Old Roanie and Dad

Dad putting up hay in 2015.

Back in 2015, I was visiting with my Dad (Donald Shaw) and he told me this story.  I thought it was so good, and didn't want to forget it so I wrote it down.  Dad always had a general dislike for horses, and I always thought it was cause they ate so much (thus he called all horses 'hay burners'), but this story gave more insight into his dislike.  When we lived there at the farm with Mom and Dad for a time, and had a couple of our horses there too, Dad almost seemed to enjoy them.  I guess as long as he didn't have to hook them to a plow, a horse could be okay. 

Old Roanie

   That old work horse was more trouble than it was worth.  It was constantly causing trouble for Don as a kid.  As a young teenage boy he had Old Roanie hooked to the two bottom plow and was plowing up and down that old hill across the road from the house.  Roanie had a mind of his own and just decided he didn't want to work any more, and when Don turned the team towards the east which would face the house, Old Roanie took off with the plow and headed home, there was no stopping him.  He had decided it was quitting time.

  This wasn't the first time Old Roanie had caused more than problem for the Shaw farm.  Back then in the late 30's it was open range.  Roanie went and grazed where he pleased, which was often in the neighbors grain bins.  He could actually open the gate all by himself, and even would move it to the side after he had lifted the latch to make his escape from the corral.  Open range meant going where ever he pleased.  One neighbor got pretty tired of Roanie getting into their grain and took a shot at him with a shot gun to scare him off.  Don found Roanie down in the Bottoms with a shoulder full of shot and just standing there shaking, it really didn't slow him down too much though, once he healed up he was right back at it.

   Don also had another old work horse called Dick. Dick was about four feet wide, or at least seemed that way to the young Don.  He said he had to do the splits to sit on his back.  They never owned a saddle, so it was always bareback riding for him.  He got dumped a few times off Dicks back, as it was hard to hold on to such a large tub of a horse.

  This added to Don's general dislike of horses.  It was hard work plowing and planting with ornery old horses when you were such a little kid.  He was so happy to finally get a tractor in 1948 so he could quit farming with horses. That old 16 horse power tractor wasn't much but it sure beat a horse who had a mind of it's own.