Terry, completely unaware of Mary’s fate, was wreaking havoc on the cockpit. Flying from control to control, flipping switches at random, obscuring the pilot’s view of gauges, and eventually finding an opening in the co-pilot’s pantleg at the boot cuff. He jerked involuntarily into a fetal position as Terry added one more maimed male testicle to the already impressive record of her movement toward a gynocentric Utopian future.
The pilot may have survived the furry tornado attacking the cockpit in general, but when his co-pilot curled into a ball and hurled himself on the controls, all was lost. The aircraft pitched wildly and went into a huge parabolic climb.
Satisfied that Chuck Yeager himself couldn’t tame the monster she’d made of the helicopter, Terry zipped back to the cargo hold. She scampered down the cable which was whipping back and forth, and leapt wildly in what she hoped was the direction of the ground.
When one leaps wildly into the air, the end result is ALWAYS in the general direction of the ground. In Terry’s case, she merely needs to hope that no helicopter rotors are spinning through her path thereto. And of course, she should survive without ill effect. I mean, surely you have seen all those squirrel-launching videos on YouTube by now…
}:-]
Can’t kill the squirrels off yet.!!!!!!!!!!!
After the helicopter crashes, I can see the newspaper headline now …
“Squirrel nibbles nuts”
General Anthony McAuliffe (squirrell whisperer)
Dear ‘Mudge,
I miss your old content.
If you have a following for the whole lesbian squirrels thing and you like writing it then that’s awesome for you. Maybe you could publish it on Amazon or something; who knows, maybe it’ll be your big break and you can full time write and homestead for a living. But since your blog has been taken over by this story I’ve stopped reading it. I check in occasionally to see if you have any new content that isn’t related to this story and occasionally I get lucky and find something of interest.
don’t contribute to Patreon or your tip jar, so I suppose there’s really no reason for you to give a crap what I think about what you post on your own website, but I just wanted to put it out there that I miss your old stuff and maybe I’m not the only reader who has drifted away as a result of your page being overtaken by squirrels. So, I’ll keep checking in occasionally in case there’s something non-squirrel related. And in the mean time, just know that I miss you and your old-school style content.
Thanks,
Rae
Aw man… what a bummer. I hate to think I’m driving people away. I’ve sorta’ painted myself in a corner on topics (newbie mistake!) and you’re seeing it. Here’s a peek at “how the sausage is made”. I’m hoping you’ll see I’m not deliberately trying to annoy you. I freely admit I’m the world’s worst marketer nor am I good at judging what the invisible audience of the internet wants.
I used to bounce between homesteading and politics. That worked pretty well. Blogging about homesteading is hard. You’ve got to spend 100 hours shoveling shit for every decent bit of enlightenment (“I’ve figured out the best way to keep chicken waterers thawed! Here’s a post about it.”). If I wrote 100% homesteading I’d wear myself out and indeed I notice homestead exclusive blogs tend to fade in a few years. Politics was the easy half of the equation. You can always count on politics to generate a steady stream of inanity. Maybe God created politicians as pre-written jokes in search of a microphone? But recently I sensed politics had entered an ill defined period that I can only call “critical mass”. Bad politics (with its payload of nasty attitudes) is just plan bad for me. I’d be better off taking up smoking. So I sought a different outlet and last fall wrote about a racist bear stomping on a terrorist skunk (which grew into the squirrels saga).
I figured fiction would replace politics during the temporary time when the “real” media was busy looking for witches to burn. Sooner or later they’d make peace with reality, we could all laugh at it together, and I could tell jokes again. Boy, was I wrong! There’s no sign of a mass outbreak of cool heads, wisdom, and reason. Meanwhile I’ve been reluctant to post a couple of my homestead projects because I’m reticent to violate OPSEC. My dog tells me that anything more specific than “I’ve got chickens in the yard and they taste delicious” is too specific. I always listen to my dog.
End result? Squirrel overload for my non-squirrel readers. I get it. I’m sorry. I’ll see what I can do to rectify the imbalance.
I might talk to my web guru about splitting the blog so squirrels don’t get in your face if you’re looking for a guy’s homestead. Surely it’s possible. I’ll also have a meeting with my dog where I try to convince it that posting about the 2″x6″ I dropped on my foot is not the same as posting my SSN. The dog is wise. I’m sure it’ll listen to reason.
The next few posts are squirrels because they’re “in the pipeline” (did I just compare my head to a pipe?) but after that I promise I’ll do some posts that do not have talking animals.
I don’t know how many readers I’ve got but I listen to ’em all. I hope that’s something.
A.C.
P.S. Even if you don’t use Patreon or the Tipjar I’m still interested in your opinion. I do like tips (who wouldn’t?) but it’s not like this is a conspiracy to get rich and famous. I add them to the squirrel stories because there’s a bit more “work” in writing a story than off handedly bitching about my broken tractor (writing is fun work, but it is work nonetheless).
Wow, I really appreciate the detailed response!
I am a bit of a homesteader myself so I absolutely understand there’s a lot that goes into it that doesn’t translate well to story/blog post format. After all, it’s not every day that a horse wanders onto your property in the early hours of the morning, making your dog go ape-shit and causing you to think there’s a bear in the yard (good times!). I think animal antics and bitching about a broken tractor was a big part of what really drew me to your blog at the start, partly because it’s relateable and mostly because you have a flair for making it sound more amusing than it typically is in the moment. I can see how writing fiction is a natural progression from that foundation.
I hope your web guy can make a partition for the homestead/politics side and the fiction part of your blog. And I don’t mind if there’s not a ton of quantity to the non-fiction side because the quality is what makes it so enjoyable!
Thanks for taking the time to reply and for your efforts to partition your blog to make it easier for your readers to get to the content they enjoy most!
You’re welcome.
The squirrel saga has been entertaining to me. As Rush is fond of saying, ‘All real humor has an element of truth’ and also the saga ‘Illustrates absurdity with absurdity’.
They may not be using Swedish Disco, but the thought control in media and on campus is very real; I broke free from it in the late 80’s when it was not as pervasive as now.
I’d hate for you to lose readers. Do what ya havta, we’ll all understand.
Rae,
I think most of us like whatever he decides to write. Some of us just love good stories, but I do love me some squirrel. (wink)
I am with Rae on this, in that I personally don’t enjoy the squirrel stories all that much, and greatly prefer the homesteading stories and curmudgeonly gems of insight. Whenever I see a new post, and it turns out to be squirrel related, I typically click past and go re-read the furnace repair story or the Tractor of the Damned (Truly, elegant words for a more civilized age).
That said, many other people obviously enjoy the squirrel stories, and I’m just some random
dogdude bitching on the internet that the free ice cream is the wrong flavor, so… carry on, I guess?I will spew forth Gems of Insight more frequently. Also I’ve got a few projects in the homestead hopper. Alas, I can’t help writing squirrels too. Too much Abba I think. Thanks for your patience.