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| Blair in winter. Just add mouse... |
Guest post by Little Brother, Blair.
We had little furry critters (mice) 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 haystacks, 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:
Stackyard!
In the winter!
In the snow!
In my underwear!
Yeah. Dad had a good laugh.
Thanks for this Guest post. It seems Diane is not the only one having fond memories about your dad.
ReplyDeleteDad seemed to have answers to most problems but in this case I had to get rid of the mouse the hard way.
DeleteSmiling. And I suspect that you can laugh now too.
ReplyDeleteI think I laughed at the time despite the cold, well maybe after I got my pants on.
DeleteI remember the cat teasing a mouse right beside my feet while I was under a truck in the shop. I became aware of the cat sniffing around my boot and meowing. It was then that I felt that mouse running up my pant leg. I slowly slid out from under the truck while keeping my hands closed around my thigh. Once sitting upright I managed to work my hands slowly down my pant leg, at the same time encouraging the mouse to seek Asylum elsewhere. The mouse shot out of my pant leg but only to be caught once again by that cat...
ReplyDeleteI think the cat did that on purpose.
DeleteBrrr . . . a different viewpoint on mice than my most recent post :D
ReplyDeleteI still remember my father shivering every time he told about the rat that ran up one pant leg, across, and down the other leg when he worked as a young man on a chicken farm ...
Luckily, we didn't have rats in Alberta.
DeleteWhat you needed was something we Australians called "Knacky Twine" which are just bits of string (twine) tied around the bottom of your pants legs. Australians who had ferrets used the twine so the ferrets couldn't scamper up and get your "knackers" instead of getting down into the burrows and scaring out the rabbits which would become dinner for families.
ReplyDeleteOh, that "knacky twine" could have saved me some trouble.
DeleteMercy, but i can only imagine how fast those pants went back on once you had dislodged the mouse.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever heard the song Mississippi Squirrel Revival? In it, a squirrel runs up Harv Newman's coveralls with some funny results.
Mississippi Squirrel Revival
The cold provided extra motivation to get dressed again. I think I heard the Mississippi Squirrel Revival. I think they told a better story than me.
ReplyDelete