Brooding Mare

Posted on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 by Jefferson Davis

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.

Davis’

Posted on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 by Jefferson Davis

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.

Two Weeks Late

Posted on Friday, April 3, 2009 by Jefferson Davis

Tap…tap…tap

Whack…whack…whack…

Bang…bang

“This better be good at…4AM”, I yelled whilst wiping the muck from my eyes.

“Who the f*ck is it?” I demanded, as I treaded across the frigid oak floors towards the back door.

“It’s Dr. Don.”

I unlocked the door and swung it open in anger of be awoken.

“What are you doing here this time of the morning?” I pleaded while rubbing my dreary head and heading to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

After putting the water on to boil, I realised that he was sporting a green t-shirt with a big shamrock on it.

“Shite”, I exclaimed whilst running to my bedroom.

“Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, dude”, he said, as he looked through the cupboards for something to snack on.

I grabbed my camera gear and supplies and headed out the door a few minutes later. We got on the main highway about 4:30AM. It’s quite fun to drive early in the morning. The roads were empty at that time of dawning, so I could use two lanes if I so desired.

Just as we started making good time, it started misting rain. I turned on the windshield wipers to alleviate the haze overtaking my view. The drivers side wiper started acting erratic, veering way off its predetermined course, so I turned them off and back on. It fell over and hung precariously off the drivers side of the windshield.

“This is not a good omen”, I cogitated whilst looking for a place to pull over in the pitch blackness of an empty road.

We pulled into a rest area and inspected the damage. We couldn’t help but laugh, when we discovered that the gears in the wiper motor were stripped.

“I hope the rain stops”, I laughingly muttered whilst getting back in the truck.

“Ah, throw a string on it and yank it every time it starts to mist”, Dr. Don muttered, as he stared into the vacuous rest area.

Luckily, the rain clouds dissipated and we continued down I-385 S. Once we got on I-26 East, the driving was a breeze. I put the truck in cruise control mode and relaxed a bit. Dr. Don freaked out a bit, when I pretended to be asleep and let the vehicle veer closer to the concrete median.

After breakfast somewhere near Columbia, SC, Dr. Don went to sleep and I sliced about a half hour off the trip by speeding. When I saw the Savannah River in the distance, I turned up the radio to wake him. We arrived about an hour before the parade. People of all colours, shapes, and sizes were painted in green. The one’s that weren’t covered themselves with a lovely green beer. It wasn’t Guinness, but eh?

After fighting through a crowd of a half million people, I finally found a spot to take pictures. I normally hop from place to place to get different perspectives, but because there was a mass of people and I was trying to stay within seeing distance of Dr. Don, I stayed in one spot the entire time.

It was an all out celebration of Craic. Some whacky and legless college guys ran out into the parade street and high fived everyone while screaming, "Éirinn go Brách". Others would run up and yell, “Irish, yeah”. It was a party on wheels.

I watched bands march by from about thirty US states, including: Georgia, Wyoming, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Delaware to name a few. Heck, there was even a bagpipe band from Edinburgh, Scotland.

An African-American woman with a hellish attitude and seven kids tried to root me out of my spot. I didn’t mind the kids getting a decent spot, but when she tried to push me out of the way, I got irate and decided to leave before saying something and causing a riot.

Dr. Don was arguing with her husband, so I grabbed him out of the crowd and walked away.

“On the one day when American’s with Irish ancestry can celebrate their heritage, someone has to start some shite”, I muttered, as we walked away.

“She was just dreaming that Obama was in the parade and had to get a closer spot, being that he’s Irish and all.”

“Yer not Irish, unless yer born in Ireland”, I muttered, as we walked into a quaint little cigar shop.

“Does the north count?”

I laughed and we picked out some proper cigars. We sat by the river and watched babes in short shorts and skin tight T’s compete in a wet t-shirt contest.

We hung around for about another hour talking junk to the fairer sex. One woman thought I worked for a paper, so I went with it.

I hadn’t been down there since I was knee high to a grasshopper, so it was nice to go back even for a day. When we returned to the truck, we decided to take a wee side trip to Charleston, S.C.. It is older than Savannah and even more picturesque. The city was formed in 1670 and was once the fifth larges city in the United States. The first shots of the Civil War were fired there as well. So, it is truly a historic playground. One of my ancestors, a Mr. McManaman (can’t remember his first name at present) from County May, died there during the Civil War.

We hopped on I-95-S and sped away from Georgia. I stayed behind a big rig that was speeding, so we made good time. We crossed the massive Cooper River Bridge around 4:30PM. It is the largest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere. And, people say we’re a bunch of hicks in South Carolina!?

I took a few shots of the coast and the Cooper River. We walked through battery park. The architecture of the plantation houses and mansions is awe inspiriting.

After observing the rich women (A person has to be well off to reside in auld Charleston.) jogging through the park, we treaded down some side streets. The streets are very narrow, so I was not surprised when a lady in a minivan ripped a mirror off the side of a painters van. The painter ran out into the street discovering his drivers side mirror laying shattered on the paving stones. The nice lady returned and apologised to the gentleman.

“dun’t w’rry ‘bout it ma’am…these types ah t’ings happ’n down ‘ere”, he muttered as the lady helped him pick up the mirror shards.

She offered her insurance information and her number, but he wouldn’t take it. After she left, he got all of his things together and proceeded to leave. As he pulled away, the rear bumper fell off. He parked, got out, rubbed his head, and yelled, “Shit’”.

Dr. Don and myself got a good laugh out of this and headed back up the road. When we arrived at his house, my hands were stuck to the steering wheel, and I was unable to bend my arms.

“So, how long is it gonna take you to get this on the blog?”

“I’ll have it up by the time I pay dearest deeds to the moon before it fades away.”

“Yer full of shit…”

“Within a fortnight”, I mummbled whilst puffing on a cigar in the mountainous night air.

Dr Don sighed and went in the house.

I drove a wee bit over 600 miles in a day not including all of the walking. We had a blast! I look forward to doing it again soon. Although, next time I may have a chickidoo with me.

Impatience

Posted on Saturday, February 28, 2009 by Jefferson Davis

“What the fuck is your problem?”

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.

My Mare and the rest of the Clan

Posted on Monday, January 5, 2009 by Jefferson Davis

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!

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Jefferson Davis

The writings and scriblings of an inquisitive American.

Tag Archives: south

Brooding Mare

Davis’

Two Weeks Late

Impatience

My Mare and the rest of the Clan