Northern Farmer

I’m holding back planting seeds indoors this year, last year we were already planting tomatoes and peppers about now. A person gets antsy as winter keeps on keeping on in the north country. It’d be nice to see something growing, even if it’s in the house. But I’ll bite my lip and hold off a while yet. So I figured tonight would be a good time to watch a movie here at home and my all time favorite movie is the one that I’d like to watch, “Old Yeller”. Now there might be some disagreement out there on how great the movie is, but it’s my house, so that’s that for that. But, everyone has been searching here and can’t seem to come up with that old video, it’s around here somewhere. As anyone who has ever read anything that’s ever been written here knows, I don’t write about movies or TV shows and the like. But “Old Yeller” is different. And anyone that’s ever had a yeller egg stealing mutt knows this.

Many years ago on a Saturday afternoon in summer here I was outside doing whatever country boys do, most likely some grand adventure. Now modern folk might not understand the adventures a country kid can continually get into, especially a few decades ago. Summer was the best time in a kid’s life out here. Most of the time we were barefoot and wild. But we did respect our elders a lot, because they had some pretty mean straps to dish out well deserved punishment when needed. Well, on this particular Saturday that I’ll never forget, this yeller almost growed pup came warily into the farmyard. He was scared but wanted a friend. Him and me were friends instantly, and I sure wanted to keep him bad, but that was up to my folks. In a while the time of reckoning came when dad came around and asked where’d that dog come from. He just walked in here so I had no idea, but begged like a young boy does to be able to keep him. Dad said we’d have to ask around with the neighbors and make sure that nobody owned it. But the way things added up it looked like a very common occurrence that happens out here in the country, some town folks more than likely got tired of him, drove him out to the country and dumped him off. So we kept him and as the days went by no one claimed him from our area. That’s about the best news any farm boy could ever get.

I did name him Yeller, but the rest of the family called him Spike. Didn’t matter, he was almost always with me anyhow. That dog and me got into more adventures than you can shake a stick at. We were always exploring the woodlands on the farm. Back then we’d go out, me with my single shot 22 and Yeller at my side. Looking back I can’t hardly believe that a dog could be so smart. Anything we’d do together, he’d figure it out. We’d go squirrel hunting all the time and that dog could tree them squirrels for me. No woodchuck was safe with him around. And as fine of a snake dog as could be, he’d grab those buggers and have their back broke lickidy split. And back then we had a huge sweet corn patch for ourselves and for selling. Now most know sweet corn means coons destroying sweet corn. And they can destroy the whole works if you let them. It was up to us to patrol it and one time that dog nailed into an old sow coon that put up a tremendous fight. She had to be about the same weight as Yeller, and did the blood and fur ever fly, from both critters. And the coon lost. Once that dog figured that patch needed patrolling he took it on himself to do it and we never had coon problems after that.

Most of the family never had all that much love for him as a boy could, but even that was soon to change. Us kids were off to school and dad was home by himself doing the farm work. We had hogs back then with the biggest boar we’ve ever had to this day. His name was Big Bob, and later when he got shipped to the stockyards in South St Paul he weighed in at nine hundred twenty pounds. That’s a big Bob! Now, dad was out in the sow lot in winter dressed heavy so he couldn’t move as fast as a person normally does in summer. And about this time Big Bob decided he was hungry for some human flesh and came at dad chomping like only a boar can do. Dad knew at that moment he’d never get away, but that yeller dog was watching him faithfully from outside of the pen. When that boar came at dad Yeller jumped the fence and took on the boar head on. Dad says he tore into that boar like a streak, grabbed onto an ear and just had at it. Dad got out of there quick and the moment he was safe Yeller scrambled out too. After that Yeller’s position on the farm was much, much higher.

We had many more adventures and if I’d live to be a hundred that’s one dog that I’ll always remember and love. The kids are always after me to buy a dog nowadays, but I tell them one of these days the Lord might just send us a half starved, unwanted, yeller mutt. I hope He does.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 28th, 2006 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.