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This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for July 12, 2015.

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The humble Farmer's TV show is now on YouTube. Google "Robert Karl Skoglund" and they should come up.

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This show is brought to you by The humble Farmer Bed & Breakfast in St. George, Maine. Any eight-year-old child will quickly show you how to find the website on line.

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1. When you have a few sheep, if anyone in town has sheep they don't want, at 2 o’clock in the morning they drive onto your farm with a truckload of sheep and unload them. So 40 years ago I had quite a few sheep people had dropped off at the farm. I originally got some goats to help me fight back the inevitable encroaching forest that has taken over so many old Maine farms. But the goats ate my good fruit trees, as well as the evil bushes, and started in on the buildings so there was no keeping them. Goats are responsible for most of the deserts you see in Israel and Africa. Thousands of years ago there were great forests in many parts of the world until men gave up hunting and gathering to become shepherds and farmers who raised goats for meat, hides and milk. Goats kill every living piece of vegetation and whine because there is no more. War is expensive and unnecessary. If I wanted to bring a country to its knees, I would send them a boatload of goats and sit back and wait.

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2. Many years ago, when people were still killing their neighbors and relatives with the jawbone from an ass, governments were formed to eliminate anarchy. Even if one king at the top made all the rules, at least there was some semblance of order. With anarchy, people constantly fight among themselves. With government, people are organized so entire countries can constantly fight among themselves.

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3. You might have read about the toilet fire in Rockport. Of course, when one reads of a fire in a toilet one eagerly reads the letters to the editor below it. Because isn't the obvious comment by every wanna be humorist who sees it going to be, "Well, there are a lot of hot somethings in Rockport." So I was surprised to read this instead: "Would Officer Smith please provide the name of the arsonist to Governor LePage. He might want to name him State Fire Marshal."

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4. I used to get a magazine called Quinto Lingo that was published by the Rodale Press. It had the same short story in five or so languages and was a tool for Americans interested in being able to read a little bit of Italian, French, Spanish or German. In later years, I'd go on line, locate a nest of authors of Harlequin Romances, and write to several of them and request one of their books in 5 or 6 languages. Because Harlequins are geared to the vocabulary of a 12-year-old girl, they are just the thing for adults who are starting to learn another language. We have talked about this before. I have read several books with Italian in one hand and Swedish or Dutch in the other, just so I'd have some idea of what I was reading in Italian. One of the first questions I'm likely to ask you when I meet you for the first time is, "What languages do you speak?" The other night a man at the grange supper said he spoke Spanish. His name is Dahlgren so you'd expect him to at least know a few words in Spanish. He and my wife Marsha were both living in Chile at the same time --- probably around 1957, so I dragged him over to Marsha and they compared notes. Although Marsha had only spent part of her junior year of high school in Chile, he had been there for two years in the Peace Corps so his Spanish was still pretty good. It takes a few hours in conversation for Marsha's Spanish to come back to her. I've seen her do it sitting next to a Spanish speaking person on a European train. And, by the way, I’ve still got a couple dozen copies of the Quinto Lingo magazines from 1965 or so. You might want to correct me on this, but I think the words Quinto Lingo mean "Lame Reindeer” in Finnish.

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5. My Facebook page is a pretty bland and peaceful arena. But from time to time two of my friends will get into it and the fur will fly. Each one thinks the other one is a nut. If I think someone is a nut, I don't read what they have to say every day, do you? Save yourself some worry. How can you get upset if you don't read things you don't like to read? I’d like you to think about this very carefully. --- If you continually read things by someone you think is crazy, are you are probably crazier than the person who writes them?

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6. Sixty or so years ago when we were at Gorham State Normal School, my roommate Ronnie Marsh used to try to communicate with his girlfriend with his mind. This was long before cell phones. Do you think the jury is still out on communicating with someone by simply concentrating? Owning a radio or cell phone would have had you burned 400 years ago. When you think about music and voices coming through the air, you must admit that it is impossible. I wouldn't believe it could be done if I'd never seen it and someone just told me about it. One night, when Marsh and I were engaged in this kind of thing, one of us concentrated on a number and the other one said the number that came to mind. I remember that we got a frightening number of them right in a row one time --- 8 or 10, perhaps. And it scared me so that I stopped. Of course some people win a lottery, but the odds of getting a string of numbers correct are what? --- one in millions. You might be one of the people who knows the odds on anything. Our getting those numbers right was probably just chance. But don’t you think we are still in the cave man stage when it comes to understanding the power of the human mind? My wife is psychic. She can just look at me and tell you the next words that are going to come out of my mouth.

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7. Speaking of pronouns and the way they enable us to dichotomize our friends, there is a man in St. George, obviously successful in his business, who recently built a garage with a beautifully polished concrete floor. He did not put solar radiant heat in the floor. He didn't even put pex pipe in the floor which would have made it very easy for him to plug some solar collectors into it, should he ever wish to do so next week or in 15 years. He told me he couldn't afford it. The other night at the grange supper he gave $16 to the cashier and said, "This is for my wife and I." If you met a man who was reckless with his pronouns who never even considered getting free solar radiant heat in his new garage, what color sign do you think he would have on his lawn at election time?

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8. Don't tell me that you can't sell rhubarb by talking about it on Facebook. Listen to this letter that I got the other morning: "Dear sir, I'm contacting you in respect to your product. Please send me your list of prices so that i will be able to place my order. Thanks, Procurement Department." This is the most encouraging news I've seen in ages. Is it unusual for a company to request a check for $20 before they will place an order? Have you ever heard of this "Procurement Department processing fee?"

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9. Someone mentioned dog collars the other day. It is my understanding that a woman in a town called Ur – it’s near the Tigres Euphrates --invented the dog collar several thousands of years ago. Actually, she didn't invent it, but simply reasoned, "If a collar and chain work on my kid and the slaves, why not also use it on the dog?" One of her neighbors accidentally invented the wheel. Some friends were expected one evening to play bridge. Because it was hot in the house she knew that it would be much more pleasant if they carried the table outside and played on the front porch. An impetuous woman, she couldn’t wait for her husband to come home from the pottery shed and help her carry it out, and because it was a round table she simply stood it on its side and rolled it out.

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10. Did you know that one of the big killers in Florida is ladders? That’s what the nurse told us at a first aid class. Old people climb up on ladders and fall off. She talked about the importance of wearing life jackets when people go out in boats. In Maine people would do well to wear life jackets when they drive their snowmobiles and pickup trucks on the ice.

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