reminds me of the Foxfire books I was introduced to in college. I’ve already told my husband a couple of your stories,<<<
Thank you, the Foxfire books were grand books.
Both stories were true, LOL, all one has to do, is have dogs that can tell you when something is amiss.
Snowball kept telling us something was wrong, Bill checked the entire animal population, they were fine, there were no foot prints of illegals...etc.
So he started circling the mobile, to see if there was an illegal that couldn’t make it to the house, as we had them come in in all conditions, even dead.
The amazing thing is, that the boy had not been bitten by a rattlesnake, as where he was, contained both diamond back/coontailed rattlers and sidewinder rattlers.
Our friends, were on their hands and knees, tracking the child from the canal, a mile or more away, one broken leaf at a time.
The child had on footed PJ’s, so was leaving a faint trail.
It was maybe 9 or 10 at night when Bill found him, the whole search was worth it to him, as he did surprise the not often shockable me.....
They really did want me to make more wine, I will always wonder what it tasted like, as it had been sitting in the storage room, maybe 2 years, in 120 degree heat part of the time.
At that time the law on illegals from Mexico, was “don’t transport them”, so I asked the local doctor what I should do, if more came in, that were alive, but needed help...He said I could bring them to him, but he would have to call the Border Patrol, after he treated them and turn them in.
Then the men were men coming to work for $5.00 a day on the farms and ranches and they walked 40 miles, just to get as far as our place.
He said that if they had heat problems, to make them drink salt water, and if that failed, soak them in salt water.
The day came, when a man came in sick, said his friends were in the desert very sick and he would not drink the salt water, so I fixed a tub of salt water, in a laundry tub, and made him stand in it, he was sure that I was crazy, as that is what he kept saying over and over, as I cut off the sweet water.
You only get sick on too much cold water once, to know what it feels like ....it is bad, and for me it was an accident, but I had made the mistake of drinking iced water and that is a no no, in 120 degrees....cold [room temperature] coffee is the best in the heat. The experienced ones, can walk the 40 miles on a gallon, milk jug of coffee.
Bill, the local Sheriff and the Brand Inspector, went out and found the others, sick but not dead.
Doctor Kline, suggested that I feed my calves a bottle of salt water between the milk bottles and we found that we had less problems with scours, as we were buying 10 at a time and raising them till about 4 months old and selling them for feeder calves.
Mary is the one who taught me to give the calves Pepto Bismo, at the first sign of scours, and it works, I would mix it in the salt water bottle and they drank it, maybe 2 or 3 tablespoons in a pint of water, with a teaspoon of salt.
Heh, my husband's grandfather (who lived to 100) had a ranch up in the Sierra Nevada foothills and he raised feeder calves up to yearlings or so. He always dreamed of moving back up there, but he had had a heart attack and his kids were scared of him being all alone up there, so they made him move back to town. The stories of being at the ranch are all legendary in the family. Poor grandpa, he just wanted to be in the country. He didn't like the city at all. He was like you in that way. Darn I miss him, he was a darling man.