Tender Years: Jenny

"A grownup is a child with layers on."  -  Woody Harrelson

Peeling back the layers.

Let me preface today's post by saying as a young child, I was incredibly scared of the dark and my parents had a very hard time teaching me to sleep in my own bed.

Fast forward about five years and I am around 8 years old.  We are back in Silsbee, living on Cooks Road.  Not too long after we moved there, being thrilled to have enough land to "garden", Daddy purchased a jenny (female donkey) that was already broke to the plow.  He acquired a "georgie stock", "trapsings", reins and assorted plows and implements.  He was ready to go about gardening the way he remembered it as  a boy.  The place had fences and part of the fenced off land became Jenny's pasture and part was the garden area.

In this old rent house, my bedroom was in the front and the porch ran along in front of it down to the hallway and the front door.  Built long before air conditioning was the norm, my bedroom had four windows, two on the side of the house and two facing the front porch.  This and the fact that every room had two doorways, allowed for making the most of any breezes on hot, muggy summer nights. Like most homes built in the same day, the porch had cement steps leading up to it.

I had outgrown my predisposition to fear in a dark room and was sleeping snug in my bed, which faced the front porch.  Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, I was awakened by "clomp, clomp, clomp" and instantly all the fear of  my younger years came flooding back!!  I was too frightened to yell, too frightened to move as I realized the sound was coming from the front porch!  I lay there waiting to die.  Finally, I got up enough nerve to open my eyes and peek over the covers and out the front windows.  There, staring back at me was a huge, ghostly white face!!!  That spurred me into action.  I hopped out of bed, ran through the connecting bathroom and into my parent's bedroom not even pausing before I leapt into their bed.  There were probably a "damn it' or "what the hell?" being exclaimed by my folks as I hurriedly tried to tell them there was a ghost on the porch and it was after me.

Daddy got up and went to check it out in his pajamas.  He was soon back, laughing at me and telling me it was only Jenny.  She had found a weak place in the old fence and apparently wanted to spend a little more time with us, perhaps see what we did in this house.

Daddy & Jenny plowing when I was about 13 or 14 at our home on  Hwy 1122.

What about you?  Ever afraid of the dark?  Have you ever got to see first hand someone plowing with a "georgie" stock and animal?  Have you ever lived without air conditioning?  Tell me about it!  Or anything else this entry brings to mind.

Thanks for sharing!

Barbara

Jenny

Jenny was her name and a jenny is what she was.  Daddy brought her home when I was about seven years old.  She was white, with a wooly coat in the winter that slicked off nice in the summer.  Then you could see the black of her hide better beneath the hair.  

Daddy used her to plow his gardens  She was a well trained Jenny.  All Daddy had to do was "click, click, click" his tongue and Jenny would try to pull a log through mud up to her belly.  At first, she'd try to eat the tassels off of the corn as she plowed the rows.  Daddy whipped her one time.  And that was all it took.  One look of the whip and she'd pull a straight row and ignore the corn. 

She had a hoof problem as one time that required my parents to pour turpentine on her upturned foot and light it on fire, allowing her to put it to the ground and put it out herself when it became too hot.  Something about the frog growing down too far, beyond the hoof.  

As the years passed and they grew closer, sometimes Daddy would purposefully stop and rest and let Jenny pull an ear of corn or get a mouthful of the Bahia grass that they were clearing out of the garden.  

Feeding Jenny was my first chore I was ever assigned.  A bucket of horse & mule feed.  Make sure her water was topped off.  Give her a pad of hay in the winter months when grass was scarce in her pasture.  

When I was between 11 and 13 years old, I'd try riding Jenny.  Lay on Jenny.  No saddle, just a rope around her neck to hold on to.  I can still recall how she smelt.  I could lay back on top of her with my head on her buttocks.  She could care less.  

Once I decided to ride her down a little side road from the house.  Problem was, I had to cross the ditch to do it.  No one told me the jenny wouldn't walk down and back up the ditch.  No, she bunched up and jumped the ditch!!  I was on my tail in the ditch.  But Jenny stopped and waited for me to climb back on.

The years rolled by.  Daddy was home sick in bed with colon cancer.  Spring came and Jenny would "hee-haw".  And Daddy would holler an answer.  He said she knew it was time to plant.  

Jenny outlived Daddy by about 5 years.  She passed away while I was dating Pete.  No idea how old she was, really.  After all she came from an auction.  My brother-in-law took her and buried her with his backhoe.  

Could be that Jenny and Daddy are turning the rows again, getting a harvest growing for the feast of the Bridegroom.

C is for corn

You thought I was going to say "Caneyhead", didn't you?

No, today I'm talking about corn memories.  Rows of corn growing in Daddy's garden.  Daddy plowing the waist high corn with his jennie.  Jenny trying to grab a bite as they went down the rows.  Daddy stopping at the end of one to lean against the georgie stock and smoke a cigarette, while
rewarding a good Jenny with a niblet ear.

Once Daddy was sure there was a coon visiting our garden.  Every day he'd find one or two stalks bent down and an ear peeled off.  Nothing but a the green husks and some cob left on the ground.  But we didn't live in an area that was home to coons.  No real woods around.  And he never could find a coon print or any other sign.  Couldn't catch any in the field when he'd shine it at night.

One day, we found the answer.  Our beloved Susie dog was found laying in between two rows, corn upright between her paws, pulling the husks down with her teeth so she could get to the golden kernels.  Susie was my best friend.  An alert dog.  A snake dog.  Daddy didn't mind at all if it was her enjoying the fruits of his labor. 

In fact, Susie would nibble all sorts of delights from the garden.  Green beans.  Fresh peas, shelled the same way she peeled the corn.

She was just some little Heinz 57 mix that we had gotten from Aunt Norma when she was a pup.  But we all believed her to be the smartest, best dog ever.  She passed away when I was in 5th grade.  I remember Mama picking me up from school and telling me the awful news.  We got home to find Daddy cutting up his old wonderful marine tool chest to make her a coffin.  Tears rolling down his cheeks while he worked.  Mama made a lining out of an old sheet and a pillow.  We lay my little dog down and put her to rest beneath a crape mertyl tree in the backyard.

Barbara

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