THE MONKEY RANCH provides original animal stories and creative content for entertainment and education.
Here at the Monkey Ranch, life runs on rhythm sunrise coffee, chores by noon, supper before the sky turns gold. It’s not just a schedule,
You ever walk out to the henhouse and find your eggs gone, trash can tipped over, and muddy paw prints on the side of your home?…
Out here on the ranch, we’ve got more critters than cousins at a family reunion. From deer sneaking into the vegetable patch to raccoons throwing midnight parties in the chicken coop, it’s a wild world.
There’s something magical about living in close proximity to wildlife. Out here at the Monkey Ranch, we’re lucky enough to share the woods and riverbanks with all kinds of critters—raccoons, deer, foxes, and yes, the occasional black bear.
Back in the old, old days, Uncle Coochie’s grandfather and my great-grandfather, Sam Ben, owned a big ol’ stretch of land that backed right up to the Waccamaw River. That Lowcountry soil was as black and rich as a preacher’s voice on Easter Sunday—some of the best farm dirt in the South.
Thinkin’ with both hands—on the one hand, then the other—is the only way to make sure you don’t end up swingin’ a hammer at your own foot. It’s an old-school skill, like knowin’ how to trap a possum without endin’ up in a slap fight with a trash panda at 2AM. It’s rare. Almost extinct.
We’ve talked ‘bout a whole lotta things since y’all been visitin’ me here at The Monkey Ranch, but somehow, we ain’t got ‘round to one of the most important:
The Waccamaw River don’t just run – it meanders, drifts, and dreams its way down through South Carolina like an old soul with nowhere particular to be and all the time in the world to get there.
Several years ago, I was able to get my hands on three wooden rocking chairs that had spent many years on my grandfather’s front porch. These chairs, perfect candidates for antique chair repair, bring back fond memories every time I see them. He passed away in 1956, and my grandmother in 1983.
Today I want to discuss with all y’all a most important and extremely distressing issue that each of us experience every single day, but we seldom, if ever, think, consider, ponder or study on it. We rely on old-time survival skills to address and solve these everyday mysteries and challenges.
