Terrapin Horse Center

Talking Turtle

Around the bend:

Sitting under the grape arbor watching smoke drift without sound;

the dogs are working slowly for the sweetened grapes that have fallen on the ground.

Findel's collar stuck in vines, and he's pulling and tugging to get to me,

and the grapes are falling down as their hold on life is torn and their set free...

You can't blame the grapes for letting go, or the dogs for doing what they know

their job is to eat and be your friend;

It's just one more thing to ponder on the road that's sure to take me round the bend.

Witches in the kitchen, New Moon Essence brewing flowers all abound;

The guides for magic invoked, once their called are also happy to be around.

Drawing, driving good through indigo tornados, the girls put love in every step that they take.

Their quest for natures healing, blends the love that their feeling for Good-ness sake.

It may seem strange from where you stand, that love is dealt this awkward hand

but love of money poisons all we're sent;

It's just one more thing to ponder on the road that's sure to take me round the bend.

Sometimes good is bad and common sense ain't so common after all.

A guy won a million dollars and turned up dead like a crack whore in a stall.

His chinese fortune cookie said "the early bird always gets the worm"...? Oh pleeease!

They make those things in Brooklyn, where the second mouse always gets the cheese.

Common is as common does, just do things purely out of love

and play your hand the best way that you can;

and know that every time you smile, that all your cards are wild

in the big game that's been playing around the bend...

Stall Muckers Lament:

The rain has been fallen, three days in a row

the horses been in with nowhere to go

with muck rake and bucket, I charge toward the day

my work effort carries manure away

Yodelee ee ohh ee, yodelee ee ohh

The Nazis predict the weather at six

the chances are heavy we'll get pelted with bricks

the bosswomen say's the horses must stay

in the stalls one more night and to throw them more hay

Yodelee ee ohh ee, yodelee ee ohh

I am a stall mucker this is my lament

I love what I do but it don't pay the rent

so I sleep in a stall where the bedding is clean

Come back in the morning to relive my dream

Yodelee ee ohh ee, yodelee ee ohh

My friends please don't laugh if you think I am wrong

just whinny a little along with the song

I sing cause I'm happy to spend my time so

in service to nature where ever I go

Yodelee ee ohh ee, yodelee ee ohh

Hay Sales:

We spend effort selling hay, not because it’s the easiest way to earn a billion dollars, but because it is the easiest way for us to help our herd. Hay kicks my booty; get’s dust in my eyes and beats me down like Rodney King on his worst day… Just do the math; 40 lb bales, 40 ‘ connex box, 53’ trailer, the only two variables being temperature ( I pray for cool), and how much stuff’s going to get in your eyes. Throw in gravity and feel the burn. I know, this may sound like Chinese calculus, but let it suffice to say, that there are other, easier ways to reel in my next Lear jet payment, than being a hay distributor; right off the bat I’m thinking boxing or eye gouging contests; at the end of the day there’s going to be pain, but at least you won’t get hay in your eyes…! Regardless, the horses eat hay, and we’re happiest when they are, so it’s our desire to have the best hay (for them) that we can find.

People say the best hay comes from the colder climates; using Clinton speak the question would be what “best” means…we’ve had Canadian alfalfa backing up our little driveway with 75 pound wire bales…if the Wendy’s triple sandwich is the heart stopper, then those Canadian monster’s were spine twisters or hand shredders… the horses loved the alfalfa; it mixed their natural fiery attitude with that crazy wild fence ripping invigoration…where all the horses seemed to be standing on their toes, even Justin “Ponyboy” was fierce, he’d holler “hhhhrrruum-m-m-pphh” which best I can tell means “give me more man, I need it ba-a-a-d”... The “lab rat on crack look” aka  the Canadian alfalfa blend, had to go, and with it took a heaping helping of unscheduled fence repairs… free trade or not, for sanity’s sake.

Like many Ma and Pa Kettle hay outlets, we bring in tractor trailers with bulged sides, stuffed with bales, still cool from their trip from Yankeeville (anywhere North of Kinston as the crow flies).  Our horses prefer a heartier cold weather grass blend, so that’s what we go after…it’s all about happiness. Bring in a Philadelphia lawyer, and I’d probably break down crying crocodile tears that I wasn’t absolutely sure that a timothy/alfalfa/orchard blend wasn’t the perfect grass to feed our horse/friends…  I can’t tell you much about the nutritional characteristics of the various hays, but I’ve got people that you’d have to shoot to shut up, that would tell you that our hay blend provides triple the nutrition and 1/3 the bloating as some of the coastal grass.   If you want facts from me, you need to ask me about the pain associated with stacking those bales of horsey love.

Hay (like lumber) is fully capable of delivering that special mind/body, beat down experience (m/bbde), dragging bales in one direction, wiping eyes on the way back, all the while longing for the phantom “back of the trailer”, like a big gulp drinking tourist on a crowded parade route, looking for a porto-john; desperate eyes… Truthfully, through experience, like a good boxer I’ve learned how to slip some punches and not get outright pummeled by the hay, but not the supporting cast who I’ve heard gasp like Don Knotts in the “Ghost and Mr. Chicken”, using that not so quiet silent shriek, when the trailer’s back doors were opened.

The art of extracting bales from over stuffed, bulging walls is like wrestling teeth out of a walrus’ mouth…Not really, but there’s a lot of pulling and tugging and clawing going on. Some try to block the pain with small talk or singing but the word “forlorn” was penned for the 50’ look down that trailer when there’s still one more wall of “horsenip” to bring down. When it comes to fighting a load of hay it can be an ear biting “no holds barred” match to the near death (for which I’m the reigning Terrapin champion… I know someone will read this and be saying, “he ain’t nothing, Me and Zeke can outstack him!” I say the proofs in the pudding, I’ve got my average time; you want to be the Terrapin Champion “you just come on over and unload one of dem dare tractor trailers and I’ll let you know how you done”. I know that sounds/reads pretty redneck but hay stacking is not a real cerebral task.

Hay delivery day reminds me of walking home from school with a bad report card. Knowing the beating is on the way; Like Pavlov’s slobbering Fido, I twitch and avert my eyes at the sound of an 18 wheeler. I think there are hay delivery drivers that have the same twitch when they go past long crooked driveways like ours. Our nightmare driveway kicks and bends around the garden and magnolia… it’s “S” curve serves like a sobriety check point for the over the road drivers who’ve spent at least the last 12 hours living in their truck. The last guy told me how lucky I was that he was the driver, “nobody else could ever make it…” then he zigged instead of zagging and spun instead of moving. The ways of “the humble” are learned by transporters in driveways just like ours.

My favorite driver sounded like a savant in the movie “Rainman”. Like Dustin Hoffman, he meticulously quoted chapter, verse and back story on the top 10 healing and diet books he read while visiting his mother in the hospital. A “big Mac” woofing couch potato would say “he shoots at loons”… but he was clearly the best/smartest driver I’ve yet to experience.

Regardless of how you slice humanity; hay business or hair salons or running around the country like Forrest Gump did in the movie (not the book), you’re bound to run into all types of experience, and you know what they say, “experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want”. Now there’s something to write about…