My first memories float across this old Alabama farm. I wasn't born here, but I can't remember calling anywhere else home as a child.

My father tilled this land as a sharecropper by day, while working across town at the Goodyear plant at night. I never recall our family taking a vacation. Daddy always saved his vacation time and cashed it in. His hand always went up first to volunteer to work a second shift when someone didn't show up or called in sick.

Daddy always worked hard to get his family off this farm and into their own home. It wasn't until the summer of 1946, when he finally realized his dreams and bought a very nice home on East Fifth Avenue in Attalla, Alabama.(about two miles from the farm). Attalla is now noted in the South East for all it's antique stores.

Four years later I joined the Air Force at the age of sixteen and left our new home. I spent a little over twenty six years in the service. I retired in Layton, Utah at Hill Air Force Base and embarked on a second career as a government civilian employee.

Around 1983, my sister called and said the "old farm" was up for sale. Memories flooded back to my childhood. I took leave and flew down and bought it. I returned to Utah and my job after buying the farm and let it set idle for the next couple of years. I finally decided if I was ever going to go "home" I needed to do it now.

I moved back in 1986 and didn't really do anything with the farm for a couple of years. I needed something to keep me active, so I came up with the idea of purchasing a couple of goats. That didn't work out too well. I then decided on wild mouflon sheep. I bought six ewes, a ram and an Anatolian Shepherd Guard dog. No doubt the "Anatolian Guardian Dog" was the best purchase I ever made.

The corrals I built soon became too small to contain the growing herd. That brought the realization that there was a lot of land yet to fence to expand pastures and contain the expanding herd.

One hot August day, as I was fencing, the sun drove the mercury up to about 103%, and I was covered in dirt and sweat from all the manual labor. I began to question the acumen of what I was doing. I knew my children's IQ, but I never knew my own. The military must have known because they were always testing everything.

Standing there dripping wet with sweat, I realized, perhaps I didn't want to know what must have been a military secret, because anyone who is retired, with plenty of leisure time, who would commit to such a situation that I had couldn't have produced impresive numbers in those tests.

I have been told by some of my friends and family members that I must be crazy to labor so hard and do what I'm doing, when I could be enjoying plenty of leisure. If what I'm doing is crazy then insane I'll always want to be.

Working seven days a week feeding and caring for all these peacocks, guineas, Cat's, Anatolian Guardian Dogs and whatever else managed to walk upon this land that held the magic of my childhood. All things consideded, I love this life and would be willing to commit a couple of more lifetimes doing just this if afforded them.

I've seen my "Anatolian Puppies" leave for homes scattered across this country, Canada, and the Virgin Islands. I donated a puppy to the "Birmingham Zoo", she is working out very well as their mascot. Recognition of the "Anatolian Shepherd Guardian Dogs" is my biggest desire. I know those wonderful canines have brought many happy years to a great number of people. The wonderful stories I have been told by my customers have made it all worthwhile. The happiness created by the fruits of my labor is undeniably well worth all the effort. "Thanks Linda Sue (my daughter, who resides in Stirling City, CA.) for pointing out an error I had made in this article".

Take care, may God bless you and yours always.

JIM SIMMONS