“Critter in the barn! Critter in the Barn!” I screamed as loud as I could, running through the house heading towards the backdoor. I stopped in the kitchen, just long enough to throw my black rubber boots back on again, still muddy from cleaning out the duck pens in the barn, earlier that day in the rain. I threw on my old, raggedy, dirty raincoat and reached up on the top shelf near the back door, to grab a flashlight with one hand, and more importantly, to grab dad’s 22-caliber, long-nose pistol with the other hand. We always keep the gun and a flashlight close by for just such emergencies. It’s not uncommon to find critters in these neck of the woods stealing eggs or killing livestock, especially at night. The good thing is, they’re usually gone before you get there, by the time you flip on a light and head out the back door.
Dad hollered out excitedly from the back bedroom window, “What is it?” I yelled back to him, “I don’t know, but I’ll get it! Go back to bed.” I ran out the back door, crossed the porch, and headed straight to the barn as fast as I could. With a light drizzle still in the air, I held the gun tightly in one hand and scanned the darkness of night surrounding me with the flashlight in the other. I tried not to slip and …show more content…
For example, our fifteen-acer farm was enough to keep him busy every day. It was definitely a full time job. The biggest jobs were keeping the grass cut and mending fences that the goats constantly knocked down or got their horns stuck in the wire, which we’d have to cut them out with the wire-cutters, creating another fence to mend. Another ongoing job was keeping up the shelters and pens for all the animals; not to mention feeding and watering all the animals twice a day, including flowers, plants, and a small garden mama grows every year near the