Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Saturday, October 3, 2015

Little Furry Critters

Blair in winter. Just add mouse...

Guest post by Little Brother, Blair.

We had little fury critters that were common around the ranch.
They seemed to be everywhere.
When a grain bin door was opened they scampered away to safety. When we pulled bales from hay stacks, ditto.
A little background . . .
Every summer I had the pleasure of baling and stacking hay.
Every late fall and winter I had the pleasure of feeding hay.
Most of the time we baled an alfalfa grass mix but on some occasions we baled green-feed (an oat crop that is cut when green and just headed out.) Creative name, eh?
Cows really like green-feed and so do little furry critters.  Consequently, you see lots of them when you feed green-feed bales. 
On with my story . . .
One day in the middle of winter, dad and I were loading green-feed bales.
The snow had just fallen and we had a lovely white blanket everywhere.
I was pulling bales from the stack and throwing them into the back of the truck where dad was stacking them for the trip to the field. When each bale lifted, critters would skitter to the safety of another bale.
Suddenly, I got a funny feeling.
A little warm furry critter had somehow found his way up my pant leg.
Umm . . . yikes.
As the critter was slowly making his way up, I managed to grab him.
Now I had a predicament.
It was inside my pants leg. Which were inside my coveralls.
I could only stop the critter by grabbing it from the outside of said pants and coveralls.
I didn’t want it to bite me so I grabbed and squeezed.
Then I tried to shake it down my pant leg.
It wouldn’t shake. 
I turned to Dad. He of the years of experience and endless knowledge.
Surely he had some wise method to take care of this very unwanted predicament.
His advice? “I guess you’ll have to take off your pants.”
I had only this to say:
Stack yard!
In the winter!
In the snow!
In my underwear!
Yeah. Dad had a good laugh.

10 comments:

  1. I would laugh except I am sympathizing too much! My father worked in a hen house and with the grain around you can imagine how many mice (and bigger rodents) they had to deal with. One day a rat ran up one of his pant legs and before he could even decide what to do it ran down the other one. (And out of delicacy I will not tell you what happened to the rat then ...) Decades later, the thought still sent a shiver down his back, although by then he could also laugh about it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. No pictures from me Missy! Too funny. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. The thought of it gives me the cold grues. Funny if it happens to someone else but...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm laughing along with your dad, while remembering "knacky-twine" a strong string used to tie around the ankles of pants to stop ferrets from getting up your pants and biting your..err, knackers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. this reminds me of why I'm not a farm girl :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I had the same thing happen to me one time and I even wrote about it. Of course, I couldn't take my pants off, but it scared me so bad I pee'd all in them!

    ReplyDelete

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