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Show Hon Cropper had the stream and was still puddling in the water and playing with seagulls, so Fuzz had a .little respite from his labors, lab-ors, but not for long, because when he cleaned his ditches out the day before he started the largest Cottonwood Cot-tonwood tree in Millard county on fire and the wind, as you remember remem-ber Sunday was not a gentle zephyr-He still had three levies to plant tend the fire, and wait 'for the water. wat-er. Pretty soon he had a stream of water on his hands, a large conflagration, and 100 pounds of seed to go.- Luckily for,xFuzz the stream of water went well, so he had that worry off his hands, but every time he got very far out in the field with his cyclone, and the wind blowing a cyclone, and buring bark and branches blowing helter skelter skel-ter he would have to make a dash for the house hoping to salvage something from the fire. About this time an large branch clunked through the telephone wires popping them like violin strings and Fuzz could see that if the house and out house caught on fire he would have to leave his seeding, water and farm and make a bee line for the Dire dept. as. he had no phone handy to call them as when he broke down the line he upset the phone systtem for quite some distance, and also upset Rulon Callister. So we now find Fuzz seated on Chatter Box Dear Suzy, A one-armed paper hanger is said to have a busy life but he really has a life of ease and quiet compared to Fuzz (the farmer) geckvvith this past week end. Fuzz, as you know, has a little acreage out on Cropper Lane on which he hopes to raise a few alfalfa seeds and such. This week end all was almost ready and Fuzz started out i - to try" and learn to be a farmer. They tell me a 'farmer doesn't have to crazy to be a farmer, but it helps, and why Fuzz took up all this hard work after his life of leisure, is beyond me. But take up farming he did. The busy week end started bright and early Thursday morning morn-ing and we find Fuzz out in the field running .a series of corrugat- ions that wound up and down the field like a corkscrew. Time out for resting and looking for a trac-''' trac-''' tor seat kept Fuzz at his work for tw0 days. Came Saturday and with the able help of Bill Killpack and his son, Hal, they started putting in some ditches that were supposed sup-posed to take a couple of hours. Came four o'clock in the afternoon we find the trio still at it and no sight df the end making its appearance. ap-pearance. Finnally they gave up his tractor grinding away on the cyclone and as the wind and fire roared harder Fuzz ground away on the cyclone tossing seeds far and wide. (Some seeds were reported re-ported falling as far away as Oasis.) Oas-is.) And at the same time the irrigating ir-rigating was creeping up on him like a pack of wolves. So Fuzz had to keep an eye on the fire, crane his neck around and watch the water gaining on him and still try to get the seeding done before he was bogged down in the mire. Came two o'clock in the morning morn-ing and Fuzz was still grind away on the cyclone, tending the fire and racing against the water. Bob Robinson came over to the farm at time and told Fuzz, "Shut that damned tractor off. My wife and I can't sleep for the infernal racket." rac-ket." To which Fuzz replied, "I the ditching and figured there was ample ditch unless someone spit in the stream and then the ditches would go out. Permission was obtained from Amos Maxfield to water on the following Sunday. Said Amos, "if you take the stream before church time Sunday all will be well and you might as well work on Sunday Sun-day especially when you are irrigating." irri-gating." So Fuzz, by the light of his tractor, spent hours far into the night planting alfalfa seeds with a cyclone seeder getting ready rea-dy for the big day. He Intended to plant ten pounds to the acre, but from his appearance appear-ance the next day he planted seeds every place besides the field. He had them in his shoes, pockets, underwear, eyebrows, and if he , had had any hair he would have I nad vnem meie, uui uibi, uaiu head of his would be a poor place to grow a crop.ifit wont grow hair. He wasted enough seed to plant a 40 acre farm and he should have kept them as a sample to set out in the field to urge the little plants along and give an example of what they should produce. pro-duce. He got two levies in that night and was ready for the big day when he began taking his first lesson in Irrigation. He had four more levies to get in, and figured he could plant as fast as the farm irrigated. He had a lot to learn. Sunday morning, about dawn, we find Fuzz shoveling out some of the spots in the ditch where the ditcher couldn't get and preparing pre-paring for the water. Les Webb came along and asked him where his canvass dams were, and Fuzz not wanting to get his nice white new ones dirty told Les he forgot them, knowing Les would loan him some. Which Les did, sending them over with his son, Toby. It was a good thing Les did send them over with Toby because Fuzz had a lesson from young' ten-year old Toby on how to put them in. can t . my arm Keeps going m circls, even IX I take It off the cyclone handle and I can't catch the ignition switch as it goes past." So Bob had to retire to a sleepless sleep-less night, and so did Fuzz. Shortly after that the planting was done, and he now only had two things, the fire and the water. wat-er. When he went over to the fire he got nice and toasty and when he went to the irrigating he got bitter cold. So at this time Fuzz did the only wise thing he had done that whole week end. He said "to hell with it" and cut into in-to another levy saying to himself, him-self, "a man is a fathead to change a canvas dam at this time of night and get his hands cold, and probably fall in the ditch. If two levies can't be watered while I am sleeping they can't be watered." water-ed." So he opened another levy and went to the house, easy chair and warm fire. He had, a jug of Doc Judd's favorite prescription for med ical purposes only, but he was too tired to lift it and gain its warming warm-ing strength. Waking about 5:30 on that cold and dismal Monday he wondered how the water was doing, but very unconcerned about ab-out it when he figured a cup of coffee was what he needed. So he left the tree burning merrily, the water gurbling in the ditches and went to town to get a cup of coffee. Returning in the cheerful sunlight sun-light he found that the water had done a right nice job and had just gotten to the ends of both levies. Now, he figured, that was the way to irrigate, so he chucked in a canvas dam and opened up two more levies, retired again to the house and easy chair and let nature nat-ure and the corrugations take care of themselves. Wanda got to worrying about Fuzz along about 9:30 and so hied out to the farm to see for herself which ditch he had tumbled in and woke Fuzz from a nightmare he was having, in which nightmare night-mare Fuzz was sitting in a leaking boat, toasting alfalfa seeds in a forest fire. She dug three pounds o' alfalfa seeds out of his ears, said he needed a bath and a shave and why not let the water go for awhile as it wasn't through yet. All this appealed to Fuzz and so he left the water and soft ditch banks for the comfort of a hot bath, nap and 7 pounds of lamb chops. Back to his irrigating after this respite Fuzz found he had made an error. His ditch banks had large gaps in them that would have taken a bull dozer to close and the place still lacked soaking in spots. Fuzz looked the sorry sight over, water running everywhere but the right place, and said, "the devil with farming, I'm going back to my type and paper." No sooner said than done he hopped hopped into Leigh Maxfield's truck, which he had appropriated while Leigh was at conference, and went to return the truck. Leigh asked him how he was doing, and Fuzz's reply re-ply is not for print. Leigh went with him to view the deluge and said it was a simple trick to finish, and so saying, Leigh chucked in a little straw, plugged a couple of holes and while Fuzz sat on a solid dltchbank watching a miracle happened hap-pened and the farm was irrigated. Fuzz is hobbling about on stiff legs, weary of muscle and limb, an appetite like a large horse, chap ped hands and a sun burned face, but ready to try it again when he gets some new ditches and a little strength back. Well, some of us have to learn the hard way, and others of us never learn. Toots. |