[Granville-Hough] 16 Sep 2009 - Wild Neighbors
Trustees for Granville W. Hough
gwhough-trust at oakapple.net
Sat Sep 16 05:14:58 PDT 2017
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:09:04 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: WildNeighbors 16 Sep 2009
Wild Mammals/Marsupials.
The Opossum was our only marsupial, and its way of life was hard for a
child to understand. We killed one or more in our chicken yard, and were
amazed at its row of sharp teeth. It took years of study to understand
how a marsupial propagated and took care of its young. In the fall of
the year, when persimmons were ripe, we searched for possums in all the
trees we knew about. Most any dog could become a possum dog because the
animals smelled so bad that any dog could follow the trail. There was a
popular hillbilly melody which went something like: ôRacoon up the
simmon tree, possum on the ground, possum says to racoon, throw them
simmons down.ö Racoons were about, but preferred the streams and reed
brakes where they could eat crayfish and marine life.
The opossum had a characteristic of playing dead, called "sulling." When
it appeared to be dead and you put your fingers near its row of sharp
teeth, you might lose a finger and learn all about "sulling." Today, the
nearest term we have for human sulling is "state of denial." When my
brother Donald Hough was under ten years old, he was not an aggressive
fighter, but if he got mad enough, he would "sull," or so we called it
that. He would grit his teeth, shake his head, and respond to no one.
Bats lived in old hollow trees, and they were daily visitors to our barn
in summer months. We did not realize they were consuming flies and other
insects which infested our livestock. We got some long canes and tried
to swing them through the air to hit the bats. We could never understand
how they were so hard to hit. We did not realize they had sonar sensors
which helped avoid our canes. We finally got one and found it covered
with mites. We did not try for any more.
Moles would appear from time to time in our orchard, and we had a mole
catcher which we used to kill them. It was a cruel sort of device, but
we did use it successfully. The mole was practically blind, and it had
big strong feet for pushing the soil up as it burrowed after worms and
other food. We thought it ate things we had planted, and it did do
damage to row crops. This was probably incidental to getting the worms
it was hunting.
Brown rats were enemies of the corn crib. They made nests in the hay
loft or under the farm buildings. They not only ate our corn, but they
urinated on what they left. We finally screened our corn crib so no rats
could get in. At Laurel, the makers of masonite used screen mesh in the
manufacturing process. After a few uses, the mesh was discarded. The
masonite plant is where we got our supply of screen for our corn crib.
We also had woods rats, but they did not bother us. I never learned what
they ate.
Skunks were around every year and let their presence be known if they
were disturbed. We knew of children and dogs who got sick after being
sprayed.
Flying squirrels visited us a few times, and I never learned why.
Perhaps they were looking for food left from feeding our hogs. It was
amazing to see them fly from tree to tree in our front yard.
There were foxes here and there, and people with hound dogs liked to run
them. Sometimes they would give a chase for miles. I always wanted to go
on a fox hunt and listen to the hounds, but I never got that opportunity.
After people left Smith County, other animals colonized the area. Wild
deer came back and niece June Travis could shoot her quota without ever
leaving the Hough farm. Beaver built dams in marshy places where we
never expected to see them. Coyotes became the top of the food chain and
are bigger than those in the West. They must have bred with wild dogs
through time. Bears have been reintroduced into some of the game
preserves, but are not often seen in Smith County. Armadillas became
garden pests, as they liked the same food as humans. They must have come
in from Texas. Also the Kunamundy, with the krinkly nose, and which I do
not know how to spell, also migrated from Texas and Mexico.
In the more Southern counties, my brother Roland Hough had to kill an
alligator which had taken over his stock pond near Poplarville so that
his cattle were afraid to drink. In the streams along the Coast the
nutria (water rats) introduced to bolster the Louisiana fur trade have
inhabited the waterways and are moving eastward. Instead of being
skinned for fur, they are now trapped and sold by the truckload to
commercial al1igator farms. There are millions of feral wild hogs across
the South. It's actually safer to eat nutria than wild hogs, but it's
hard to convince people of that fact.
So the land is changing. The rights of hunters to bear arms is a strong
issue,. Everyone wants to keep the predators under control. It is not
like living in the city, anymore. Grampa.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Little Rick or even Big Rick.. A Sunday School teacher gave out a
summer project that everyone would learn to recite the 23rd Psalm and
know every line. Little Rick was enthusiastic about that Psalm, but he
could not memorize it. After a summer of effort, he could hardly get
past the first line. On the day of recital, Little Rick was so nervous
he could hardly speak. When it came his turn, the Holy Spirit had
suddenly inspired him. He stepped up to the microphone and said proudly,
"The Lord is my Shepherd, and that is all I need to know!"
More information about the Granville-Hough
mailing list