Coon Dogs and Mud Bogs

Fall has come to Tennessee.

We've had a fairly mild, albeit dry fall this year. It wasn't until this last week that we have had colder nights. Be that as it may, the Weather Channel has us looking at a high of 70 for Friday and Saturday.

I just love this picture. I snapped it on one of my misty morning walks during break.

Horse storiesThis picture is of Twessie, Lil' Vance and Mary's granddaughter. Mary, who gave us Twessie, had stopped by to see how Twes was doing and had her granddaughter with her. So her granddaughter had her very first horse ride on her Granny's old horse.

Just another picture of Twessie in our back yard, looking shiny. We brought the horses over for a couple weeks in order to spray the pasture they were on for weeds. We kept them a little longer than we had originally planned, but we just enjoyed seeing them so frequently.

My horse looking pretty. She's just gorgeous..but I'm biased.


Both "the girls" hanging out in our backyard. Yes, we did actually keep them in our back yard some, even though Raven is brutal on my shrubbery. She operates on the theory if its green, brown, leafy or smells good, then it's edible. If you look in the background of the picture you'll see our new neighbor Charlie's house. He has a 2 acre pasture that needed mowing and the girls volunteered to do it for free. They are just nice that way. It worked out pretty well, because Charlie had his pasture mowed and the horses were right next door for awhile. Eventually they did eat it all down and we had to take them back to their 10 acre home.
Vance and I got up really early, while it was still dark, one Sunday and walked them back all the way down the RR tracks. It was about a 2 mile walk, and some of it was through pasture or yards on the side of the tracks. We were counting on the fact that the train never runs that early, and it didn't.

Here is a picture of Lil' Vance that just cracks me up. The huge grin on his face is because he had a cart full of horse manure. He was extremely proud of himself for picking it all up. But I think he was most excited about the possibility of starting a fertilizer business. We didn't make him go pick it up, he just really, really wanted to. I'm not going to argue with that.

Shane aka: Police Explore

Shane in his police explorer's uniform, working the train robbery in Watertown.

Here he is in front of Watertown police station. The police station extends just about the length of that bench in the picture and includes the door to Shane's right. It is itty bitty. Watertown is currently building a much needed and much larger facility to house the Police Station, Fire Department and ambulance. The building site upset the Saddle Club as it takes up most of their parking for horse trailers. The new facility is located behind our community building and on the same land as the community park, baseball fields, and Saddle Club arena. Watertown High School and Elementary share the sports fields with the city.

Sailboat Re-Painted

Finally I snapped a picture of the sailboat re-painted. We stripped off the cabin to get rid of the light blue, and repainted the hull a dark blue and then top coated everything a nice shiny white. I think we are going to order blue pin striping for the sides. Originally we taped the sides off to paint the stripes and then decided it would be so much easier to get them straight if we just ordered them.

The MUD BOG

Alright now for our big, cultural, adventure for the break. We were invited to our neighbor's brother George's mud bog. This was its official opening night. I just couldn't resist making sure Vance and I took our picture together in front of the mud bog, umm track? I think you'd call it.

When we arrived I contemplated tearing the sleeves off of Vance's T-shirt in order to blend in better with the natives. We were way over dressed for the occasion.


There she is in all her glory. They worked really hard for the 2 weeks prior to opening night, because the other mud bog in Smithville had to close due to noise complaints. George had always wanted to run his own mud bog so he jumped at the chance and started digging it. They actually had done a pretty good job, with seating, concessions, and an announcer's booth.

From Right to Left on the top row is Shane, Adam and Eli, Adam's cousin. Below them are Allie, Adam's other cousin not related to Eli, Tammy, Lil' Vance and Lorelle in the pink shirt.

The first of many trucks for the night. Mostly the only people that actually got stuck, had something break on their trucks, like the axle or the drive shaft. You know minor stuff. Fortunately George had planned ahead for just such an event and an extremely long chain was attached to the rear of each vehicle before they started. This could then be hooked to his large John Deere tractor to pull out said vehicle if such a need arose. The chain was returned to the starting line via a 4 wheeler.

I really feel this picture says it all.
There were kids driving, some as young as 11. Apparently this woman felt that a little mud in her Jeep would match her pink shirt and capris better.

George ran his truck through just for the heck of it. He told the announcer not to make him wait too long in case he ran out of oil. I'm not sure if this was really a joke. The thick cloud of smoke that followed him lingered for about 10 minutes after he'd cleared the... umm track. If you look carefully through the mud you'll see the words HANEY IS BACK printed on his truck door. Everyone calls him Mr. Haney, from Green Acres.
He actually has a beautiful farm. We drove past I don't know how many hundreds of acres of trees, and other plants that he grows for his nursery. I've purchased quite a few trees from him and come spring it looks like I'll be buying a few more from him to replace the ones Raven snacked on.

After the race he came by to give his sister a hug. Lorelle got just as big a kick out of watching her brother race as she did watching Lil' Vance react to the trucks. The announcer would call the name of the next racer "on deck" and then the name of the following racer "in the hole". Lil' Vance finally asked us where the deck was at. I thought it was a good question. Overall it was fun, if you don't mind getting mud on your shoes I'd recommend it for an evening of good... ahem, clean fun.

Coon Dogs

As I promised in my title we did indeed have a coon dog and mud bog adventures on our fall break. Meet Jethro Bodeen. Bo for short. Bo showed up at about 2am night after the yard sale. I know because our dogs went crazy barking and I got up to check what the problem was. I could just see in the yard light a dog wandering around on the road. When I called to it, thinking it was the neighbor's dog, it took off running. I went back to bed and didn't think a whole lot more about it. The next morning when I went out to feed dogs, Hound dog was sleeping close to Jack, our neighbor's dog. I spent most of Sunday morning trying to coax him closer, but with no luck. He was just too scared. I fed him and finally left him alone, as he would only eat when I was at a distance.

That evening I had a plan. We always walk all of our dogs, usually off leash, down the tracks and in the Murphy's field. This time we put everyone, but Duchess on a leash and started walking. Hound dog followed along. He followed so well in fact that he walked right through the gate and into our fenced back yard. We technically had him caught, but were still a long way from catching him.

At first we thought he might have been a wandering hunting dog, but it quickly became apparent that his previous owner had lost him on purpose. He was extremely skittish, and would cower and shake violently when you approached him and touched him. He was so skinny, but he was also so fearful that anything could drive him away from his food bowl, cats and chickens included.

These pictures are after we had him one week, so believe it or not he'd already put on a pound or two.

We've had Bo slightly over a month now and I'd love to say how well he's doing. He has improved in some ways. He now gets really excited about meal times. He'll dance all around and bark and run circles. He still runs back when I put his food in the bowl, but not nearly as far. He'll also let me stand closer (10-15 feet) while he eats. If I walk towards him and say down. He'll lay down, but he still cowers and is scared to be touched or handled. However, he'll lift his head and almost look at me when I talk to him now. Whereas before he was like a dead weight, he'd just freeze and wouldn't move. Bo also, loves walk time. He'll run with the other dogs and stays pretty close to us. Every now and then while we walk he'll come up really close on my heels and put his muzzle in my hand, but only if I'm not looking. Actually yesterday he stepped on my heels a couple times, and I was tickled that he would dare to come that close. Ever so slowly he's getting braver. Hound dog still won't take any treats out of my hand, except for slices of cheese. He's a sucker for those. It looks like Hound dog has found a home. He thinks so anyway. At least at this home he gets to eat regularly and nobody beats him.

And this was my report on my Fall break. I didn't have nearly enough time to do all the many things I wanted and needed to do. I can't wait for Christmas break...maybe I'll get caught up then. Yeah right.