Country Roads Saddle Club

Don't go bragging to Rusty!

It seems that one fellow told Rusty Ritchie that he could ride better than Rusty could. Rusty replied, "I can out ride you backwards!" He proceeded to turn in the saddle and continued up the trail. He may not know where he was going, but he was real sure where he had been.

JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED

Jesse Tomblin

"When I was a kid on the farm, I had horses that were saddle horses, but we worked them. They were brown and white pintos, named Mabel and Cabell. I left the farm at 16 and went to Michigan to work."

"We all worked those horses. They were both saddle horses and they would only go about 900 lbs. But you could put them both together and do a lot of work with them."

"We pulled out mining posts and everything else with them. One was an original stud and the other was a mare."

"I worked for American Car for 15 years. I was welding for a while and I was foreman for the last 12 years. I had to take a medical retirement because of my lungs."

"I always loved horses. Actually I bought Doc for exercise purposes. I named him Doc because the doctor was telling me to exercise. I can’t walk any distance, but I could ride a horse a pretty good ways."

"I went down to Grayson and this old man had him. He had him as a colt. A woman had owned him for three years. I asked, ‘Can I ride him.’ He said, ‘No, let me ride him first because I have only had him back two weeks.’"

"Kenneth Claxon rode him and I knew I was going to buy him. He priced him and I bought him. He was six when I bought him and he would have been eleven this spring. He was sorrel with two white back feet."

"They day before, he was up on the hill and I hollered at him and he came running off the hill. He would actually raise both feet off the ground when I was petting him."

"The only thing I can figure out what happened, lightening hit that horse. He was almost at the top of the hill. He didn’t come in and the next evening he didn’t come in and the next evening they went looking for him. He would miss one night not coming in, but he never missed two. There was a shed back in there and he could get in it."

"Derrick took a four wheeler and turned him over and there wasn’t a spot or mark on him anywhere. He had never pawed the leaves or nothing after he went down."

"If my health gets any better, I’ll probably get another one. I might take that gelding away from Derrick because I can handle that horse. There is not a better horse in the country, but he needs working."

"The best trail ride I went on was up on Route 37. I rode back where I was raised and I had a bunch of good people that I liked. We were gone about six hours. At the end of that ride, that horse started getting stouter. When he seen that trailer, I couldn’t hardly hold him. He was ready to jump right up in it too."

"It has been a while since I was able to ride him, but I enjoyed having him.

I liked the smoothness of him and the way he carried himself. That horse had a lot of professional training. He had to have. He would mind you right out here in this yard in a circle. He could really get with it."

"I swear, I believe Doc enjoyed the ride as much as I did."

Jess passed away early one February. I am sure he has rejoined old Doc and they both are carefree and in great health. The family put a picture of Jesse and Doc on his casket. They were great friends and loved and appreciated each other. At his graveside service, Derrick played a little bit of Jesse’s favorite song. It is George Jones singing "I don’t need your rockin’ chair."

Making a splash!

Melissa Shull said she was so glad she came through the creeks ok on this ride at the club ride at the Lincoln Waterfront Horse Park. On the last ride at Ron Morrison’s house she fell in the creek.

Now Melissa is an extremely well endowed lady and has been accused of being top heavy. She tells of a ride out back of Milton, WV, where they stopped to water their horses. When the horse waded out into the water and lowered his head, she tumbled right over his head and landed in the big water hole!

She said, "The water was four feet deep when I went in and about one foot when I came out. I was wet above the waist." Her cousin said the water didn’t run in that creek for three weeks after that fall!

BE PREPARED

At Olive Hill, Kentucky, last week, as Mose Oppenheimer came in the gate, he saw three men on horses ready to ride.

One man had a brown paper bag in his hand. Mose asked him, "What do you have in the bag?"

The man replied, ‘I brought me a sandwich in case I get hungry."

Mose said, "That’s a good idea. What’s in that jug on your saddle horn?" he asked another rider.

The fellow said, "Water, in case I get thirsty."

One man was holding a car door. Mose asked "Now, what is that for?"

The man replied, "In case it gets too hot, I’m gonna roll the window down!"

Thanks a Bunch!!

If you didn’t get to dig into the dinner at the Fall Festival, you sure did miss a good meal.

Ron Morrison, a club member from Glenwood, is the person to thank for the great ox/pig/deer roast. He was helped out by Don, his father, and Terri, his pretty wife.

Mike Workman, from Chapmanville, was amazed. He said, "I have been to a lot of pig roasts, but that is by far the best that I ever ate in my life." He and many more expressed their appreciation to the chef.

Another man said, "I’ll marry that man in a minute. I’m not doing too good with women and at least I would eat good!"

There must have been 200 or more members, friends, kinfolk and locals at the dinner.

Mose Oppenheimer, from Olive Hill, Kentucky, had just finished stuffing his hide, when Sam Eplin said, "That was real good, but the first ham cooked in foil was the best."

Mose shook his head real easy and added, "Well, if it had been any better than what I just ate, my tongue would have beat my brains out!"

Hot News on Mud River

Melani Adkins

Bobby and Carol Adkins are going into the fire works business up on Mud River. "We have rockets," Bobby reported.

They had taken their camper and went up on McComas Ridge to go deer hunting the first week of season. It was cold at that time of year, especially on the ridge, so they set to hooking up a tank of propane.

"We had a 100 lb propane tank and we were moving it around to hook it up to the camper. We had a big bonfire built beside the camper. JA Adkins was pulling on the end that had the valve. When he was pulling that tank up toward the trailer, he pulled that valve and turned it on.

"The gas shot toward the fire and it got on fire. It was under the camper burning, where I had two empty tanks sitting. It was burning about a 10 or 15 foot blaze.

"I ran up there and hit the valve with a shovel . When I jammed that tank with a shovel and the fire shot right back in my face. I got my hair scorched right real good. The shovel hit it the wrong way and turned it on some more! The flames shot 30 foot in the air and it was screaming about like blowing a gas well off. Boy, we had a fire for a while.

"It was so loud that Vaughn and them heard it at the house and come out there. People at the church could see the fire back on the mountain.

"It was burning right at the end of the trailer. It was real hot and I was trying to roll it away from the trailer. Every time it would turn it over, the pressure would hit the ground and roll it right back under the trailer! I did that about four times before I got it out.

"I finally did get it rolled over and it rolled into the fire barrel!! The fire was real red hot, I had just built it up.

"It burned all of our chairs up sitting there. It melted a plastic milk crate and there was an eagle on the side of the camper and it melted it off.

"I knew in that fire, the tank would probably blow up! I ran out and got a rope out of the truck. I made me a lasso and I lassoed the end of that tank. Me and J A went running across the field with it pulling the tank away from the camper. We got about 20 foot before the rope burnt in two. But that got it away from the camper."

Now for those of you who have watched Bobby, you know that he is not prone to move real quickly. I guess all that it took was proper motivation.

Can’t you just imagine Bobby and JA running at top speed, pulling a 30 foot flaming tank? Wonder just how long that rope was?

It still burned, but at least it was away from everything. The hunt continued.

"I layed in that camper for 3 days. I said that was my tree stand. I kept telling everybody to stay out of my tree stand," Bobby said.

"Out of all that, Carol got her a seven point buck. She about got me killed for it.

"The moral of the story (Bobby’s stories all have morals) is not let 2 or 3 dummies mess with those propane tanks. It will go off like a rocket!

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A WAY OF LIFE

The story about Sadie, the oldest rider in our club.

At the age of 74, Sadie Sloan always wins the prize for being the oldest rider in our club.

Everybody tells her, "I hope I can ride like you when I'm your age."

"I do too," she answers softly.

I asked her, "Do you and Harold have a car or do you just ride."

"Neither one of us can drive," Sadie said. Harold, her son, added, "I can drive but nobody will ride with me."

Sadie explained, "We ride our horses or we just sit at home."

That answered some more of our questions. Sadie and her son live about five miles down the road. They ride up to the park and take the club ride, which might be another five or six hours. Then they ride back home. The next morning Sadie and Harold arrive a half hour before the departure time and it is another day in the saddle. On Sunday, Sadie and Harold took the long, long trip with us. We tied the horses to a tree and sat by the road for lunch. She offered me a cookie. Harold proudly told us, "They are black walnut cookies and she cracked the walnuts herself."

When Eddie awarded her the T-shirt for being our oldest rider at the Fall Festival, he told the crowd, "She rides about 10 miles more than any of the rest of us do!" A big round of applause expressed our admiration.

After the two day ride, Eddie and I decided to stay another day and ride on Monday. We all sat around the registration table in our plastic chairs. Harold noted, "It feels good to sit on something that doesn’t move, don’t it?" Sadie said, "Well, we’ll see you in the morning."

The next morning Eddie woke up with a bad headache. When Sadie and Harold arrived, I told them that Eddie didn’t feel like riding. Harold took his horse to the shelter and Sadie tied the gelding to a tree. They expressed their condolences and sat and talked with me.

After I was admiring Shaker, her 15 year old black gelding, she told me, "When I got him, you could lay your finger between his ribs. They made fun of me for cutting him grass and taking it to him, but now everybody wants him."

"If you have a horse that suits you, you better keep him." I said.

Sadie informed me, "I will. I had a horse that suited me before but a time came when I couldn’t feed him, so I sold him."

Finally Sadie said, "Harold, get your horse and we’ll go on up to Morgan’s." She was referring to her daughter that lived on up the road.

I asked, "How many kids to you have?" "Nine." was the soft answer.

Spry little Sadie swung into the saddle and left the hill with a "Well, we’ll see you next month."

I walked over to the high wall and watched as they crossed the new bridge and turned Coco and Shaker down into the old road that is now covered with water. They rode the short distance to the lake and waded the horses out for a cool drink in the morning sun.

I knew they had seen me watching them when I heard Harold’s coarse laugh. "Heh, heh, heh!" I waved and they turned back to the blacktop road. I could hear Coco’s trot and Shaker’s steady rack as they rode out of sight back into their way of life that the rest of us only get to glimpse as we all go about our busy days of work and worry.

As often as we can, we load up our beloved horses and escape for a couple of days camping with friends and riding the beautiful, peaceful hills of Lincoln County. We admire Sadie’s strength to mount up and ride days at a time. We admire her courage to do so without regard to her age. We all hope we can ride when we are 74.

Sadie hopes we can too.

Update fall of 2004 Chub said his mom still rides but not very far now. "She just wants to ride 4 or 5 hours now!"

Not bad for 82 years old!

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