A Man, A Rabbit And a Shovel

Slim Randles is here today as Wednesday’s Guest with a little story about his friend, Dewey and a new enterprise. You never know what the guys at the Mule Barn Truck Stop are apt to do. Enjoy….

When Dewey Decker bought that acre on the edge of town from Gil Masterson, it astonished some people, but others, like Doc, just smiled and nodded. It’s a natural progression. Gil raises vegetables on a large scale, and the rumor is that the land was at least partially paid for in “product,” because Dewey is the undisputed Pharoah of Phertilizer in these parts.

Dewey then did another trade-out with a local handyman for a couple of rabbit hutches. He installed a buck and several does in them.

rabbits

“Everyone knows rabbits produce superior product,” Dewey told his lady love, Emily Stickles, she of the fantastic cheekbones and finely honed business acumen. Emily glowed, knowing that this rabbit idea was strictly Dewey’s.

Well, the rabbits produced product all right, and Dewey put a few hundred of his finest red wiggler fishing worms under the hutch to put the finishing touches on primo fertilizer … we mean houseplant-grade fertilizer. It’ll bring more money in, too.

After a few months, there was quite a mound of product to be processed, and there was also a marked increase in the rabbit population.

Dewey really enjoyed watching the baby rabbits grow up. But then he had to decide whether to have rabbit for dinner or just turn them all into product makers. The product idea won. This meant buying more hutches, but he was able to do this with the houseplant fertilizer money, which also bought rabbit pellets.

One of the best parts of this division of his soil amendments business was that Dewey could actually feed and care for the rabbits and their product with nothing but a shovel. And accident-prone Dewey can handle any tool fairly well, as long as it isn’t sharp, has no moving parts, and is commonly called a shovel.

Windy’s driving the loader and the truck for him now, several days a week, and Emily is taking care of the books. So Dewey just watches happily as the growing rabbit population produce … well, product is as good a name as any.

Life is good.

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Brought to you by A Cowboy’s Guide to Growing Up Right.

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Slim Randles writes a nationally syndicated column, Home Country, and is the author of a number of books including  Saddle Up: A Cowboy Guide to Writing. That title, and others, are published by  LPD Press.

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