A few days ago, Dr. Don and myself went over to my mothers ranch to clean out horse stalls. We spent two days hauling truckloads of horse manure and soiled sawdust out of the stalls and barn. We replaced it all with fresh and clean sawdust.
On the second day, we finished the arduous job and I proceeded to wrangle the horses back to the field that leads to the barn. I grabbed a scoop of my mothers specially mixed equine feed and walked out into the muddy field where I had them secured.
I walked close to the six of them, including one gelding and five mares. I whistled for them to follow and shook the feed bucket. They happily came running thinking that it was feeding time. At the same time, Dr. Don was watching from a safe distance. He’s afraid of horses!
Before I knew it, I was surrounded by them with nowhere to go. As I laid the bucket down and started shooing Sunny, one of the mares, back, the gelding decided he wanted the entire bucket for himself. Docxy, the eldest mare and my favourite out of the bunch, side kicked him in the arse coming within centimetres of me.
Remembering my father getting kicked and almost killed, I turned to Dr. Don with an ashen face and eyes as big as feed buckets and waited for him to say something.
He’s always insightful.
He walked up with a blank countenance, put one leg up on the rustic fencing, spit his beloved chewing tobacco, and said, “Yep………..I told you women are cruel, and you didn’t believe me”.
I couldn’t do anything except laugh. The gelding is fine except for his pride. I guess he’ll stay out of the head bitches feed bucket from now on.
Me?
Life is grander than it has been in a long while and only getting better. I’ve been out chasing after mares every night since. The two legged kind.
P.S.: The song, I’m Alive, is by Kenny Chesney and Dave Mathews. I had to add something a wee bit country western to any post that speaks of horses and manure.
Tuesday evening, I decided to go up to my grandfathers house up in the mountains. I hadn’t been up there since he died back in 1998. I honestly didn’t think I could find the place, but I went anyway for the adventure and brief jaunt down memory lane.
I remember that it was 117 fence post to the south to the church and 95 fence post to the north to a girls house that I had a crush on for years. Gramps and myself would set out around sunset and watch the cows and horses graze on the lush lucerne and fescue covering the mountainside. I learned a lot about life from observing those animals. Grandpa Davis wasn’t a talker, he was a doer.
He walked softly and carried a big stick. I never saw the man get angry except for maybe one or two times in the 26 years I knew him. His hair was as white as the cotton he picked as a child, and he was as tall and slender as the cotton mill smoke stacks that he worked in most of his adult life. He was the very essence of the phrase, Facta Non Verba.
Everyone knew and loved him far and wide. He retired not long after I was born. The earliest memory I have is of him almost getting mauled by my dog, a huge German shepherd named Zack. I was five or six and he was playfully chasing me around on Christmas morning. He started tickling me, I started screaming and laughing, and gramps almost lost his arm due to a very overly protective dog. Grandpa and the Zack didn’t get along well after that.
Anyhow, let’s go back to Tuesday evening, shall we?
I turned onto the street that he lived as the sun filtered through the coloured leaves setting atop a vast hillside that runs along with the curvature of the road. I was shocked at how so little had changed, as I pulled up the gravel driveway. The enormous oak tree in the front yard that gramps planted, when he and my granny moved in the house over fifty years ago, had grown a little but not much with the passage of time. The roses and hedges looked almost the same.
I was shocked yet again, when I finally arrived at the back of the house. There were people and cars parked in his driveway. As it turns out, the house is rented to some folks. I called me pops to verify that it was indeed being rented. I don’t have a problem with him renting it, I just thought it had been empty for a bit. Anyway, I turned around and continued down the long country road.
A few minutes later my mother called, so I had to pull into a strangers driveway, a long and narrow drive. After I hung up with her, I tried to do a three point turn but the road was too narrow. Pulling onto someone’s land up in the mountains is a very dangerous proposition. Mountain folk don’t like strangers.
I ended up having to drive all the way down the road that ended at an log cabin. There were cars parked in the garage, so I turned around. Pops called me back and I told him I’d call back due to my whereabouts. He told me to just say that I’m a Davis and they’d leave me alone. I didn’t believe that for a moment.
Just as I was about to pull off, an auld grey haired fella in overalls and what looked like a twenty year-old baseball cap came running out with a shotgun demanding, “What are ye doin’ ‘ere boy”?
I nervously rolled down the drivers side window, put my hands out, and answered, “I’m just turning around, sir”.
“Ye ain’t got no business ‘ere boy.” He exclaimed, as he walked closer to the truck.
The sweet smell of freshly baked apple pie passed my nostrils, as his wife, still wearing a cooking apron, peered through the screen door.
“I’m sorry sir, I just got lost…I was down the road visiting my grandfathers old place”, I mumbled, as the man approached with his gun by his side.
“….Now don’t let me catch ya back down ‘ere…aga…Who was yer grandpa?”
“D*** Davis, sir.”
“Yer L**** Davis’ boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well I declare, Ester, get out ‘ere. This is D*** Davis’ grandson.”, he hollered as the lady of the house came running out.
She stopped dead in her tracks, when I stepped out of the truck.
“Dear Jesus, you look just like yer dad, she yelled as the auld fella patted me on the back.
They told me stories about my dad and grandad, and ironically about myself, when I was knee high to a grasshopper. All in all, it was a good visit down memory lane.
Moral of story:
Sometimes trips down memory lane can be a bit dangerous yet entertaining and informative at the same time.
Video is “Have you ever seen the rain?", by CCR. It doesn’t fit, but it was playing on the radio when I met Mr. Shotgun.
I stare blankly into the mans jowly and worn face.
“What is the fucking holdup?” He demands whilst barreling over me.
I mutely swing around and point to the two cars spilling their precious fluids onto the pavement, and more importantly, the pregnant Hispanic woman wailing a river of tears over her son.
He jerks back and says, “Shit, I’m going to be late.
The other driver, a middle-aged woman adorning a stylish business suit, curses 911 on the mobile while kicking what used to be the front end of her blue BMW M5.
“Are you alright?” I plead whilst surveying the little boy.
“I’m alright”, says the lady in the business suit.
I lean down and ask the lad if he is alright. He nods that he is alright, while rivulets of blood trickle from his brow onto the cold asphalt.
“Are you alright, Ma’am?” I ask as the sun reflects off of the stream of tears dripping off of her chin.
She blurts out Spanish so fast that I can’t understand what she’s saying.
“Está bien, Señora? - Are you alright, Ma’am?”
“Hijo mi está herido - My son is hurt”, she answers while wiping off his forehead with her sweatshirt.
“Estancia aquí - Stay here”, I scream over the haunting sirens coming from the east of our position.
I go back to my truck and grab a blanket. I look back to discover a sea of cars backed up a quarter mile. I run into a winded construction worker and ask him if he has any road cones. He runs back to his truck and starts setting them out so that we don’t get ran over by a speeding eejit.
Just as I return and put the blanket over the boy so he doesn’t get cold, the fire crew arrives. The white collared woman continues to pace back and forth and rant on the mobile. As they start examining the boy, the fire chief pulls me to the side and ask me what happened. As I begin to tell him what I saw, the expecting woman cries, “Señor…Señor…Señor.”
I run over to her and her son, and the medic says that they are going to take him to the hospital for x-rays to make sure that minor cuts is all he has.
The woman, we’ll call her, Maria, pleads with me to talk to her in Spanish.
I translated the best I could for the medic. She asks me to call her husband so I do and hand her the mobile as the ambulance arrives.
She hands over the phone and hugs me whilst screaming, “Gracias, señor”.
The medics check her over after loading the boy onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. I give her my card and stay behind to be interviewed by the fire chief, highway patrol, and an already on the scene claims adjustor.
That was the ending to a very hectic week. The father called me a few hours ago and said the young boy was fine. To top it all off, I’m finished with the project I’ve been working on for three weeks. Have a great weekend everyone. Many apologies for not posting for a few days.
I spent part of Sunday with the horses. Today is my Mare’s birthday. She’s twenty-one years old. It seems like just yesterday, when she was welcomed into the fold. I was just a teenager yet left with the responsibility of caring for her and the other mares. They are my mothers love and burden now.
I tried to get close up shots but she kept trying to lick the filter as if it were a salt block. She’s very bashful these days. Docxy enjoys trotting around the pastures and chasing after deer ‘til she runs out of stamina. The young stud is very fearful of her teeth. In all the years that I’ve rode her, she’s not tried to buck or kick me once.
That’s her daughter, Sunshine, to the left. Docxy is on the right. The rain had recently ceased, when I took this shot.
The next one is of the studly stud being silly. We call him Max, because he is a bit whacky like my granduncle.
This shot is of Mandy. She’s one of the most genial quarter horses I’ve ever met.
Sunshine is ticked off because I haven’t fed her yet.
Quit looking at me with that shiny thing that clicks and give me my food!
I had the wildest dream last night. I dreamt that I won the lottery. It was a magnificent dream.
Just as I left the petrol station with my ticket, I heard the numbers over the radio of a passing car and realised that I had won fifty million dollars. I leapt in the air, and yelled, “YeeHaaw”.
I ran inside, knocking people over on my way to the clerk, and slammed my ticket down on the counter, demanding my cashola. The clerk called the officials and the local news media. People swarmed around me, as I kept a tight grip on the ticket like a child to a bottle.
The state lottery officials arrived and validated the ticket. They shook my hand and offered their felicitations.
We were directed outside where hundreds of people had gathered. The media van strobe lights were beaming into my retinas, as I ran outside. The clickety-clack of camera shutters reverberated through the station, as I stood in awe of the mass of people here to see little ol’ me.
“What do you plan on doing with the money?” A reporter from a fox affiliate pleaded, whilst ramming her mic in my face.
A great silence swept over the crowd awaiting my response.
“I will give a large sum to charity, and go make things right with an ex.. And, I’ll deposit the rest of my money in the Bank of England.”
A great gasp echoed through the crowd from right to left. People stood still, with their mouths agape.
“I’m just kidding…the Bank of Ireland”, I laughing muttered, as I took in the seriousness of the matter.
I had to go to the Supreme Court to get my money. By then a quarter of it had been sucked up by blood sucking lawyers.
I put my money in an international bank just to spite the haters. I picked up Dr. Don, Brian F., and we headed for Dublin.
The last thing I remember was buying everyone in the Temple Bar district a round of drinks.
What would you do, if you won the lottery?
I’d try to make a difference in this whacky world. Of course, I’d have to have Guinness and Bulmers air shipped to me wherever I would be.
I’d have to by the Playboy mansion for weekend excursions.
I could ramble on about lost love and how much I wish I could rewind the clock, but I’m not going to. It’s not over ‘til it’s over.
Never underestimate a Davis.
P.S.: I sincerely apologise for not being around to pester the lot of you lately.
