A Post Wagon Train Tale...

Warning! Today's post is exceptionally long, but filled with great pics and even a video! So grab a BIG cup of tasty beverage and enjoy!

Having left the Alabama Wagon Train, you would have thought that was the end-all of our amazing journey, but that was only half the story...while thinking I was walking on clouds, I didn't realize that, indeed, I would have to wait to die and go to heaven amongst EIGHTY equines--and the amazing people who owned them, Joe and Cindy Bullard, who lived a few hours from where we stopped with the wagon train. And as magnificent as it all turned out to be, it started off badly.

Let me preface this by saying that I was totally at fault, and while the world runs rosy around here, I DO have human moments in which I get crabby over very specific things. In this case, the combination of low sleep, and cold weather and chilled and numb wet toes had slowly but surely worn me down into a crochety creature. By the time we were set to meet Joe and Cindy in a Mexican restaurant near their home, I'm sure I looked like some space creature zonked out on something--even I could feel my lids drooping and a massive headache coming on.  Poor Kira, my friend, took my momentary snarking about our seating arrangement very kindly, and we moved away from the doorway, which was letting the unusually cold temperatures into the room.

Joe and Cindy arrived soon after--they were a lovely couple--funny, gracious, witty. Both have been "horse people" (though they owned all sorts of equines), for years and years, Joe was particularly entrenched in that world, both showing and judging horses all over the country, professionally. He has the winning mare from the world congress, a massive black Percheron, and he's been interviewed any number of times for magazines, television--heck, he would be your guy. Cindy is no slouch either, and has spent many years working with horses, in cattle lots--she seems like a tough cookie, though she is probably one of the most put together, beautiful people I have met. 

We talked much about farming, horses, and more over dinner--and then we drove over to their farm. Nightfall hit but even in the darkness, I knew well that this farm was HUGE. A storybook farmhouse wended next to stalls, in the dark I could hear the nickering of horses--as with most farms I have seen--a gaggle of dogs and cats run up the drive to greet our cars as they arrived.

Their house was beautiful, and it was clear that Joe and Cindy loved animals--their living room housed a huge cage with an Amazon Parrot and a grumpy little Quaker parrot. Besides the horses, I would later find they had a pet pottbelly pig that roamed at will, and various farm fowl.

I spotted this lucky little sow the next morning...

I think her name is Puddles. Upon closer inspection...little may not be the best descriptive term for her!

The barnyard gang...

Equally enchanting was the second farm house, across the street from theirs, that was his grandmother's--he had left it just so, after her death, and this sweet little house had her photos, her old couch, the original kitchen setup, and cute beds with funky dated bedspreads that at once screamed '70's and then far earlier (did someone say old metal framed bed?).  I was afraid to touch anything, frankly; there was something sacrilegious about touching someone's private things.  By that time, I was too tuckered out for much. While Kira went back to chat with our lovely hosts, I collapsed into bed, not sure what awaited me the next day.

It wouldn't be long to find out. I awoke, hazy, to an unfamiliar sound. Halfway asleep, it sounded like it could be the engine to some exotic farm implement---but no! It was the braying of a donkey! There he was, right outside the window, in a tiny field with electric fencing, gone unnoticed the night before, in the darkness.

My equine alarm clock....

Once I scrambled outside (and everyone was already afoot with chores), the vista and beauty of the place was like a gut punch--it was suddenly and amazingly beautiful--the large barns, various draft mares and babies in outdoor pens, another pen with a ginger-toed Mamoth Donkey foal, turkeys, chickens..the works.

And there would be much more--EIGHTY equines must be fed, check on, and at least looked at, since Cindy and Joe would be giving us a tour of their animals, housed in various pastures around their home. Before I could fathom the magnitude of it all, we were OFF!
First up: a pasture with various woolly donkeys and a rogue horse here and there.

Serious Long Ears...

Joe and Cindy often have soft hearts and will take in a few straggly animals, or go to auction to save them. 

This paint horse seems to want Kira's filming job...

The donkey in the back was rescued and is given TLC by Cindy...

I was already impressed with the tour, but we were far from done. The next field would be lovelier, and would hold a surprise for both Kira and I. We drove for several minutes until we were in front of a long, sloping pasture. Several horses on the hill quickly came down to us (I would find all of Cindy and Joe's horses came to them, even the stallions! You could tell they all loved their owners)--most of them were drafts!

A lovely black Percheron mare greets us...

And Kira was there to see a special mule (did I happen to mention Kira might have an addiction interest in mules?)...the daddy of her OWN mule, Marshall, is owned by Cindy and Joe!

 Marshall's "big daddy" and Kira...

Across the street, the neighbor's NON equines glared at us...

One of Cindy's beauties...a sweet white mare....

We were there to replace some mineral feed for the horses. I was told to guard a bag of it. I then became quite popular as this Perch tried to get to the bag...

The real time view!

Another Perch grazing...

 And a great shot of the horse in front of their little historic log cabin, also on this lot....

I loved petting and being close to these mammoth creatures. Each of them came up to us, curious, but completely behaved and gentle. I was grateful, as I'm not sure if I would be prepared for any sort of rough housing from these behemoths. But they were tame as kittens, and stunning to look at. The day was magnificent...and we weren't half through....

To be continued..