What makes YOU country?

I was just thinkin and wonderin whats something yall have done or do that someone who wasnt country wouldn't know how to do?

Or something youve done as a youngin kids today wouldnt have a clue how to do today?

Other than trap.

My first one is ive churned butter.

Used a one wheel plow to put in and weed grandpa's garden

And had to wait til dad got home when I got in trouble....

Castrated pigs

Banded calf testicles

All about the testicles

She said county not deliverance.


Garden, keep bees, tap maple trees, butcher my Own stock and game Heat with wood and a ll it intails. Make soap use a close line .add on and on.

Basically be able to feed yourself with out the grocery if I need to.

Just basic life necessities. I think most on here could live without electricity and provide their own food if it came down to it. I know a lot of folks that would resort to crime if it came to eating or starving.

Cut my own firewood and saw up lumber from my woods.
Burn my woods and fields every spring and fall.
Invasive weed and brush control, more than just spraying dandelions. Often takes about 2 weeks or more spread out over the summer.

Lots of city folk do gardens, often times it just the scale of the garden thats different.

Harvested Spruce Gum.

Drink water from a mountain stream while at work. Took my bath in a wash tub as a child. We only had cold running water in the kitchen and an outhouse until I was in 4th grade. I still love to pee off the porch.

I'd have to write a book. Not sure the Boss would appreciate me blowing up T-Man with over use of band width.




Charlie

raised and sold fish,shang, goldenseal, made syrup, worked with a trap company testing equipment dug various medicanal roots sold various plants as part of fish managment cut logs for firewood/furniture enjoyed life----gonna have have a good time with whats left of my time---should mention a good wife that put up with me&my schemes

Heck so many things. Held baby deer and carried them out of the path of the swather I was operating many times. Took my kids, 10, 11, and 12 years old camping, hiked in from the road about two miles and set up camp. Made them carry all their own gear. No phone service. Then informed the kids that I (purposely) did not pack any food and very little water, so if they were hungry or thirsty they were gonna have to figure out how to use what nature provided. I told them how to get water from the creek and boil it in the small pot i packed. I did bring a fishing rod, but no bait, so they took it and foraged for bait and then caught their own fish for dinner. Then I said that’s great, here’s my knife, go clean them. They did. And then i said oops, didn’t bring anything to cook them in, guess you gotta learn to cook on a fire with zero modern utensils. And they did. I didn’t help them do any of it, though I did offer small bits of guidance. We stayed two nights up there, they fended for themselves the entire time. I feel like that was good for them, might even do it again and stay longer.

I’ve done many things most city folk don’t do. I’d say the biggest thing that sets me apart from those who live in the city is my connection with and understanding of the natural world. They like to look at nature, where I am a part of nature.

Take of your hat and boots in the mud room. And wash up in the wash basin before dinner aka lunch or dinner. But now a days don't worry bout the dirt.

Washed clothes on a washboard and with a wringer washer

Smoking grapevine stems, frog gigging, eating squirrel brains, noodling, catching cottonmouths, potato guns, etc.

My mom would do that in the basement. We had 3 soap stone sinks and she would put us 3 kids in one sink with a comforter and use the other 2 sinks to wash the clothes. Then she would carry us outside when she hung the laundry on the lines. Mostly diapers!

Well I know what gee and haw mean. And which way pole beans wrap themselves.

Lived off the grid for a good many years before it was known as that-no electricity no running water.
Never considered it being "Country"or anything,just normal way to live in the bush.

I forgot giggin and tater guns.. loads of fun there.

Playing Dwight Yoakam in heavy rotation.

Catching baby rabbits..chipmunks birds and.groundhogs barefoot and by hand.

And i got every twangy song Dwight Yoakum ever recorded.
Just listened to I aint that lonely yet"

Lol. Nice.

Raise your own food, garden,orchard , berry bushes, honeybees, make maple syrup, raise/butcher own meat, eggs, raw milk, wild mushrooms, frog legs, snapping turtles, cut/ heat with firewood, cut logs and ash bolts. The list could go on and on.

Keep em .comin !

Takin my turn on the hand crank ice cream freezer before i got so hard to turn hat the guys finished it off.

Pitching hay on haystacks

Made sauerkraut using a kraut cutter and stone crocks.

After my uncle, who is three months younger than me, and I got back from helping put hay in the barn, grandpa would give us a Budweiser to split. It was kept in the milk cooler and was ice cold. We were around ten at the time.

HMMmmmm.
Pick and eat wild-berries from the vine
Pick wild mushrooms
Skin anything that walks, crawls, slithers or flies
Catching crayfish in the crick
Smoking pokeweed pipes as a kid
Running around barefoot all summer
Being able to name dang near any bird or animal I see
Knowing how to read the stars for navigation
Rock hopping in the crick
Rafting down the crick using machetes to cut our poles
Using a real bamboo pole to go cane pole fishin

Paul
I remember my grandpa, dad, uncles and any male visitors sitting around the cooler drinking a beer after a day's work. I was given a swallow but I never did develop a liking for it.

Refreshments from our own still.
My first kiss, she stole my dip with her tongue.
Wine outta pretty much anything.
Driving at 10-years old, but until I was 24 years old, couldn't figure out how to drive an automatic shift.
First time at a sit-down restaurant, I was 18 and had my first soda-pop.

Jack

Milked 110 head of Holsteins every morning before school. All the boys and girls were farm kids in my grammar school. Didn't realize all girls did not smell like cows until I went to a regional high school where there were some town girls!

Got a 91 Honda 300. Still like Budweiser. Going catfishing next week. Listen to Merle. Belong to a deer club, a sporting clay club, and a rifle and pistol club.

No bumper stickers though.

Cut, split, haul and stack all my own firewood for the winter
Hunt, fish and gather
My country cabin has Electric when I get it turned on, Propane to cook, wood heat, outhouse I built and maintain myself, jug water, GF's usually hate it, but I love it.
My City house is refered to as "The Hermit Hole" by several GF's
Run my Hounds, Beagles
Not much I buy that's not marked down or on sale
I tend to "Make it, Make do, Or do without".
Have an abiding dislike for libtards
Can read a map and know pretty much what the land looks like.
Helped butcher and put up 2500 chickens
Put up several barns full of hay
Fish and Gig Frogs on the Mississippi River day and night.
Washed clothes and bathed in a Crick and a tin washtub.

Cook every meal on my wood cookstove with the wood I cut. Except for June-August...

Wizz off the front porch

Climbed trees, drank from a hose, rode bikes with no helmet.
Caught pigeons under a bridge and crayfish in the river.
Raised chickens for meat and eggs.
Ate all kinds of wild game (like most of you). The most exotic being seal in Newfoundland.
Bred and hunted with retrievers.
Drank milk right out of a cow.

Prepare chitlins'.
Fresh "creek slung" or "stump whooped" .... everwhich way you like.
(J. Clower)
We just soaked, rinsed them in a wash tub.

My 3 brothers and I would have contests off the porch!

Made trotlines

Shoot everything with a bb gun or slingshot when we were kids.
Still own the bb guns and slingshots 50 years later and still like to shoot them

Catch crayfish down at the crick and cook em in an old hubcap over a fire growing up.

Drive more on dirt roads than pavement

Can operate anything from a motorcycle to a bulldozer

3/4 of the guys i know over 3 still do that daily.lol


I've made hominy from hickory king corn and gave mouth to nose resecutation to a lamb..bout a 20 lbs and saved its life when the worm ipilll got.lodged in his throat. His eyes rolled back in his head and he wentt limp. I grabbed him from Jerry and placed mouth over his nose and and blew deep and hard. Jerry said it was too much i said hes dead if i dont do something..after about 5 or 6 strong puffs the pull dislodged.

It was a good feeling..saving its life

I've picked pie cherries off the biggest cherry tree you've ever seen in my grandma's yard.

Ive played adpotlight with my cousins and used an outhouse. Still do some days.

Most of the stuff that's already been mentioned other than the cattle/horse stuff. I garden, can, dehydrate, pickle, and freeze veggies. Have made soap, hominy, cheese, candles, wove baskets, etc. Hunting with slingshots made from a forked stick. Catching crawfish and leeches in the creek.

I remember when I was about 10 I dragged my dad on a tent camping trip into the "deep woods" about 2 miles from home where a deep creek was. We set out limb lines, and I found a bunch of wild raspberries. In the morning we had fried fish and wild raspberry pancakes over the campfire. Boy, I sure felt like a real woodsman then, haha

Can't say. ATF&E and others might be listening.

Learned how to water witch and drive a sand point well by hand at 14.

atf makes me country...always keep it on hand.

Forced to pick berries for my mother to can. Few of you have been brutalized like that.

I switched from Skoal mint to Copenhagen mint this year, does that count?

I pee outside more than do inside.

We put a guy inside an old outhouse once and lit it on fire. It was funny and nobody was hurt

Only if it’s snuff

Speakin' of whizzin" ..... always enjoyed writin' my name in the snow. ( can only abbreviate it now 0

I do too,

You know it, I need to get some Red Man before they change the name.

You could of just got a stick of gum...

Been mistaken for Trace Adkins before…

Amen.

When these are part of your daily wardrobe



ol'dad

Only a Hoosier would know about that.

Learn to be just as confident in the woods with bow and arrow than with a gun.

However, Hand Load a box of .308 , 20 rounds, and kill 20 deer with that box one box.

Stack hay proper.

Hang a gill net and use it to catch fish successfully.

Fill freezers with red meat, fish, and vegetables to provide for my family.


Shouldn’t have to try to be country, to be country.

John

"You can take the boy out of the country but you cannot take the country out of the boy" is so true.

Shook the milk bottle that was sitting on the table before getting a glass, or pouring it over cereal.

Learned the proper way to load a hay wagon.

Learned to stay out of the way of the hay elevator when loading bales into the hay loft.

Been country all my life. My Great great grandparents here in 1884.

True.

I will add stopping by an elderly shut in with a flat top to pick and sing a hymn or two on a Sunday.

And putting down an old dog you grew up with and seeing it to its final resting place.

Who's "ryin" to be country i am what i am.

I aint wanna those "cowboys" with a new hat and boots that aint ever seen dirt and theyve never even rode a horse

That b3ing said.

I have a pitch fork and a wire pen in my truck at all times. And a twist stick cause you never know when youre gonna have to mark something after doctorin.

And dog prints on the dash

I think it is more about attitude than what you do, it is a sense of community, a love for the land, a love for family, caring about your neighbors, a love for the Country, and the Lord. It is the ability to look at a problem and see how to make it better without relying on the Government to fix it. It is about seeing things as they are rather than how the media wants to portray them. It is about being able to make do with what you have.

Nice picture.

My favorite.

Could run barefoot down a gravel road and butcher chickens at 8 years.

Textbook country right there.

I've picked up fresh roadkill and cooked it for supper..more than once..various species.

As a kid the family great grandpa and his kids all the way down to great great grand kids made molasses, I remember dipping the cane into the final product and licking it off. Hauled tons of hay in the middle of the night by hand, went with grandpa plenty of times to throw hay from the back of the truck to feed cattle in dead winter.. also we would go to the lake my grandpa made, with my great grandpa to feed the catfish with hounddog dog food, he would pull up hono the horn and catfish would go rolling. I start throwing. I don't think he cared about actually feeding the fish, it was I was the only grand kid around of some kind and he wanted to do something to do with me. I would drive my old Honda XR 100 down to great grandmas to help her pick corn dig taters and whatever else I needed to do for her, to can after canning she would have me walk down in the cellar to store the items. I miss those days life is busy with a 10 year old and 6 year old never sit and think about them until something like this comes up, so thanks for that!

Salemtrapper..your great grandma thought a great deal..evident because she let you handle the canned goods. She had great faith in you.
Here if you helped put things in the cellar you were the (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman). Cause not everyone got asked to help with that chore.

It’s my attitude and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We went to the dark side once and hated it. Moved back home and never looked back.

LOL.When I was young,,If I did a good days work on the farm,,at the end of the day I was allowed a "short" beer. I think they were like 7 1/2 ounces or something like that.It sure tasted good!

Cathryn she was 90 plus didn't do stairs and all she had was me and grandma and mom around lol she didn't have much choice. All her other kids left for the city most worked at gm and the others Boeing. They come down on weekends to help and visit. As a kid no other kids my age around the community I spent alot of time down there, mostly just so I could ride my dirt bike somewhere other then the house. They have long gone but t I own 20 acres of that farm, and woulfbt sell for anything! I'm not a sentimental person but with that I am, I've had a few offers to sell but wouldn't even hear them out, too many memories and too much work put into to even think of an offer. My uncle owns another 20 next to us, he is heck bent to get me to sell.. when he says how much, I turn around and ask him how much for his lol .. he has figured out won't happen now he is trying to getme to go in and buy things with him like a tractor and what not, he lives in New Mexico and when he retired he is coming home he says. I know what ge wants go in half buy the equipment and me take care of things do all he has to do is move and it will be ready.

Exactly Salem.

You do all the hard work.. then he comes back and wants to run things.lol

Tell him since your gonna be the one doing the work. He can buy the tractor.

I found out 2 days ago my aunt is having my mamaws old place torn down and burned July 11th.

It's right up the road from my house.

I don't wanna be anywhere close to home when that happens and theride to work..past the place will never be the same.
I can still see my papaw setting on the porch in his rocker with the hummingbirds landing all over him.

I've been taking lots of pics.




It might not be much to look at but my mamaw raised 12 kids in that house.

Lots of memories in that little place.

I hate to see it go.

I know it's a little out of focus

Stem of straw grass hanging out the corner of my mouth.

Pick huckleberries for $$$, peeled cascara for $$$, picked wild mushrooms for $$$, picked fiddleheads for $$$, picked wild blackberries for $$$. In addition, helped make the love connection for a 850 lb landrace boar with my eight 275 lb yorkshire gilts and got an eyeload full for my trouble. That country enough?

I've gathered eggs from a nest on the front porch and cut a chunk of home cured bacon off the slab in the smokehouse for breakfast.

I at 13 years old, in the bed of a Chevy truck with a 20 gauge shotgun shooting groundhogs on country roads, while my Dad drove, my Mama made us all bologna sandwiches and handed me one out the window. From the words of David Allen Coe, if that ain't country, I'll kiss your A**.

I drank out of a Mason jar does that count??.

We would hollow out an acorn,,drill a little hole in the side with our pocket knife,,,stick a piece of straw in it for a stem.That was our pipe.Then we would smoke dried corn silk through it.We were being bad. Any one else smoke corn silk out on the farm ?? If that was the baddest thing kids did today we would have a much better world.The Old Man caught me one day,,and said if I catch you doing that in the barn with the hay,,,Im gonna stick my foot up your arse.P;S; he didn't say arse.

We'd gave a stalk of rhubarb for dessert after supper and a little dish of sugar to dip it in before you took a bite.


We'd get a big turnip a spoon and a salt shaker and eat that sucker. Nothing tasted better at the time. A

Going back when I was really little, I remember making mud pies. My grandmother would give me old pans and tins she didn't want anymore and I'd make mud muffins and mud pies and mud cookies, haha. In my mind I was quite the baker.

Also remember waiting for the queen anne's lace to bloom and cutting a bunch of them and putting them in 4 mason jars with the water colored with one of each color of food coloring. The colored water would dye the white flowers the same color. It was fascinating to me as a kid, lol.

Shot a coyote out while enjoying the morning ritual in the out house.
Watching the sun rise while in the outhouse.
Sitting in the outhouse with the door open.
Chris Ledoux on the radio in the tractor.
Peeing in the snow.
2 1/2 hours to cut the lawn with a 54" zero turn and shooting starlings, magpies and crows while doing it.
Hunting elk,deer and moose from the kitchen window.
Bonfires from dusk to dawn while listening to Chris Ledoux.
800 yard shooting range from my deck.
Could go on and on.

I have slept in a snowdrift

Was born to a poor dirt farmer. We raised tomatoes for a living. I have walked many miles behind a mule plowing the fields. Huge gardens. hauling loose hay on a wagon and stacking it around a tree etc. Boy am I country.

I pulled a fawn that was hung up because he was coming out backwards and gave his mom a shot of penicillin.

I hunt, fish, trap, butcher and process my own meat. Make my own whiskey. Pee off the back deck quicker than in the toilet. Work hard physical labor for a living. Do my own taxidermy. Got a bloodhound pup. Would rather be in the woods than around a bunch of people. Shot a snapping turtle out in a pond once, then swam out to get him. Pulled him back to the dock. Took him home skinned, cooked and ate him. Still got the shell on my shop wall. Haven’t owned a pair of tennis shoes in 14 years. Wear my work boots everyday. Have all freezers filled with trap critters and deer meat. My wife won’t let me hang anymore deer heads in the house. The list goes on.

X2

Picking and drinking mint tea catching fish by hand.Doing farm chores with out being told!!

When I wasn't busy pitching, I was shooting at the lightning rod balls on the barn with my BB gun. Good times.

As a kid mom get a big old watermelon and ice it down and at the end of the day ..after all the chores were done..We'd set outside on the porch and watch lightening bugs while she sliced us each a big piece.

Then us kids would.line up along the porch and have a watermelon seed spitting contest .to ee e who could spit em the farthest.

Evwry spring We had a hot bed where we grew sweet potato and tobacco plants for planting in the garden.

When my snooty cousins from Ohio would come in Wed lock em .in the outhouse.
Sometime Wed string a trip wire about 10 yards out from the outhouse ..cause when it was dark and people are in a hurry it's funny as heck to watch em go sprawling..sometimes they actually (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) or (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) themselves when they went down.

Wed get a switchin for it but it was worth every welt I got to see my snooty cousins covered in their own crap..literally

I remember my momma cussin' out my 14-year-old sister for chewing and spitting tobacco at the supper table..in front of her two kids.

It's foxtails here.



I've stirred apple butter off in a copper kettle in the yard and put pennies in the kettle to keep the apples from sticking.
They come out looking brand new

Mowahs ….haahd at work

clockwise north of the equator............counterclockwise south of the equator???

but can you catch a cottonmouth with your noodle......

I can remember my hard times in the early eighties. I was on my own and the first winter when I had started my own stone masonry business. The bank president called my father to tell him they were about to take my truck. The president and my father were close. My phone was shut off because I couldn’t afford to pay the bill. I came home one evening from laying a fireplace. My father was sitting on the porch of my house I was renting. He said son, “ are you in trouble?” I said no I’ll be ok. He said, “I went inside, your pantry is empty and your refrigerator is unplugged, Collins called and told me you missed your payment. Your phone is disconnected.” I took him on a tour. I was renting a house on a 1200 acre farm. I had 2-3 deer in the freezer. Don’t know how many squirrels, pigeons, and bass. 100lbs of tators in bins in the shed, 20lbs of onions. 50 mason jars of beans, 50 mason jars of Roma tomatoes. I thought I was living just fine. Used to hang my laundry in the family room to dry and humidify the house during the winter next to the wood stove. I really miss those days.

Amateurs! My brother and I had to sleep upstairs in a converted attic. No AC. We would turn on a window fan and sweat. Then the fan would feel cool. We peed out the upstairs window.

They did.

That's my kinda girl right there.

We ate alot of raw turnips too. Loved them.

I think that falls into ….You might be a Red Neck …category….

I would go out with my Dad with a John Deere tractor and hay bales on a wagon. He'd put the tractor in granny low at an idle while we'd bust bales apart and feed the cows while the tractor drove itself.
Once a year we'd go down to the meadow and burn a brushpile and have a weiner roast. Dad would get a 6 pack of Pepsi in bottles and that's how much pop we got in a year. There were 6 of us so it worked out just right.

Mom always made us go to church on Sunday until were smart enough to grab our fishing poles and take off on foot over the hill. By the time we got home she wasn't mad anymore.

True.. but I been called worse.

Over the years I have raised and sold ginseng.
Raised bees for quite a few years.
As a boy I worked on my dad's mink farm feeding, vaccinating, and skinning mink.
Also worked for my dad who made a living seining minnows for many years.

I should add to this that those were some of the best years of my life.

pee off the porch or in gravel driveway - where I want whenever
can't keep clothes on my kids outside
turkeys, ducks, chickens, dogs and cats sleep on porch, around house, and on roof
cows and calves out in yard and on road
swim in front pond
drink water from well
my poop stays on my property
help my neighbors at no cost and they help me
know when someone who doesnt live close - drives by on our road
know how to use and have used a pig castrator
been elbow deep up some animals birthing orifices
know what putting up square bales is and the joy of it
know how to build and fix fence
know that a road killed deer will be cleaned up by my critters
coon fats add energy to laying hens in winter
have guns close to every door, loaded for predators
kids know how to utilize guns as a tool
know that God has saved me and blessed my family and I am eternally thankful for His blessings and understand others are not as fortunate but He loves them the same

It certainly is not country music that makes me country (at least any modern country music). Many have listed all the aspects of rural settings so I won't belabor on those. To me rural or country is living in a culture where one accepts the fact that many services common to more suburban and urban cultures are not available to me or there is a lengthy time lapse in receiving those. One learns to accept those facts and adjusts life accordingly. With fires many times buildings are totally lost. Severe injury or health issues are much more likely to be fatal and it is part of that culture. The good news for me is one lives within the realm of where things grow so logs can be cut, gardens grown, livestock raised and processed. Renewal comes physically, emotionally and mentally which is a very hopeful feeling.

Bryce

Last few years finally made some money and got ahead for once. 25 year anniversary and bought her a tractor!

Up bringing.

Fresh air and the people

Many years ago my then young wife wanted a washing machine. I bought her a srub board and she still stayed with me for 45 years until cancer took her.

Tear the sleeves off a perfectly good shirt just to make it more comfortable.

160 I did that the last time I mowed

It would take an entire book.............

Still deadly with a wrist rocket at age 56
Next door neighbors are Amish
I grow Christmas trees
I can pee off my front porch and nobody lives close enough to notice
Windows are open right now and I can hear a rooster crowing in the distance

They call me big country.

You purposefully walk through tall grass with no shirt on so your pet grinner can snack on ticks while you watch reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies together.

You walk through the grass with dew on to soften your nails you can cut em.

Could go down to the crick and soak them. No need to dull up the bolt cutters

Lol.

Mine ain't as bad as hers were..yet.

The only new vechile I ever bought new in my life is my tractor

Watching tadpoles become frogs.