The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.


The Wisdom Of Barnyard Bruke: "watch out for the bears!"

Greetings to everyone in western Illinois. I'm a hope'n everyone is enjoy'n this milder weather we are have'n, even tho it has brought on a fair amount of fog, mud, and ugh-the ice with all the difficulties related to that.

We lost our electricity for a spell, but nothing to create any major difficulties.

When the electricity was act'n up, apparently a power surge blew up our surge protector as well as fried our fax machine. Could have been worse, however, and I'm not complain'in.

Some folk around these parts are still harvest'n last years corn crop. It reminds me of folk up in Dunn County, Wisconsin.

A feller by the name of Neil Schlough, of Boyceville, was harvest'n corn on his Pinehurst Farm, a few miles south of the Dunn/Barron County line, just off of County Road VVV, or about 22 miles north of Menomonie.

A bear was denning in Mr. Schlough's cornfield, having dug a hole about a foot deep to lay in and pulled in debris, from the corn stalks, in on top of itself.

Mr. Schlough came upon the bear with the outside snout of his corn combine head and drove the point into the animals neck and shoulder. The bear was pushed about six or seven feet. Amazingly the combine was not damaged.

He figured at first one of his dairy cows had gotten out, ate too much of the stalk corn and died. It didn't take him long to however realize it was a bear. He estimated it to be about 300 pounds.

The DNR was called immediately with conservation warden, Jim Cleven, responding. Neil paid $75 to keep the bear for a full-body mount, by Tom Persons, owner of TP Taxidermy.

Loaded up by a skid steer, it was field dressed at 618 pounds and measured 7 feet from head to tail. Actual weight before field dressing is estimated at around 720 pounds. It was estimated to be 15 to 20 years old.

Persons said he'll have to use a grizzly bear form to mount the bear because there aren't black bear mounts big enough to do the job.

It is thought the bear has the potential to break the state mark and will probably break the Dunn County record.

So, for those of you'ns still harvest'n corn, be on the lookout for hibernating bears.

You might not be as lucky as Mr. Schlough with your machine. To run a bear into one of those large machines could make her (the machine) really growl!

I ran a skunk thru my combine once, whilst combine'n soybeans. It was after dark and my-what a smell! Kept me awake, easy enough, for quite a spell. I seen him run into the platform but before I could shut her down, that blame skunk had made its way clear to the back end and thru the chopper.

Next morn'n, in daylight, I went back to observe the fate of the pole cat, but alls that was left was a little bit of hide and fur.

It seemed as though a weasel, or something of that nature from a nearby crick, had dined a gourmet meal on that highly tenderized skunk.

I see where some high priced land sold in the area for over $8000 per acre.

So much for Cornelius complain'n on the court house raise'n the value of his land too high for tax purposes. Looks like the court house still has some catch'n up to do, unfortunately.

I read in a local Burlington paper where Donald Kaul, of Minuteman Media, called Christians who believe in, "The Rapture"-"entertainers of bizarre notions". He made fun of, "Raptured Christians" leaving folk like himself "behind to writhe in misery".

Mr. Kaul went on to call Christians who hold to that belief as "cuckoos", and arguing against them "is hardly worth the time".

"It seems at times, that paper is all too ready and willing to print material attacking Christianity and it's beliefs".

Well, as was said before, if'n that attack was against the Muslim faith or the prophet Muhammad, the editor would risk a Fatwa and probably have his life threatened.

Thank goodness Christianity stands for what it does, and rather than anger against the paper, it's editor, or Mr. Kaul, one can only feel pity for them.

As such, we are compelled to pray for them, that they might come to know Jesus and accept him as their Savior, if'n thy haven't already. It's not right to judge, and I'll have none of it.

Sometimes, those folk write just to stir the pot and sell papers, rather than spell out their true convictions.

The problem with that line of thought can be found in St. Luke 12:9, "But he that denieth me before men, shall be denied before the angels of God". It would also do well to read Jude 4 for review.

Well anyways- 
Keep on smile'n, keep the faith, and watch out for them bears!

Catch ya Later
Barnyard Bruke