Adventures with animals.

When I was a kid, we always had animals around. We had a cow and lots of hogs and chickens. The rest were pets: cats, dogs, rabbits, gold fish, mice and turtles. I had to help with the feeding and watering of the animals. And, I collected eggs from the chickens' nests. I can remember squishing through the chicken pen, barefooted, to reach under the hens and snatch their eggs. Some of those hens weren't too happy about that. Being barefooted didn't bother me at all. I think when you're raised around animals, you're not as squeamish as folks who didn't have that experience.
One day, I fell victim to rebelliousness. I took some of the eggs I'd collected to the edge of the yard, where my older brother's wrecked '62 Impala was parked. I looked around to make sure no one was watching, and I splattered that Chevy. I was scared, but I felt ALIVE!
We once had a pig who would suckle our cow, Bessie. He would plop right down under her and get his fill. Bessie? She didn't mind. It wasn't long before that pig was the fattest one in the litter.
We had another pig, named George. I talked about him in an earlier post - and supplied a photo of me petting him. He was raised with hound dog puppies and would follow me around like a dog.
Sometimes neighbors' animals would end up on our property. My dad would try to corral them and my mom would call around to see who was missing something. One of our neighbors, Mr. Price, always had escaping livestock. Once, I looked out my bedroom window and saw a horse looking at me. Often, it was hogs. My dad would say to my mom, "Call Julian. Tell him his hog is over here."
One time, my dad and I managed to corral a very large, white hog that belonged to Mr. Price. My mom made the call and soon he arrived, with a couple of his boys - and a bull dog. He turned that bull dog loose in our pen and he shot, like a bullet, towards the errant hog, and clamped his impressive jaws on its ear. The bull dog wouldn't allow the hog to budge. Mr. Price, my dad and the boys jumped in the fence and grabbed the squealing porker. The bull dog held firm. My dad asked Mr. Price how to get the dog off of the hog. Mr. Price said, "Hit him." My dad replied, "I'm not gonna hit him!" Mr. Price then knocked the bull dog up 'side the head, as it were. The dog let go. He and his sons picked up that large, unhappy hog, threw him into the small trunk of their car, and slammed the lid. The bull dog and the boys hopped in and they took off.
Whenever my dad would take hogs to auction, or to be slaughtered, it was a big day. I got to stay home from school to assist. We would get up very early and do whatever it took to get the hogs in the back of my dad's truck. He had built extra tall sides for his truck bed for that purpose. The auction and slaughter houses were out of town, so, for a country boy who never got to go anywhere, it was a nice little trip. And we always stopped for a Coke - and salted peanuts to dump into the Coke. My dad taught me that trick.
I can remember, one time, being at the auction, waiting for our pigs to come up. There were pens and pens jam packed with pigs and hogs. I recall walking on a wooden plank over a pen squirming with hogs. It couldn't have been over 6 feet off the ground, but to me, it was scary.
One part of the auction experience that I really enjoyed was the flea market. I remember buying several 45s - "Put Your Hand in the Hand," by Ocean, "Cloud Nine," by The Temptations, something by Spanky and Our Gang ("Like to Get to Know You?" "Sunday Will Never Be the Same?") and "I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten," by Dusty Springfield - for a dime apiece.
I first heard the Tommy James and the Shondells song, "Draggin' the Line," at the slaughter house. Now, unfortunately, I can't hear it without thinking of that place.
A few weeks after any pigs were born, my dad would risk life and limb to snatch them away from their mother, in a large wash tub, so he could break off their sharp little teeth and cut (castrate) the males. He would take them behind the house, so the mother wouldn't hear their anguished squeals. My job was to hold them while he performed the procedures. He would pull out a shiny new single edged razor blade, make two small incisions, squeeze out the testicles, and slice them off. Then, they would receive a shot of some kind of purple veterinary antiseptic spray. The teeth... that's the part that bothered me most. My dad said it had to be done, so the mother would allow them to nurse. He used a pair of pliers, and crunch, crunch , crunch - Jeez, I hate even thinking about it now!
Growing up around so many animals afforded me with adventures that featured rats, snakes, electric fences, soaked corn (you'll never forget THAT smell), large, sometimes irate, mammals - and crap. Lots and lots of crap...