Uncle Short

{Writing Exercise}

Uncle Short was anything but. He stretched from here to there. His shadow went clear down the drive and across the drainage ditch. I sometimes thought it frightened the cows. They created such a racket when he came out of the barn. I'd hear it right clear through the Cheerios I'd be eatin' after chores.

As tall as Uncle Short was, his height was not what he was known for in our town. Folks instead considered him the strangest farmer in the Big Valley. It's hard to know which of his "artistic expressions", as Momma called them, secured him this reputation. I'm pretty sure usin' Beethoven's 5th symphony to call the cows home didn't win him many admirers. Sounds travel far in open pasture. I can hear the coyotes clear across the Burgess lands. The speaker mounts perched on the water tower insured that even the farthest afield bovine would hear Uncle Short's version of the dinner bell.

Then there's the purple barn. Pa never forgave Ma for given in to Uncle Short's color selection. Family farms ain't nothin' if not a test of the virtues and pitfalls of consensus building. And, in many cases, my mother and uncle formed a sibling voting block that had my father seriously considerin' relocatin' his estranged kin to the farm.

I thought the canine flour mill was a stroke of genius. The sled dogs loved pullin' the grinding stone. They jumped and yelped with anticipation when Uncle Short snapped them into their harnesses. Animal Welfare didn't see it quite that way. The dogs returned to the tundra. The town never stopped joking about how Huskies were the most under appreciated farm animal.