talking about hatching the chicks out for Christmas made we wonder has anyone else ever done something that later you said to your self"what in the world was i thinking?"

One other thing i remember doing was bringing in a litter a piglets in because they were cold, putting them in a playpen and having them get out right as my in-laws were starting to eat. I just sat there like it was no big, everyone has kids chasing pigs around the kitchen at supper time. Why did i not just put a heat lamp in the barn?

Live and learn.

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), October 28, 2000

Answers

Only ONE? Let's see, we bought a "new" couch which the cats promptly shredded and started traveling through instead of over. One evening one of the cats started coming out what had been the arm of the couch and got tangled up. I spent a lot of time reaching in and repositioning her, trying to bring her out, pushing her back in and repositioning her, etc, before I finally got her out. Made me late for my EMS class on emergency childbirth.... Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), October 28, 2000.

I have toomany to list here. A recent one still has my boys laughing. This summer, after losing three hens in one day, I had my son mount two hooks over the kitchen door so that the BB gun would be handy. I also wanted it out of reach of my grandchildren. I didn't realize until he was done that I can't reach it either! Then last week, a big black Lab jumped my fence and came into the yard. He headed right for the hen yard. Luckly, I had not turned the poultry out that day. So I yelled for my son to hand me the BB gun because I couldn't reach it. Then I went tearing out of the house determined to chase this dog away once and for all. I COULDN'T REMEMBER HOW TO FIRE THE GUN! I've been shooting the 22 lately, not the BB gun. My son about died of laughing. I'm chaseing that dog and trying to remember how to cock the gun and yelling that the gun won't work. I don't think I'll ever live that one down. My son showed me how to cock the gun and I finally got that Lab out of the yard. I only wanted to scare it. I think I managed that. What self-respecting dog wants a wild woman chasing it? Two days later, the same dog took off with a neighbor's rooster. Next time, he might get more that a wild woman.

-- Cheryl (bramblecottage@hotmail.com), October 28, 2000.

Cheryl, that was soooo funny!!! I have had a possum that comes up on our front porch each night & eats the cat food!!!! Our dog starts barking & I turn on the porch light & there it is eating!!! So, I've been going in & getting the 22 hand gun & shooting at it!!!! And I had always, been known for being a good shot!!! I keep shooting at this possum & missing!!!! So, when my hubby got home from work one night --I said, could the sights be off on my 22?? I have been shooting at that darn possum & I keep missing him!!! Hubby lookes at the gun & said, it was fine! We had some pictures developed & they were all off center--hubby said , did you have your glasses on when you took these pictures??? We decided I did--& it made everything off center--so hubby said, I know why you are missing that possum---take off your glasses when you are shooting at him! About an hour ago the dog was barking & I turned on the front porch light & there that possum was right next to the front door. So I turned on all the porch lights got my 22 & went out the side door & was ready to shoot when I renmembered I had my glasses on. So I put my glasses on top of my head & took aim at him,-- when I looked down & another possum was headed right at me. Didn't take me long to decide, I wanted to shoot the one headed for me!! I shot him 4 times & I was sure he was dead-- (with or without glasses) ha & the other one was headed for the hills. Maybe the one that got away will spread the word, that the old woman took off her bifocals, & can hit something & they won't come back!! Or I'll load my gun again & take off my glasses & be ready for them!!! Can't wait to tell hubby, that I can still hit something if I take off my glasses! ha--Sonda in Ks.

-- Sonda (sgbruce@birch.net), October 28, 2000.

OK, I'm not going to count minor stuff like all the times I've walked around a parking lot looking for my car only to realize I drove the truck.

The funniest thing I've done lately was while washing clothes one night. The washer had finished and I put the clothes in the dryer and started it. When the buzzer sounded, I went to get my clothes out, but the dryer was empty. I had runned the dryer empty for 30 minutes and left the clothes in the washer. No, I wasn't drinking that night.

-- Jim (catchthesun@yahoo.com), October 29, 2000.

I don't know if this is the funniest or not thing I have done but is one of my larger brain farts. Last december while feeding my pot bellied pigs I kept telling my sow named pig that she was sure getting fat. About a week later at night I heard these shrill screaming noises from the pig house. I ran out thinking I was going to have to save them from some terrible thing only to find that she had 6 baby pigs in the house which she had I suppose been delvering durring the evening and Thumper the boar was upset about having to share the pig house. Thats right I had not kept tract of how old Pig and Thumper were and they were just pets and of course my pets would not be breeding when I wasn't looking. Believe me I am more aware of what I am doing now. But I still can't believe that Pig and Thumper raised those babies together. Am trying to keep beans away from my brain now. gail

-- gail missouri ozarks (gef123@hotmail.com), October 30, 2000.

Here is just ONE of my classics:

On my other farm, neighbor and I had spat going on. He wouldn't move his junk cars so I could sell my farm and my bull kept dumping the water tank to run downhill right into his shop. I said move the cars and I will move the tank! Well it wasn't a mean spat, we still laughed and played tricks on each other. One day I was filling up the tank again, and I deceided to get him. He had a metal building, with a metal roof. I had city water then and lots of pressure. I shot that water straight up into the air way high with the nozzle on hard and it came down right on top of the metal building hard!! The noise inside the building sounded like an earthquake!! I held it there about 10 seconds and then ran inside my barn. I could hear them screaming and yelling next door. I could peek at them through the slats in the barn, and they ran outside. They were afraid to go back in the building!! You should have heard the language!! Took em' a while to figure out it was me! They saw the water dripping off the roof. Anyway, he moved the cars and I sold that place!

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), October 31, 2000.

My husband, the city boy, was yelling at the chickens because one was picking on another. My son and I looked at each other and rolled laughing. When he demanded to know what was so funny, my then eight year old son told him, "Dad, they were making babies"

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), October 31, 2000.

For a week I planned a trip to Home Depot which is at least an hour away. I needed a door for one of our rooms and I drove over with the kids and proceeded to pick it out and have the guy help me get it down etc. All of a sudden it dawns on me the van's been in the shop all week I have the car. It's actually kind of scary that I didn't think about that all week!! That's just my latest.

-- Evelyn B (peontoo@yahoo.com), October 31, 2000.

Not my lastest but my husband loves to tell it, so here goes! I was 8 months pregnant with our second daughter. I had a beautiful garden and I was SOOO proud of it.(It was the first, really, good garden I ever had).I had been to the garden and picked the daily harvest and had gone back to the house. I looked out the window and there in the middle of my beautiful garden was 7 sows with 3doz or more little pigs. I ran out the door screaming and waving the dish rag! The sows looked at me as if I were crazy but they didn't move!!! I hit one with a stick and she just grunted and move to another row. I went to the house and got the rifle~~pointed it up in the air and fired it! The electric line fell to the ground! I had SHOT the electic line into! Try to explain that to your husband and the guy who comes to fix it!!!!!!!

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), October 31, 2000.

I managed to set fire to my foot while making Christmas cookies one year. As I looked out the patio door at my flaming shoe stuck in a snowbank, with a pall of black smoke rolling off the burning cookies and cookiepress and out the door, the smoke alarm finally went off.

If I'd had it on video tape for America's Funniest Home videos, I think I'd be $10,000 richer today.

-- Julie Froelich (firefly1@nnex.net), November 01, 2000.

In the part of the country where I grew up, the Game Warden preferred people euthanized and bled any deer hit by a car and was injured, as it sometimes took him hours to get there. I carried a hunting knife by the seat in my '65 Mustang just in case.

I was about 19 years old and had some city friends visiting when a small deer jumped in front of me, hit the bumper and fell down. I slammed on the brakes, jumped out with my knife, wearing summer dress and sandals, and grabbed the deer by the ear to slit it's throat. That's when the deer jumped on his feet and tried to run away. Talk about a major brain infarction! It took a minute for me to realize the dear was not hurt and I did not need to euthanize it.

So there I was,in a dress, dancing with a deer, ear in one hand chrome bladed knife in the other, trying to get my arm around a terrified deer who was jumping and trying to get away from this crazy person. When I finally let go, I saw my audience, three city kids with their jaws hanging open muttering about how you just don't mess with those mountain folks.

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), November 02, 2000.

On our second trip to my son's orthodontist appt. we were led into a room where there were 8 ortho chairs all lined up in a L shape against a wall, then there was a island in the middle. As my son is sitting in the chair waiting on the Doc to come work on him, there are lots of other kids in their chairs, parents, asst. etc. I'm looking across the room and keep looking at this lady for some reason, I'm thinking man that lady looks familiar, I looked away for a while, then looked back and couldn't figure out why she looked so familiar, then it dawned on me, that lady looks a lot like my Mom that's why was intriged, thought it was odd and funny, as we were leaving we go around the other way out and I realize "THAT LADY" was ME! ! ! that whole wall was mirrors of sliding closet doors!! I couldn't tell that from the island! LOL Boy did i feel silly.

-- Carol in Tx (cwaldrop@peoplescom.net), November 02, 2000.

As some of you already know, several years ago we moved from Ontario to Saskatchewan. The first few Christmases were tough -- coming from a large family, I couldn't get used to the quietness of Christmas with just the four of us.

Last Christmas, hubby's family was planning on coming home to our house for Christmas. I finally got to plan a huge Christmas dinner, and I had to cook it! Now, I'm a pretty good cook, if I do say so myself. I can make just about anything edible with a little time and ingenuity. Strange thing is, I didn't even think. I got everything together as I'd seen my mom do for dozens of years, and cooked dinner.

Well, I discovered, to my dismay, that the size of turkey required to feed the 40+ people of my extended family back home was simply TOO MUCH TURKEY for a family of eight. The first indication that I had cooked too much was when I was doing my Christmas morning calling back home and spoke to my brother, who started laughing when I told him about the wonderful 35 lb turkey I'd found.

You should have seen the faces of the family that sat down to dinner that night at our table. That turkey was bigger than my kids!! But, growing up in a family of eight children, with spouses, etc., I didn't know turkey's CAME any smaller!!! We were eating turkey leftovers until Easter and my brother still laughs about it every time we talk -- a year later!!!

-- Tracy (trimmer@westzone.com), November 03, 2000.

Our first year on this place, I took the ashes outside after cleaning the woodstove one morning when it was only about 10 degrees above zero. That afternoon, I figured the ashes must be cold by then, as they had been outside all day, and dumped them on our new compost pile, which was right next to the old chicken house. All evening as we were reading and watching television, the dog kept pestering my husband and I, wanting to go out, but then wanting right back in. We finally went to bed, and about an hour later, got a call from a neighbor, telling us we had a "hell of a fire out back". I yelled into the phone "Oh, no! My compost!" Here we were, hubby and I, in - 15 degree temperatures, hauling water about 200 feet from the nearest hydrant, since the hoses were frozen solid, and broke when we tried to unroll them. Hubby was a new member of the local volunteer fire department, and NO WAY was he going to call them to come put this out! Neither did the neighbor come over to help. We finally got the flames out after about 2 hours, and we were frozen! Can't believe I was so dumb when we first moved out here! Jan

-- Jan in Colorado (Janice12@aol.com), November 04, 2000.