Late tax blog

I had intended to write this short blog earlier, but Martha and I have been living between doctor and hospital appointments for the past week. Thankfully, that phase of our lives is about to slow down. Martha has finished her 18 chemo treatments, and has done unbelievably well with them. She has not been sick, has not lost weight, has continued to exercise, but did lose most of her hair. Hers will come back while mine is a lost cause. As I told her, I think that hair is highly over rated to begin with.

I wanted to make just a few comments about income taxes. It always tickles me to hear friends who get excited about receiving an income tax refund. I can't help but think," So, you are excited about getting your own money back from the government that you have loaned them for a year interest free". My goal is to owe them as little as possible, but I would prefer to owe them a little bit. I would not mind paying taxes so much were I not so acutely aware of the pork barrel projects and bloated federal payrolls. I know that I could do a better job of allocating my tax funds than the Garbanzo beans in Washington are doing.

Another thought that occurred to me is that Pop always told me that I should live within my means. I don't know if I could or not because the government will not let me. What I see on my W-2's and what drops to the bottom line as disposable income are two entirely different numbers after Big Brother takes his share. Albert Einstein said that the hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax, and I'm fairly certain that Albert had more IQ in his left index finger than I have in my entire brain. I study my income tax returns diligently, and still can't understand them. I also read this anonymous quote," A fine is a tax for doing something wrong while a tax is a fine for doing something right.

And lastly I would like to quote one of my heroes, and one of the greatest men in the history of the world, Winston Churchill, who said," We contend for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle". Were it not for this great man, we would probably all be speaking German today! I sure would like to see a simplified tax form that the common citizen could understand.

OK, that ends my delayed rant/blog for today. We are all well and busy here at Riverview as this is the quiet before the storm of our sweet corn season. I encourage everyone to buy and eat a lot of sweet corn this summer. We could also use a rain, but that will happen on God's time rather than ours. I have not prayed for rain since the 1994 flood, but I did tell my friends that it was OK for them to pray for it.

I hope everyone enjoys a great spring. As for us, our state critter, the gnat, has rejoined us at Riverview. C'est la Vie!

One frustrated turkey gobbler

Sometimes when two worlds collide, there is often a winner and a loser. The past few weeks have been just absolutely beautiful in South Georgia. I think that it is extra special for us at Riverview since we were spared from the devastation from a series of storms that began in early January. For the past four mornings, I have walked out in my yard with a cup of hot coffee just to enjoy the beauty of day break of God's creation.

Well, evidently and old Tom turkey has been enjoying the same thing, but he has had the three hens with him providing him with much more on his mind than enjoying nature. If looks could kill, I believe that old gobbler would have gladly killed me as I have interrupted his plans three mornings in a row. He finally wised up, and has chosen a different site other than my yard to conduct his amorous activities. I hope he is happy now.

I have been meaning to mention this for some time now, but Cader IV and his wife,Heather, have completely redesigned and created a new web site for Riverview. If you have not looked at it, I encourage you to do so. You can access it at www.riverviewplantation.com.

And finally since this is Easter weekend which has a very special significance to me, I wanted to share some very funny thoughts that I received from a good friend in a recent email. Now I have never quite figured out how the Easter Bunny figures into the story of our risen Lord. I think that somewhere along the line, we combined a pagan tradition with our most holy observance. Be that as it may, the Easter Bunny is a part of Easter that children have come to expect and enjoy.

The title of the email was "All I need to know, I learned from the Easter Bunny". I'm not going to list them all, but just want to pull a few lines out that really tickled me as follows:
Don't put all of your eggs in one basket
Everyone needs a friend who is all ears.
All work and no play can make you a basket case.
A cute tail attracts a lot of attention.( I really liked that one)
Some body parts should be floppy.
The grass is always greener in someone else's basket.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy and blessed Easter weekend !

Random thoughts and a quote

Whew! We just survived our third round of severe weather that began in January. Once again we were blessed to survive unscathed here at Riverview. Well, maybe not completely unscathed. I tried to tell Martha that the pretty candelabra decoration on one of our outside tables would not survive a strong wind, but she assured me that it would. As I watched the straight line winds blow our metal patio furniture off into the yard yesterday evening, I was fairly certain that our outside chairs and decorations had taken a beating. Well, suffice it to say, I was correct, but I had enough sense not to say," I told you so". I just calmly walked around picking up candles and chairs that appeared to be at the epicenter of a drunken brawl.

Down here we have taken to watching the skies and the weather channel like the democrats are watching the Russians. We are about ready to toss Jonah out of the ship if we can figure out who he is. On the bright side, our sweet corn was too small to suffer any damage, and we received 2.5 inches of much needed rain. The woods and trees were really smiling this morning as I drove through them. We needed the rain, but I can live without anymore tornadoes in our area for a long time. If I wanted tornadoes, I would move to Kansas or Oklahoma. The good Lord gave us gnats. I wish that He would let you other good folks keep your tornadoes. Those bad boys have really created massive destruction in our area, and have destroyed some plantation lands that will not recover even during Cader IV's lifetime.

Speaking of plantations, I shared some quotes in my last blog from my all-time favorite writer, Havilah Babcock. I also mentioned Robert Ruark in that blog. Yesterday I read the following lines written by Robert Ruark that really resonated with me. He said,"A dead tiger is the biggest thing that I have ever seen in my life, and I have shot an elephant.A live tiger is the most exciting thing that I have ever seen in my life, and I have shot a lion.A tiger in a hurry is the fastest thing that I have ever seen in my life, and I have shot a leopard. A wild tiger is the most frightening thing I have ever seen in my life, and I have shot a Cape buffalo.But for the sport involved, I would rather shoot quail than shoot another tiger."

Now who am I to argue with one of the greatest sportsmen and writers ever even if he was overly fond of his gin. It just so happens that we are in the quail hunting business, and I agree with Mr. Ruark. I can still remember almost every nearly impossible shot that I ever made on a covey rise, and have developed amnesia on the easy straight away misses. If we can survive the violent spring weather, we look forward to helping y'all make memories of those great shots this fall and winter !