As I pulled up in the yard the other evening I saw something that made me happier than a pig in slop!
Do you ever hear people offering gift buying advice to husbands? You know like “Never ever buy your wife something useful like a microwave or vacuum cleaner-buy her something that makes her feel like a woman who is loved.”
The Deer Hunter learned early on-that advice doesn’t apply to me. I want to be able to use things! I like nothing better than getting a present or surprise that I actually need. One of my favorite presents from last Christmas was a basket Chitter got me at the dollar store. My potato basket had seen better days-like it should have been thrown away 5 or 6 years ago.
When I unwrapped the basket Chitter screamed “It’s for your potatoes!” The girls have also learned I like things I can use.
So thanks to The Deer Hunter-I have a mountain of mushroom compost and a brand new wheelbarrow to use this weekend-which makes me happier than a pig in slop and grin like a mule eating briars.
Got any other happy sayings? Leave a comment!
Tipper
Appalachia Through My Eyes – A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.
Hog in slop, I’ve heard and “Happy as a Clam”, although I’ve yet to figure out what a clam has to be happy about, especially if it’s in chowder.
God bless.
RB
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When we were younger and wanted to be smart, we might say:
grinning like a possum eating barbed wire…or
she was so good looking she could make a freight train take a dirt road…or
a bull dog bust a lock chain…
Probably a good thing we’re are not that young anymore.
lol I know we are related now, Tipper! Flowers are nice but make sure I can plant them! lol I like to be able to use stuff too. I read that sentence to my oldest son and asked him who that sounded like and he said. “You.” (meaning me). lol Too funny!
I have two wheelbarras; I exchanged the rubber tires and racin’ wheels for plain steel wheels and haven’t had a flat since.
Strange that today’s topic has to do with compost; I came back from the recycle center a couple of hours ago with a bucketful of composted leaves that have been workin’ off for about three years now. “Bucketful” has a different meaning here ’cause the bucket is on the front end of a 40-year-old Case backhoe, my favorite toy. Gonna pitch it into the duck-pen and let it soak there for a week or so, then spread it on the garden-patch.
This made The Mountaineer so tickled and pleased that y’all need to come over and he’p her be happy…
Tipper, all I can say about your new wheel barrow and compost your husband got, that you love so much is, “NOW DON’T THAT BEAT A HEN ROOTING.
Peggy L.
Loved the dog house but we also like practical gifts. I wouldn’t mind having that vacuum cleaner!!!
Hi Tipper,I have good memorys of us kids wheelbarrowing on G-ma fergies farm,one kid walking on their hands and the other one holding up their ligs,now that was home made fun.Wish I could be in a garden but living in a second floor apt. I just use a few flowerpots.God Bless.Jean
Tipper,I see you have a really nice wheelbarrow there and a fine pile of mulch to spread don,t spread yourself too thin take some time to relax,it seems your working too hard. My wife bake that b,cake from acouple days back this a.m. it turned out really good thank,s for the recipe. Barry
Tipper,
I don’t know much about compost,
but that sure is a beautiful
wheelboro. Although I’ve used mine
for about everything, including
countless loads of wood, there ain’t nothing original on it. I
spilled my coffee when I read about you grinning like a mule
a eatin’ briars…Ken
Tipper,
Forgot to mention a happy say’in.
Most have been used so I made up a new’en….
“Happier than Paula in a butter crock”
How’s that’en?
Tipper,
I love, love your gifts. Handy dandy wheel-bar..and mushroom leftoversinhorsemess…Great..
What a wonderful spring gift.
Once we used an old wheelbar that
was a hand-me-down, not sure from where. It was heavy thick metal with wood handles that will never rot, even if left in the rain. The inside had remnents of hard grey concrete stuck to the walls and bottoms. When you filled it up you barely feel the difference of the weight between the wheelbar and the compost. When I finally got me a new’on, with thin lightweight metal, nice small handle grips, and a lovely treaded tire, I felt like I could move the gravel up and down the driveway back’ards…what a difference.
One of my favor’rite gifts was a new front pull roto-tiller Troybuilt…It would plow the garden in no time. Like you, I love spring gifts of compost and practical things that we need this time of year.
We retired that old wheelbar, after “Nickabob” won the race down the mountain, after callin’ in on his CB that his braking tennis shoes wore a hole so’as he couldn’t stop! He passed the finish line in record time…
Sometime I’ll tell you about my brand new chainsaw!
Happy wheelbarrowing….
I don’t have a saying for you, but you are like me – I love getting gifts that I can use. Great that your family has learned that early on. May they always remember that as you age and they become self-sufficient adults.
Man, that thing is sharp as a tack! I’d have to paint me some flames on it and wear racing goggles when I pushed it and make sounds like a race car. It makes my old wheelbarrow look like a Yugo car, cheap and unreliable. Never seen a mag wheel on a wheelbarrow before but I think it’s about time to trade up!
Paul-thank you for the link-the video is hilarious : )
Blind Pig The Acorn
Celebrating and Preserving the
Culture of Appalachia
http://www.blindpigandtheacorn.com
my sentiments exactly. luv
Wow! The rest of us husbands have to deal with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyduncFpzl4
Made me grin when I saw your mule saying. I have heard the description of someone who has big buck teeth … ‘like a mule eating briars through a picket fence’. My dog has a ‘toothy grin’ and my daughter, before teeth, had a ‘gummy smile’. Then there’s the folks who have a gap between the front teeth that just makes you want to watch them put a straw through there to drink. As for gifts, I’m all for practical AND glitzy.
“The harder the climb the prettier the view from the top.” In a spirit of optimism, we are overcomers. So don’t let adversity get you down! “If you find a pathway with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”
I,too,love useful gifts. One of my favorites is a hand operated can opener that cuts the lid off in a way leaving no sharp edges. So, I’d say those gifts make me happier than a dead pig in the sunshine. I heard that one many, many years ago. Even though I use it frequently, I’ve never understood how a dead pig could be happy.
Tipper, you are a treasure! The Deer Hunter told me he had ordered the mushroom compost but he didn’t tell me about the wheelbarrow. Every farmer needs a good wheelbarrow. I bet you’ll use it for a lot more than compost. It looks like a very fine wheelbarrow!
Chitter is a treasure too. In fact there is nothing in your house but treasures…..Chatter, the Deer Hunter, and Ruby Sue!
good morning from Ontario Canada
we still have too much snow, but i like leaving my white laundry out on the line over night my Mom always told me the cold makes them whiter.
And jusouno, im a hand quilter like my mom was im addicted actually
i have a fabric stash i hope dont out live me.
ive got some sayings from my childhood that id like to share ,alot really cause we hardly spoke real words , mostly silly sayings but we understood the meaning,
my faverite and the one that still gets me is when my Dad would say “i havnt laughed so hard since the pig ate my brother”
or i havnt laughed so hard since Ma got her tit cought in the wringer”
please dont be offended by
the language.
it wasnt ment to be mean or dirty
like i said that was just the silly way we talked.
Id like to share more with you but i dont know if some one from here would fit in with your world. you seem to have a magical place in time , and it reminds me of my childhood. actually it feels good to be able to share it.
and when i told you i loved the music on this site i ment i love it , takes me closer to heaven, thank you,
Love Bonnie
I would be happy as a lark if someone bought me a new wheelbarrow! Mine was bought at an auction for $2 about twenty years ago. It’s nearly worn out from giving little fellers rides up and down the driveway. Just wait until the girls realize how much fun they can have in a shiny new wheelbarrow. When they come in grinning like a possum, you will know what they’ve been up to.
Tipper, you have brought a smile to my face this morning. Love those sayings! Seems there are more of us than I would have guessed. I don’t want to spend money on anything that is not useful.
Tipper,
When I saw that wheelbarrow I thought of something that happened once in our neck of the woods. This fellow was laughing at this little boy and something he had said. It seems that while playing in the sand this little boy decided he needed to borrow a wheelbarrow. So he goes up to his PaPa and asks if he could “Barrow his wheelborrow.” And this made him as happy as an old sow under an acorn tree.
“Cuter than a speckled pup sittin’ in a red wagon” To a little boy not many things could thrill his heart more than a speckled pup unless that pup was in his red wagon. Hopefully a Red Flyer wagon.
Love your new wheelbarrow! I like practical gifts too. Things that I can use and enjoy. After forty years of marriage, my husband knows that I would rather have something for our home than expensive flowers or jewelry. He does give me flowers though. I love the bouquets of wild honeysuckle and sweet williams that he gathers in the woods and surprises me with each spring. Now that is a gift that I enjoy!
One year I asked for a “good hoe” for my birthday. My daddy said, “that’s my girl”.
Since my uncles raised hogs we were always “happier than a hog in mud”.
My husband tickled my fancy with crickets, meal worms, and earthworms until I began growing my own – in my other life I was a middle school science teacher with a classroom full of reptiles and amphibians and occasionally a few other critters. . . .
JSYK – I’m very envious of your mushroom compost and new wheelbarrow. One thing about those bugs – my husband never commandeered them for his own use!!
Tamela
A Wheel Barrow with a Mag Wheel, you are “One Classy Lady” and it’s a Kobalt on top of that.You can take that sucker “Crusin”. Deer Hunter done good.
Like you, presents I can use make me happy. I would be tickled to death to get a pile of compost and a brand new wheelbarrow. I’d grinnin like a possum eatin possum. THUMP! eatin possum.
Tipper, it always amazes me how much your views are so much like mine or others I know. Is this the Appalachian way? The practical way you address gift giving is so typical of my upbringing. Bet you like non fiction books! “Waste not want not” was an important part of my growing up experience. When asked what I want for a specific holiday I have been known to say, “Don’t get me anything I have to dust.” The exception might be if I dig something up from the garden or run across a yard sale. I sure do like your nice new wheelbarrow, and you’re never going to have to dust it.
Old sayings remind me of so many sayings that could be used for those thoughtful girls such as sweeter than an angel, sweeter than sugar, good as gold, smarter than the average bear.
Missed you yesterday, as the cares of life pushed their way into my lil world. I did want to say how much I loved loved loved the post on Testifying by Roger May. I am familiar with that area, and it has some of the finest folks in the universe. My Dad was from that area and used to come flatfootin’ to the kitchen. Wonderful!
Tipper: I am so glad I CAUGHT Roger’s post from yesterday. My computer was feed up yesterday with all my endeavors on “Fidder” and I could not open your site! But today I go swimming – and then CELEBRATE THE IDES OF MARCH! If you can send my post from yesterday to Mr. Roger that would be splendid. He is a top notch picture makers!
Cheers, Eva Nell
He’s been working like a rented mule.
Tipper: No comment except “Oh my GOSH!” You remind me of all the mulch I must use to hide the wrath of winter on my many GARDENS OF EVA! But I think today THE IDES OF MARCH is going to be a beautiful day! WHY? You ask?
Because my Sweetheart whispered in my ear – before daylight – “HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!” I cried tears of joy really – but pretended like I was sad because he thought about the greeting before I did!
Call me competitive – in every aspect of life!
Cheers,
Eva Nell