Critters

Terri and Alex

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The boys, Russ and Doug, were six years old, so they were in school. Terri, only three at the time, was hanging out with her Mom as they waited for a plumber to show up. Pat had errands to run so she and Terri both were wearing their “go to town” clothes. Terri was wearing her favorite red, plaid dress.

After lunch, the plumber that Pat had called showed up and got busy. Terri was playing with Alex, the dog, while Pat kept an eye on the plumber and watched his progress. After the plumber finished his job and packed up and left, Pat realized that she didn’t hear Terri out on the patio. She went back in the house and went from room to room calling Terri’s name. That didn’t get a response so she went back to the yard and started searching. Terri wasn’t in the yard and Pat began to get anxious. She thought Terri might have gone to play with her friend, Susan, who lived on the corner but Susan and her Mom hadn’t seen Terri that day. Pat was beginning to panic and hurriedly ran from door to door, checking with other neighbors. No one had seen Terri.

We lived in a rural area just outside the city limits. Police work was shared by the Sheriff and the California Highway Patrol with the CHP being more available as they had an office near our home. Pat called the CHP and reported Terri missing and then called me at work. My job was half an hour from home so I jumped in the car and took off as fast as I could go.

When I finally arrived at the house Pat and some of the neighbors were out in the front yard. Pat filled me in on what had been done and what was taking place at the time. Some of our neighbors were checking the neighborhood and the Highway Patrol was searching a little further out. Terri was a self-disciplined little girl and never left the yard without permission. We couldn’t imagine her just taking off so were scared to death that someone had taken her.

As we talked we were scanning the area. Behind our house was a steep hill running up to the east. The hill was terraced and had been a vineyard or an orchard before being abandoned many years ago. After you crested the hill there was a canyon (now Interstate 8) and then you could pick up a dirt service road that went uphill into the foothills. This area was hundreds or maybe thousands of acres in size. At the top of one of the hills was a giant boulder that could be seen for some distance. This boulder gave the place its name of “Big Rock”.

As we glanced around, Pat suddenly spotted a patch of red with something brown beside it moving down the hill toward us. She realized then that being so worried about Terri, she hadn’t been aware that Alex was missing, too! As they got closer, we could see that it was indeed Terri and Alex. I took off up the hill to meet them. As I got up to them and made sure they were both okay, I asked Terri where they had been. She told me in a matter-of-fact way that Alex wanted to go for a walk so she went with him. There I was, heart pounding, adrenaline pumping, and ready for action! But, there was no action to be taken. Terri was a very good girl and never did anything wrong on purpose so for me to go crazy would have been the wrong thing to do. When we got down to the house, I explained what had happened to Pat and she and I thanked everyone for their help and concern. Then, we went in the house and explained to Terri (and Alex) that we don’t just wander off without permission.

50-022

Dave Thomas
September 6, 2014

 

Alex the Dog

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Alex the Dog was rescued or saved by Pat. One day she heard a dog crying outside our door. She opened the door and found this half-starved puppy, 2 or 3 months old, crying for help. She touched him and immediately had fleas jumping all over her hands. She took the pup into the kitchen and found some left-over’s in the fridge and fed him. Since he was so miserable from the fleas, she put him up in the sink and gave him a bath with dish washing soap. Then, she put the dog in the garage, gathered up the kids, and went to the store and bought dog food and flea soap. A can of dog food and another bath and the little guy was stabilized to the point where he could settle down and take a nap.

Over the next couple of days, Pat talked to the neighbors about the dog and determined that he must belong to the man at the end of the block. His house was set back from the street quite a ways and in his back yard he was raising fighting dogs. The current litter was half Pit Bull and half Rhodesian Ridgeback. I don’t know what the rest of them looked like but the one that escaped and came to us looked more like a Rhodesian Ridgeback or a German Shepherd than a Pit Bull. He grew up to be a fair-sized dog and had a handsome face, unlike most Pit Bulls.

After 3 or 4 days the man that owned the dog showed up at our door. I was at work so Pat told me what happened. The guy demanded his dog back. Pat asked him why and pointed out that he didn’t care of the dog and it was covered with fleas and half starved. The guy said he had to keep them hungry so they will fight. Pat told him that this dog wasn’t going to fight. Again, the guy demands the return of his dog. By this time, Pat was sick of him and says “You are not getting your dog back and if you don’t get out of here I’m going to call the cops and tell them what you are doing with those dogs down there!” The guy takes off and Alex became part of the family. He protected the kids, protected our home, and was the smartest dog we ever had. Once in a while he was too smart for his own good and got himself in trouble.

In these animal stories I’ve tried to come up with at least one anecdote to illustrate that the animal showed a certain amount of reasoning or developed an idea and acted on it. Alex was a “thinking” dog. He figured out all kinds of things like how to climb over a 6 foot chain-link fence. He looked like a man climbing a ladder and when he got to the top he took a couple of seconds to get his balance and then simply jumped off.

We had moved to the outskirts of El Cajon. It was a quiet suburban area and people let their dogs roam free. Alex had a bed in the garage and that’s where we put his bowls for food and water. We usually left the back door of the garage open so he could go in and out and get a drink or take a nap. One Saturday, Pat and I were going to go get groceries so we gathered up the three kids and closed up the house. Alex was in his bed in the garage so we left the back door open but gave him a lecture about taking a nap and staying out of the street. He had been chastised for this many times and he knew what the words meant.

We had an outing and picked up the groceries we needed and headed for home. As we made a right turn onto our street, we looked down toward our house which was the fourth one down the block, and saw Alex out in the middle of the street. He looked up and saw our car and high-tailed it for the house. He rounded the corner of the garage and disappeared into the back yard. I pulled up into the driveway and got out and opened the garage door so we could carry the groceries straight into the kitchen. The first thing we saw was Alex in his bed. He stood up and stretched like he was getting up from a nap and came toward us all bright-eyed and with his tongue hanging out and what looked like a big grin on his face. We weren’t fooled for a minute! Pat lit into him with “You lying dog! You weren’t taking a nap…you were out in the street, weren’t you?” Alex got kind of a sheepish look on his face, hung his head, and proceeded to slink back into his bed. BUSTED!

Unfortunately, Alex never learned his lesson and refused to stay out of the street. One day he took up with the neighbor’s female dog and when they went running on the highway, both were struck and killed.

Dave Thomas
August 31, 2014

 

Ms. Rambo and the Fox

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Pat and I were sitting in the swing and talking about Ms. Rambo, a cat we had for several years. We have a lot of stories about her that we tell and re-tell and never get tired of.

The street we lived on was just a block long. It was a very steep hill ending at the top with a regular cul de sac type turn-around. We lived at the bottom of the hill and up at the top lived a family that had a white cat. Being all white, the cat stood out and you could spot her wherever she was in the neighborhood. One day the family moved out and just left the cat to fend for herself. We would see her up and down the block looking for food and taking care of herself. We heard stories from the neighbors of what a hunter she was and how independent and tough she was. We all felt sorry that she had been abandoned but she seemed to be surviving and doing okay.

The cat soon had a route established to cover the block in search of hand-outs. She was checking our back door so Pat started putting out food and water. Our house became a regular stop on the cat’s route and Pat enjoyed seeing her and always talked to her. This went on for a few months until the cat decided to change the game. It was raining one evening which is unusual for San Diego. I had just gone to bed and Pat was finishing up before she, too, headed upstairs. All of a sudden, Pat heard a squalling noise at the front door. It was that loud, eerie noise a cat makes when it has made a kill. Pat opened the door and there stood this wet cat with a rat in its mouth. The cat steps in and drops the rat at Pat’s feet and walks on into the living room. The rat is wounded but it jumps up and waddles off. Pat is yelling for me to get up and help catch the rat and she is checking to see what the cat is doing. The cat is calmly sitting in the middle of the living room and watching Pat go nuts and then watching me go nuts as I try to catch the rat. Fortunately, the rat is lame and I’m able to catch it and get rid of it. Pat and I look at the cat and talk about her and figure that she must have gotten tired of living in the rain and scrounging for food and trying to survive as a homeless person and decided to adopt us. She was smart enough to offer up the rat to pay her way in. 

After work the next evening we were trying to assess what we had. This cat was slim and wiry and built like a Siamese. When she vocalized a “kill”, it sounded like a Siamese. She was pure white but wasn’t an albino because her eyes were kind of a blue-green rather than pink. She’d been taking care of herself for months without the coyotes getting her so she was smart and tough. I tried to play with her and teased her and ended up with tooth and claw marks in my hand and arm so we understood that she would demand respect. Discussing what to name her, it was her fierce fighting ability and independence that caused us to think of the latest “tough guy” movie we had seen so we called her “Rambo”. Then, remembering she was a girl, we modified it to “Ms. Rambo”.

This little cat only weighed 7 or 8 pounds but she was extremely athletic. She liked to sleep on top of the refrigerator where nobody could bother her. Most of the time she would jump from the counter top but if there was anything in the way there she could jump from the floor! Pat had a big fruit bowl that she kept on top of the fridge and Rambo took it over for her naps. 

Ms. Rambo

One day we were afraid she might have a kidney infection. We couldn’t get in to see our regular Vet so we went to another. Once we were in the examining room we took her out of the carrier we had brought her in and placed her on the examining table. Pat and I were both petting her and talking to her so she was quiet. The Vet comes in and he’s a big dude, 6’3″ or 6’4″ tall. We explain the symptoms she’s displayed and the Vet says he will take her to the back and get a urine sample. Pat and I both volunteer to go with them. We tell him that she’s called Ms. Rambo for a reason and that other Vets put a muzzle and one of those straight jacket things on her when handling her. Well, the Vet draws himself up to his full height, looks down his nose at us and says “I think I can handle this little, tiny cat.” Pat and I look at each other and we’re both thinking “OK, Bud…we tried to warn you!” The Vet picked up Ms. Rambo and that’s when things got tough! She started screaming, biting, and clawing and the Vet looked like a man possessed. He and Rambo were everywhere. He finally got her tucked under one arm and went out the door with her. Pat and I about busted a gut, laughing, and were completely out of control for a while. Later, a technician brought Ms. Rambo back in and she was wearing a muzzle and one of those straight jackets and had a big towel wrapped around her, too. They finally got the message.

I had to tell you a little bit about Ms. Rambo so you could get the full flavor of this next incident.

I wasn’t home from work, yet. Pat was just getting there and as she rounded the corner, she saw several groups of neighbors standing out in front of their homes. They were looking up the hill, and talking excitedly to one another. We lived in the first house from the corner, at the bottom of the hill, so Pat pulled into our driveway and got out of the car. She yelled at our next door neighbors who were standing out on their drive and asked what was going on. They said that several neighbors had been out in their front yards doing yard work or doing things with their kids and they saw our cat, Ms. Rambo, coming down the hill. Apparently she had been hunting up at the top of the hill and was going from yard to yard as she returned to our house. A few minutes after seeing Rambo, they saw the  neighborhood fox coming down the hill and it seemed to be following Rambo’s scent. The neighbors all thought that would be the end of Ms. Rambo. Sure enough, all of a sudden there was a terrible commotion! There were cat screams, snarls, hisses, and growls. Then, it all changed to a kind of yelping noise and suddenly, here comes the fox up the middle of the street and he is running for his life! Now, everyone can see what is happening. Ms. Rambo is astride the fox’s back with claws dug in and is riding him like a jockey! Go, Rambo, go! The neighbors say it’s the funniest thing they have ever seen. That fox is running for his life and Ms. Rambo is raking him at every jump! This is how legends are born.

This was not Ms. Rambo’s only wild ride nor her last wild and crazy exploit! More later.

Dave Thomas
October 26, 2014

Fossil Rim

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We actually got mixed up with some exotic animals a couple of times when we lived in Texas. We lived in Keller and about 70 miles south is the city of Glen Rose. Just 4 or 5 miles outside of Glen Rose are the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. Fossil Rim is large and has several miles of dirt roads that allow you to give yourself a self-guided tour to see the animals. The countryside is of low, rolling hills and when you are out in the middle of the property you can easily imagine that you are out on safari when you encounter the African animals that you have heard of and seen in books all your life. You can buy a bag of feed at the gift store (8 bucks and you are allowed 1 bag per vehicle).

There are many types of animals in the Wildlife Center. To name a few, there are ostriches, emus, zebra, giraffes, wildebeests, many species of antelope and deer. In separate pens are black rhinos and white rhinos. There is a fenced area for cheetahs and the Center’s breeding program has produced 180 cubs in about 30 years. There is also a herd of American bison.

The different types of deer and antelope, along with the the ostriches and zebra roam free and they all have their favorite feeding and loafing places within the park. You can encounter and feed one group and then drive a short way and find another group. The zebras and some of the deer will come up to the car and eat out of your hand. Some will get close but you have to toss the feed on the ground.

The zebras get pretty pushy. Actually, the zebras are thugs, have no manners, and don’t display any reticence at all when it comes to eating. The first time we went to Fossil Rim, we had our grand-daughter, Michelle, with us. Shell was driving as we went through and fed the animals. A couple of times, she had to duck as the zebras rammed their heads in the window in an effort to get to the food.

The second time we went to Fossil Rim, Pat’s Aunt Mable was with us. Her daughter Kathy and son-in-law, Richard from Wichita, had come to Dallas to visit friends and had dropped Mable in Keller to stay with us for two days. We thought Mable might enjoy something out of the ordinary so took her to Fossil Rim.

Mable had never really been around animals much so she wasn’t prepared for their aggressiveness when being fed and wasn’t sure how to do it. We told her over and over to extend her hand with the palm up and flat and to have the food lying in the middle of her palm. She didn’t listen and picked up the food with her fingers and offered it to a zebra. Naturally, the zebra nipped her fingers, causing her to yelp and jerk her arm back inside the car. Pat and I got a good laugh out of it because we knew she wasn’t hurt. We continued with our tour and Mable did ok with the feeding. Later, on the way home, we asked her what she thought about the experience. She said, “Well, if anyone asks me if anything interesting happened when I went to Texas I’ll tell them that I got bit by a zebra but other than that, not much.”

The Quartet

Dave Thomas
November 1, 2014

 

And A Porcupine

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For a short time (1 ½ days) I had a pet porcupine. I was 13, going on 14, when I spent the summer of 1950 in Safford, Arizona with my Grandpa, George Sicks. I had never seen a porcupine and all I knew about them is that when they got mad or scared they threw their quills at you and you ended up looking like a pin cushion. I figured them to be pretty mean animals.

Grandpa sold Allis-Chalmers farm equipment there in eastern Arizona. He spent a lot of time on the road calling on the farmers and ranchers in the area. One day, he said he would be going south to make some calls. I couldn’t go with him because he had hooked me up with a job on one of the big farms in the area. When Grandpa got home that night he told me about his trip. To get to the area where he wanted to make calls he went south out of Safford and after a few miles arrived at the Pinaleno Mountains. As the elevation increased he got up into the pine forest. As he went over the crest of a hill, he almost ran over a porcupine in the road. It was standing beside the body of another porcupine that had been hit by a car or truck.

Grandpa went about his business but when he returned in late afternoon the porcupine was still beside the body as if grieving over the loss of its companion. They may have been involved in a mating ritual or, as we learned later, this may have been a mother and baby as the babies stay with their mothers until they are about 6 months old. Grandpa pulled over, got out of his car, and walked back to the porcupine. It didn’t move. Being afraid that the animal would eventually be hit by a car, Grandpa picked it up and put it in his car and headed for home.

When he got to the house, Grandpa told me what had happened. He had a big cardboard box and some chicken wire and we used them to fashion a pen. We got a bowl of water and some vegetables from the house, put them in the pen, and we were ready for our guest.

Grandpa was good with animals and believed that touching was the best way to establish a bond and begin communicating with them. As he got the porcupine out of the car he began showing me how to stroke its back as he spoke quietly to it.

The quills normally lay flat and needless to say, you should always stroke “with the grain” unless you want to deal with quills sticking out of your hand. We put it in the pen and I spent the rest of the evening sitting beside it and talking to it and stroking it. I didn’t get any reaction at all until I started rubbing the bridge of its nose. Then, it started leaning into it a little. I knew the animal was unhappy and scared so it was gratifying to get any kind of response.

I didn’t have to work the next day so I just hung out with the porcupine. It didn’t eat or drink or move around in the pen. Besides the other trauma in its life it couldn’t get any peace now because some kid was checking on it every five minutes. I talked to Grandpa about the situation when he got home that afternoon. He said that he had been worried about the safety of the porcupine but shouldn’t have interfered. He said he should have left it to Mother Nature to take care of business and we would have to make it right.

The next morning, Grandpa put the porcupine in the car and said he would leave it where he had found it. That evening, he told me that the remains of the other porcupine were still where he had seen them last. He moved the body several yards off the road and then got the other porcupine from the car and placed it beside its former companion. We were both sorry that we couldn’t have done more.

For the record, porcupines don’t throw their quills. They are passive little animals but when forced to defend themselves, turn their back to the aggressor and “bristle”, causing their quills to stand up straight. If the adversary persists and gets too close they whack it with their tail. That’s when the pain comes in.

This is a sad memory but I am grateful for the things I learned.

Dave Thomas
October 21, 2014

 

The Two-headed Snake

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I believe it was in the spring of our 8th grade year that our classmate, Leland Collins, brought a two-headed rattlesnake to school. He had caught it over the weekend and wanted to share it. I’m not sure who was most fascinated by it, the teachers or us kids.

It was a young snake, between 6 and 9 inches long, as I recall. Both heads were perfectly formed with bright eyes and those tongues that dart in and out. Leland and his snake were the center of attention for several days as he carried it around town and showed it off. There was a write-up in the Augusta Daily Gazette and one of the large city papers in Wichita even carried the story with a picture of the snake. I don’t remember exactly, but I think Leland ended up donating the snake to the Wichita Zoo.

Dave Thomas
October 27, 2013

           

Some Help With The Mail

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I’m always curious about the intellect and reasoning powers of animals and am sometimes amazed at what I see. Sometimes the actions are subtle and you have to watch closely and other times a response will be purely blatant. Our son, Doug, was given a small, white, rabbit for Easter one year. This rabbit lived in a shelter and pen on our patio. We let him run around the house and yard and he was quite at home no matter where he was. He was easily house-broken so that was no problem. He had grown into a full-sized rabbit at the time I am recalling for you now.

Pat and the kids were out and I was home alone with the rabbit. I brought him in the house and petted him and then turned him loose. I turned on the TV and settled into my favorite spot on the floor, leaning back against the coffee table. I was doing some preliminary thinking about a home project and needed information about parts and tools. I had a Popular Mechanics and a Mechanics Illustrated and was going through the classified ads in the back of them. I had a notebook and a box of No. 10 envelopes and a pen. Whenever I found an ad that looked promising I would write a request for a catalog and slip it into an envelope.

As I said, I was sitting on the floor and had opened the lid on the box of envelopes and placed the box within reach. There were probably 25 or 30 envelopes left in the box. The rabbit has been wandering around the house, looking for someone to play with and had no luck so he got bored. Wanting to be petted or messed with, he nudged my hand with his nose. Well, I’m trying to keep up with a TV program and get some catalogs ordered so I just scratch his ears and push him away. He tries a few more times to get some attention with no luck. His little mind gets busy and I’m not sure whether he decides to punish me or get my attention. He reaches into that envelope box with those big buck teeth and lifts out a No. 10 envelope and places it on the carpet next to my leg. He sits back and looks at me to see what I’m going to do. I’ve been watching him out of the corner of my eye because I figure that if I make eye contact I’ll have to acknowledge him. Not getting any response from me he goes into the box again, gets another envelope and places it on top of the first one. Again, he sits back on his haunches and watches for a reaction from me. Two can play at this game so I just keep ignoring him.

Does he quit? No, he’s relentless! He keeps pulling the envelopes out one at a time without stopping except to see what my reaction might be. The pile of envelopes is getting higher and I finally can’t keep from laughing. He wins! I pick him up and hug him and the catalog requests are over for the night. I just sat there on the floor and held him and petted him while I watched TV.

Dave Thomas
August 15, 2014

Quarry Story Number 1

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The sky was blue and the sun was shining but the temperature was probably in the low 40’s. If you kept moving you were okay but stopping just exposed you to the full effect of the wind up here on top of the pasture. We had come up out of the old limestone rock quarry and were moving uphill, to the northeast, and approaching a limestone outcropping at the crest of the hill. If you had asked, we would have told you we were rabbit hunting. We each carried a .22 rifle and were good enough with them. I was twelve or thirteen and Jack was a couple of years older. If you had questioned us further we would have told you that we were just there for the joy of being outside and didn’t really care if we saw a rabbit or not. This section of ground was a limestone dome that had been drilled on and there were a half dozen pump jacks scattered around that were bringing up oil with every dip of their heads they made. The land itself was pretty poor in that only a couple inches of dirt covered the limestone and that would only grow some short grass and weeds. The whole section was only supporting a couple of cottontails and we practically knew the wary little devils by their first names after seeing them vanish over the crest of the hill so many times.

We were just cutting across the top of the hill to get over to a place on the river where we might have better luck. We decided to take a breather and stopped at this little gully that meandered down from the crest of the hill. If you dropped to the ground you were out of the wind and could enjoy the feeling of the warm sun. After sitting there for a minute we began hearing a soft crying sound. We hadn’t seen any people or animals as we walked so had no idea what it was. As we sat there and tried to tune out the sound of the wind the sound became clearer and seemed to be an animal in distress. We began searching the area around us and right at the crest of the hill found some vertical slabs of limestone with a crack between them. The sound was coming right out of that crack so we scooted over there and tried to see into it. It was about noon so the sun was above us and was showing into the hole. We could see that the hole was probably 10 foot deep and had big rough stones in piles around the edges. Due to the shadows we couldn’t determine what kind of critter was in there so we pulled some wild oats out of the side of the hill and knotted them into a hank. We always carried matches in case we would want to cook something so lit our “torch” and dropped it into the hole. We were amazed to see a young calf looking up like he was the happiest guy in the world to see us. I was afraid he may have broken a leg when he fell in so I decided to go in and check him out. The hole was large enough for me to get through and it looked like there were plenty of hand-holds so I went on in. I ran my hands up and down his legs and everything was good so I climbed back out. The pasture was used by a farmer named Glen Lietzke who had been a high school classmate of my folks. I knew Glen better than Jack did so I headed on over to his farmhouse while Jack stayed there to talk to the calf and keep him quiet. The house was only half or three-quarters of a mile away and as I got there and started down the lane, Glen arrived in his pickup. After I explained the problem, Glen went to the barn and picked up a couple of ropes and then we headed back over to Jack and the calf. Glen was a stocky man and couldn’t fit through the hole so he asked me to get back in there and put the ropes on the calf. Glen directed me on trussing up the calf and then he and Jack hauled him up while I tried to keep him lined up. At first it didn’t seem like the calf would fit through the hole but eventually we got him lined up right and he slid right out.

That calf was a lucky fellow. We didn’t ordinarily cut across that pasture because we knew we’d never get a rabbit up there. Glen was tickled that he hadn’t lost a calf and Jack and I were happy that we’d had another adventure.

 

Dave Thomas
 October 20, 2013

 

Dinner Guest

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Back in the mid-1970’s we rented a 35 foot RV for a trip back to Kansas to visit our families. It was Pat and I, our teenage sons, Russ and Doug, our daughter, Terri, and Terri’s friend, Susan. We cut across northern Arizona to Prescott and Jerome and then to the Four Corners and over to Durango.

We had reservations at a campground for the night and decided to have a Chuck Wagon style BBQ dinner at a place just out of town. The place guaranteed a stage show and live music along with their fantastic dinner.

The eating area had a stage and a bunch of tables with benches. We got in the chow line and filled our plates and then took a seat at the last row of tables. Directly behind us was a wood fence or wall about 4 feet high that ran all the way across the back and served as a divider between the entertainment area and the rest of the property. Behind the fence, the land sloped up and was covered with small pine trees and bushes.

We were enjoying our dinner and the show when Pat got an eerie feeling that someone was staring at her back. She whirled around to confront the intruder and found herself face-to-face with a bear that was leaning on the fence and watching us eat. Pat let out a scream that stopped the show and the whole audience turned to see what was going on. What we all saw was that bear, scared out of his mind, and running up that hill as fast as he could go! The announcer, on stage, says “Well, we won’t be seeing that bear for a while!”

Dave Thomas
November 28, 2014

 

Another Story: Griffin

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1 of 2 Another Story: Griffin

Another Story: Griffin

Uncle Will Church had a Registered Shorthorn bull named Griffin. Griffin didn’t like anybody and he had scared the devil out of me a couple of times. One day I had gone out to the farm with Uncle Dave and Aunt Rachel to visit with Uncle Will and Aunt Ella. They were busy visiting and told me to go outside and look around. I wandered over to the chicken coop and checked out the hens and then headed for the barn. It was a nice, big, traditional looking barn. Naturally, it was red and had big doors on each end with a lane down the middle so you could drive a wagon in. There were good sized stalls on each side of the lane and you could either enter the stall from the lane or, each stall had a Dutch door on the outside of the building. The Dutch doors could be opened at the top to provide ventilation or to let the animals look out.

The barnyard itself had a really stout fence around it. The posts may have been railroad ties initially and strung between them was some quality 3″ or 4″ pipe that looked like it might have been drill stem from the oil fields.

I wandered down to the barn and leaned on the barnyard fence and looked around. I always enjoyed going into the barn and smelling the hay and the livestock. I slipped through the fence and started across the barnyard. I was about half way to the barn when around the corner comes Griffin. We were both surprised and it made him mad and just flat scared the hell out of me. I was straight across from one of those Dutch doors and saw that the top half of the door was open. I took off running and so did that bull. Being highly motivated, I was covering the ground pretty fast. Of course, so was Griffin. There wasn’t time to open that door. I got there just before Griffin nailed me and dived right over it. Yuk! The stall was empty but hadn’t been mucked out and I landed in the nicest, freshest, bunch of cow pies you ever smelled. I wasn’t sure what to react to…relief that the bull hadn’t killed me or the mess I landed in. I took a handful of hay and cleaned up my arms and shirt front. Fortunately, I had turned my head to the side and didn’t land with my nose and mouth down.

I peeked out the door to see where Griffin was and saw him over in the corner staring out into the pasture where the dairy cows were. I knew he wasn’t thinking about me so I went over to the other side of the barn, dashed across the yard and dived through the fence. There was another pen with a horse trough and a spigot to get running water so I went over there and started washing up. I rinsed my shirt out and hung it on the fence to dry. By this time, I’d been spotted through the window and Uncle Will, Aunt Ella, Uncle Dave, and Aunt Rachel all came out to see what kind of trouble I was in. And, as soon as they found out, they all started laughing and kept it up until they practically choked. I’m sure I was beet red in the face. As you can see, some 65 years later, I still remember it well.

Dave Thomas
December 9, 2013