The Day Old Joe Died

I was very little guy , about 5 yrs old, when Dad told us , Old Joe, Dad's old deer dog had died. My first experience in losing a friend by death. What do we do now??  Old Joe was old now, he had hunted for yrs for my Dad and needed a proper burial.  So outside the yard  few yards away was a old log hog pen with no top. I can see that old pen now.  The leaves had fallen for yrs and piled up to make a bed. The pen smelled like old winter leaves.  Just the place I thought Old Joe should be layed to rest.  No one would bother my friend again..  Dad dug a deep hole in the middle of the pen and layed Joe in it just as he lay when he died. The grave was covered that day with the fresh dirt and the leaves that had been there already.  I often visited Joe's grave until one day  we move from there and left Joe there for the ages.

The Old Days, Over the River!

I lived deep in the woods, the first few yrs of my life . We (brothers & sister) would sneek out to the barn and get cow feed to eat, pretending to be a cow.  We had a seesaw we played on all the time and if one of us had bubble gum we would let each chew it for a while, called sharing.  The hay barn was a great place for us to slid between the bales, and  play hide and seek. At  night, we could hear the foxes howling, and sometimes a wildcat would scream. Scary!! 

One day Mom saw where something was killing the chickens at night. Sometime just the brains would be picked clean.  So she decided to go stop that and kill that critter.. It was dark, Mom put us on the kitchen table, we were scared, and she got the gun and light and  went out to the chicken lot..  She sat and  waited..  Then she heard  a chicken holler, and  she pointed the light to a tree top and guess what she saw???  It was big. She put the light on the critter and  aimed the gun. Bang, she fired and  down came a big Woods Owl, big as a turkey. She bought it to the house and layed it in the high chair, and  its wings fell close to the floor..   We were scared  but when we saw our Mom, we new she was ok.. and  we were too.