Good morning shaving fiends.

Well after last week’s fiasco I decided we would have a quiet weekend at the ranch and invited Jethro and company over to my place for dinner but Auntie Beulah offered to make her famous Prairie Dog Stew and I’ve got to tell you she’s one rite smart cook. After you’ve had that stew you’ll be licking your chops for more umm-umm I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

The way she catches the critters is she has a Prairie Dog City right in the back yard so she sits about 10 yards behind the burrow and Jethro puts a water hose down the burrow and gets his Louisville Slugger and when they pop up he whacks em good right into Auntie’s waiting arms. She’s such a good catcher she should be playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

So after dinner Jethro sent me and Festus out to look for those mice that ran off. First I had to find Festus who was behind the haystack with his goat doing.. err, well, you know what I mean.

So we saddled up old Diablo and went looking. Festus is the best tracker in the county. He can actually track mice. So he spots some sign and follows it up a ravine and sure enough there are those mice going down a hole. So he enlarged the hole and Festus sticks his hand down the hole and lordie it turned out to be a badger hole and I swear that was the meanest orneriest badger I’ve ever seen. Why he bit Festus’s arm off clean to the elbow so Festus jumps up with the stump in his hand spurting blood and the badger then attacked Diablo and he threw me and took off. So I’m pulling Jethro down the ravine screaming with the badger chasing us along with his whole family with the kids biting our toes as we ran. Once we got further down the ravine I look up and see old Navajo Joe on a bluff looking down at us shaking his head and laughing his butt off. Well he came down and did some Native American mumbo jumbo and stopped the bleeding and drove us back to the ranch.

Once we got back to the ranch Auntie patched up Festus and eventually Diablo showed up but the wound festered and he went lame and Jethro had to shoot him in the head. Boy was he mad at us. Now I’m going to have to buy more than new tires for the station wagon.

So the question for this week’s shaving brainbuster is this; Since Jethro slaughtered Diablo he is going to make a bunch of strops out of him. So first how many Cordovan strops can he get out of him and exactly where on his body would they come from. Second, Cletus says he doesn’t want one because when he strops on horse he can’t hear anything so it ain’t no good for stropping. Is this true or not? Lastly, what grit sandpaper should Jethro use to get that perfect finish on those strops or should he maybe leave a little knap on the hide? Oh and how wide should those strops be? Also Jethro thinks the strops should be really stiff but I told him Cordovan strops should be butter soft. Who is right?

Be sure to check back on Wednesday for the answer so astounding you won’t ever guess what happened to Festus, his goat and that badger but neither me or the Badger is talking.