From frogs in Frog Hollow and seagulls in Hampton to a cow cuttin' in Hickory Hill, when it comes to critters I've seen or heard a little bit of everything this week.
My animalistic adventures began Thursday with a trip around a legendary place known as Frog Hollow. While the city itself is kind of on the small side, the place was quiet and quaint and the folks love to chat, so it took a little longer than I thought to tour the metropolis that borders the suburbs of Varnville, but it was time well spent.

I imagine my poor mother will pass out cold after reading this headline. (She's a teacher at Brunson Elementary and she doesn't like me writing about her drawers.) But if you are thinking about any type of drawers other than desk drawers then you are indeed a naughty pupil. Consider yourself in detention.

Some observations from the Great Snow Storm of 2010:
- When it snows there are five things a kid simply MUST do, in this order:
1. Eat some snow.
2. Write his name in the snow (preferably after he is through eating it.)
3. Throw some snow.
4. Make snow angels.
5. Build a snow man.
- Snow brings out the kid in all of us. I saw grown men throw snowballs and a grandmother build a gigantic snowman. And I saw a grown woman almost cry when it all melted away. The wife is such a sissy.

If you enjoyed last year's Salkehatchie Stew production, Dig Deeper, then get your taste buds ready for a second helping of Stew this spring.
The public will get its first taste of the new batch of Salk Stew next week. Salkehatchie Stew will present a public read-through of the new 2010 play script, Weathering The Storm, at the B&G Civic Center in Allendale at 6 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 8. At the read-through, the audience will have an opportunity to comment and offer suggestions on the script.

It was a brisk day in January, the traditional time for butchering in the South, and it was time for Wilbur the Pig to meet his fate.
Always the animal lover, knowing about the imminent slaughter well in advance didn't help the wife's feelings much. Perhaps it would have helped if she hadn't named the pig Wilbur. And buying the critter a polka-dotted collar and petting it a lot probably didn't help, either. Even I teared up a little bit during the butchering process. Or maybe it was the sausage seasoning getting in my eyes.

You don't have to be crazy to live on my farm, but it helps.
As if a wife and kid aren't enough to make a farmer crazy (They get too easily attached to the livestock: it's hard to butcher Wilbur the Pig when he's wearing a cute little polka-dotted bow tie and walking on a leash.), having herds of insane animals roaming all over the back 40 doesn't improve my mental state much.

I'll never forget our first official father-son hunting trip, and neither will every form of wildlife within hearing distance of us this past weekend.
While it lacked the raw excitement of our first official father-son fishing trip when he was three (the boy rubbed his first fish all over his hair, before torturing it to death, and then later tried to eat a worm), my first hunting expedition with our 5-year-old was not without its moments and, frankly, it was a downright educational experience.

Tired of slopping hogs, a 16-year-old farm boy took a job bagging groceries at the local Piggly Wiggly almost 20 years ago with only two simple goals in mind:
1. To get the heck off the farm so he would never have to see another hog as long as he lived;
2. And to make enough money to buy his first car and start dating.

Last year the "All Wars Memorial Committee" dissolved after having completed its work on the memorial park on the Court House grounds.
However, due to a request to have the name of a soldier lost in the Iraq conflict added to the monument, County Council has moved to re-establish the board.
With the help of J.C. Clifton, an original member of the first committee, he and I contacted other original members. Some of the original members had died, a few had moved away and one could not serve due to ill health.