"...Keeper of the Dreaded Wooden Broom..."

Farm dogs are supposed to hunt. Ours just likes to eat.

Jack is a smarty-pants. He's too smart sometimes. Somehow, he has figured out a way to train ME to kill his prey for him. Let me explain:

Almost every day it happens. I hear Jack barking his alarm. There are different barks. I know when he's barking at cars or birds...those sound different than when he has cornered a rodent.

I'm not really sure what they are, but they look like hamsters, so they've got to be rodents. Groundsquirrels? Shrews? I'm not sure. Definately bigger than a mouse....they're HUGE. Every day I hear the "bark alarm" and I go running out the door with my broom.

Every farmer's wife needs a good broom. It's a requirement. It's right up there with rich girls needing to carry around little dogs in their purses.....A necessary accessory. Just read a few fairytales and nursery rhymes: three blind mice, Peter Rabbit....the farmer's wife ALWAYS has to have a good broom. AND, in every one of those stories, the broom is used as the weapon of choice against small pests.

So I ran out the door with my broom. I used to freak out and make Ben be the murderer, but now it's an everyday thing to have a rodent in your yard and Ben isn't always there. There is no mercy....it's war. Jack and I protect our home-front from pests trying to attack and lay-siege on our territory. It's true that if you don't defend yourself, they WILL get into your house and eat holes in the un-suspecting box of Bisquick. We are protecting our pantry.

Hayden tries to get in on it too, and weilds a nasty fly-swatter on occasion. He usually shows up after the fact, however, and beats the casualty with the fly-swatter after it's already dead. I think he's trying to make a statement to the other rodents lurking in the field, waiting for their chance at ambushing the pantry.

Yesterday I heard the bark. "Here we go again." I threw on my shoes and headed for the door, grabbing my dreaded broom on the way by. I came out to find Jack doing his usual dance around the....thing. It was a familiar sight: A little hamster-like-thing sitting on his back feet with his little clawed hands up in the air and his mouth wide open, exposing his two teeth. Very scary. Jack kept looking at me and then the....thing, all while dancing around in circles. "Okay," he seems to say, "here it is, mom....now GET IT!" This is where he makes ME smack it with the broom.

This one was a fighter, though. As I came down with the first hit, he seemed to grab the broom, so as the broom flew back up into the air, so did the.....thing. He flew into the air and almost landed on ME! I started screaming and smacking it with short fast movements while doing my own dance, which consisted of me hoping back and forth from one foot to the other. Ben heard the commotion and peeked out the window. Just then, by broom handle broke off! I started running around in circles and screaming. Fortunately, the battle was pretty much over, so Jack took over and I ran back into the house.

A GOPHER! That's what it was......a gopher.

Anyway, maybe I'm not the fearless farmer's wife I THOUGHT I was becoming. Atleast, I need a new broom!