Cousin Grover

Grover gets excited over little things; I once witnessed him in a dairy barn, fascinated by the moving cowshit as the gutter cleaner was working. He would encourage the moving shit and shout: "yay!" and clap and bounce up and down as the contents of the gutter past him by. If Grover was an animal he would be a cockroach crossed with a rat; he is a survivor in every sense of the word. He spent his youth in an isolated, mountainous region of Vermont. He was left to his own devices to raise himself and procure food. I remember visiting him as a child and being shocked at the life he had to live. When we were all under 12 years old, my family went to visit Grover's family in Vermont (my father and Grover's father are brothers). We arrived early one morning and were set loose in the bush. Grover was rooting through the shed and gathering lengths of rope and some pieces of plywood, his parents didn't really notice what he was doing. He then quickly disappeared into the woods, and with a sense of urgency beckoned that my brother and I follow. We walked down a creek for a mile and came to a small pond; Grover's older brother Chrissy had been on a crayfish hunt and become lodged up to the waist in thick, quick-sand like mud. He was gently weeping when we reached him, he had a crawdad in each hand that he would not give up seeing as it was supper. Grover placed the plywood on the mud and walked out to his brother, he then roped Chrissy and extracted his frail body. Chrissy and Grover lived almost exclusively on a diet of crayfish, trout, ritz crackers, bird eggs and various tabocco products (Grover started smoking when he was in grade 2). Many times when food was scarce, Grover got through it by licking a salt-shaker. My brother and I were unaccustomed to such a lifestyle; my mother used to cut up our steak and put sugar on our cereal until we were finished high school.
When Grover growed up he lived in some kind of apartment in Montreal. The only food he had there was a huge bail of dry soup mix that he shared with the mice. His only heat source for the winter was the clothes dryer. I didn't visit him much when he was living there.
In his early twenties Grover was hit by a car and thrown 25 feet. He almost died, but the rat in him wouldn't allow it. His knee and a few of the less important vertebrae in his neck were broken. His bones make audible creaking and crunching noises when he moves now.
Grover recently went crazy due an abnormal amount of personal problems and stress. He was officially diagnosed by a nut doctor; it was accute adjustment disorder or something like that. He had to be heavily medicated for a few months. During this time of treatement he refered to himself as TDI (The Drooling Idiot) because one of his pills had that exact effect on him. Quite interestingly Grover's car is also a TDI Jetta. Grover went to my parents farm to convalesce. His self-prescribed therapy included playing in the mud with sticks, eating jello, kicking dogs and yelling at imagined enemies. Grover also staved off glaucoma for the rest of his life during this hiatis. Grover's behaviour hasn't really changed all that much since he went nutty; I notice that he buzzes, chirps and twitches a little more than usual, but apart from that he is pretty much the same.
Grover is a self professed minimalist when it comes to personal hygeine. He has an awful fear of soap and water and has been known to go for many, many moons without engaging in any kind of warshing.

Some highlights of Grover's life include:
- Getting raped by a tornadoe while tree planting in BC.
- Living with my brother in the back of a pickup for an entire summer.
- Loving two cousins at once.

Little known facts about the Grover:
- Grover dumpster dives to feed himself when necessary.
- Road kill examination and catalogueing is one of his hobbies.
- Grover laughs to the point of tears at the dead people in every cemetary he sees.
- During his employment at Parc Safari Grover could not keep up to the ladies who desired to bed him.
- Grover kicks any living thing that is smaller than him and laughs.
- Grover almost died when he was force fed a bottle of Jim Beam through a road cone when he was passed out on the floor.
- Grover suffered 3rd degree burns when he fell asleep on a woodstove by accident.
- Grover regularly collects and mails his toenail clippings to certain colleagues, friends and institutions.

Grover still has a taste for wild bird eggs that lingers from his youth.


Grover's prefered method of warsh time is to get the dirt scraped off his foul hide with an ice scraper. No soap. No water. He says it feels tickly.

Never mind Shit Creek we were up Shit Heap.

This weekend Cousin Grover, Binky and I found ourselves not up the proverbial "shit creek", but rather quite literally up "shit heap". After two dislodging missions and three attempts we conquered the shit pile with a lot of jostling and bouncing. As we continued on our fence repair operation in the North Pasture, Cousin Grover and I reflected on the fact that we didn't quite have our priority list in good order since we had moments ago found ourselves knee deep in a mixture of cow, horse, chicken, dog, and even some human shit (I empty my shit bucket there). Often times our priority list is skewed as we have been on the proverbial shit heap many-a-time.
Pictured is Binky-operating the Trooper, Bad Monkey-operating the rescue tractor, Cousin Grover-coordinating.

Binky's Eye

This weekend Binky and Grover went for a little march through the woods and Binky took a branch in the eye. He damaged some eyeball parts badly. He thought that it would get better over night, but he awoke to one of his cats licking puss from the corner of his wounded eye. The eye looked kind of red, funny and not very eye-like so Grover took him to the E.R. at Ormstown hospital, however they only had a student vet on duty so they went to the big city. We will see the outcome of this soon.

More on The Binky

Here is a look into Manor Binky. Ian actually put clothes on for this picture. Here he appears defending his home with his SKS Chinese assault rifle complete with big shiskabob jabber. Take note of the missing ceiling tiles and Ian's favourite happy bear house coat.


Here is the bathroom/kitchen/laundry room. It is apparent that Ian prefers the open concept.


Cousin Grover is seen in the Fisher Price Shit House(TM) cranking some bean and cabbage fueled combo into the doomed shit bucket. In fact the stench was so powerful that no one could use the waiting area as evidenced by the empty chairs.

My Friend Binky

This is my friend Ian. Most people call him Binky. Ian does a lot of off-roading, he crashes a lot; he has had intimate contact with many of the larger trees in South Western Quebec. Ian answers his door mostly naked with a high powered rifle in hand, "just in case" he says. Ian has had an ongoing battle with a family of skunks that have taken up residency under his house. Neighbours are frightened of witnessing him during his midnight rifle weilding rantings, clad in nothing more than rubber boots. Ian "moved" out of the city a couple years ago before he hurt someone, as he put it. I think there were also a few restraining orders involved in his decision to relocate. Ian now has adopted a primitive lifestyle in the country; in his house there is only partial plumbing, but that doesn't matter because there is no water source at this time. For purposes of elimination, Ian has a five gallon pail installed in a fisher-price play house in his back yard; this is something else the neighbours talk about. Ian's house is also missing a few walls, some of the floors and most of the downstairs ceiling. He sleeps on a pile of fiberglass upstairs. His playstation and TV work.

Bloggers

I hate most bloggers. Most of them are self absorbed assholes. I don't know if I can blog anymore as I feel like vomiting every time I read most blogs and I don't know if I can associate myself with this sorry bunch. For example check out this little pansy's blog.

http://dohiyimir.typepad.com/

Redneck Country

You know you're living in Redneck country when your neighbour shows up at your house and after all the formal 'how de do's, you notice he has a rifle strapped to his back.
"What's the rifle for?" says I to him.
"Oh that, ya my bull got loose and I can't catch the bastard. He's on your land and I'm gonna have to shoot and bleed him over here," says the kind neighbour.
"Alright," no problem. "Do you need some help?" I inquire.
"No that's okay my kids are back from school," he says.
"Okay then," I say and return to my supper.
Moments later as I'm eating my tomatoe salad there is the distinct sound of a rifle retort and I look out the back window to see a huge Black Angus go down on his knees. The Kindly Neighbour bends down close as if to console the dying beast, but I catch a quick, hard move and realize that he just cut the juggular vein to bleed the animal. Now the kneeling bull falls over on his right side and his huge heart unknowingly pumps out his life's blood.
Kindly Neighbour yells and a minute later a small convoy driven by young children arrives. The convoy consists of a tractor equiped with forks, a pickup and a four wheeler. The twelve year old on the four wheeler seemed to be in charge of the removal operation, and never stepping off his machine, with a few hand movements and a few sharp yells to his counterpart on the tractor had the carcass loaded into the truck in under two minutes. Then with very little fan fare the convoy rolled off my property to the sound of barking dogs.
Now before passing judgement from your higher moral ground and writing silly comments, know this: if you have ever eaten any kind of meat in your life then you are just as guilty of pulling the trigger yourself. However most people are deluded because styrofoam and plastic wrap seems a much less sinister package than the box of a pickup truck.

The Bad Monkey

Accept no immitations-I am the real Bad Monkey. I have a very complete and thorough Resume of "badness" that is available upon request. I would describe myself as an Often Drunken Hillbilly Redneck Extraordinaire. I get pissed off easily and hate most everything. I don't do much, mainly just hang out with my brother Mark, good old Cousin Grover and friend Binky; they are the circus act that I playfully refer to as my friends. They also have a lot of problems which I will focus on when I publish their profiles. This blog will be about our adventures, rantings and other unrelated verbal diarrhea. More later.