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My most recent sale "Cattle on a Hill" reminds me of our farm when I was a kid. We would have to go bring in the cows for milking and feeding, which were always way up the creek and back on top of the hill where the most green grass would be. I remember pestering my big brother Dane to give me a chew of that [ Big Red Man Tobacco], well kids are not as smart as their big brothers. He knew when I would be running after the cows I would have to keep up and I would be chewing and swallowing the juice [to be a man you had to swallow the juice] .
Well let me say as a young kid it was a lesson on just how not to beg for what you can't handle yet or how sick one can get, when he turns as green as the grass. I made it all the way back down to the creek where I sat down on a big log and thats as far as I got. After they milked the cows and had supper and it was getting dark Dad sent him back up after me. He found me laying over a log surrounded by those big ole black and yellow Bumble Bees [another story]. Mom and Dad laughted about it and never said any more they already knew I had had enough, I've never had another chew in my mouth since.
Those big black and yellow bumble bees that had made a home in the log I was slumped over didn't bother me at all. I don't know but it might have been the smell of tobacco or maybe they just knew I wasn't going to hurt them . After all everyone knows animals can smell fear, and that was the farthest thing from my mind at the time. I It's a good thing thou that they don't have good memories.
Because we had a lot of fun trying to prove who was the bravest by fighting the bumble bees with a good strong horse weed , which we always had plenty of. Horse weeds would grow 7 or 8 feet tall and would be as big around at the base as a mans thumb and taper down to almost a whip when stripped of all their leaves. We would arm ourselves with a good weed and try to smack the bumble bees as they came out of the log. Most of the time we would win because they were very big and slow at flying not fast like a honey bee, they were as big as your thumb. Well all went well until my cousin Butch had one approaching him straight as his eyes, as Butch was trying to whip it with his weed stick literately fanning the air ,but the bee got through and landed a big sting smack between his eyes which almost shut off his eye sight. Well that pretty well done for that kind of fun the bees finally won. Uncle Ran
