Critters on the Farm
There was no shortage of animals on the farm. The two we all seem to remember most were Rufus, the rooster, and his harem of chickens, and Brutus, Kersey Benefield's bull, and his herd of cows. They each have a chapter of their own, so I will leave them alone for now.
Several dogs came and went. Tonto was the one that stayed the longest. Grandma Pound named him that because he was Ken's constant sidekick. Wherever Ken was, Tonto was near by. I think she sort of felt like that old dog looked after Ken. He was a little lemon colored terrier of some kind, and pretty grubby looking. He stayed on the porch when we were in the house, and sometimes we could hear his tail thumping on the boards, especially if Grandma Pound was sitting in the porch swing. He loved to go lay down by her feet.
There were other dogs, including one big brown dog we all fell in love with. Aunt Nell came to visit and decided to take him home with her. Of course, we didn't want him to go, but he went anyway. He only stayed at her house a few days, and then he took off for home. We looked and watched for what seemed like a year for that dog to show up, but he never made it. Looking back, I think there must have been more to that story than just what we knew.
The Benefields had a little cocker spaniel that would always run after us when we entered their yard. We were not too fond of that little dog, especially after it knocked Beth down. She was returning a jar of borrowed coffee, and he chased her down, causing her to fall and get a pretty bad gash above her lip. Mrs. Way also had a little brown dog that was very friendly and followed us on the road when we went to get the mail. She would always have to call him back home.
The only cats we had were the ones that lived in the barn. They were not allowed in the house. For a brief time we had a milk cow. I remember my mother squirting milk in a cat's mouth when she was milking. They loved the hay loft, and liked to play with us when we were jumping in the hay. We tried to dress them in doll clothes and make them be our babies, but they would have none of it. They were definitely not pet cats. They were wild barn cats, but at least there were never any mice in the barn.
Birds were everywhere. I remember seeing roadrunners along the sandy dirt road. There were cardinals, orioles, bobwhites, blue jays, wrens, and mockingbirds. Grandpa Pound would sit in the porch swing and identify the birds by their sounds. He taught us how to recognize the sound of a bobwhite and a mourning dove. He would make a sound and tell us to listen for the mockingbird to imitate him. The wrens made nests under the eves of the house outside the front bedroom. They would wake us up early in the morning with their cheeping for breakfast.
Sometimes, Aunt Aud brought her little parakeet named Titus to visit. He was trained to quote scriptures and say that he was a "little church of Christ bird." Uncle Bob went to visit Aunt Aud and converted Titus to the Baptist persuasion. He taught him to say, "Titus is a little Baptist bird." Aunt Aud spent a lot of time trying to unteach Titus. He must have grown tired of the religious controversy, because one day he flew out Aunt Aud's window and never came back. It broke her heart.
There were a lot of harmless snakes around the farm. My brother was the only one who liked them. He was always dangling little green squirming critters in our faces. There were a lot of black snakes that Grandpa said were harmless, but we still didn't like them. They liked to hide the hay in the loft in Grandpa's barn, when they were not robbing eggs from the chickens. Since we liked to jump in the hay, we really did not like to find one slithering around our feet. Sometimes, the big black snakes would get in on the side of the breezeway, and Grandma Pound had to chase them away. We thought she was the bravest person we knew, not afraid of anything. Which is pretty much true. The blue racers stayed in the road on the way to the mailbox and were very frightening. They were not poisonous, but we believed they would race you and catch you.
There were also some not so harmless snakes around. There were copperheads that occasionally made an appearance. We knew to run. Aunt Nell shocked us nearly to death when she grabbed hold of one by its tail just as it was crawling under the concrete steps to go under the house. She held on while she waited for someone to get a hoe to chop its head off. A garden hoe was the standard farm tool for snake killing. There were also water moccasins that lived in the pond and creek between the farm and the Benefields. Grandma Pound and Mother came back from a walk and had seen one as fat as their arms. They were almost in shock and warned us to stay away. However, we never stayed away from the creek in sunny weather. I do not remember ever seeing any moccasins in the creek, though they were probably nearby. We may have scared them away. We usually played where the water was swift and the rocks were slippery. I do remember seeing them floating on top of the pond, slithering through the water.
There were a lot of insects on the farm and in the pastures. We liked some of them, like the fireflies. We caught them at night and put them in one of Grandma Pound's fruit jars. We also made jewelry with them and thought it was beautiful. There were zillions of flies. We had contests to see who could kill the most. In the fall, we found the shells of cicadas and locusts. I was always fascinated by the fact that they could slip out of their skin and leave it behind.
Chiggers and ticks were the worst. Sometimes we would get into a nest of seed ticks when we were picking dewberries or blackberries for cobbler. They were awful and covered our shoes and socks and shorts. Grandma got out coal oil to get rid of them. The pasture was full of chiggers at certain times of the year. You don't always know right away that you have gotten into chiggers. By the time you do, they have already made themselves at home in your arms and legs, and you are miserable with their itchy little bites. Our legs and arms were painted pink with calamine lotion. I can still hear Grandma Pound saying, "That's the reason I told you to stay out of those tall weeds." We did not always listen.