This picture was taken about 50 feet from the canal which curved around from Big Lake Santa Fe to what passed as my back yard.

To the right you can see my driveway, the very last one on the unpaved, sandy road.

While I was there, the weather was much colder and dryer than the usual north central Florida weather. So the fact that the road was not paved was never a problem.

I had the only house on that side of the road. There was one small trailer, which was uninhabited most of the time; but, otherwise it was just woods and "bush."

I especially remember there were a lot of "Brazilian peppers" there. This is small tree with red berries similar to those of a holly. It has escaped cultivation in Florida to become something of a nuisance since many people are allergic to it; but, I am not one of them!

We also had some wonderful old hickories - big gigantic incredible trees! I once gathered enough hickory nuts to make a hickory nut cake. That was the easy part. Anyone familiar with hickory nuts knows what the hard part was - but a hammer and a slap of concrete will do the trick!

The mail was only delivered on one side of the road. It wasn't my side, so I had to put up a mailbox on the other side of the road.

On that side of the road, there were a number of homes, a public dock, and Big Lake Santa Fe. There was also a grove of citrus which kept all of us in the area supplied with oranges, grapefruit, and kumquats.

If either Pillsbury or Cookie ever crossed that old dirt road, I never saw them; but, they were both allowed to go and do as they pleased - both day and night.

Pillsbury used to catch big frogs and bring them in the house. If I took no notice of her prize, she would put it on my foot so I would be sure to notice!

She never really hurt them that I saw. Mostly she just looked at them and tapped them with her paw every once in a while; and, when she would do that, they would make a loud noise. Pillsbury liked that. After a while, she discovered that if she turned the frog over on its back, it couldn't get away. So when she tired of it, she would turn it over on its back while she went and did whatever she wanted to do until she thought of the frog again. I though that a bit much for the frog, so took to turning them back over while she was gone. After a while Pillsbury stopped turning the frogs over. Maybe she thought they had discovered a way to turn themselves over or maybe she knew what I was doing! At any rate, she apparently didn't think it worth her while anymore to turn them over.

By this time, she had discovered rats. These Pillsbury brought in the house dead. I can't really say that I was sorry that they were dead. Pillsbury never ate any of them that I saw.

Oh no, she was too particular! "Little Friskies Buffet Beef and Liver" - that is what she ate! and the nearest place that could be found was twenty six miles away in Gainesville. So once a week, I drove those twenty six miles to stock up on her weeks supply of
"Little Friskies Buffet Beef and Liver".

Melrose was 4 miles away from where we lived, Keystone Heights was six miles away; but, there wasn't a can of "Little Friskies Buffet Beef and Liver" in either of them! None of their little "Mom and Pop" stores carried it; but, they did all carry some good homegrown tomatoes!

My brother would occasionally visit with his wife and son. With them, they always had his wife's dog, an annoying mutt with the habit of nipping at everything in sight, including my two cats, until Cookie got hold of her nose one day and bloodied it up but good! From then on that dog gave both cats a wide berth!

I don't know if that gave Pillsbury the idea; but, one of my neighbors had this cow that he let run loose. It wrecked havoc on the little garden I so laboriously worked on; and, the local police didn't really care. I was an outsider; and, "macho" men that they were, hunting and fishing was what they considered important - not gardens. One Christmas, the cow ate the big poinsettia that grew just outside my bedroom window. I lay in bed and let her do it. They say that poinsettia are poison - no such luck! Then one day, I hear this terrible noise; and, the cow is running across my yard with a bloody nose and Pillsbury right behind her! From then on whenever that cow saw Pillsbury, she would bellow and take off - usually with Pillsbury in hot pursuit!

Some time after, I was feeding some wild mallard ducks on the canal. My mother was with me that day. Someone shot over my head and killed one of the ducks. It really upset my mother. She had been looking at the duck when the bullet hit him; and, she said she could see the question in his eyes. "Why?"

I had no answer. I have no answer. I don't understand this idea of killing for fun. Killing to protect yourself or for food, if necessary, I understand; but, killing for fun and daring to call it "sport," that is sick. I don't think I will ever understand it. I do not want to understand it.

It was time to go home.