My Pet Rooster

Story of
My Pet Rooster
4/12/2006
JO
When I was about nine years old my family lived on a farm at East Fork. I didn’t go to school on a regular schedule so Ms Williams from the Board of Education would bring me books to read. One of the books was “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. I’d read it and thought I would play some pranks on my parents so I told a few tales to the point that they did not believe anything I had to say, but soon after I would learn my lesson. I had a pet rooster I raised from a chick. I could hold the rooster and it would follow me around everywhere I went. It was reddish brown with shimmering blue and black, green tail feathers. I thought it was the prettiest rooster I had ever seen. So one Sunday morning while the family was still asleep, I went outside to feed and play with my rooster. There was a fox coming toward it so I grabbed the rooster and hollered at the fox to git but it was not afraid of me. So I started running as fast as my skinny legs would go, around the house hollering "Help there’s a fox after me and my rooster." As my legs were about to give out on me, my step-dad came out to tell me to hush that hollering. He saw I wasn’t telling a tale this time and noticed the fox was acting strangely(it had rabies). He started to throw rocks at the fox and told me to put down that #!%*#! rooster, but I wouldn’t. He told me to get in the house, so I ran in the house with my rooster and collapsed on the couch with a stitch in my side. Mom was waiting on me and scolded me good. I didn’t get a whipping but I learned my lesson. I never told tales again and my poor rooster met his demise a few days later. I don’t know what happened, but all there was left of him was those shimmering tail feathers.
The End

Pet Stories

KING AND THE EARRING

Around Christmas time, my only child Tara, came to me and asked if I, "would have her a baby brother or sister for Christmas. "I came up with the incredible idea to get her a puppy instead. We went to London Flea Market and bought a toy poodle. She named the little tiny dog, King. King brings Tara a lot of happiness. She always has someone to play with. In some ways they fight like brother and sister. He will go in her room and scatter toys and make the biggest mess everywhere, or so she says, "he’s the one that done it. "If she is asleep on the couch, he will jump up there and lick her face to wake her up. He can really get on her nerves.
King is now seven months and Tara is seven years old and they are still a lot of company for each other and they still fight off and on. Wednesday morning Tara was getting ready for school and when she pulled off her pajama top, her brand new earring that she paid for with her own money, flew out of her ear and hit the floor. King saw it fall and before we could grab it, he grabbed it up in his mouth and took off running. We finally caught the dog and he was chewing on it. We tried to hold him down to get it out of his mouth but when we held his head back to get it out, he swallowed it. Tara was disgusted with him.
Tara asked, “What do we do now?”I told her that she had to wait until he passed it and then she could get it back. She said “No way, not for no earring." I said I wouldn’t either. She must have changed her mind because this morning when she took King out to use the bathroom, she came back in and said “He didn’t pass it today, but maybe it will be in the next load”. I thought to myself, how gross! I would of never done that and I didn’t think she would either but the earrings she had in, I made her pay for them out of her own money. She said, “I have to get them back I gave a lot of money for them.” I have bought Tara a lot of earrings that were expensive and she kept losing them, This time, I made her buy that pair and as you can see she is more cautious with her things when it comes out of her own money.
Stay tuned to find out if Tara found the earrings
Submitted by Melissa

A Quiz on King And The Earring
By Beverly and Wendy
Why did Tara get a dog for Christmas?
What kind of dog was it?
Where did they buy the dog?
What did she name the dog?
What was the main idea of this story?
What did the dog swallow in the story?
Who bought the earrings?
How are they going to get the earring back?
What has Tara learned from this experience?
How would you want this story to end?
Another story about King

Never Bite The Hand That Feeds You
My daughter has a dog and it is the meanest little pup I have ever seen. It bites my daughter all the time. Well, he is my daughter's pet but guess who feeds and takes care of him, ME. One day the dog was chewing on something he wasn’t supposed to and when I went to take it away from him, he tried to bite me. I said “Never Bite The Hand That Feeds You”.

Bruce, Linda, Ole Jack and Me

As far as back as I can remember, Mom would take me and my brother to Mammy's. We would stay there while Mom went to work. Mammy is my mom's mother. Bruce is Mammy's son and is one year younger than me. Linda is my first cousin and one year older than me. Linda and her three sisters would stay up Mammy's, since Linda was around our age. Bruce, Linda, and me were buddies.

I think it was the summer I turned eight; our favorite place to play was behind the barn. There was these huge rocks we could climb, slide off of then right into the mud. What fun; until the cows came back off the hill and one old mean bull Jack we called him Ole Jack; Lord he was the meanest bull ever.He would stomp and snort and take after you something fierce.
We could always outrun him. Jack had only one eye; the other got poked out by a stick somehow or other. Once we were behind the barn playing our most favorite game war; now that’s when you soak corncobs in a bucket of rain water for a day then you throw them at each other. If you don’t duck soon enough, them wet soggy things would pert near take your head off and leave a big red pump knot on it.
Bruce came up with the idea that he would throw some old hard horse biscuits; now if you don’t know what horse biscuits are, follow a horse around and you will find out. Anyway he threw those things at Linda and me. Luckily we ducked them; boy what fun. We didn’t notice the time and the cows were coming. Ole Jack was up on us before we knew it. We had to run about ten yards to the gate. Ole Jack was stomping and snorting an looking right wild out of his good eye. We ran ;Ole Jack ran ,we made it to the old rusty gate on the back of the barn, all three of us. We hit that gate at the same time and got up on it and the stupid thing came off. It hit the ground with such a clatter it scared Ole Jack half to death. He just stood there. We were so stunned its hard to say who was in more shock, Ole Jack or us.

Submitted by Tressa

Round Ice Cubes

This is a short story about my four-year-old niece, Taylor on one of many visits to my house.She never ceases to amaze me with her innocence. On one particular visit, my husband was in the living room and I was watching TV in my room. My husband gave Taylor the glass he was drinking from and told her “Take this glass to Aunt Sooie and tell her I want some ice.” So Taylor, following his instructions, brought me the glass and said “Sooie, Uncle Bill wants some ice.” I took the glass from her, proceeded to the kitchen, fixed the glass of ice, then I handed the glass back to Taylor and told her “Take this to Uncle Bill.” Taylor returned the glass back to her uncle Bill. Several minutes went by and Taylor returned to my room, glass in hand. I asked her, “What is it?” and with a confused look on her face she replied,"Uncle Bill wants ROUND ice cubes” I said what? She said again “Uncle Bill wants ROUND ice cubes.” Well that was it, I didn’t know what was going on because I don’t have ROUND ice cubes. So I walked into the living where upon entering there was my husband, red faced pointed his finger at me to wait a minute. So I stood there watching him gain his composure, finally he said “this is good” I told Taylor to, "take this glass back, I wanted round ice cubes,' so she picked it up. The next thing I knew, she was walking by me, and then she did it again, on her third pass of making a complete circle through the house I asked, “Taylor what are you doing?” she said “Uncle Bill you wanted ROUND ice cubes.” This little story of humor from Taylor is just the beginning of many more to come. Submitted by Veronica

Melanie's Son Ben

Baby Surprise: With a Special Gift

In spring of 1990 my first child was just learning to crawl. To my surprise I found out I was expecting again. By August everything seemed to going as expected. During my five-month doctor's visit, a routine examine found the baby’s heartbeat to be irregular and very slow.
My doctor made an appointment for me to see a baby specialist two hours away in another town. The new doctor informed me that the baby I was carrying had what they call congenital complete heart block.
So I asked, "what does that mean." The doctor explained that my son’s heart did not have all the electricity in it to function on its own. And that he had pulmonary stenois. He also explained that he would have to be taken c-section.
So for the next three and half months I went on a two-hour trip every Tuesday to see the baby specialist. He would tell me, " the baby is fine, we will have you come back on anther week." By the time , I was eight and half months and the doctor was call around the clock. He didn’t want me to go into labor.
On December 26,1990 my son was born. I didn’t get to see him until he was over 6 hours old. I was so scared to see my son for the first time. I was expecting a very small sick baby. But he was a whopper, weighing in over 8 pounds. He had a lot of tubes and needles in his little body. And he was all mine.
He had to have a temporary pacemaker the day he was born. The temporary pacemaker lead almost punctured his heart. During his first night his left lung collapsed. By the time he was twenty-four hours old he had a permanent pacemaker implanted in his lower left abdomen.
By the time my son was thirteen days old he was well enough to go home. He is fifteen now and ready to graduate from the eighth grade. The first pacemaker only lasted eight years. In 1998 my son received his second pacemaker and that one only lasted four years. Then in 2002 he received his first dual chamber pacemaker. He has been doing wonderful ever since then.
God bless the doctor who found out what was wrong with my son. My son has been a great inspiration to me and the rest of our family.

A Sample of Mom's Love: The Surprise Quilt

By Linda


When my daughter, Brandi said she was getting married in about six months, I decided to make a sampler quilt as a surprise for her bridal shower. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to keep it a secret since Brandi still lived at home.
Every time Brandi went to work or out with Dee, I would get out my quilt patterns and material and try to get as many squares cut out as possible. I knew if I could get all the squares ready to sew, then I could sew them later.
My husband Ronnie and my other daughter Vanessa were my “partners in crime”, so to speak. They were very good at helping me get the squares out of the house if I wanted to work on it when we were going someplace. I spent a lot of time sewing in the car.
When Brandi came home one night earlier than we expected, she almost found out about the quilt. I was working on her quilt in the living room and we heard a car pull into the driveway. Vanessa screamed, “Mom, Brandi’s home!!” I grabbed the part I was working on and ran to the bedroom, but in my hurry I forgot the other squares.
Vanessa picked them up and came running to the bedroom too.
By the time Brandi got in the house, we had hidden the quilt under the covers and were sitting in the bedroom laughing. She wanted to know, “ What are you doing? It sounded like a bunch of horses were running through the house.” I told her Vanessa was chasing me, but I didn’t tell her why.
Brandi loved the surprise quilt and couldn’t believe we had managed to keep it a secret from her.




I used thirty different patterns for the sampler quilt. On the gift card to Brandi and Dee, I wrote, “Just a sample of Mom’s love.”

The patterns I used (left to right):
Row 1: Weathervane, Constellation, Key West Beauty, Spools, Wild Goose Flight
Row 2: Montgomery, Grape Basket, Pinwheel, Queen Charlotte’s Crown, Rail Fence
Row 3: Watermill, Double Tulip, Saw-toothed Star, Wishing Ring, Four Crowns
Row 4: Tail of Benjamin’s Kite, Star of North Carolina, Card Tricks, Monkey Wrench,
54-40 or Fight
Row 5: Rambler, Ohio Star, Crown of Thorns, Jacob’s Ladder, Shoo Fly
Row 6: Prairie Queen, Drunkard’s Path, Friendship Star, Mosaic, Bow Tie

Good Sentences

1. Best lines from Essays and stories
   Lists of ten
   
   1. I don’t think people stop to think how precious life is.
   2. Grandchildren are one of the greatest inventions God ever made.
   3. If granny holds one child she has to hold the other one too.
   4. Seeing my flower gardens blooming in the summer is worth all the work in the spring.
   5. In 2001, my Aunt Ponza had a stroke that took part of her memory, so now I’m trying to give back all the years of love and care she gave to me
   6. In the third quarter the Lady Rockets came out of the locker room, started scoring and never looked back.
   7. I enjoy my computer I’m also responsible on it, your computer only does what you the user tells it to do.
   8. Make sure you are never hungry when going to the grocery because you will buy unnecessary items that aren’t on your list.
   9. I came up with the incredible idea to get her a puppy instead.

10. The eating is mighty fine, bacon, sausage or ham with eggs biscuits and gravy ,yes I said biscuits my aunt would fix biscuits

How My Computer Saved Riley and her Pups

On Feb.4, 2005 my dog was desperately trying to deliver her puppies. She had moped around the house most of the day. That evening, as I was getting the kids ready for bed, Riley began to breathe extremely fast and hard. I yelled for my husband to see what was wrong with her. Ronnie said she was fine, that she was beginning to go into labor. I was satisfied that Riley knew what to do and I got ready for bed myself.
I went to the bathroom and Riley followed me. It was then I knew something was wrong, so I decided to stay up a while longer with her. Riley’s panting became more often and she seemed to be weakening.
I got Ronnie to come into the living room with me. We were discussing what to do for her. She was really having trouble and we didn’t know what to do. Realizing that it was too late to call the vet,we began to panic. My dog was pacing the floor and scooting her behind across the floor.
I told Ronnie maybe the computer could tell us what to do. So I turned it on, hooked up the phone to it, and went online. Not knowing how to word what I needed, I just put in “how to deliver puppies”. I clicked onto the first site that appeared.
The site immediately began to tell me how to help deliver puppies. Step by step, it gave the procedure. I yelled at Ronnie and told him the steps to go by. After doing the first step, which was to break the bag (the water bag) for her, she began having puppies. Thanks to having a computer and knowing just enough about it, my dog had puppies with no more problems.
find out more. http://www.ehow.com/how_2261_deliver-puppies.html
Posted by Christina

Links to Interesting Web Sites

How to do many tasks http://www.ehow.com/

How to grow edibles.
http://www.ehow.com/list_1054.html

Hobbies

Camping on the Creek

Every year since I was about six year old, we have been camping on the creek. My whole family from Grandma (Mammy) to the distant cousin from Ohio would come camping. Every year the first weekend of July the creek bank would be loaded, with all my family members.
Pitching the tents would usually come first, then supper; boy let me tell you about supper. Everyone brings the old Coleman stoves, perfect for cooking outdoors. I’m not talking about this city stuff like hot hogs or hamburgers, well sometimes hamburgers but not for supper.
Supper was chicken and dumplings, soup beans, cornbread, some fresh vegetables from the garden. Since it was July, everybody had fresh vegetables from their garden. After supper there would be softball, bad mitten, and volleyball. From the smallest child, to the oldest grownups (the ones that were able) they enjoyed the games.
Riding four wheelers are very popular with everybody too. I guess there are about a hundred trails to explore. Horseshoes are very popular with the older men. The old women sit and gossip about everyone else. When it gets too dark to play, that’s time for smores, then bed time.
The next morning would always start with a good breakfast. The eating is mighty fine, bacon, sausage or ham with eggs biscuits and gravy. Yes, I said biscuits. My aunt would fix biscuits. My uncle Earl bought an old gas oven at an auction and my aunt Mae would bring that thing down there on the creek and bake her biscuits. The older woman would do most of the cooking. Well, they were so much better at it. The younger woman would clean up and do the dishes. The men would sneak up the creek to go fishing or ginsenging or four wheeling. The children would go in swimming, or play, some would have their bicycles. Hardly any body would be bored, there was always something to do.
Now I have children of my own and since they were born, every first weekend of July we go the creek camping and they are as excited as was at their age. It makes me feel good to share this with them. It's like a family tradition. I hope that some day in the far off future I can be the older woman that sits and gossips while my grandchildren are off playing. Submitted by Tressa

How To

Tips for saving money
From Bessie
Tips in saving money when you go to the grocery store. Clip out coupon on the items you are needed to purchase. Make a grocery list, and stick to it. Make sure you are never hungry when going to the grocery because you will buy unnecessary items that aren’t on your list. Buying food in quantity when it is on sale will save you money later. Try to go to the grocery store once a week, if possible. If you go to the grocery store through out the week you will buy things that you don’t need.

Going back to School

Going Back To School
At the age of 46, I have the opportunity to go back to school. Isn't that something! Things sure are different.
I grew up in the hills of Kentucky with a mom and dad that never finished elementary school. Their school system was a little one-room school, sitting back in the hills.
My first years in school were also in a one-room school. The first four grades were in a little one room building called Cove Branch School with the bathroom outside in it’s own little building. There was no running water in the school or in the bathroom. When I graduated to the fifth grade at Johnetta I got to move up to the older student,s school. This school was so different. It had all the kids from the fifth grade to the eight grade. There were maybe twenty kids in the school. Here the students had to keep up the school. The older girls had to do the cooking for all the students and the teacher. It was up to us what we had for lunch each day. We would have to open big gallon cans of green beans, corn, peaches, meat or whatever we had at the time. Sometimes I wondered exactly what kind of meat was in that five pound can. The best day to cook was when we decided to cook vegetable soup, you got to open all those cans and just dump it in a kettle and sit and wait for lunchtime. The washing of all the dishes was the worst because the older girls always made the younger ones do the washing up. I didn’t like it when I was in the fifth, but in the seventh I liked that a lot.
The boys had to go to the spring to get the water in a bucket. The first year I was there, though, that got changed. The teacher always sent two boys to pack the full bucket back to school. Sometimes, the boys just wouldn’t come back to school. The teacher then decided that it would be best if a girl went with a boy. As you can imagine, sometimes that caused the bucket of water to have a slow trip back to the schoolroom. We all drank from the same bucket with the same dipper. Who knew anything about germs? This is the same thing we did at our homes.
When I became an eighth grader, they consolidated the school system in the county. We were all going to Mt. Vernon Elementary School. It was wonderful and awful at the same time. We had running water, food sat in front of us with supplies if we needed them, which was all great. But we lost the togetherness and friendship we all had for each other.
By Vickie Miller

Lists of Ten

Ten Tips For Saving Money

March 2006

1.If you like eating out, try visiting friends and relatives at mealtimes,
It will save you a bundle on groceries and the use of electricity.
2.Some stores have food sample days you can go on those days and sample all you want.
3.You can bum rides from your friends and family, that will save you gas.
4.Another option is to walk.
5.Do you really need cable or satellite? How many times do you
need to see that rerun?
6.Since you don’t watch TV anymore try fixing things around the home, it
saves from getting a repair person.
7.To save on presents ,re-gift, just make sure you do not give the same person back the gift they gave you.
8.To save on water, share your shower with that special someone.
9.Do less laundry by wearing clothes more than once.
10.There are many imaginative ways to save money just remember, not to depriveyourself of the things you enjoy like a good piece of chocolate.

Submitted by Jo

Thursday, March 09, 2006
Ten examples of sorriness
1. Knowing something needs doing and not doing it,
2. Not putting forth an effort to do or help someone when they are in
need.
3. Putting stuff off, then never doing them.
4. Lying in bed all day when you are not sick.
5. Not taking care of one's self.
6. Not taking care of your children, (that's just plain sorriness)
7. Wanting something to eat and not cooking.
8. Having cobwebs everywhere and not cleaning them up after you see them.
9. Needing clean clothes and not washing them.
10. Walking on a gritty floor and not sweeping it.
Submitted by Tressa