FARMTOWN FLABBERGASTER: High gas prices defeat North and South in Civil War battle

SELMA, Ala. – Both the Grays and the Blues waved the white flag after high fuel prices bested both sides in an annual re-enactment of one of Alabama’s most significant Civil War battles.

Sponsors withdrew support from this year’s clash because the number of re-enactors has been falling while fuel prices are rising, the Montgomery Advertiser reported this week. The re-enactment depends on Civil War buffs from as far away as Michigan to fill the Union and Confederate ranks, but long drives have taken a financial toll.

Alabama’s tourism director hopes the battle will rage again as new interest is sparked by the approaching150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. The re-enactment has provided a tourism boost for the small town about 40 miles west of Montgomery.

The Battle of Selma took place in April 1865. Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, facing a superior Union force, attempted to defend the arsenal at Selma. While Forrest was defeated, the Union victory was an expensive one, and many Confederates, including Forrest, escaped.

FARMTOWN FLABBERGASTER: Buckshot bellyache

NOME, Alaska – An X-ray of a 73-year-old Inuit woman complaining of mysterious abdominal pains revealed an appendix completely loaded with lead.

As reported in a recent article by the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors in the remote Alaska town were baffled by X-ray negatives that showed the organ swelled and visually highlighted with shotgun pellets.

Northern and western Alaska natives, doctors said, eat so many duck and geese downed by buckshot that some of the lead inadvertently stays in the meat and slips down the gullet.

“Although most of the metal undoubtedly passes through the intestine over time, buckshot in the appendix is commonly seen in Alaskan natives, but usually not to (this) extent,” the Journal reported.

Decades of buckshot-seasoned meals probably resulted in the woman’s large accumulation.

“It is likely that poor dentition [that means teeth] and advanced age are aggravating factors that prevent detection of the lead during mastication [or 'chewing'],” the Journal reported.

The lead-loaded appendix, shown in the X-ray above, is revealed in stark contrast to the rest of her otherwise healthy body.

And the two little white dots drifting to the upper left?

“(P)robably evidence of a recent meal,” according to the Journal.

Note to The Rural Ninja’s cannibal readership: steer clear of any vice-presidential hunting buddies.

FARMTOWN FLABBERGASTER: Bobcat’s lives reduced to eight after arrow-in-head incident

CAMARILLO, Calif. – A tenacious young bobcat wandered around for more than a week with an arrow stuck between its eyes.

The projectile ran through the 8 to 10 month old female bobcat’s skull but managed to miss its brain and other vital organs, California wildlife officials told the Associated Press earlier this week.

“If you’re going to get an arrow through the head, that is probably the best place to have it,” the director of Camarillo Wildlife Rehabilitation told the AP.

Recovered near Camarillo – about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles – the emaciated bobcat weighed just 8 pounds, which is about half the weight for a cat her age. The bobcat underwent surgery and was showing signs of normal brain function, said a wildlife veterinarian.

The arrow was likely shot by a hunter, said a state Department of Fish and Game warden.

“Either somebody had a very bad shot or a very good shot,” the warden told the AP. “It was a one-in-a million shot.”

FARMTOWN FLABBERGASTER: Psycho Path earns Michigan town ‘wackiest street name’ distinction

Farfrompoopin Road in Tennessee couldn’t quite squeeze out a victory, plopping into third place behind Divorce Court in Pennsylvania, which obtained custody of the runner-up “wackiest street name” honor.

Call them crazy, but 2,500 respondents to an online poll last week chose Psycho Path in Traverse City, Mich. (pop. 14,500) for the No. 1 spot.

Perhaps respondents didn’t realize the full geographical context of Farfrompoopin Road. Had they known that Farfrompoopin is the only road up Tennessee’s Constipation Ridge, the results may have been different.

“Our readers really stepped up with some insane street names,” said TheCarConnection.com publisher Paul Eisenstein in a press release. “Our panel had a difficult time narrowing several hundred down to the 10 our readers voted on.

“But we learned a lot about the byways of this country, not to mention the collective sense of humor of city planners everywhere.”

TheCarConnection.com, which is owned by Mitsubishi Motors, sponsored the poll during the last week of February. Final results were tallied Friday.

The top 10 list includes:

10. Tater Peeler Road in Lebanon, Texas

9. The intersection of Count and Basie in Richmond, Va.

8. Shades of Death Road in Warren County, N.J.

7. Unexpected Road in Buena, N.J.

6. Bucket of Blood Street in Holbrook, Ariz.

5. The intersection of Clinton and Fidelity in Houston

4. The intersection of Lonesome and Hardup in Albany, Ga.

3. Farfrompoopen Road in Tennessee (the only road up to Constipation Ridge)

2. Divorce Court in Heather Highlands, Pa.

1. Psycho Path in Traverse City, Mich.

FARMTOWN FLABBERGASTER: Pinto de Gallo

EATON, Ind. – An Indiana canning plant put an exciting new spin on the old familiar can o’beans last week. But not everyone is ready for the limited run “chicken head and pinto bean” concoction.

At least that was the case when a slightly nauseated Illinois woman called the authorities after finding the beheaded fowl staring up at her through a heap of slimy beans.

The manager of the Indiana canning plant said Monday that he was baffled by the mishap.

“We don’t know anything, and we are waiting on the results of tests,” said the general manager of the Eaton-based Meridian Foods. “We have procedures in place to prevent these things from happening, and we have reviewed those procedures.”

The manager said he was eager for more information about how the guillotined hen was discovered by a DeKalb, Ill., woman who reported buying the can at a grocery store in nearby Aurora, Ill.

A canning company for four decades, Meridian has been owned by Clinton, Mich.-based Eden Foods since 1994. Meridian is Eden’s sole canning plant.

The 29-employee plant packs about 12 varieties of cooked beans. The chicken-headed variety has been discontinued indefinitely.

FARMTOWN FLABBERGASTER: World’s most dangerous lawn ornament found in Oregon town

WOODBURN, Ore. – A Korean War-era shell loaded with TNT was removed last week from a family’s front yard after sitting there for over two decades.

While missing the fuse, an Oregon state police expert said the shell could have gone off in extreme circumstances.

“If the place had caught fire, then the shell could have detonated,” said Sgt. Steve Sigurdson of the state police explosives unit.

The shell was 3 feet long, weighed 150 pounds and was of a type was shot from 8-inch-diameter howitzers during the Korean War.

Police were tipped off when a nephew of the family with military explosives training examined the lawn ornament, according to police.

“They had been using this thing as a lawn ornament,” said Sigurdson. “It had been there on the property when they moved in 20 years ago.”

Bomb experts from the Oregon National Guard’s air base in Portland picked up the shell shortly after and will dispose of it, Sigurdson said.

FARMTOWN FLABBERGASTER: Iowa’s hot sauce hooligan on the loose after toilet tantrum

Police are still on the lookout for a man who vandalized a Mexican restaurant’s bathroom after accusing employees of slipping hot sauce in his tacos.

According to witnesses, the man drove his red 1994 GMC Jimmy through the Council Bluffs, Iowa Taco John’s drive thru Friday night. After grabbing his order, the man pulled over, walked into the restaurant, and began yelling at employees for squirting hot sauce on his tacos, police said.

An employee assured the man that the restaurant doesn’t put hot sauce on any of its tacos. The man then walked into the bathroom and cracked the tank on the toilet, police said.

FARMTOWN FLABBERGASTER: Move to rural Iowa: tasty corn, quaint little towns and….free land.

Marne, Iowa is fixing to be a full-fledged blip on the map with offers of free land for new residents.

The proposed land grab prompted more than 1,200 hits in two weeks on the western Iowa town’s web site.

“It snowballed,” Marne Mayor Randy Baxter told reporters, following coverage of the free land offer by nearby newspaper, radio and television outlets.

The land giveaway is part of an effort to increase the town’s population from 149 to 200 in the next four years.

Interest in the offer flooded in from New York to California, Baxter said.

“It’s been from a wide range of people,” he said. “Singles, couples, young families and retired people.”

The town is taking applications while its housing committee sets rules for what kinds of homes the newcomers can build on the available lots.

Mobile homes will be accepted, but trailers will not, Baxter said.

Oh, and that’s a photo of Mayor Baxter above (no joke), taken from the official town website. The photo’s caption reads, “Our new mayor is dangerous with a lighter!!”