The Jolly Rancher: The Blind Leading The Blind

  • Tuesday, May 26, 2015
  • Jen Jeffrey
Jen Jeffrey
Jen Jeffrey

What a special mother’s day MONTH it has been as one of my son’s recently moved to Kentucky! My youngest son Andrew, the 26-year-old soldier who was deployed in Iraq in 2010-2011 has been out of the Army for a few years now and it was a good time in his life for Jason and me to offer the ranch house.

Aside from his patriotic passion of serving his country, Andrew has loved farm life since he was a little boy and I remember watching the movie “8 Seconds” with him numerous times as we echoed the phrase “Cowboy Up.” Andrew loves the farm life.

I had first thought of having my twins move to Kentucky just because they visited and mentioned they really loved the idea of living here, but then they both had gotten promoted in their jobs within a month of each other and it was God’s timing that Andrew’s life opened up the opportunity for a change.

On Mother’s day weekend Jason and I went to Chattanooga to help Andrew and his wife Stephanie with the move (along with Miss Ellie Cheyenne - one of my little grand darlins who just turned four and I haven’t gotten to see very often). Ellie still remembers going to ride Smokey back when she was just two years old and she has loved horses ever since. She is a tough little girl with hardly any fear and I can just see her growing up at the ranch and becoming a barrel racer!

It was a perfect solution. Jason and I didn’t need the ranch house to live in, so we wanted to share it with our family and we could use a hard worker willing to do the things I cannot. It was a perfect fit for the Carter family too. Andrew has taken to the ranch like a fish to water. He was good with Smokey whenever he came out to Hidden Hills when I lived in Chattanooga and I knew he would be a great help at our ranch.

The only problem I saw us having would be fighting over who would get to use my new tractor!

 At first Andrew seemed more interested in the four wheeler when he knew the tractor didn’t go very fast, but once he got on the tractor and started using it for the projects I had planned, he loved it.

Yes, the John Deere is my baby …but so is Andrew so I trusted that he is no longer the 17-year-old kid who left the house early half-cocked and ready to join the army. He was now a husband, a daddy and he has seen a lot more in life than I could ever know overseas. He is still young, but he is a man and I believed God gave us this time to build a close relationship that we once had.

And now I also have a daughter to be close to. I had been thinking about the difference in relationships with ‘mothers and sons’ than with ‘mothers and daughters’ and though I loved having all boys while they were growing up, the bonding women do as they get older (which I experienced with my mother and sisters) was not the same with my sons when they became men. It was great to have a daughter here who I could now bond with.

Ellie Cheyenne has twin half-sisters (Lacey and Macey) who live with their father, but are already teenagers and that leaves her with an ‘only child’ routine each day. Playing dolls with mommy or playing with her pup “Peanut” didn’t seem to be enough for her fearless spirit. Ellie Cheyenne needed to be at the ranch to satisfy her love for horses she already developed.

The twins packed a bag and came with us as we moved the Carters to Kentucky and got them settled. The first week was more introductory than anything as we did very little at the ranch and visited with each other more. Granny Peggy (Jason’s mom) loved the twins and was fascinated that they were already taking college courses at age 15 and when they graduate they will already have their associate’s degree. I believe Granny Peggy hoped they would consider going to MSU when they go for their bachelors.

Last weekend, we attended the wedding of my niece and were able to take Stephanie’s twins back to Chattanooga. When we came back we got started with routines and new projects at the ranch.

Since the girls who rented the house have moved out, we only have one person who comes and helps at the ranch. Taylor wanted to stay on to help feed the horses and clean stalls while she is still attending MSU in their vet program. Taylor barrel races and Ellie Cheyenne has become her little shadow. She loves to help her new friend Taylor feed the horses each day.

When Taylor had gone home to Chicago after school let out, it was up to Andrew and me to feed the horses. It isn’t hard for me to feed my own, but mine are not ‘athletes’ who do eventing so feeding the boarder’s horses is quite different and there is a notebook in the barn that list what supplements they need and which horse needs to be in a stall and when. Mine are always out in the pasture and they eat very little feed.

Andrew had watched Stasha feed and he got the routine down pat in no time. Stasha is one of our boarders with the most ‘high maintenance horse’ named Bette. Taylor was away when we went to Chattanooga to get Andrew, so Stasha filled in and when we got back to KY we took over. We could have just let her keep it up until Taylor came back later that week, but Andrew and I felt we needed to learn that part just in case we ever had to do it.

Feeding wasn’t so bad, I fed my horsies while Andrew fed the boarder’s horses and then we shared cleaning the stalls. When it came of taking care of Miss Bette and putting her ‘fly sheet’ on… we were both in left field.

I had put a blanket on Smokey before, but Bette’s fly sheet was different than the blanket he had. All I knew was the buckles were supposed to go through the hind legs and Andrew didn’t have it that way. I helped him there and together somehow we had it on her. We laughed at our novice experience with the English-riding boarders, but Andrew and I are so much alike when it comes to believing in ourselves to do something (even if we don’t know how) that we have our high-five moments as we attempt these new things together. And, if we make a mistake … we are good to both learn together without blaming the other.

Some people learn by reading and studying and Andrew and I learn by doing. We figure if we just jump in we are bound to learn how to do something as we go – and I think we both like it that way because it offers more adventure!

The downside to this mentality is sometimes dealing with consequences of how we learn – which can result in costly or painful mistakes, but… we DO learn and it usually sticks the first time!

Jason has been so supportive with this whole ranch idea and though he isn’t one who likes to get his hands in it as much as he likes to do the business part… (the studying, the providing and making financial decisions) he has been great to equip me with what I need to run the ranch.

The biggest purchase for equipment so far has been the tractor and manure spreader which has been a major help, but it is a lot to remember EVERY little thing about each piece of equipment if you are novice.

I will read directions first off, but then I just get in there and do it. It seemed simple to take off the manure with my tractor and spreader, but I recently learned I was doing something wrong. The whole reason we chose the spreader we purchased was the dolly wheel feature (along with the spreader being stainless steel).

The dolly wheel saves us from having to use a jack or having to deal with the weight of the spreader as we hook it up to the tractor. As I take off the manure the dolly wheel is supposed to raise up. I didn’t know that.

I did know that it needed to be raised so I used the lever on my tractor to raise the back hitch-thing which lifted the dolly wheel up maybe a foot, but that was it.

When I showed Andrew my expertise in having taken off the manure all of the three times I had done it, he asked about the dolly wheel. Sometimes new equipment sticks or is hard to move so when he tried to pull a pin that release the wheel’s lock-in-place mechanism and it didn’t budge, he took my word for it that ‘it must not lift up’ and he didn’t want to force anything in case he was wrong (like his Mama, he has learned by ‘breaking things’ at times).

I have no idea if the few times I had taken off the manure over the rough fields by the ponds caused the split in the metal around the hitch and tongue or if Andrew did it the time that he had taken it off for me, but there is nobody to blame. It is just something new ranchers have to learn. We will probably need to have it welded before it gets worse, but it isn’t bad.

When Andrew had pointed out to me that it had a crack in it, Jason was on his way down to the ranch and I took off a load of manure. Andrew must have told Jason about it because in no time Jason came to the pond and motioned for me to stop so he could look at it. He knew to pull the pin and lift the wheel up and told me to ‘just be sure to read directions’ (That was the brunt of my scolding … he is such a good man).

I made the trip around the pond with the spreader and it worked just fine, but I felt bad about Jason purchasing the equipment and it has not even been a month before it got its first scar. When I got back to the ranch I was not used to having the dolly wheel ‘up’ and as I unhitched the spreader it came down hard with a THUNK … right onto my left foot.

In the process I must have tried to grab it and cut my thumb and blood was everywhere. My son came running, to help me and saw the blood. He thought I cut my thumb off, but it was just a small gash. It was a really good gash though because it would not stop bleeding. I was more worried about my foot because the imprint of the hitch was on the top of my boot with a small hole going all the way through and …my toes were numb.

It hurt like the dickens, but after the pain subsided I couldn’t feel the tips of two of my toes and I wondered if it cut the tips off. I hobbled over the porch and Stephanie got me a rag for my thumb while I took off my boot to examine my piggies. They were all intact. I wiggled them to make sure they were not broken and they seemed fine… just still numb on the tip. So I put my boot back on and walked it off until I got feeling back in them.

Andrew and I still had a lot of work to do so I wasn’t quite ready to call it quits. I went into the barn and got the first aid kit for horses and applied iodine to the gash on my thumb and found gauze and … duct tape. It was makeshift triage, but it worked for this rancher and as Ellie Cheyenne says when she gets hurt, “It’s okay, I’m tough!”

Andrew had begun a project of pressure washing a stall so, I helped him as we had to get water out of the stall after he was through.

Jason had brought a sump-pump to the ranch earlier and we tried to use it, but it wouldn’t pull the water and the motor was hot from the start. So Andrew went to our house to get the wet vac, but when he returned and we tried to use it, it wouldn’t suck up the water either.

I took a broom to sweep the water out and Andrew grabbed a flat head shovel and like the blind leading the blind we both vowed that we may need to form a plan for the things we attempt before we attempt them.

The stables were built ten years ago and though I love how they look, the one thing I think needs to be different is that the stalls are about three inches lower than the middle of the barn. I have found with hard rains or the hard winter we had last year that water can seep in, so I want to raise the stall floor with concrete or ‘crusher run’ and make it all level.

Trying to sweep water out of an entry way that is only three inches high was not fun. We were so tired and the whole day just didn’t seem to be our friend. We were ready to ‘clock out at the end of a hard day’. There are many things we want to change at the stables, but some are costly or time consuming and it will take all of this year to do the first few things that will need to be done.

It is wonderful having Andrew here to do the hard labor things that I cannot do and he loves it. It will just be a matter of me or him me not killing ourselves (or each other). I think the most important thing next on our list of things to do needs to be… to get a first aid kit.

jen@jenjeffrey.com

 

Andrew Carter welcomed as caretaker at Grace Reins
Andrew Carter welcomed as caretaker at Grace Reins
Latest Headlines
Happenings
Michael Gerard Receives American Police Hall Of Fame Civilian Medal Of Appreciation
Michael Gerard Receives American Police Hall Of Fame Civilian Medal Of Appreciation
  • 3/18/2024

Collegedale officers responded to Garden Plaza of Greenbriar Cove on Sept. 21, 2023, after receiving a report of a missing elderly resident with dementia. The patient had left the facility approximately ... more

New Hamilton County Marriage Licenses
  • 3/18/2024

Here are the new marriage licenses from the County Clerk's office: SCOTT EDWARD KELLEY JAIMIE LYNN PASTORI 2205 JAMES AVE 4203 TENNESSEE AVE CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee 374156511 CHATTANOOGA, ... more

Chief John Ross DAR Presents Gold ROTC Medal
Chief John Ross DAR Presents Gold ROTC Medal
  • 3/18/2024

Chief John Ross Chapter, NSDAR had their March meeting on the 13th, and the meeting theme was Women’s History Month. Officials said, "Chapter member, Kay Sencabaugh, presented an entertaining ... more