We had hundreds of cats over the years after Tom left us. Hardly a one of them had a name. They were mostly wild, living in our big red barn and eating the skimmed milk that we put out for the hogs. Whenever Mamma would go out to hang out clothes she would be mobbed by cats rubbing around her ankles and begging for food. Anyway, we finally sold the last milk cow and killed our last hog and were left with about 75 cats who were looking for a handout. It took most of a year, but they finally went away to someone else's milk barn.
And then came the rats. Not mice - rats. Some of them were as big as a chihaua dog and one of them could pretty much ruin 50 pounds of grain in one night. Mac bought some really small .22 rimfire cartridges and would sit in the feed room with the rifle and a light. Whenever he heard a rat scurrying around he would turn on the light and shoot the rat. It was an excellent idea which did not carry out very well. He may have killed a dozen or so, but we had RATS.
We all were a little scared to go in the barn with them. Daddy caught several black snakes and a King Snake and put them in the feed room, but I'm sure the rats consumed that fresh meat in less than a day. Finally, Daddy went to the farmers co-op and came back with some new rat poison called Warfarin. Mamma cut up about 4 pounds of pecans into tiny little pieces and Daddy mixed the poison with that. The rats literally came out of the woodwork - hundreds of them - and died in the grass outside the barn. (Do you take a blood thinner? Take a look at the label and see what's in it!)
Later that year we had a big wind storm and the barn was destroyed. We never built it back. Remind me to tell you the story about the hog that ate 14 sticks of dynamite...
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