Table of Contents
Prologue 1
Part 1 Sleepless in Sticksville
Cluckster's Last Stand 7
Staying Abreast in the Boonies 14
Runaround Sue 18
When It Rains, It Paws 29
Dressed to Kill 34
Who Says You Can't Go Home? 42
The Cowpoke Wore Prada 51
Brumfield Follies 55
The Land the Takeout Taxi Forgot 63
Cock-a-Doodle Sue 69
Jeremiah Was a Peeping Tom 79
Supermodel Suzy 87
Part 2 The Counterfeit Farm Girl Gets Real (Counterfeit Farm Girl Style, Of Course)
Calves' Heads and Black Snakes and Groundhogs. Oh, My! 99
Coming around to Country 107
The Mother of All Realities 122
There Oughta Be a Pill 118
Death by Family Time 122
Ah, the Wonders That Await Me in My Whirlpool 126
Suzy Soprano 130
Star of Stage, Screen, and Livestock Exchange 141
My Birthday Means Jack 145
Ain't No Way to Treat the Ladies 153
It's Okay, Phil. You'll Get My Bill 160
Just Another Blue-gened Boy 166
Jammin'with the Jonas Brothers 178
Swan Lake? Not So Much. But Swan Pond Sounds about Right 183
Forbidden in Fauquier 190
Christmas in Cow Country (Or, Suburbanites Deck the Halls, Farm Folk Deck the Heifers) 200
You Say You Want a Resolution 203
Part 3 Will Farm for Love
Will Farm for Love 211
I'd Like to Have a Word John Wayne 214
Failing Caregiving 101 227
Drawing the Line at the Leech 236
Please Don't Squeeze the Stinkbugs 240
The Guilt Is in the Mail(box) 251
Nailing the New Normal 255
Looking for Dick in All the Wrong Places 264
Needy and Not Proud of It 277
Puzzled by Kudzu? Me, Too 281
One Cholecystectomy, Three ERCPs, and Six Dead Chickens Later… 285
I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas Tree. Not 290
Is That a Poinsettia in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Glad to See Me? 299
Cock-a-Doodle Sue, Part Two 306
Jailbird in a Scruffy Blue Bath Towel 311
Putting My Faith in the Funny Stuff 322
Part 4 Epilogue
500 Acres and No Place to Hide 331
Acknowledgments 349
