In the 1960’s I owned horses, and helped where I could with cows. Then I attended a Presbyterian Boarding school in Mississippi that raised their own food, we raised cattle, hogs, corn, and had a truck farm. Brenda and I got married in 1973 and we always had horses, a couple of feeder calves a good dog and barn cats. We eventually wound up training Tennessee Walking horse somewhat semi professionally. Won a bunch of ribbons and a few trophy’s and lost a fortune. We hunted and shot for sport and fished, raised a garden every year but still we were attached to our horse farm. UNTIL, we got our first PC in the late 1980’s and running a financial program, we found just how much money we were loosing each month. (That would be the full house note on our lake house) so, by the middle 1990’s we finally got divested of all our horses and the farm and were pleasantly living in our lake house with a dog and two of the barn cats we took with us. Well, the dogs kept coming up missing. (We suspect stolen to use as training dogs for fighting dogs, my anger goes not bounds towards the individual or individuals who stole our little shepherd dog.) We lost one of the barn cats and were left with Chubby. Chubby lived to be the ripe old age of 15, saw me though my second retirement, fought more Tom’s, than I could count. He was even spotted by a neighbor who worked nights, stalking a full grown deer. He was a legend. Eventually cat diabetes caught up to him.
So, we went for several years without a cat or dog Then we were gifted WarPaint who was thrown out in front of our neighbor’s home. She was one bad little female. She would take on two Tom’s at one time. Never lost. Not a rodent to be seen in the our home, workshops or the neighbors. Eventually she has lost her fighting spirit and her willingness to hunt. But we still had her and she could still be mean as a rattlesnake and as protective as a German Shepherd. (Go figure?)
Next while out cycling, on a Friday last year, we found Bandit, on the side of the road, miles from another home, starving, parasite ridden and miserable. but loving. Tiny and skinny as he was and ill as he was, we worried that he might not live through the weekend. We spent a fortune in vet bills on him, still as skinny as a rail, eats us out of the house and home and according to the Vet is healthy. A super little athlete, but not a hunter, loved to death by Brenda, but despised by WarPaint. It’s a tough household.
We are hoping that our son will decide to keep WarPaint. She seems to be settling in with him. Bandit is a lot easier.
A life spent with and around animals. Dogs, cats, horses, cattle, hogs, a burrow, and my Father-in-laws chickens.
Are we young you ask. Of course, I expect to live at least 30 more years, that would make me something like 105. Even longer if possible. I like it here.
Bandit, August 2022 and now. At the bottom, our winningest Walker, S. Fashion’s Flirt.
