Horseshoe's blog: Drought?: For Dave, Trish, and the Texans...

Howdy, Folks...



I hear Dave, Trish, and a few other Texans got a sprinkling of rain today and/or yesterday.  Finally!  After months of drought,  months of wondering, months of staring up into the skies both near and far they get to witness a pay-off!.  Congrats on any little sprinkle you've received;  I wish for you to get more.



Now lookee here, lemme tell ya something. Lemme tell ya something important.  Mainly because I've been there, done that, solved it!  (Or so we think...) *grin



Your needence of rain reminds me of something that happened yrs ago, right here on MoonDance Farm in the great state of North Carolina.  Ya see..



When I first bought this land it was all woods and nothing else. Although my land is only ten acres I’m surrounded by several hundred acres that belong to others. My land and the surrounding lands at that time were mostly woods, pasture, creeks and very few houses. At that time I was like Dan’l Boone in what was then “seclusion”.  I cleared the land by hand for two years and as a way to relax I played music to my goats and chickens, usually when my workday was coming to a close. The thing is, having no electricity the music was me beating on two 55-gallon drums with two dogwood sticks.  As an ex-percussionist I could really create some great sounds hitting top, sides, and ‘hot spots’ on those barrels.  The chickens learned the “Poultry Boogie”, the Nubian goats learned to shake their low-slung ears back and forth to the beat as if those ears were long hairbraids and me, well, I learned that I enjoyed being the band, the conductor, and the song writer all combined.



All the while this phase of entertainment went on I thought no one for miles around could possibly hear.  Yep, the chickens, the goats and I were having our own personal party. I found out weeks later I was mistaken.



The Datsun pick-em-up truck I drove at the time, a precurser to what is now called a Nissan, had no back window, no heater, and the engine was only about the size of a Singer sewing machine, a real putt-putt vehicle.  I couldn’t do much about the size of the engine and had no money for a rear window but I knew I had to come up with some heat in some form or fashion.  Driving at top speed, 45 miles an hour, 6 days a week to my city job 22 miles away while freezing wasn’t the most pleasant way to spend an hour a day.  What’s this have to do with beating on home-made drums just to entertain myself, my chickens and goats, and getting caught at it?  Hang on, it gets better.



Being new to the neighborhood took quite a while to be accepted by the locals. I was the proverbial “stranger in a strange land” even though I felt right at home.  No doubt I looked strange to the locals. Ya see, my hair was a bit longer than most of ‘em wore theirs, my beard was trimmed, unlike others who had beards, and my mustache was kept above my upper lip never interfering with food intake nor hanging on to “souvenirs of the food world”, if ya know what I mean. 



Unfortunately my strangeness usually caused quietness each time I walked into Butch’s Quick Stop for a soda and some Nabs, or to pay for some gas.  Ya see, Butch’s was where all the local big boys hung out, sharing their lives for a few minutes, having a chaw, doin’ some friendly back slappin’.  Each time I walked in it seemed social activity came to a halt and all eyes were upon me. After a couple of times it didn’t matter to me, I’m pretty good understanding human, inhuman, and unhuman nature.  Whatever happened was okay with me and I always smiled, spoke howdy, got my goods or paid for gas, usually making a jovial comment and then went on my merry way.



Months into the drought - remember, this writing started out about a drought - the weather started getting colder at night.  Brrr… and heck, it was bad enough I was living in a trailer with no water, no electricity, and minimal heat.  What compounded the situation was my Datsun had none of those either.



One day I pulled into Butch’s and got my couple-of-days-worth of gas, a cuppa coffee and with some change bought some 5¢ fireballs, cinnamon-flavored candy, a.k.a. jawbreakers.  And these were the bigguns, too, nearly the size of a golf ball!  I spent a whole quarter on ‘em, walking out with a shirt pocketful.  Once in my truck I put one in my cheek and headed to town.  As I drove on and as the fireball kicked in I noticed I was getting pretty warm.  My neck veins started popping out, my nose started running, my eyes were watering, my forehead was sweating! All this going on in 38º weather. Heck, it might’ve possibly been colder than that due to the wind chill within the truck.  No back window, remember?  Boy-howdy, I just invented my heater system!



As the days wore on I sometimes drove into town with two fireballs in my mouth, one in each cheek.  Those were the coldest of times; those were the best of times. Yep, I was “chipmonkin” my way down the highway, both cheeks poofed out like a rich squirrel with a load of acorns, often to the shock or bemusement of folks lookin’ at me from outside my Datsun.


Now, about that drought curation I keep trying to tell ya’ll about…




Ya see, one day in particular, after banging away on those drums and enjoying the chickens dancing and the goats singing along, I decided that before dark time fully kicked in I might go buy some blue soda, a special favorite of mine at the time.  I headed up to Butch’s.  It was cold but only cold enough to requre one fireball in one cheek.  When I walked in to Butch’s some of the local gang were there, each looking at me as I walked in, but no one got quiet.  They kept on talking, several of them nodding their heads at me in an accepting way, and everyone was relaxed.  It was then that I realized I looked like some of them. The way I figger it, that fireball in my cheek made them feel comfortable, made them feel like I belonged, made them think that I, too, had some chawing tobacco in my mouth just like they did.  I didn’t have the heart to tell them it was only candy.  I grinned and laughed right along with them, even allowed a little spittle to dribble down my lip, even answered a few questions they asked and as I heard myself answer it came out garbled, due to the large 5¢ fireball in my cheek.  Apparently they understood each garble I uttered and patted me on the back, guffawing and making me feel right at home. I felt so accepted!



During the little bit of time I was there is when I heard conversation about how the folks over at the Rockin’ B, my neighbors, had been saying I was the cause of their garden getting washed out.  Ya see, we’d finally had rain for the past week or so, the drought ended at last.  And why was I to blame?



It turns out they’d been hearing all the rhythmic beating from my barrel drums from across the way, through the woods, over their pastures and to their eardrums!  (From one drum to another, eh?)  Apparently they discovered my drumming was a rain dance, a ritual.  Yep, they’d heard the beats and witnessed the repercussions and the benefits, up to a point.  When I heard they were perturbed about getting too much rain I quit beating those drums that day.  I’m the neighborly sort, ya know.  I keep thinking about rain dancing, beating on 55-gallon barrel drums.  Use caution, etc. Be neighborly.  I hung up my drums, for a while anyway....



"For a while".  I tried 'for a while' but, but...



...Three years later, during another very hard drought, I think it was in ’89 or 90, I came home from my city job, turned into my driveway and lo and behold!  I came face to face with two 55-gallon drums!  To this day I have no idea if someone just deposited his or her junk on my secluded road or if someone was hinting to me to get busy banging. Once again we needed rain so over the next couple of weeks I beat those barrels till they had more dents in them than Jimma Carter has peanuts.   Couple of weeks later we had rain!



Now, I ain’t insinuating anything but, but…hmmmm…. 



Friend Shoe



Note: This writing offered to all, especially Dave, Trish, and the Texans in drought times.  Oh yeh, and to Billy Hawthorn, someone I will no doubt tell you about one day who certainly deserves mentioning!

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