Cynthia was scared of air planes

While I am thinking about Cynthia , it brings to mind the time I flew over the house.Wait till I explain a little.
The AIRCRAFT APPLICATORS and I had a little dispute over the size of the acreage he just sprayed.They charged by the acre --and zoom there goes some more charges. So I went to the airport and talked to Nelson who was a pilot in the Guard ( a Colonel) but had a business of applying insecticides on fields. In this case it was an alfalfa field. WE had an aerial map to compare known acreages but we couldn't agree. So he said," Let's go see". "Hop in the plane and you can even drive"--Ha! dirve? But I did have enough confidence in myself to believe I could actually fly that Cub PLane.
I sat in the front seat. The engine whirled and we were taxi ing down the run way. I was watching every one of his moves and also watched the position of the tail and flaps to get aquainted with the plane in case he challenged me to fly--for the first time ever.How many guys are like that?
We were airborne. I was all dressed up in a nice clean suntan sort of suit. I was beginning to worry about sir sickness--but by golly I was holding out pretty well.
Finally we reached our farm and we made a few passes over the acreage in question. Then I asked Nelson to make a dive over our house. Outside the kids were playing--I could see them. We dove really close to the light pole and I threw out my cap and hollered and whistled. They had no idea I was in the plane. They wondered who the dickens was the goofy pilot who was scaring the kids.
Then I told Gene, the pilot, to get back as quick as he could because I was about to erupt. We climbed back up and suddenly he swooped low again because we were in the airlane of the daily flights of that day to Spokane. Gene was a wise well informed pilot I could see.
But that last swoop was "it"!! I quickly pulled out my clean bandana and I urped it all up--That morning for breakfast I ate heartily of Cantaloupe and I filled that bandana up . It was a savior as far as messing the front seat up with urpings.
THe result of the swooping over the house scared Cynthia so bad that when ever a plane would fly near the house she'd run into the house. I somehow couldn't explain to her that it was my cap she recovered and ME in that plane yelling my greetings to them.
Speaking of being affected by airplanes--it goes back to when my brother John gave us a collie pup. It had Australian Shepard sheep dog markings and a long collie nose. I didn't want another dog of that type but John had a big litter of odd pups and he gave it to one of the girls for a Birthday present--how do you refuse a birthday present? She turned out to be a really goofy dog. When Chink would be digging after a gopher she'd be cheering him on and jumping up biting the dirt he was tossing with his paw. He'd dig down deep enough to hide his body till he got the gopher. FiFi was the name of the collie--I wondered how she was ever named that. Imagine me hollering for "FIFI" out in the field. She was so very unruly.
Once I had to give the dog worm medicine. I saw signs that she had an infestation of worms-it is a common occurance in pups and can really be deadly and ugly for all to see--including the dog. When you give the dog worm medicine a person has to watch to see if the medication is effective--you do that by observing the pile after she unloads, to see if there are worms being expelled. In this case I went over to see the pile--( you know what I mean I'll bet) and sure enough she was eliminating worms in great numbers. BUT also I noticed that she had been eating too much sand and dirt from sheering Chink on while he dug holes seeking to eat a gopher ( he loved to eat gophers).The odor of the poop was terrible even out in a field!! So FIFI was now an active goofy dog which somehow tried to calch an airplane when it flew over. She had a special trail through the alfalfa to run after a plane which flew over. I asked sometimes, what would she do if she caught one?
I'll tell of gophers and Chink. When Chink was a pup I'd take him out in the fields where I would set traps to catch gophers which populated the fields in really great numbers. Trapping then was the only way to eliminate gophers which could cut down a new planting of trees. They would chew the new roots to kill the tree . The root looked like carrot and as sharp as a pencil.
We later learned to poison them by injecting underground with a machine which made a burrow. It was pulled by a tractor. Poisoned carrots were first used dropped into the tunnel which when it crossed a gophers domain, the gopher would wonder which other gopher is entering his domain--They are territorial animals. The gopher would follow the new tunnel and find the poisoned carrots which to them is a delicacy--later we used poisoned millet ( a grain the size of a bb) . The poison had a sweet smell and attracted the gopher which then caried a pouch full to his den--.IN the mean time the poison would get into his blood stream and finally kill him. It was a successful mass eleimination of the field of rodents
But before some one invented that method trapping was the normal way of eliminating a gopher infestation . They multiplied like rabbits and it was an impossible job to rid all of them.
When I would set a trap, Chink was very interested and watched me. I would leave the trap which I marked with a stake in the ground. I bought hundreds of traps in those days.
The next morning I would go check my traps and find the trap on th ground with no gopher--but there was a telltale piece of gopher meat or fur on the trap . Chink would go out to check the traps and eat them before I could have the pleasure of counting all the gophers I caught.
I'll tell more in another story about gophers.