Victor Davis Hanson A Child’s Garden of Animals My paternal grandfather Frank Hanson was drafted in 1917—although he was married and a bit old at 28. And as part of the war effort he had a small six to eight cow dairy I was told. No matter, he was one of the first to drafted […]
Victor Davis Hanson A Child’s Garden of Animals I once talked to the Land Bank officer, a smart though cranky accountant near retirement. He called our farming operation “non-rational,” after he viewed the layout of my grandfather’s 120 acres. My Punjabi neighbor (who begrudgingly admitted that, as one of the first Sikhs to arrive in
Victor Davis Hanson A Child’s Garden of Animals I used to think America was divided into two halves: the majority who have never spoken or known those born in the 19th century, and the minority who have. The latter were given a great gift that is imprinted upon them since youth, a glimpse into wisdom
Victor Davis HansonA Child’s Garden of Animals Any more creative (i.e., stupid) ideas? In Fields Without Dreams I wrote about our Ruby Seedless vineyard fiasco in which our cutting-edge new vineyard variety of big beautiful red grapes rotted the moment they were ready to harvest (the Ag extension officer once told me the once supposedly
Victor Davis Hanson A Child’s Garden of Animals Each March swarms of blackbirds arrive in the yard to mate, nest, hatch their eggs—and make themselves detested. Life is quiet and clean until March and then again in late June when most disappear. But now they seem to believe they own the environs and will alter
Victor Davis Hanson A Child’s Garden of Animals In March if it had rained some, or a first irrigation had not dried out, and one tried to get in the vineyard and disc too early, he often got stuck. And then things got interesting…. If you were mired in the middle of a quarter-mile-long, 12-foot-wide
Victor Davis Hanson A Child’s Garden of Animals When growing up, not all our pets and wild animal encounters were live. I remember all the tractors on the farm. At six, I used to go into the old horse shed just to stare at and sit on them. Many were named as if they were
Victor Davis Hanson As I said, I used to hunt at the woodpile and usually at sunset. One early evening, a huge “thing” broke out of the woodpile. I assumed it was some sort of coyote (distance was only 40 yards, but the wood pile and lengthy shadows camouflaged the target.) I shot once and
Victor Davis Hanson A Child’s Garden I think I was six or seven before I fully realized the farm was swarming with opossums. Given they were nocturnal creatures, I never saw one—until one day sometime around 1960, my grandfather asked us to go the henhouse near the barn and collect eggs. This time I noticed
Victor Davis Hanson A Child’s Garden of Animals About 40 years ago, I visited a rural “pound” and adopted a Queensland Heeler (“blue”), or more properly an Australian Cattle Dog. I was confused what the strange, squealing, funny looking fox/wolf-like “wild” dog was—and had only seen one before owned by a Portuguese sheep herder who