Zeus

Uncle Bubba and Sweet Pea were relaxing on the porch when the Duke sauntered up for a spell. He was feeling a little down because one of his best bulls, Zeus had died. He asked Bubbie if he go with him the next morning to pick him up off of his neighbor’s property. They had a gentlemen’s farm and were boarding Zeus there.
“He’s a monster.” the Duke said, “You don’t just dig a hole and bury a bull of his size.”
“No?” asked Sweet Pea.
“No ma’am; but I have a few big sinkholes that have opened up in the back pastures due to this drought and we can plant him in one of those.”
“Aw, I’m sorry Duke.” replied Sweet Pea.
“Yeah, he was a good ol’ bull.” the Duke lamented.

The next morning the two amigos rode out to the ranch and picked up the great behemoth. They found him lying on his side in the shade of a large live oak. Even in death, lying down he was a black mountain of bull. They carefully loaded him gently on the trailer. As unpleasant as the event was, the Duke proficiently took care of business as always; his cordial southern demeanor always shining through. The summer day crept into a nice long afternoon with cool drinks and fond memories of Zeus.

Poison Ivy

Uncle Bubba and Sweet Pea were sitting on the couch when Sweet Pea noticed a red mark on Bubbie’s arm.
“Does that itch?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“That spot, on your arm.”
“Not really.” Bubbie says dismissively.
Mere moments later, Sweet Pea spots a couple minute bumps on Bubbie’s thumb.
“Let me see your hand.”
“What?” Bubbie quips.
“Is that poison ivy?” Sweet Pea ponders out loud.
“Oh criminy.” Bubbie grunts.

Within the next hour, several other areas on Bubbie’s body broke out in the small bumpy rash. To say that the itchiness is annoying is an understatement and one will find a multitude of spots on one’s body that suddenly itch, even though they are unaffected areas of poison ivy. Sweet Pea finds it comical that he has a break out on a part of his body that is most precious.
“Well,” she laughs, “I guess we know the places boys touch first!”

The itch gets more intense and oddly couples itself with a burning sensation. At this point, Bubbie, who has been through this many times before, knows that this is going to take days to get over. Not a fun thought; but if this is the worst thing he has to deal with this summer, he can live with it.

Cows Don't Care

While driving among miles of pasture land, Bubbie views the sporadic herds of grazing cattle. There’s something about the scenery that Bubbie likes in a nostalgic way. Not primitive but old. It could be 1950, 40, 1850, heck even 1750. And those cows—they don’t care that cars are driving by. As a matter of fact, they don’t care about us, at all. They don’t care about when we were young and other kids picked on us. They don’t care about our painful awkward teenage years fumbling through pubicly, hormone drenched phases. High school crushes, summer infatuations. They don’t care about all the lessons learned in adulthood; responsibility, good choices, bad choices and their consequences. Nope, those cows don’t care about us and our self consuming thoughts. They don’t know how important we’ve made ourselves.

Bubbie thinks that if a cow could one day talk and he tried to explain our lives to that cow, the cow would say, “You need to get a life.”