence (our fence was not broken, it was pushed over, posts and all), or about big enough for a few pickup trucks to drive through. Otis had apparently heard the teasing "moos" of the cows in heat 3 miles away. The entire herd followed him through that freakin' hole in the fence.
I'm at my buddies house, on a gravel road about 1/8 mile off the main road, and his parents were hauling out their old junk piano which became a bon fire. So we figured that we would shoot it up first. We positioned the piano in a way so that we would be firing into the adjcent woods. So we are firing away, shot guns, para-military rifles, hunting rifles, having a good ol' time when some one started shouting "Hey there's a cop at the corner" so stop for a few minutes, cop isn't doing anything or going any where. We start back up and a couple of minutes later the cop leaves
Pigs get out from time to time, and remember where gardens and streams are.
But one family had a spider monkey. Thier pigs would get out from tiem to time, the area was rural enough that chickens and cats would be in the road and in no hurry to move. I never saw one who met a bad end in the road since they were expected to likely be there.
People did not lock thier doors....
The spider monkey was another story. He got out at least twice from his large cage, and invaded peoples homes heading straight for the refrigerator, and storage cabinets. Law enforcement just called the family and asked them where the monkey was, uh not in his cage. Well come get him as he has invted himself into a home and been eating food from the refrigerator and cabinets while showing his teeth to the housewife when she tries to stop him.
This happened at least twice, there were no real hard feelings, but there was quite bill to pay for the food the monkey ate or got his hands into and apologies to be made. He had very bad manner throwing the food around. The monkey had learned just what a refrigerator was and other places food is stored. He was capable of biting. He wound up being sold before the humor and novelty wore off.
We lived in the country while my youngest son was growing up. I remember so fondly when all his friends would come over, park their pickups in our field around our volleyball net, and play into the night by the light from the headlights.
My Mom-Mom had a sign on her front porch "Don't pee off my porch and I won't come in through your bathroom window". You could freely water the trees and bushes in the yard all you like, but she wouldn't tolerate it from her porch, no ma'am!
The school bus stops right in front of the house, super safe for the kid... all the positive of rural living = love it, sure can't complain about that!
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Dad had to jury-rig a pigpen really fast from whatever we had available. He converted an old no longer used outhouse building for the enclosed area. I don't remember what he used for the outside pen fencing. Whatever it was, it never was sturdy enough and we ended up chasing down pigs a number of times before they were butchered the following January. Have you ever tried rounding up two reddish brown pigs that were almost full grown, in the dead of night? 
My brother and I were only 10 or 12 at the time and scared of them. DAD to the rescue, as usual. There were also a couple of times when the neighbors would call and tell us the pigs were in their flower beds or front yards. Again, dad to the rescue, leaving work early to round them up. I KNOW he was really glad when they got butchered.
The Spider Monkey got out more the once
