I can remember watching my grandfather farm his place with horses when I was 7yrs old. He was just old fashioned and liked horses. In the early 70's while home from college for part of a summer I greased up the old horse drawn manure spreader and got it working just for fun.... and that really was fun. We forked a bunch of straw and horse manure into it and I pulled it around a field with a little Ford N-series tractor I borrowed. I'm pretty sure Grandpa was watching and approved. That old spreader still worked just fine.

David is coming back for another round of coon hunting tonight. Hope they bring bullets this time.

Both of my grandfathers were dead before I was born, but my Pop befriended an old southern gentleman who had a small farm that we loved to frequent. He had been a professional baseball player in his youth (mostly Texas League, but he did have a very short stint pitching for the Philadelphia Athletics) and he knew Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker. Gosh he had the stories! He was also a coon hunter and trapper. His coon hounds were legendary in the area (near Williamsburg, VA) and I fell in love with them. I still recall the names of those dogs -- Music, Driver, Sputnik, and Stupid. Stupid was my favorite, and he went squirrel hunting with me and my brother, much to the chagrin of my surrogate grandfather. I can still hear him telling my Pop (with a wink and smile), "Gawden, them boys dun ruint my dawg." When he died his widow wanted to give me Stupid, but my parents thought he would not do well kept in a small yard. It was hard for a 7 year old boy to take.

The influence of that gentleman was profound on me, and I can still remember so many things about him to this very day, even though I was very young at the time. Thank Gawd for good memories.

what a great memory...i would like to have heard those stories about ty cobb...coon hunting is additive like parkers...charlie

Sometimes grandpa's forget the bullets on purpose.

I grew up with teams of horses and mules. I miss those gentle giants. When I lived in England there were public plowing contest with teams of draft horses and other country delights to view between pub hours.