The Colonel's Kernels

It was corn harvesting time here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere last week, and the Colonel beat the critters to the kernels.

Back during June, the temperature climbed into the middle miseries, the clouds departed hereover, and nary a drop of rain fell for four weeks.  An acre of corn, beans, and cantaloupes planted by hand the middle of May began to wither in the wicked hot weather.  The Colonel carried buckets of water every evening down to the garden plot in the back forty, and lovingly ladled liquid on each and every stalk and vine. 

The corn survived. 

The cantaloupes thrived. 

The Colonel began to worry about four-legged veggie vandals and fruit thieves.

A scare-crow and a two-wire electric fence around the garden served to ease the Colonel's worries a bit.  Several fruitful late afternoon anti-critter patrols served to reduce the critter population substantially and put the remaining bandits on notice.  The best defense, after all, is a strong offense.  

Last week, the Colonel checked on the progress of his corn and decided it was time to harvest.  He pulled ears for a couple of hours and filled up the bed of his rusty red pick-up, Semper Fillit, with, well, shucks, a whole load of corn.

More corn than he'd ever grown.

More corn than he'd ever shucked.

More corn than he knew what to do with.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda took one look at the Colonel sitting on the tailgate backed by a mountain of corn, and remarked with obvious pride at her man's produce prowess, "What in the world are you gonna do with all that corn?"

The Colonel grinned like a mule eatin' briars and replied, "Not my problem.  I grow it.  You process it."

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda thereby clouded up and commenced to rain all over the Colonel's harvest victory parade.  The Colonel hates it when that happens. 

After the corn had been shucked and cleaned, it became obvious that the mountains of corn on the cob and buckets of corn off the cob far exceeded the storage capacity extant in the one freezer in the Big House.  There are now two freezers in the Big House, and the economy has been sufficiently stimulated.

All told, the Colonel figures he brought in a corn crop valued at approximately $3.75 a cob, given the Colonel's valuable time and effort expended and the economic stimulus applied toward appliances.