Tips from the Garden Lady
by Mary McNair, Gardens Editor

           I think I must have pruned the apple trees just right last year because we got bunches of good, healthy apples. I have just about enough for making five gallons of hard cider, with a few left over for baking pies.
          Hance Barnwell helps me with my old cider press every year. I’m not strong enough to turn the crank and he gets a couple of quarts for his trouble. And then he gets in trouble with his two quarts. This cider is definately not the cider they serve you at the church picnic. It will drop you like a clay pigeon. I always advise people to try one glass and then wait 15 minutes before getting a refill to see how you are holding up. If you can’t tell how you are holding up, it’s better to let it go with just the one glass.

Cider Night Rules

          My husband, Howell, and I used to have friends over for “cider night” in early November. Those were marvelous times but that was before we came up with the “15-minute rule” and, unfortunately, some people were temporarily debilitated. Howell later died but not from the cider I don’t believe.
          Pruning fruit trees of any kind can be tricky business. And successful pruning really takes a couple of seasons so you have to have a lot of patience.
          I am not terribly patient so I get Hance to come over and do the pruning. He does the best job when he is completely sober. If he’s had a few, I just tell him to come back tomorrow when he hasn’t. Sometimes this procedure can stretch the pruning process out over then entire dormant season.
          This might explain why my trees have been so productive. I’m definitely not in favor of excessive drinking but being tipsy every so often might actually benefit your horticulture.
          Well, salud everybody! I’m off to hose down the cider press.

Gala Arts Ball Preparations are
in Full Swing all Over Earnest
by Ann-Marie Steadman, Goings-On Editor

          This year’s glitzy blowout is promised to be the best ever, as literally dozens of upwardly mobile egos battle for supremacy in the annual “who’s who” war. This grand event establishes the pecking order for the coming year among those discreetly refered to as socially prominent.
           Here’s who’s doing what:
          Earnest Arts Alliance ---- Mary Murphy and Joyce Bingham, co-presidents, have obtained original art on loan from Stavros Maltos Dextros, the famous New York sculptor featured in the prestigious Quarterly, “Rolling Snob”. Some of the works by Stavros will include “Metal Amazon”, a 9-foot pyramid of rusting engine blocks and “Nuts”, a large, wooden crate filled with screws and bolts.
          Earnest Garden Club --- Flowers this year will be chrysanthemums. President Betty Claude Coates says some of the chrysanthemums will be “a little long in the tooth” by ball time but adds that she doesn’t care because “that’s just what chrysanthemums do when they get old.”
          Bobby and Earline’s Catering --- This year’s spread will feature Bobby’s own barbecued caviar pizza, eggplant sorbet and “firewater salmon” --- smoked salmon filets drowned in whiskey. (The fish are literally drowned in the whiskey before they are filetted). Earline, whose cooking school recently opened, will throw in her fabulous “blackened Redfish Yorkshire Pudding” and other delicacies best left unmentioned.
          Earnest Friars & Knights --- Under the direction of two-term President Earl Snavely, the Friars & Knights will put on the fireworks again this year.
          It is likely that Sheriff Wayne Fawcett will need to supervise these proceedings, however. It was Mr. Snavely who simultaneously set off two, 19-ball Roman candles inside the mens room during last year’s festivities, creating a panic which resulted in the loss of the bathroom’s mirrors and chandelier and a 30-minute power outage in the building.
          There’s more to come on all this, so y’all stay tuned.

Were the Movies Wrong?

 Real, true cowboys in the American west in the late 1800’s were called sissies if they wore kerchiefs around their necks while inside a saloon or drove cattle while wearing white hats or displayed silver on their holsters. Apologies to John Wayne.

Movie Star Comes to Earnest

          Sledd McElroy, who starred in this year’s hit,
“Snakes in My Oatmeal” will make an appearance Tuesday night at the Earnest Hospitality Club. He will discuss the topic of “National Warming”.
McElroy, will play the lead detective in the upcoming film, “Die, Stinking Garbage”, co-starring Penn Steuben and Phyllis Pinion.
McElroy told the Herald today that his new film includes over five dozen “spectacular explosions,” and numerous portrayals of mayhem, dismemberment and treachery between what he termed “uproarously funny” comedy scenes and mindless streams of pointless profanity.
          “It’s basically a sort of ‘snuff’ travelogue espionage flick,” he said. “It’s what’ll happen to all of us if we don’t cure national warming.”
          Does McElroy feel any guilt about the explosions in his film causing national warming?
          Not at all,” he said, “in fact external combustion is what we have to do to expose the fraud of internal combustion.”
          Case rests.

A Warm Remberance
of Cold Weather

          My dad used to cut firewood in the backyard, with snow on the ground and ice on the tree limbs, wearing khakis and a T-shirt. But cold weather is only nice if you can get warmed up again so he would kick the snow off his shoes outside the back door and come in the kitchen and have a cold beer.
          Dad would take me out on the mountain between Thanksgiving and Christmas and let me attempt dislodging mistletoe with the .22 Remington pump. It would be cold. My right hand would become numb without its glove but I would go on wasting rounds until at least some mistletoe hit the ground --- while Dad watched, gloveless in his cotton shirt, no doubt looking forward to the next cold beer.

Waiting for Santa Claus

          He had to work late one Christmas Eve, leaving my mother and two younger brothers and me alone at the house out on the mountain. It was a real cold night. I went on the front porch to see if the stars were out and promptly slid across it on a quarter-inch of ice. I saved myself by grabbing ice-encrusted shrubbery.
          The stars were brilliant.
          We sat together on the sofa with the the lights out except for the Christmas tree. Our local radio station played Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”. The power went off before Scrooge got to have his epiphany. But we had the fire and the low hissing of the wood.
          All of us were just about dozing when Dad came home. He had survived the ice and made it back to us! We went into the kitchen with the house still dark and lit candles and shared some egg nog. What a Christmas that was!
 

The Christmas Project

          Just before Christmas every year, Uncle Fletcher and Doc Floyd go on their popular rounds, giving warmth and cheer to the less fortunate. What this means is that they load Doc’s old station wagon with half-pint bottles of Jim Beam and drive around Earnest and Cletus and Thornberry looking for the downtrodden.
          When they find a likely suspect, they stop the car and ask that individual if he would like some Christmas cheer. If he says “yes” they toss him a bottle and say “merry Christmas”. Last year they went through 100 bottles. Some likely were repeats but, well, it’s Christmas.
          The two old codgers raise cash for their little charity by hitting on local church groups. They tell them they are “helping the less fortunate”.
          God, may or may not agree with that but I’m pretty sure Dad would.