Of lonesome train whistles, tadpoles,
and wide open spaces
“She needs wide open spaces,
Room to make her big mistakes,
She needs new faces…
…if these are life’s lessons,
She’ll take this test.” (1)
…and on the eighth day God created the horse in perfect image, to romp, graze, gallop, play, and make manure wherever it darn well pleases, in divine grace.
I love stories. I really like listening to old farmers or old family members telling tales from their early years, experiences that occurred in their daily lives that could very well be forgotten, except that they took the time to share them with me.
I love hanging out at Fair and listening to the stories of other horsemen and women, their farm lives, their animals, or things that happened to them in the show ring.
I also love a good ghost story around a campfire on a nice summer evening, or any time for that matter.
One time in my later teenage years, we happened to catch my grandfather on Meredith Street in a reminiscent mood, one dark and rainy Pittsburgh afternoon.
He had been on a farm in his youth, but then the family moved into the city. There was a creek on the acreage, with fields and trees. A rail road track was within listening distance, and since this was back in the 1920’s, all sorts of fantastic sounds permeated the bucolic environment all year round.
Roosters crowing in the early morning light, bird song sweetly echoing in perfect harmony, cows bawling at their calves, the wind whispering secrets to the trees, or the call of the field hands as they arrived in the barn yard - all created a flowing, undisturbed, and peaceable life.
The creek had tadpoles and minnies, rocks and sparkling water. What kid wouldn’t be enchanted by all that?
Night time was equally as mesmerizing, with peepers, crickets, and fireflies, all topped off with a brilliant full moon, his beguiling cheese-smile drifting ever downward in beams of magic and mystery.
I especially liked the part when Pap talked about the long, haunting train whistles that echoed through the countryside late at night, their mournful voices imprinting themselves in lingering tones of a minor key into the very creation of things, into the very fabric of the world, the sound hanging on and loitering as if to say, “Remember me, remember me…”
I wondered about the men running those old steam locomotives, those engineers we would never meet. I wondered where they came from and where they went, did they return home to the train yard at night, did they have families and children. Did they eventually pass away silently at home surrounded by loved ones, or did they meet their Maker in a gnarled, gruesome train wreck, going out like Casey Jones, going away forever like the 1920’s.
A couple of the other grandkids were present that day, and we all sat around Pap’s Art Deco-style kitchen table, completely enthralled, and this was the only time I ever heard him speak of these experiences. I remember he kept saying how mournful and lonesome that train whistle was.
Old Arnold Palmer, a local dairy farmer from Espyville, used to like to pull up a hay bale after business was completed, and tell tales of farming, threshing, milking, and farm equipment.
He used to travel out to Archbald, OH, on farm equipment buying sprees, bring the stuff back to Espyville, fix it up, and sell it at the next auction. Old Arnold made some tidy sums doing business selling farm equipment.
One time long after Mrs. Palmer had passed away, he and Kathy told me they were missing a young calf, and that they had finally found it after a rain storm.
Seems old Arnold had gone looking for the calf down by the creek. He had jumped on a tractor and was milling around looking for the calf when he accidently ran it over with the tractor. The big tractor tires squished the little calf right down into the mud and grass near the creek, and luckily everything was so soft and schmushy that the calf just blended in with the mud, and bounced right back out.
Kathy ended up carried the filthy little devil up to the barn from the creek bottom.
I found an interesting story in a book I have. It is written by Cherry Hill, about keeping horses in stalls or in confinement.
Of course I found it interesting, and I’d like to share it with all of you.
I’m going to quote directly, right from Ms. Hill.
It’s called “Blue’s Blues:”
“I once bought a beautiful blue roan filly off a range in Wyoming, where she and all of her ancestors had been raised roaming thousands of acres….she was a fine student (but) she had trouble adapting to confinement.
“In the two years I owned her, I turned her out on pasture more than any horse I had and as much as our land would allow. There were times, though, when the pastures had to rest and I had to house her in a large pen like all of my other horses who, by the way, were as happy as clams under the same management.
“At our place each horse has his own pen and all are roomy, but some are larger than others.
Blue had the largest pen of all the horses.
“Even with daily work sessions and exercise, however, she developed two odd behaviors that eventually prompted me to sell her so she could return to the open range and become a broodmare.
Blue’s stereotypes were unique and they intensified the longer she had to live in a pen.
The first was odd and noisy but not particularly damaging. She would hang her head over the top of the panel of her pen and bob her head up and down rapidly and with great force, not just once or twice, but for hours.
“This made a racket as the panels clattered, and the obsessive behavior wore a bald spot on the underside of her neck. Even putting her in a pen made of the tallest panels on the market at the time, 5’6, didn’t deter her.
“…Every morning when we got up to do chores, we wondered what configuration we would find Blue in that day.
She started out lying right next to the panels and putting her legs outside the pen. We blocked the base of the pen with railroad ties and granite rocks to prevent her from being able to stick her legs out.
Then she somehow managed to get her legs out above the rail road ties and rocks, so that her body was quite a bit lower than her legs.
Even when all of the spaces were blocked so that she couldn’t get her legs out at all, she would still roll along the side of the pen and become cast.
“Later, she seemed to be cast in the middle of the pen.
Often there would be two or three bowel movements under her tail where she lay. A sight strange enough to strike fear in the heart of any horse owner!
No matter how or where we housed her, Blue continually cast herself, often requiring us to dismantle pens or other facilities to free her.
Although this made her a constant management concern, my real worry was her health, because lying down for more than a couple of hours can be very dangerous for a horse.
“For this reason alone, I reluctantly sold her, but I made sure it was to someone who had enough land for her to be out in a broodmare band.
“I’m glad to report that years later, she is still happy in her range life, and she has raised wonderful foals each year for her new owner.” (2)
Interesting and talk about losing sleep.
Much like butterflies, fireflies, or bees or salamanders who don’t want to be held captive in Mason jars by little human beings who are just so absolutely fascinated by them. Perhaps there is a little bit of “Free Spirit” in all of us, much like Blue the horse.
Leaving you to ponder wide, open, country spaces with big, blue, beautiful skies full of wind and birds and butterflies, and a happily smiling sun, to the immortal words of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, “Happy Trails to You.”
1: “Wide Open Spaces,” performed by the Dixie Chicks
2: “How to Think Like a Horse,” by Cherry Hill, Storey Publishing, MA, USA