That's right fire ants and I'll tell you how and when. Along long lifetime ago perhaps 59/60 I was a kid. I was out in the front yard playing with the 2 dog's, Both German Shepard's You see we lived on a ranch called the Big B at the time. So I hear a racket and horses coming up the road. Look up and see a 2 horse draw wooden wagon with 3 sheepherder's on board. The one thing I remember the most is the old trool looking man with the big round nose wearing a dark gray dirty felt looking hat. Old SOB looks strait at me while they are tossing wieners into the front yard. The 2 dogs are going crazy scarfing them up! All the sudden 1 dog starts flopping around kicking and flipping around trying to run on its side Then the mouth foaming starts, Dog is going into convulsions. There's a 1/2 wiener laying there on the ground so I reach over and grab it up, Smells good? All the sudden my fingers start burning, Fire ants were on it and biting the snot out of my fingers, I throw it down in the dirt. Rub my grubby paws on my pants leg and run inside to get mom. Get her outside tell her something is wrong with the dogs !!! She runs back inside dragging me with her, Gets on the phone with Dad telling him to get home in a hurry. Dad rolls in after the herd of sheep pass on the road, Must of been a thousand of em. He looks around, Asks me who was throwing the wieners and comes to the conclusion the wieners are poisoned and these sheepherder's did the deed since I actually saw the wieners being thrown. He probably uttered a few curse words will pulling out his 30/30, P-38 and a box of shells. He leaves and goes about 5 miles down the road where the herds have piled up these sheep in a huge corral. Parks the truck and gets out shooting sheep in the coral. Herders come running out while he's reloading He yells at em', You SOB's killed my dogs and almost killed one of my boys. This will teach you bastards, Unloads the 30/30 again into the herd. Yells' again, If yall would have killed that boy I'd be shooting the hell out of yall sob's. Seem's these SOB's had killed every dog along the route. He figures he killed at least 20 sheep that day, Maybe more died later. People along that road would shake his hand when they saw him. I'm not much of a writer but there you have it,Thanks
Thats the way it ought to be. Now days your daddy would be in trouble.The idoit killing the dogs was just protecting his sheep,not. Thats the way the crazy law would see it. Man your are lucky
Can't say for sure, You know the score Extremely rural parish. Farming, piney woods, few cattle,few horses SOB's killed a number of pet dogs, They would be in deeper dodo. Old man would have been made horary Mayor and given more 30/30 shells along with the keys to the city. Moral of this story, Probably the only one you'll ever read that a fire-ant bite saved a kid.
That why you need ludicrous capacity magazines. But gasoline would have worked better. I watched Gunsmoke and other western movies and I was always in awe of how much people hated sheep herders. Guess that's why.
Grand Dad squared off with a bunch good ol boys a long time ago. If you know Oregon History, you know we have always had issues with both Wolves and Mustangs, both of which tend to get folks hotter under the collar then just about anything, so it's kinda common to find kills of wolves or mustangs all over the place, and that's when Grand Dad stepped in, took on the biggest ranchers in the whole damn world and ended their stranglehold on the west coast beef supply forever. Long story short, he had been tracking a bunch of their cowboys who had been murdering their way across the eastern side of the state, from the north end of the Strawberries and Wallowas all the way down the length of the Steens toward the border of Nevada, he finally caught up to them and blew them all to kingdom come, there was nothing left but a few reddish colored swatches of cloth and burnt metal, nothing any state or fed investigators might be able to piece together unless they really put in the effort, if they even came looking! There is a lot of old bones buried out in that part of Oregon, a lot of bodies that will never be found, and a lot of bad blood spilled because of a few extremely powerful cattlemen who thought they were kings of all, and don't have to answer to anyone, including the fed government, they learned they were wrong that night! I will not mention the rancher by name, but if I ever run across him of any of his whelp, they will bleed for the ill deeds they have done in my life time!
Sickens me anytime anyone hurts innocent animals for absolutely no reason. These people are sick and deserve to be punished!!!
Good story. I thought you wrote it very well. Much better than Red Trunks, White Stripe I think I shared.
I love “off the wall” stuff. (Perhaps you’ve noticed) I have tons of them in my head but boring the audience is a big fear of mine. I feel like you’d all like The Million Dollar Da$h, statute of limitations is up now. (Stupid, not violent or anything like that) I rate your story a solid 10 Gator 45/70, 10 being the highest on a scale of 1 to 10.
Why Thanks pardna I'd like to read some of your storys,Like a finish up of I think it was a lot problem with the city or was it bums throwing wine bottles on your property I believe?
They’re not bums doing it, fancy people above my property. I’m up to at least 50 so far. Yes I’m going to catch the person but it is a low priority in my life right now. More like I’d really like to know who and why? Address it like men, lol.
Catch em' and tell them you're doing them a favor by returning the empty jugs all across their front yard....I love a story with a happy ending !!!
Fire ants are fearsome. Had no idea eating them would cause death. In any case, the sheep farmer would have been a dead farmer.
