Uncle Charlie and Aunt Eileen had a grown daughter of their own, but she was married and living in another town. I think they missed having young folks around and so they "adopted us". Uncle Charlie, in particular, enjoyed watching our antics as we played in the neighborhood. Every winter, he and Aunt Eileen looked on from their living room window as we flew down the slope of their pasture on our Flexible Flyer sleds. That pasture was a wonderful place to sled because there was a natural spring at the top which ran down the gentle hill. It turned to ice in the winter and added quite a bit of speed to our sled runs.
As far as I knew, Uncle Charlie was retired, but he did do a bit of "stock keeping". He owned about six cows, a few chickens, possibly a goat and four horses: Canyon Maid, Johnny Mac, Swanee (like the River and song) and Stinky. I think Stinky had another name but he lost it due to his mischievious disposition. Uncle Charlie was an unconventional farmer. He didn't have a barn per se, it was more of an "agricultural sculpture". It was a collage of pallets, old doors, discarded sheets of plywood, wooden headboards and anything else he could find. I only know this because occasionally my brother Stephen and I would take care of Uncle Charlie's animals when he and Aunt Eileen went on vacation and we'd have to get into the "barn". That was a feat unto itself. I remember having to untie baling twine to open "gates" or crawling over "walls" to get into the various animal enclosures. It was a real treasure hunt to collect the eggs.
Because of the unique construction of his barn and fencing, now and again Uncle Charlie's cows would wander. One of their favorite places to explore was the nine hole community golf course located nearby. When this occurred, Uncle Charlie would get out his trusty, WWII calvary saddle, tack up his horse Swanee and head out to round up his AWOL cows. Golfers on the course were treated to the sight of an older, slightly balding, portly gentleman, astride an ancient, pie-bald mare, chasing 5 or 6 loose bovines across their pristine fairways. Compared to this hazard a sand trap must have seemed like a piece of cake.
Undaunted by the challenges of raising cows, Uncle Charlie decided to expand his operation with the addition of two pigs. That summer morning, my friends Holly, Jeff, Chuck, Nancy and I were seated on the grass in Holly's front yard probably discussing where we would play hide and seek that evening. All at once, we heard Uncle Charlie beckon us from across the street. We looked up to see him troting towards us. He stopped, panting slightly, and asked us if we could help him catch two pigs he had just acquired. Apparently, somewhere between unloading them from his truck and ushering them into their new patchwork home, they had escaped and were now exploring the neighborhood. Well, he didn't have to ask us twice. There's is nothing quite like a pig hunt to enliven an otherwise quiet afternoon. Let me just stop here and say, that attempting to capture two terrified pigs in a rural neighborhood on a hot, humid summer day is not as easy as it sounds. You wouldn't think so, but pigs are surprisingly fast. I think Jeff may have come closest to completing the task, when he dove at one of the pigs as it zoomed past him and managed to grab and hold onto a hind leg for about five seconds. Mostly, we just chased them across yards and through bushes for the remainder of the afternoon. I believe Uncle Charlie may have attempted to lasso one them at one point but to no avail.
In the end, we just tired them out and managed to herd them toward and into Uncle Charlie's truck. He slammed the tailgate shut, hopped into the cab and drove the pigs to the market that day. As far as pigs were concerned, he decided to quit while he was ahead. That evening, I imagine he told Aunt Eileen that bacon from the supermarket was just fine with him.
MULE AND A HALF
7x5 inches, oil on linen canvas, 2016
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Mule and a half - auction ends on Sunday, April 24th at 9:00am PST.
These mules at one time lived at the same barn where I board my horse Mac. They are funny critters with incredibly raucous voices. Mules are the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. I believe the whole mule pictured was the result of a Quarter Horse/donkey cross and the “half a mule” was the progeny of a Tennessee Walking Horse/donkey cross.
