Page 22 - LIfesOuttakes2

‘If’ Is A Mighty Big Word l I was tucking my pants down into my work boots before we started the job ahead of us. “Why are you doing that?” Butch asked. “Well,” I answered, “when we load the bales off of the ground, they almost always have mice under them, and I don’t want any of them running inside my pant leg.” Buster didn’t like the sound of that, and he started tucking his pants inside his boots too. Butch and Buster, brothers, had come over to give me a hand loading hay. It was spring time and we were getting down to the final layers of last year’s crop. During the winter, the mice like to tunnel under the bales to keep warm. There they would have huge families, and when we loaded the last of the bales, mice would scatter everywhere. The wild cats, that called our farm home, would hang around the edges to see if they could pick up dinner while we worked. The mice, trying to keep away from the cats, looked for any hiding place they could find. I had already had the unpleasant experience of having them find that hiding place up my pant leg, and I didn’t relish the thought of it happening again. 17