Today, Stuff Kids Write (the new blog project I’ve started with Chase McFadden) features a hilarious letter from a six-year-old to her dad, who shot a tom cat. Click here to check it out; I challenge you not to laugh.
But first, I thought I’d offer you some information on farm girls, tom cats, and guns.
On Tom Cats
When you grow up on a farm, there are two types of cats: pet cats and tom cats. Tom cats are semi-feral creatures who noticeably share bloodlines with the bigger cats that most of us see behind bars in a zoo.
I learned young that it’s impossible to become attached to tom cats. They hate humans. One look into their skittish eyes told me they’d hunt me down if I were smaller than them.
Tom cats make frequent appearances during harvest, that time of commotion in a farm yard, of long days and cool nights (on the Canadian prairies, it’s not unusual for autumn temperatures to drop from 30°C (86 F) to 10°C (50 F) in two hours).
One of my farm jobs as a teen was to drive back and forth from the field to our farmyard, ferrying people, machinery parts, and coffee. I knew all too well that tom cats are drawn to a warm engine on a brisk night. Once the vehicle has been shut off, they’ll crawl beside the engine fan and sit there cozily, escaping the coolness of night.
I also knew the importance of the Fonzie fist. When I’d return to the still-warm truck with the thermos of coffee, two quick bangs on the vehicle’s hood would make the cats scamper out.
Except when I forgot.
Let’s just say the thunk of fan on fur is memorable.
On Guns
When you grow up on a farm, you learn how to shoot a gun. I remember lying on my stomach on our graveled yard, cocking a .22 caliber rifle, aiming at a cardboard box. Later, I learned to fire a shot gun. My shoulder still aches from the kick. Later still, I’d try to shoot clay pigeons. I missed every one that my brother flung out over our field of wheat.
Before you start thinking about The Beverly Hillbillies, let me say that we rarely used guns. My dad didn’t hunt much as an adult, but he still possessed the capability to shoot with the accuracy of Atticus Finch.
On our farm, rabid animals were not unusual. Two days before my wedding, I saw a rabid skunk. I could tell by how it weaved, how it didn’t seem to notice or fear me. My mind fast forwarded to the skunk invading the big wedding tent.
I did what all brides in freak-out mode do: rant breathlessly at the nearest adult, which happened to be my father.
Dad unlocked the gun cabinet and told my mom to get in the truck. This tableau remains etched in my mind: my mom driving the silver GMC half-ton; my dad standing in the truck box, leaning on the cab, rifle braced perpendicular to his body; my fiance standing beside me on the house steps.
I heard the shot. So did my urban husband-to-be.
He looked at me. Although it wasn’t the intention of the act, the message was clear: you don’t mess with a farmer’s daughter.
Photos (cc): Virginie Moerenhout and Willie Lunchmeat
If I were you I would bring your daughters first boyfriend to the farm to meet grandpa.
Hmm. Good plan. The farm is now sold, but the gun cabinet still exists!
Atticus would have liked your father. Sorry to hear about that skunk though. And the cat. You know, the one keepin’ warm. But look, Fonzie and Atticus, they taught us things. Good things. Important things. Things that come in handy when harvesting and getting married. Who’da thunk it?
Off to site 2. Let me just put on my Depends.
You know, so I’m prepared.
I’ve learned a thing or two from you and Chase. Wear the proper under garments.
I don’t think I’ve ever sorted my way through a compliment that involved adult diapers.
But thanks, eh? When are we getting together?
Ha! I love that message! Considering I have a daughter, I think I need to get started on the farm and all associated activities… (Or, at least, the calm ferocity often attributed to a capable farmer.)
And I love learning the true value of the Fonzie fist! 🙂
If Henry Winkler only knew…
Loved reading about your farm days. And I really loved the image of your dad in the truck bed. So cowboy. Minus the horse.
Fan on fur. I shuddered.
Jess, you partly inspired this piece by encouraging me to relive my farm days. So thanks, eh!
Exact same thing happened to my cousin’s cat. Except it was a dumb pet. Except they kept it, minus an eye and half a nose. What a gorefest. I’ll never forget it! Weird the things that stick with us, right?
Quite the gorefest, I imagine.
I couldn’t deal with the result. That’s what my dad was for.
I miss the Fonzie fist. I am going to try and incorporate it into my daily life. Or, at the very least, I am going to start saying “Whoa” a lot.
We should bring Whoa back. Or at least leather jackets and white t-shirts.
Some may shoot like Atticus Finch, I believe in Galapagos finch! Your dad would be quite at home at my dad’s house. Woodchucks and gophers not so welcomed. I fully understand and RESPECT the solutions to the problems. Although I am told that there were creatures in that wedding tent who might have been as drunk as the late aforementioned skunk…..
So, are you telling me the skunk may have gotten into your personal supply of amber rum?
Good memories, JR.
Too funny, just so happens that my tem year old daughter shot her first 22 last night and was very impressive I might add.
Now there’s a bit of synchronicity for ya! Of course, I’m reading your comment, thinking: I can’t believe H is 10! (Not, “I can believe she shot a 22.”)
And of course she’s a good shot. Just look at her mom.
“Come quick Hoss, daddy kilt a skunk!” That’s what I would’ve said. A friend once had a farm with a pond. In the pond were fish. That was good. Also in the pond were snapping turtles. Not good for the fish. Solution? Get the .22 and see who’s the best shot. Those turtle shells are amazingly resilient. Gotta get 3 or 4 in there sometimes. Now a head shot, well, it would take someone like your dad to pull that off.
Pretty sure there’s an entire blog post in that story.
“Not good for the fish.” Indeed. 😉
I was the Bill Murray of Gopherdom. I would peer through the scope, grin maniacally, and pull the trigger. Since I am a cat person, I have to pass on doing them harm (except for my Grandmother’s cat whose body was inhabited by an evil spirit who wanted world domination by clawing her way to the top of your leg and biting).
I love your avatar, which adds to your comment brilliantly. I like cats’ bad a$$ personalities; just not when they mistake me for prey. By the way, I’m laughing at your description of your Grandma’s cat!
LOL as a farmer’s daughter who seems to have grown up on a farm much like your own (ferrying the food and driving to town for parts …. ’cause nice girls didn’t drive tractors) I have vivid memories of shooting my first 22 (forgot to leave the safety on and …. well oops) and my brother’s wonderful bee-bee gun (’cause nice girls didn’t own their own guns) which left no unbroken glass on any abandoned old vehicles out in the bush. Never did fire the shotgun, the sight of my brother’s shoulder after the kickback from the gun was good enough. (and nice girls didn’t shoot shotguns…) Good memories! BTW I’ve gotten over the nice praire girl syndrome, just ask my hubby.
Well, in the 80s, when the farm economy tanked, I became the hired hand. I cleaned granaries, drove five-tonne trucks, ran the augurs, etc.
I think I preferred the ferrying.
Something tells me you’ve been over the “nice prairie girl syndrome” for a while!
Live this! Even more memorable because I’m reading the cat warrior books with my son…
I read the first one, Into the Wild, right? A good series. How’s he liking them?
No farm. No feral or ferocious felines. No guns. (Did have a brutish brother who chased me with garter snakes and the occasional lobster my mother would pick up to boil for dinner.)
I went from grumpily suburban to happily urban to maternally suburban once again – still no cows, no chickens, no guns… and sons… who managed to make mischief wherever they were all the same…
Now there was the Reign of Terror by Mice (thankfully, aforementioned sons set the traps and disposed of the bodies). Eeeek.
I’m pretty sure you just create adventure (or is it misadventure?) wherever you go! 😉
You know, even “boiling lobster” sounds rather cruel. In a yummy way, though.
Rabid skunk + Atticus Finch = perfect post.
(don’t mess with the farmer’s daughter….)
LOVE it.
Thanks, my literary friend. I’ll walk around in your shoes anytime.
I feel like this should be a classic American wedding Halmark card/commercial; epic farm father wielding his mighty gun atop a half-ton metal mount and striking fear into the heart of his daughter’s fiance. Awesome.
I’m pretty sure they’d run that commercial during Deliverance.
Love the image of your dad in the truck bed with the gun, and your mom driving…kind of like the Canadian Prairie version of the African Big Game Hunt…
I was 11 when I learned to drive our 1948 Ford tractor…I was so skinny, I had to stand on the clutch to change gears. Occasionally, I would let the clutch out too fast, and the front end of the tractor would “jump”, nearly killing my dad, who was standing beside the tractor…good times!
Wendy
You tractor driving woman, you! The old ones are hard. I drove our 1966 5-tonne grain truck, which had neither power steering or power brakes. It was a full body workout, as you would know.
Good memories, eh?
I love your Dad.
That is all.
That is enough.
Actually lost a pet cat to a car fan – mine, unfortunately, sad day.
A pet? How very, very sad. I was even sad when it was a tom cat. I can’t imagine losing a pet that way.
Loved the piece. Thanks for sharing.
You are very welcome!
Love that! I’ve always loved you rural types with your hard living ways ;)!
Yup. Work hard, play hard. I’m good with that.
Great post – educational and fun!
ha ha ! Love the Atticus Finch reference. Darn, I will have to read the book again!!