Certain years hold life’s memories and experiences that find a place deep in our souls. Recollections may be warm and sweet. Others could be heart-wrenching.

During our farming years, we’d raised Holsteins, Black Angus, chickens (upon occasion) and pigs, and along the way held company with a few cherished dogs and cats. Never ever did we have a horse on the farm.

Until the other day.

One day a while back, my husband was hauling gravel to fill in ruts on a path in our woods. We use this path to reach our sap lines, and the deluge of rain that came down a while ago did a number on it. He was in the woods with the tractor, trailer and skidder making all kinds of racket.

A notice on one of his trail cameras popped in. Stopping to glance at his phone, he wondered what it had taken a picture of. It made his jaw drop.

For over 20 years I’d had a nice little doable raspberry patch on the farm. It was ever-bearing and in turn, produced raspberries early summer and again in the fall, until a heavy frost put them to sleep for the winter.

Running errands around Shawano, I noticed a little light had popped up on my car’s dashboard. I was gun-shy, as just a few weeks earlier another little light had appeared — that one much more serious than this one.

This light was one I could decipher easily. A tire was low. Reasoning with myself, I figured I could probably make it home and have my husband pump it up with our air compressor.

Anguish flooded my heart as my brain registered what I saw. There, on the road just past our driveway, lay my sweet kitty, Fred. Lifeless.

My husband and I were on our four-wheeler, and immediately I felt the need to get Fred off the road.

“Let’s go back and get a guinea sack,” my husband suggested quietly.