Don't worry; we shot the bear before he could eat the baby.

We had no shortage of wildlife on the mountain. There were rattle snakes, deer, raccoons, bears, not to mention our pet wildlife - two pigs, a really stupid goat, and many interchangeable cats and dogs.

The rattle snakes never hurt anyone, despite my brother and me going to their den and throwing rocks in there.

Over the years, we filled a coffee can with the rattles of snakes brave or stupid enough to come close to the house. We learned to be careful to bury their bodies where the yellow jackets couldn’t eat them. Because the last thing you want is a yellow jacket stinger full of rattle snake venom. Well, the very last thing you probably want is to live somewhere infested by rattle snakes, but the second to the last thing you want is a yellow jacket stinger full of rattle snake venom. We were just lucky to have BOTH of those things.

There were bears in the woods, but they only ever came really close to the house once, when my baby cousin was asleep in his playpen outside. Don’t worry; we shot the bear before he could eat the baby. (That would be a strange sentence for most people to write. For me, however, it’s no stranger than saying “The outhouse would be the scene of my epic battle for survival.” How was my childhood not illegal?)

Our two pigs got real fat and we killed ‘em and ate ‘em without remorse, and our stupid goat got tangled in some brush and strangled himself one cold winter night. His tongue turned grey and stuck out of his mouth. I wiled away some time poking it with a stick until my dad told me to stop.

Many, many dogs and cats came and went on The Mountain. We didn’t name them and often, one or two of them would just mysteriously disappear. They slept under the porch and roamed around in packs and kept the rodent population in check. They were practically feral and they always smelled bad and that never stopped my little sister from forcing them snuggle with her.

We didn’t have pets like other people have pets. Every animal had a purpose. The cats ate the mice, the dogs (supposedly) kept the rattle snakes away, the pigs got fat on our pre-compost leftovers and eventually became pork chops, and the pre-suicidal goat helped us clear brush. We were eco-friendly before eco-friendly was even a thing.