DEAD RATS AND TACKLE BOXES
It is Monday morning and I decide to call my wife to find out how things are going on the home front. I am greeted with the news that we have suffered what can only be a death.
I listen sympathetically as my sweetie tells me that she thinks something has crawled [...]

“Men are incapable of rational thought and it is a well known fact that due to what is known among medical experts as the ‘lard’ gene, an amorphous and somewhat mushy blob located in the center of the brain cavity and taking up approximately eighteen square inches of space in the average man’s cerebrum, men, [...]

When I was knee high to a short toad I was always playing with sharp and pointy sticks. mama was always saying, “And don’t you play with any sharp and pointy sticks, if you do you are going to poke out both of your eyes and you will be blind for the rest of your [...]

To Ratty’s readers,
Ratty, being of a somewhat shy and retiring nature, (you can understand why considering his name) has asked me to come to his readers with an apology.
The “vulture” hanging from the tower is in fact a fake. Yes, it is a scare buzzard, or a fright vulture, bogus bird, or whatever.
It did not [...]

“All good things come to them that wait.” I waited.
Do you remember when we were kids and we would go out on a warm summer evening and catch lightning bugs?
A Mason jar full of lightning bugs could serve as a real neat makeshift lantern. Also, as I remember a forgotten jar of lightning bugs takes [...]

SHADES OF THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG
By
Charles Towne
For those of you who have never read the cult classic, ‘THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG’ by Edward Abbey, do yourself a favor and beg, borrow or hi-jack a copy, you’ll love it.
It has been some twenty years ago when I was hiking way back on a large parcel of [...]

We have all heard of the mourning dove. Most of us recognize a dove when we see it and the cooing of this lovely bird is recognized by all as seeming somewhat poignant, even sad. But, have you ever heard of a mourning crow?
As a boy growing up in the Illinois of the forties, hunting, [...]

Hey, all of you trash talkers out there! This is the River Rat here and you’re going to love this.
Recently I was back in the woods scouting wild animal trails for places to set up camera blinds when lo and behold there in front of me was the sign of the greater trasher, or, Trashus [...]