Woods sights
One warm fall when I was about 15, I had been out roaming the woods and was on my way home. I was walking across some pasture that had never seen a plow, the sun had set just a few minutes before so it was only about half dark. I step over this clump of buffalo grass and heard a sound that sounded like the granddaddy of all rattle snakes. I mean loud. After freezing to stone I realized about 25 or 30 quail had flown when I stepped into the middle of the little circle they had made to bed down for the night. Those darn wings beating by my ear sounded just like a rattle snake in the dark. It took about 5 minutes for my heart to stop beating like a trip hammer.
Same time period I was walking across a pasture with tall grass when something hit my calf like I had stepped on a stick and it had slapped me. When I looked down the big ole cotton mouth I was standing on, struck my boot again. Did you ever see the steet magician that can levitate? I beat him by about 3 feet, did a 180 in the air and landed about 20 ft from where I had been standing on the snake. When I pulled up my pants leg there was two sets of fang marks about 1 inch below the top of my boot (they were very high tops) and venom was running down my boot. And people wonder why I look at the ground when I am walking even in town.
I ran across a momma bear with cub while deer hunting in Colorado about 20 years ago. I heard her but could not see her. I stopped where I was and crouched down. When the noise I had heard ceased (I thought it was a deer cleaning his antlers) I went to check and see if I could get a shot at the deer I thought I had heard. I find a spot the size of a large dining table plowed with claws and from where I am standing I am looking square into the bush I had taken cover behind. Momma went to north, I went east, several minutes later I hit Momma bears tracks in the snow and there was a set of smaller tracks right beside the larger tracks. I walked off that ridge with my .357 in hand and a terrible urge to go to the bathroom. I guess me sitting still behind that bush let momma decide I was not a threat to her cub.
We used to have a collie mix dog that hated snakes. We would find a snake and start yelling snake at the top of our lungs and Laddie would come running to kill it. We saw a snake in the water in a small pond by the house and yelled for Laddie. When we showed him the snake in the water. Laddie went right in the water. The snake stopped and waited for the dog. When the dog grabbed the snake, the snake started wrapping coils around the dog's head. I could not believe the size and length of that snake. It wrapped enough coils around that dog's head to pull him under the water head first. Laddie finally had to let go of the snake or drown. When Laddie finally got loose and back to shore, he shook himself dry, gave us a dirty look and went to the house.
Again when I was about 15. We used to take and cut our shotgun shells below the wad until just a little paper was holding the thing together. Coyotes would be crossing the pasture 250 to 300 yds from the house. We would shoot those shells like artillery shells and do aim adjusment from the dust. I laughed like crazy one day at a coyote, he could not figure what was making slapping noises all around him. So he stopped in the middle of the field to investigate. We finally stung him with some shot when it hit the ground and he took off like a shot.
Oh for the good ole days, 30 inch waist, work all day, party all night and go back to work the next morning. And I had hair to comb, not a shiny spot that I use a wash rag on.
