Chores For The Boy

Everyone on the farm had jobs to do. Work around the barn and house that had to be repeated every day was called" chores". Chores started when you were very young and were just a part of life. A small boy could feed the chickens and gather eggs, pump water for the house and keep the wood box full behind the stove. As the boy grew, so did the complexity and number of "chores". I do not remember chores as being a burden, as there was always plenty of time to play and daydream . By the time I was five, one of my favorite times was the chore of fetching the cows. The cows were at pasture in a separate property dad owned across the concession road from the main farm. They could be found in one of several fields, some open pasture land, or "in the bush". It was also a favorite time for Collie the farm dog. In fact it would have been impossible to leave to leave without him because he knew exactly what time of day to get the cows and would always be waiting to get going. Collie was an excellent cow dog. He knew how to round them up and bring them home without running them which was important because the cows udders were full and running could cause inflamation of the udder and teats. While Collie seemed to enjoy rounding up the cows, his real love was hunting the groundhogs that lived in the fields and pasture where the cows grazed. As we looked for the cows, we worked together on the groundhog hunt. The fields were fenced in by either pine stumps or stone fences. We would quietly approach each field and I would climb up on the fence to check for any groundhog that might be out of it's hole eating. With my height advantage, I could signal Collie by whispering "sic em". Collie knew this meant a groundhog was out. He would look at me while I pointed the direction. He then cautiously started off in the direction of the groundhog until he could visually locate it. I always stayed back on the fence where I could observe without alerting the grounghog. Groundhogs have good eyesight and an even better sense of smell. Collie knew this and once he had spotted the prey, he would lower his body to almost a crawl position and slowly made his way around until he was downwind. He would then approach the groundhog very very slowly and carefully until he felt he was close enough and then he would make a mad dash to catch his victim. Most times the quarry let out a whistle that could be heard for a great distance and escaped down one of his two entrance holes to the safety of his burrow. The whistle warned all the other groundhogs of the danger and there was no use in attempting to hunt down any other groundhogs that day. On the rare occasion when Collie was succsesful, there would be one hell of a fight. A full grown groundhog weighed between 15 and 20 lbs. and was equipped with long claws for digging and had a good set of teeth. Collie sometimes came away bloodied from one of these encounters, but his technique was to break the groundhog's back. When he was successful in killing the animal, he would bring it back to where I was and lay it at my feet. Collies' pride in his prowess was obvious. He would then carry on to find the cows as if nothing had happened.

Collie would often return to the scene later and carefully bury the dead. Unfortunately, his reason for the burial was to let the carcass "ripen" for a week or so then he would dig it back up and bring it home as a delicacy to eat. Needless to say, this did not go over too good and he would get a scoulding. Someone then had to take the putrid body and bury it deeply and cover the hole with stones to prevent a repeat. Next- School days.

may the best day of your past
be the worst day of your future

Irish saying