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| Rocky Mountains |
When I was only seven years old my family moved to a farm in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Canada. I had never lived on a farm before, but I soon discovered I had all sorts of instincts and "talents" for farming I didn't know existed until they came alive during the time we lived there. I naturally was a very quiet and fearful child but, at that point, my self-esteem was lower than it had ever been before.
We had two dogs. One was a beautiful, purebred German Shepherd that we got as a puppy and the other one was a sweet but naughty little terrier that came to us full grown and with some bad habits picked up from his previous owners.
Farm dogs serve many useful purposes. One is as an "early warning system" for danger. If they suddenly stop what they are doing and their ears are twisting back and forth like miniature radar-satellite dishes and they don't simply return to their previous activities after a few moments, then it's time to stop and take notice of them.
That's exactly what happened early one Saturday morning when I went "exploring" after breakfast. Suddenly both dogs stopped as if frozen, except their noses were high in the air twitching furiously and their ears were turning back and forth, back and forth, just like military radar. And when they started to growl deep in their throats, I decided to head for home. Somehow I knew not to run (*), but I kept up a pretty fast and steady pace as I walked back to the house, while the dogs followed right next to me.
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| Mountain Lion paw print |
My mother assumed I would be gone for most of the day having seen me pack a thermos of Kool-Aid and stuff my jacket pockets with "Honey Combs". So when I suddenly showed up back in the kitchen after being gone about only 30 minutes she asked with concern,
"What's the matter? Are you hurt?"
I responded, "I'm okay, but the dogs were acting weird and I saw some strange paw prints too. I just felt I should come back home."
I spent the rest of that Saturday hanging around the house instead of wandering the 'far reaches' of our farm.
That evening, as Mom was tucking me in, she questioned me even more about the dogs' behavior and the paw prints I had seen. She did it as if it was our routine "how-was-your-day" conversation she did every night at my bedtime.
This was such an unusual response for her because usually when she told me to do something it came with the reason as well. But not this time. Instead, on that Sunday morning, men started showing up at our farm. Men on horseback. Men with very big rifles. Men in uniforms. Many, many men. All congregating in our barnyard. I was watching all this commotion with fascination through the kitchen window while hiding behind the curtains to stay out of sight.
After about 15 minutes two men, each in uniform came in. They sat down at our kitchen table and Mom served them each a cup of coffee. One uniform I recognized as a Mountie's (*2) and the other uniform I didn't recognize. Needless to say, I became very timid and intimidated too. But with a 'MOUNTIE' seated at the kitchen table, even an adult would have felt at least partially like I did.
They both immediately spotted me hiding in the corner when they walked in, but neither man said anything to me. In fact, they completely ignored me as they sat, drank their coffee and made small talk with Mom and each other. Mostly they chatted about their horses and horses was my favorite subject at the time.
Mom placed a glass of milk and a plate with a few cookies on it at an empty place at the table and gave me a nod. I knew that meant to come and join them at the table. I instantly obeyed her. Fear or no fear, she was my mother, proper polite behavior was expected and these were cookies after all!
I noticed the men in the barnyard continued to mull around, check their gear, rifles and horses and generally "shoot the bull" (as my Dad used to call it). But these two men just sat here with Mom, relaxed and chatting as I sat next to her and began to quietly munch my cookies. I might have been afraid but my curiosity about why all these men were here was stewing pretty intensely inside of me.
Suddenly, the Mountie turned to me and said gently,
"So, blue eyes, I hear you had an interesting day yesterday."
He and the other person (who I learned was some sort of "Ranger") continued to question me about our dogs' behavior, where I had been, where I had seen the paw prints, what they looked like and things like that. I could tell he was impressed at how much I had noticed and how much precise information I could give him.
Then one of them declared, "This is good coffee, Mrs. Rahn, but we're not getting our work done sitting here visiting."
As they were on our porch, putting their coats back on, one of them asked, "You people are 'city folk', aren't you?"
Mom responded with,
"Yes. We've lived here about 3 months if you count the weekends we came to fix the place up before we moved in."
The two men looked at each other with surprise, then they both looked right at me and one of them said, "Amazing!" and shook his head with a pinch of awe in his voice.
The Mountie smiled at me and said, "We're going to have to keep our eyes on you."
He meant this as a compliment but I didn't realize that and it just made me feel afraid and sort of guilty too. I still hadn't realized that the questions about the mountain lion was anything more that just idle "chit-chat".
As soon as they left I asked Mom, "Am I in trouble?"
She hugged me and said, "Absolutely not! In fact, quite the opposite."
I discovered later that after questioning me the previous night, Mom had made a phone call to report what had happened to me and all of these men had assembled to kill the mountain lion. The fact that all these grown men, even Mounties and Rangers, had come based on MY word seemed 'amazing' to me.
They all 'mounted' their horses and raced out of our barnyard as if they were a posse from an old Western movie.
They didn't get the mountain lion that day, but about 6 men came back a few days later and "bagged" her then. Unfortunately, I was at school that day and missed seeing any more action. But the day they did kill her was also based on the information I had given about how fresh I believed the mountain lion's tracks were and that she was following a circuit that led her right through our farm about every 3 days.
I also learned later that some farm animals and even a dog had been killed by this particular mountain lion but they just hadn't been able to find her. So when Mom called them they figured it was the break they needed. That Ranger told me it was very probable that lives, HUMAN lives, had been saved from the information I was able to give them.
My family was pretty dysfunctional at that time and my self-worth was at an all time low. So all these important and "official" grown-ups taking action based on what I said gave me a boost I desperately needed. It even gave me some notoriety in our community too.
I'm not sure I have a specific point to make with this story, but thank you for stopping by and letting me share more of my memories with you.
Have a good weekend and restful Sabbath day, Dear Friends.
Sincerely, Laura-Lee (who "Was Here")
(*2) "Mountie" = Royal Canadian Mounted Police (aka. R.C.M.P.)
