three or so years down the line and half way through a degree later... dunno if any of you'll remember me

anyway, it occurred to me that some of you might enjoy this odd old farmer's saying I came across in a BBC radio serial some time ago:
"as useful as a toad with sidepockets"

any idea if it's genuine?
so how useful is a toad with sidepockets?
and what does the toad get out of it?

any more obscure agricultural sayings out there?

Bonzai! Welcome home. Love the toad with sidepockets. Lot better for mixed company than some others I can think of.

speaking of Old Farmers, and weren't we just, a subscriber sent me this yesterday:

in the 'Old Farmers Almanac' by today's date [7/13] there is this
quote: "cornscateous air is everywhere"...I looked first in my American
Heritage dictionary and was mildly surprised not to find it there then
went to my unabridged-same result- then to my compact edition of the
Oxford dictionary... nothing.

well, it's not in the OED either; in fact, near as I can tell, it's a nonce-word fashioned by the Old Farmer's themselves.

-joe (old, anyway) friday

p.s. - hi, dog!

cornscateous...
I wonder how that would be pronounced.. corn-SCA-teous... CORN-scateous... cornsca-TE-ous... cornscaCHIous...
(I have wandered around the room doing that but am unable to conjure up a suitably idyllic image of cornfields due to surrounding city concrete and the sound of flatmate asking what I'm doing)

strikes me as oddly uncomfortable to roll off the tongue.

I had thought cornSKAYtious..

from the OFs "this term signifies warm, damp air. Though it signals ideal climatic conditions for growing corn..", one could surmise that the roots are corn + L. scatere, to bubble, gush, well, spring, or flow forth.

-joe (bubblicious) friday