It was fifty feet wide and over 200 feet in length. It was something to behold and I must admit I was rather proud of it. It was the only garden in miles. It had tomatoes, cantaloupe, melons, peas, green beans, and corn. I was the dumb preacher that planted my seed on top of the plow furroughs instead of at the bottom of the furroughs like the local farmers. When they heard how I planted my garden they sure teased me about it. Folks laughed about my garden as far as twenty miles away.

But we received some very heavy rains and it destroyed all the gardens except one, and it was mine, the dumb preacher that planted my seed on top of the plow furroughs. Each Sunday after church I would load people up with all types of vegetables from the dumb preacher’s garden. Some of them I would tell, “Now this is from the garden that would never grow.” I would smile real big. One of the deacons, Travis laughingly told me that I was having too much fun out of this, smiling that “oh yes” smile to everyone that I gave vegetables.

The same deacon lived near my garden. He asked if he could run his sheep next to it, and to do so meant he would have to put up an electric fence. I told him it was not problem because the grass was getting tall. He put up his electric fence and turned his sheep loose. The sheep did a good job of keeping the grass down, but I had to be careful of his fence because it sent out an electric shock about every three to four seconds.

One night I watered the garden all night. This meant that I that the next day it was mostly mud. I did need to pick some cantaloupes, so wearing a t-shirt and short pants I put on some old tennis shoes and went out in the garden. Everywhere I stepped oozed with mud covering my shoes. Just pulling my shoe up each time to take another step, I could hear the ground make a sucking noise.

Once in the area where I had planted cantaloupes I picked several ripe cantaloupes. Also, I realized that the cantaloupe vines had grown, running much further than I had expected. Not realizing that I was close to the electric fence, I backed up as I followed one of these off-shoots. I had already found one ripe cantaloupe that was attached to an off-shoot. As I backed up, I felt something touch the back of my leg right near the bend of the knee and immediately knew what it was. It was the wire on the electric fence. Yes, the one that sent out a high voltage, electric pulse every three to four seconds.

I reacted the only reasonable way that I could. I lunged forward doing a belly flop into the freshly watered garden. It was that, or get a pop of high voltage which I had experienced before from electric fences, so I did the belly flop.

I was covered from head to toe as I pushed myself out of the mud. But to make matters worse, the deacon, Travis, had seen the whole incident and came over to check and see if I was hurt.

In a subdued tone, he asked me if I was I ok. I said that I was, despite being covered with mud. I had to wipe the reddish-brown muck from my eye sockets so I could see. When I looked up at Travis, he had this funny, somewhat reserved look on his face. I could tell he wanted to laugh, but he controlled himself.

I then began to explain how I was backing up, felt the wire on the back of my leg and had to make the choice of getting shocked or taking a dive into the mud. He still had that subdued look on his face. I couldn’t help, but had to ask why. “Why do you have that funny look on your face,” I asked him.

“Well,” he said sheepishly looking down at the ground placing his hands in his pockets which reminded me of some child’s reaction that had just been questioned for stealing cookies from the cookie jar. “I don’t know how to tell you this.” “What are you talking about Travis?” Looking up with a slight smile, he said, “Preacher, I had decided to move my sheep this morning and I turned the electric fence off an hour ago.”

We both started laughing. Travis pointed at me laughing, “You look just like the Mud Monster on television!” Travis was one of the best deacons I have ever had. It was funny. I am just glad they didn’t have digital cameras in those days. I am sure that Travis would have had one in his pocket. And yes, I still had the best and only garden within miles despite being the Mud Monster of West Texas.