Not a cat in the hat

As a 12-year old boy with a younger brother (6 years younger), I ofter was burdened by being forced to have him tag along with me on my chores.  besides being a pain in the patootie, he sometimes actually did provide some entertaining adventures.  One evening at about dusk, we were on the way down to the lower pasture (see previous post) to get the cattle back up to the barn.  This route took us from the little dirt road, an extremely generous complement to call it a road, to the upper pasture, then through some woods and across a creek to the lower pasture.  The rutted path, previously described as a road, was barely wide enough to accommodate a tractor or narrow pick-up if you didn't mind getting the sides of both the vehicle and predominately yourself scratched by the bushes and tree limbs encroaching from the sides. 

As we entered the wooded area between the two pastures, we thought we heard the low moaning sound of a big cat.  In our minds, it was either a cougar, or a cave lion, or some other dangerous large carnivore.  Hearing it again, closer than before, we became convinced that it was a Bobcat, probably rabid and entirely possibly agitated also.  We didn't really want to deal with an agitated, rabid, large, drooling, mean, dangerous Bobcat, so thinking of a way to get us out of danger, I decided that I would push my baby brother up a tree and follow with the intent to get us safely 15-20 feet off the ground and out of danger. 

After waiting for a few hours, or maybe 20-30 minutes and hearing no more cat sounds, we continued on our way to bring the cows up.  After sharing our hair-raising story with Pop (my dad) and our uncles, we were not prepared for the ensuing laughter and teasing we were subjected to.  Apparently, I didn't think about the fact that cats, in general, and Bobcats specifically are adept at tree-climbing.

Later, Dudes and Dudettes