We have four outdoor cats. We feed them dry cat food on our side porch. Cats aren't like dogs. Dogs will eat every drop of food in the bowl. Cats only eat enough to satisfy their hunger at that time. There are always a few kernels of cat food left in the evening. Guess who comes to dinner then? Raccoons. We have two mama raccoons with a total of seven youngsters on the prowl around here come sunset. There never is anything left by morning. I couldn't stand to kill one of them. They are like family to us.

Union County’s Under the Tree program helps to make Christmas special to children across Union County that are in need. More than 500 children that live right here in Union County benefit from this program each year. Under the Tree is well known and is formerly recognized as Toys for Tots.

Maynardville welcomes a new business, 5 Sister Variety, to the community. Adrian Hamilton, along with daughter Stephanie, recently opened the storefront in the Food City Plaza. Upon entering the store, you can be sure a smile and a willingness to help awaits.

“I don’t think I can go through with this!”

Panic is how I would describe the expression that crossed my dad’s face after I made my little announcement. I can understand why. At this point, we were standing in the church foyer waiting for my bridesmaids to walk down the aisle.

That would be a horrible situation to be in. Think about it. You’re waiting to walk your daughter down the aisle and she says she can’t go through with the wedding.

I attended a writer’s meeting last week and one of the members had researched the months of the year and the different affiliations with those months. Thanks Jared Jackson.

Jared passed the info along to all of the members and I thought it might be fun to share with our HUC readers. We have already passed through many of them, but there is still a lot of October left.

A 2016 study on back pain caused by backpacks revealed two notable findings: Teen girls appear to experience more severe backpack-related pain compared to boys, and the time carrying the backpack—not the weight—is likely causing that pain.

The study covered 5,318 students aged 6 to 19 years. The researchers broke the student sample into three age groups: children, younger adolescents, and older adolescents.

I recently came across the question, “When is the last time you did something nice for a stranger?” There are indeed instances when we encounter strangers who have legitimate needs, but the bad experiences that we have with strangers who do not seem to be “on the level” make us cautious when dealing with all people unknown to us.

Most of us were probably taught as children to not talk to strangers. This was sound advice from our parents to prevent us from being harmed or kidnapped, and I believe in my case it once possibly saved my life.

The Autumn season tends to stir up a lot of nostalgia for how things used to be done in the country. Back in my grandparents and their parent’s day our society was predominately rural, and folks lived on subsistence farms growing and processing much of their own food and animal feed to support large families. Fall was a particularly busy time of year when many crops, fruits, and vegetables matured and needed storing or processing for use during the rest of the year. It made sense to help each other with the large quantity of crops that came in.

You don't usually think of a bullfrog as a pet, but I had one back in the 1980s. I remember him well. I never checked his gender, but he looked like a “he” to me. He lived at our house for about three years. Let me tell you about him.

I sent away for a bullfrog pollywog from a company that sold water lilies. One was all I wanted. We had built a cement goldfish pond in our backyard. It had a waterfall that came out of an old pitcher pump. What a perfect setting for a bullfrog.

When you need more than one pound of hotdogs, this is a good way to fix them. Whether for a potluck or a picnic, they will be hot and ready when you need them. I prepared frankfurters, or hotdogs, this way when I was doing the Wednesday night suppers at church. They hold well if the meal is delayed or if you are driving to the lake. Leftovers can be reheated after cooling in the fridge. They should all be eaten by then.