Today I think back sixty years ago when all the kin folks would be showing up for a Thanksgiving feast. They would come
from all over the country.
This time of year we killed a kid goat to Barbeque for Thanksgiving as most of my people favored goat. Also turkeys were sort of hard to come by as coyotes usually wound up eating them. So we killed a goat or two.
We had a herd of goats on my Grandfather's place and I use to help him herd them.
There is not much to herding goats as the leader always had a bell on his neck.
This made it easy to find them as there was no fences on this large place that they had outside of Freer, Texas.
We would pen then up at night but I let them out in the morning. The old billy goat had a large bell on a long chain with a hook on one end so he could not lead the goats off too far as he would tangle up and was easy to find.
We had a large white english Bull dog that was one of the smartest dogs I had ever seen at the time. He stayed with me and my Grandpa. He was one heck of a rattlesnake killing dog.
He would run between me and Papaw and we knew a snake was around. Sure enough Toby would strike and grab that snake and shake it till its head flew off killing it.
I was about seven years old at the time and I was bored so my Grandpa said go get the twenty two and go snake hunting. Man I was ready so off I went walking looking and hunting the sides of the road where you usually found them.
This day I walked up on one that must have been nine foot long and big around as a size of a baseball. Big old snake, so I drew a bead on him and was shaking from the excitement and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened as Papaw had taken the bullets out of the gun.
I was angry at him and ran to the house and told him so.
He said "Awww .. boy it's to hot for snakes today but mamaw told him go and see if he is telling the truth.
Off we went and the snake had moved but in a little while we found him. I had hold of Toby at the time and Papaw shot the snake and said 'boy I am sorry I didn't believe you'.
From that day on I always had bullets.
Old Toby went and made sure that big snake was dead.
Then one day Toby got a snake to keep my Grandpa from getting bit and when the head popped off it struck Toby and of course in a few days my dog was dead.
I have a smart loveable dog now but had two and one died a few months ago. I had him for fifteen years. He was a white Jack Russell Terrier, and very smart.
So Junior and a few cats is all I have left now. Junior is a big old red looking dog. He is half Boxer and Chow and loves anyone that will pet him.
The next two or three days I will sit here and think about old times and the folks and animals I miss so bad.
