Rural Delivery

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1989. All rights reserved.
Standing in a field just a few hundred yards from the place where he was born 70 years earlier on “a cold February morning,” the retiring rancher eyed the crowd gathered around his dismantled windmill.
An auctioneer cried out from the center of the throng, “Last chance! Two-twenty-five, [...]

Real cowboy hats don’t have feather bands, nor do they come in mink fur or shades of mauve. The real thing, like the Stetsons and Resistols of old, is 100 percent fur felt. It’s sturdy enough to weather gully-washers and to withstand horse’s hooves, and it comes only in basic colors: good-guy white, bad-guy black [...]

In the crisp chill of October night costumed children toddle down darkened lanes, their tittering voices fending off silence.
They come dressed as ghouls and monsters, aliens of outer space and starship captains from the 25th century. Masked as heroes and demons, wild animals and crazed villains, our youth knocks upon the doors of strangers demanding [...]

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1996. All rights reserved.
First, you start with a pumpkin seed, but not just any pumpkin. Seek out seeds of a Halloween or Jack-o’-Lantern or Spookie variety. You want a pumpkin that matures to the size and shape of your own head.
Sow your seed just before the last frost in mounds [...]

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 2004. All rights reserved.

“Logs to Burn! Logs to Burn!”
“Everyone needs logs to burn!”
Hear the woodman sell his wares.
What trees they come from, no one cares.Ah! But here’s a word to make you wise,
When you hear the woodman’s cries.
Never heed his usual tale
That he has good logs for sale,
But read these [...]

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 2002. All rights reserved.
There’s a place down by the river where the bank is wide and sandy. It overlooks a low-lying rock dam over which the river spills. Behind that dam, the water is flat and calm — perfect for skipping stones across.
My son stops here every time we come [...]

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1996. All rights reserved.
Fatherhood ages a man; parenthood, in general, does the same.
Before we became parents, my wife and I lived somewhat outside of time. Days and years went by, seasons came and passed, and we went about the business of pursuing degrees and careers oblivious to the passage of [...]

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved.

Moving to the country? You’re going to love it… maybe.
If you are anything like the thousands of folks fleeing the “rat race” of city life each year by taking up residence in some small town or rural county, then you probably have some romantic notions of country [...]

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1994. All rights reserved.
To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,
Home again, home again, dancing a jig;
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog;
Home again, home again, jiggety-jog;
To market, to market, to buy a plum bun,
Home again, home again, market is done.
~~ Mother Goose

To [...]

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1993. All rights reserved.
You know you’re on a rural road when folks wave at you as you drive by.
I’m not talking about waving at friends or family. Nor am I referring to the kind of waving between colleagues that truck drivers share. The waves I mean are the ones thrown [...]