The Couger and the Hound with Dad and Me and Skippy

I was around eight years old when this adventure happened, and we lived up on the hill at Spicewood Springs. Dad had a few hounds he used for hunting, among them was a Beagle that was named Shorty, one of the many shorty hounds he had. He always called the Beagles Shorty or Short Stuff as they had short legs. I had a small dog I called Skippy and he was a little bit of all breeds and had funny ears and long hair that was sandy colored. He acted tough but he really was afraid of his own shadow. Late one night dad called us out on the porch to let us listen to the cougar howling up in the woods. This cougar had been in peoples barns and had killed some small farm animals. He was howling pretty loud that evening. Skippy ran off into the house with his tail under his tummy whining. I listened for awhile and then I went into the house to go to bed. The next evening about supper time dad came in the house and said Sister we need to go down into the hollow and see if we can find one of the cows, she seems to be mooing down there. She was about a quarter of a mile or so from the house. He took Shorty with him and I took Skippy and both dogs were prancing along and we were walking and then Dad said be still and the next thing I know Shorty goes running over to the tree, and set up barking and barking, Skippy stayed right by me and the hair on his back was really ruffled up and his ears were standing up. The cow was caught fast in a bunch of dew berry vines and some under brush. Dad and I went over there and started to pull her out of the briar's and get her free so she would quit bellering and mooing. Old Shorty really set up howling and trying to get up into the tree. Dad said to me I think that the cougar is up in that tree. We got the cow out and dad said we should start hi-stepping it for home, and about that time I guess skippy had enough, all of his hair stood up on his back and he stuck his tail up under his belly and he hightailed it towards home. We had the time of our life getting things set up so we could get home as fast as possible and not disturb the cougar setting up in the tree that Shorty was barking at. Dad didn't want to turn his back on it although we couldn't see it we could hear it rustling around. We finally got the stupid cow out of the briar's and dad hit her on the rump and set her going towards the house. Dad called the Beagle and we started to step as fast as we could for the house. Dad said that the cougar thought he would get an easy meal as the cow was caught in the briar's and wouldn't be able to defend herself. Fortunately for us she had a big moo and let us know that she was hung up and it was daylight so we could get her out. Several days later some farmers got the cougar and shot him. I was happy he was gone as Mom wouldn't let us out to play much with him stalking animals she said you never could be sure he wouldn't stalk us. Dad said the cougar was too afraid to come that close to the house, but it didn't matter to mama she just said we couldn't go out into the woods in the back of the house and that was that!

Mom And The Chicken Snake

When we still lived up the lane from granny, my dad was drafted into the Army. In those days they had the draft and if your card was called you went, by that time I think Sherry was a baby. I was around 6 or 6 and a half, when he left, and I hated to have him go. He only went to Lackland in San Antonio, TX but it seemed a long way to me and he had basic there and we couldn't see him at all. It was about this time when everything got rationed. Meaning you needed to have a stamp for a lot of things, and you only got so many stamps. We did alright, as my grandma Knapp mom's mother gave us a lot of hers, as she and James Edward mom's little brother didn't need as many as we did. But meat and sugar was in short supply, so mom raised chickens and we had lots of eggs and we ate them and mom sold a few. We also ate the chickens that didn't lay, mom would kill and dress them when she wanted to cook one. Dad had butchered a hog that winter also so we didn't need a lot of meat. We couldn't can jam as sugar was in such short supply and shoes were hard to come by, and my mom quit wearing nylons as they were rationed. So the chicken were very important to mama, and she took great care of them, so we had them to eat and so she could sell the extra eggs. We had a cow and a goat so we had butter and lots of milk. I got to churn the butter in a large churn with a paddle that fit into it that had an X on the bottom so the butter could be separated. I really loved to churn the cream. One morning early just as we were all getting up, Mama went out to gather the eggs and the next thing I knew she was in the closet trying to find Dad's 12 gage shot gun. She loaded it and told me to keep Leona and Sherry and she went back out to the chicken coop. I started to watch what she was doing out the little window in the kitchen, now mama only weighed about 98 lbs soaking wet, and she was a little over 5 feet. The next thing she did was aim that gun into the tree hollow and shot it. Each time she shot she fell on her fanny and she was swearing at something up in the old oak tree. It was funny and there was a lot of noise from the scared chickens and the gun and mom swearing a blue streak. The next thing I saw after about 5 shots and every animal in the shed was mooing or baa hing or cock a doddle doing. The commotions was so loud I think they heard it in the next county. Uncle Carl Dad's brother was down at Grannie's and so he came up to see what was going on. When he ran up my mom had just shot the gun for the 5Th time and was down on the ground on her fanny. Carl says" Sis what are you trying to do"? My mom let out a long bunch of words and said she was trying to kill the chicken snake that was up there in the hole of the tree. Now this was the first time I knew what had happened, Mom found a chicken snake in the chicken coop with a bunch of knots in him, where he had swallowed the baby chicken whole. Chicken snakes or all snakes for that matter only eat every once in awhile and so I guess the chicken snake which looks like a rattler, except his head is flat and round, not triangular like a rattler. But the color is the same. Uncle Carl picked mom up off the ground and told her to put the gun away and he'd get the snake for her. Mama said when she got back into the house, that the chicken snake had swallowed 4 baby chickens when she found him with the hen trying to protect what was left of her brood. Mom tried to get him with the shovel, or the hoe , and the snake slipped away before she could get him. He ran into the tree, and that is when she came in the house and got the shot gun. That was the maddest I had ever seen my little mother and she waited on the back porch while uncle Carl got him out of the tree hole and killed him with a hoe. She was jumping up and down when Carl finally got him. She put him out on the fence for awhile to scare any other chicken snakes away if they got a hunger for her chickens. I really loved my courageous mama and her bravery when it came to anything that she was supposed to protect, be it chickens or children.

The Cave and More SNAKES!!!!

I was about 8 years old when we moved from the house at Spicewood Springs to a house much closer to the pool we swam in and my new friend Ruthie Myrick just my age. She had 2 little brothers, called Sonny the older about 7 and Pud about 5, they always tagged along behind us and we were always trying to run away from them. Mom wouldn't let Leona run with us she was Pud's age, but I think mom was a little more protective of Leona. Ruthie said there was a big cave behind her property and wanted me to go there with her. She said there were lots of coach whips down in the cave. Coach whips were black snakes that ran on their tails and chased people or so we heard we didn't know what the snakes did to you if they caught you. I don't know what possessed us but we went down there. If mama would've known where we were going that day she would've stopped us. Mom always said God watched out for old fools and little children and I know He was watching that day. The cave turned out to be a big pit in the ground and it was dirt on our side and a cliff of rocks on the back side. We gathered a bunch of rocks down there and before you could shake a stick snakes started to crawl from the rocks on the back side and from under the rocks on the floor of it, there were a lot of them, all kinds, they hissed and jumped at us. We threw more rocks and sticks and what ever we could find. After awhile the snakes became pretty angry and started to coil up and jump at us. We got pretty scared and started to run, and by golly a couple had jumped from the pit and started to chase us, we kept looking back to see if they were upon their tails, No such luck we continued to run and went as fast as we could through the corn field and made it to Ruthie's back yard so out of breath that mama came out and wanted to know why we were running in the heat???? I had lost my bonnet in the race and she told me to go back and find it but I didn't go then, I told her we would go and look for it later when we were rested. She made us sit in the shade under the tree and drink some water. Much later in the evening when the sun went down we walked down the field and found my bonnet in the corn patch. I NEVER did go down there again, I was too afraid and I never told my mom what we had done that day. In fact I think this is the first time that I really told this story and told all of it.

Valentine"s Day The First One I Remember

The first time I realized that there was such a thing as Valentines Day, I was in the first grade and my teacher made the most beautiful Valentines box for our class. I knew nothing about it and I went home all excited to give valentines cards to my friends. Now in those days we couldn't buy cards as we can today, they were few and far between. The ones that were available were for lovers and such. Nothing for school chums. So my dad of all people brought home glue, red construction paper and paper dollies,ribbons and with a couple of pair of scissors, he proceeded to show me how to glue and cut the cards. We even made one for our teacher. I thought I was pretty special, and that the cards were beautiful. We made one for everyone in the class. We had cookies and some kind of punch, and I thought it was a really special day. The best and most wonderful thing was all of the Valentines that I made with my daddy. What a wonderful memory, the night coming on and the lamps burning as we had no electricity at that time. I also got to stay up late because we worked on the cards and the whole thing was so wonderful in my 6 year old eyes.

Dad Playing The Fiddle And Snakes

When I was around 5 or 6 dad and Uncle Delbert(mom's brother) were out in the side yard playing Delbert played the guitar and dad played the fiddle. It was a warm evening and pleasant under the trees, we all sat around listening to music, and I sang a couple of songs with dad. Now I had a pet goat at that time and he was tied up there by us to a tree. After an hour or so I got bored and started to run between Dad and uncle Delbert, the goat started to baa a little and then kinda of a lot. Now my dad wasn't known for his patience at times, but I was never afraid of him. That night he got tired of the goat bellering and me running in front of him and he couldn't see Delbert. So he said to me "Janell if you don't stop running in front of me I'm going to hit you on the head with my fiddle bow." Now I knew he'd never do it so I said back to him " yeah and you'll break your fiddle bow too." But I went and set down for awhile. Now the goat just kept stomping at the ground, and baa baa at me and I went over to settle him down a few times. Later that evening when we went to take the chairs back into the house dad found a rattlesnake coiled up under the one that was next to the goat, and that was why the goat was so unsettled and I guess no one sat in that chair, as mom and Leona had gone into the house earlier and I guess the snake crawled under there and coiled up ready to strike if someone had of sat there. Only the goat knew he was there and because the goat made so much ruckus I think the snake just sat under the chair. My dad killed the snake and he told mom that we wouldn't be sitting out under the trees anymore in the evening, but would play in the house in the summer. They would sometimes play on the porch after that. There were a lot of rattle snakes on the property where we lived at that time, it has now become a really expensive property and the lots at Spicewood Springs sell for 200.000 thousand or more. When we lived there it was really primitive and had lots of scrub cedar and oak on the land.

Information On Little Nellie

I was born on June 24th, 1937 in Travis County Austin, Texas in the hospital there. There were some problems, with the delivery which I really never knew a lot about, but it was serious, as my parents didn't have any more births in a hospital until Buck was born and he was number six. I am the oldest of seven and I have only one brother and five sisters. The girls are all very close and we talk a lot, even though we live far apart from each other. We e-mail and cell talk, and talk on the regular phone. Dad and Mom named me after mom as her middle name was Janell, and I became Carla Janell Biggs. Carla was after my uncle Carl, one of Dad's brothers. Mom called me Janell, Dad called me Sister, as I was the oldest daughter, so I became Sister in his eyes. If he called me by my name, it usually meant he was displeased about something I had done. Mom's family and my grandma Knapp(her Mom) all called me Janell. My Grannie Biggs was different in lots of ways, and my mom said that when she saw me the first time she said I would be Little Nellie. She called me Nellie all of the time. I don't think my mom wanted my name shortened like that, but you didn't argue with Grannie, or she just became more determined. The only other name I was called by anyone else in the Biggs family was Janell, and if anyone tried to shorten it my mother would correct them. So Grannie was the only one that ever called me that, and once in awhile Leona would call me that when she was little. In later life I sometimes, became Nell to my sisters and some of Linda's children call me aunt Nell. I have mentioned Leona in an earlier post about the time she was born. Leona was named after her grandmothers, Leona Belle Leona after my grandmother Knapp, and Belle after my Grannie Biggs, her name was Lizzie Belle Weddle. The rest of the girls were named because my parents liked the names. My next sister was Sherry Leigh, then Linda Joyce, next Linnie Marie after Mom's sister Aunt Linnie. After that the next one was O. B. BIggs Jr, and winding up the crew was Shelia Laverne. I will write more on this later.

The Bonnets

In the post I wrote earlier I talked about the bonnets that Grannie wore, We all wore them in the summer months. My mom made a lot of them, she liked making things like that. My biggest problem with them was they shaded your face and protected your skin, but they were hot, and every chance I had I left them on the hook. But if Mom saw me going out without one or Leona she would MAKE us come back and put one on our head. One really hot morning I tried to sneak off with out my bonnet. Mom saw me and of course I had to wear it. It was a pretty little bonnet and I grudgingly put it on and tied it under my chin so I could go down the lane to Grannie's. I think I was singing some kind of song and Leona was trailing behind me trying to keep up and singing along. We hadn't gotten very far and I felt something crawling on my ear and before I could get it off my head a scorpion stung me on my ear. Ouch! Did it ever hurt, and Leona was screaming and I was trying to get it off me and screaming also and mom came running and she got it off and killed the scorpion. Needless to say for awhile we didn't wear the bonnets. After that mom always shook them out and I never saw another scorpion until I was grown. The bonnets were good for us though as we all have really good skin now, as we have aged. Too much sun isn't a friend to your skin. However I made a lot of noise and complaints about it and I didn't always have to wear one all the time after that. I loved to play outdoors and I often went to play in Grannie's yard or I would play in the side yard at home. Mom always tried to get us to play under the cedar trees, and then we didn't have to wear the bonnet. There were lots of rocks and we would put the rocks in circles or squares so we could make different rooms for a playhouse. I don't know how we kept from getting bitten by snakes, and I saw a few, but we didn't. My mom always said God watches for old fools and little children, and I think he did. The snakes were in holes in rocks and under them etc. I was scared of the snakes and I often ran in the house if I saw one and wouldn't go back out for awhile. Looking back I wonder how many we missed seeing, makes me shudder to think of it. We had a lot of pit vipers in Texas, there were cotton mouths, rattlers, coral snakes, and copper heads, to name a few. They had a 30 lb. diamond back rattler at the University of Texas for awhile. I mentioned Leona, she is my sister next to me and is four years younger. She always tagged behind me and I let her, I really loved getting a sister. She was born on a hot August day at home and was delivered by an old doctor named Jones, I can see his car going up the lane now as I sat in Grannie's yard, and I wondered about it. It was a light blue Plymouth coupe and I thought it was pretty. I thought for a long time that my sister came in that car and that the doctor brought her. When Sherry was born I knew better but that was two years later and I was about six and a half then. I recognized that mom had something in her tummy and she told me it was a baby, and that was a good enough answer for me at that time. I had no idea how they got her out though.

One Of My First Memories

In 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, I think I must have been 4 and half, my Grannie (my dad's Mom) lived down the lane from us and I was always hanging out down there. I love my Grannie more than anyone else at that time I think. That day Grannie said Nellie if those Japes get as far as Texas you just come on down here, and we'll hide under the feather bed. Looking back I have to laugh, my little grandmother thought she could stop the bombs from falling on us if we were under her feather bed, and that is really a laughable situation. There are lots of things the bed was good for namely sleeping and taking naps, which Grannie did every single day at one o'clock and they lasted 30 minutes. You could set a clock by her naps. She often let me play with a small wooden bucket that she had packed water from the spring when she was a little tyke, which she had filled with buttons and other stuff, an old perfume bottle which still had the smell of the blue waltz in it though it was years old. The little bottle came with a glass stopper and had a small silk bag for holding it. I loved sitting on the floor and playing with it and the buttons for hours, while Grannie pieced a quilt top. She had lots and lots of small pieces of fabric, that she made string quilts which she later quilted by hand. Grannie had long gray hair that she wore in a top knot on her head, with plastic combs and hairpins. She let me brush it for her and put it up for her after I was around six. She had the patience of Job as I am sure I sometimes tangled it up for her, but she never complained. If she was going outside into the Texas sun she would put on her bonnet. I wore them also, more about that later. She had quite a few of them, as my mom often mad new ones for her. She loved to do a lot of things but the most important thing she did that I remember was to do the quilts. I think she made a few house dresses as she called them. She dried the peaches from her tree under the Sun, I don't remember how she keep the flies off, but somehow, she had some sort of screen that she put over them and the flies try as they might never got to them. She loved to make fried pies from the peaches, seasoned with a little lemon. They were very good! I think that is where I got my love of cooking is from her, as I would watch her by the hours doing cooking. I am sure she was a fair cook, but the food she dished up was plain fare. I do know this she made a mean biscuitand to this day, I still love biscuts. She was a lot of fun. One time when I was six or seven she took me to the dime store which I think was Woolworth's she bought me a dish of vanilla ice cream. It came in a sundae dish and was 3 scoops, and I ate every bite of that ice cream. Price was a dime. She loved uce cream and was fond of telling you so. My Grannie was funny about a lot of things but she loved going to that dime store and buying things. I have a string of glass beads she got from the dime store. I always thought if I grew up I would take up fishing so I could el free to do as I please. More about Grannie later, I need to go to bed. I am sitting at the computer and fighting sleep.