Derived
from 'olden days' it commonly meant,
'Stay
onto...or not' related to horse riding... travelling by horse...
driving a horse...or horse-driven vehicle.
This
phrase is often combined with 'Cool your Jets!'
It
is also a 19th
century signature written as 'Hold your hoss!'
(a
slang term for 'horse')
From the foregoing, you may believe that I, too, am olden: raised on
a farm and driving horses!
Today's interpretation:
If
someone tells you to Hold
Your Horses, you
are doing something fast ~
and said person would like you to slow down.
A
Summer Holiday Pleasure
was visiting Aunt Luella and Uncle Bill on their Norwich farm.
When ploughing the fields ~ or harvesting hay and grain, Uncle Bill
permitted Eileen and me to ride on the horses' backs. Such joy it
was...and the horses, too...with 'light-weights' on their backs.
If only! If only! I had a horse!
Gardens
and Orchards:
My
older sister (by 14 months) was a home-spun-gal ~ assisting Mother
with household chores: gathering produce from planted vegetable
gardens...prepping them for meals... dusting and brooming of porches,
patios and the inner house...the wooden floors and whatever braided
rugs within. We both plucked ripe fruits from the orchards...picked
strawberries from a patch in a nearby field...and whatever was
unused, my sister and I sold to passing drivers along Rte. 53.
We also shared the mowing of massive lawns ~ a section each day with
a hand-push-mower on Monday through Saturday. The latter was 'bath
night' when Mom boiled water on the stove to be added to cold water
carried in pails from the outside pump and poured into a spacious
metal tub...my sister and I were first to bath...then parents after
us. Then we were obliged to clean everyone's shoes in preparation for
Sunday Church and Sunday School classes. It was always a
family-reserved 'dress-up day'...and a special day when my sister and
I could play with our dolls. Of course, the cows were milked... all
animals fed...even the chickens preparing to roost...regardless of
being Sunday.
Daily
Chores:
Early each morning, the rooster loudly crowed to waken his hens (and
us). Daily, we gathered the eggs that the hens cackled about ~
placing them gingerly in a box...and when more...placed them in our
pockets (until forgotten when placed there) and then with a hip-push
to open the door...such messy, messy pockets to clean! Before
sending us to school, Mother made lunches and braided our hair.
Without
a 'Farm Hand'
for my father: I was It! I loved the horses...the sheep and their
lambs; also the cows for their milking...but not for their smelly
trenches. YUK! I always smiled, when sitting astride his milking
stool, Dad would squeeze a cow's teats...and there beside the trench,
a farm cat, patiently awaited the cow's warm milk to be squirted into
its mouth...always Tommy's morning treat.
Although
I Learned to hand-milk cows, my best task of all was handling the
horses. They were peaceful and big... animals who whinny saying
thanks
for fresh bedding...the hay and thre oats!
Whistler ~ the Big
Black Stallion
always neighed when I entered the stable. My Dad used him for
single-drawn machines and for the sleigh in winter time to travel
here and there. One Christmas when country roads were piled high
with snow, our family Christmas was at Grandma and Grandpa's
homestead (about 10 miles away). Not to disappoint mother, Dad
harnessed Whistler to a one-horse-open-sleigh...and hung brass
sleigh-bells aside of Whistler's harness. And with home-made gifts
aplenty, we travelled o'er the snow past frozen ponds...frost-laden
pine trees...and winter's cold.
Oh! What Joy when my father taught me how to rein Whistler
and then to rein-control a pair of horses to harvest the crops.
If only! If only! Whistler was mine!
A
New Era;
Tractors became farmers' best farm machinery for ploughing, grain
and haycutting...and harvest of all the crops. My Dad's McCormick
Deering replaced dear Whistler and his horse team pairs.
The earth would be nothing without the people;
but man would be nothing without the horse.
At
country fairs, I got my 'horse-fix'
watching equine events: teams pulling
chuck-wagons...horse-racing...elaborate horse-drawn carts for
gentlemen and ladies...and stalls of various horse breeds.
And still running through my mind:
“If
only! If only! I had a horse!”
Neighbours
Helping Neighbours:
We were harvesting hay, Father had cut the alfalfa ~ leaving it in
rows to cure by the hot summer's sun.Neighbours always came from farm
to farm to assist with the harvest...and always to a huge noon dinner
piled high with vegetables and dessert. If you didn't live in my era,
you'll not know the field procedure: I drove the tractor...pulling a
big wagon upon which were a couple men...whose job was to spread the
hay evenly on the wagon...and the wagon was pulling a 'hay-loader'
which in almost vertical slope, had teeth moving through the machine
as it picked up the furrowed rows of hay laying cured on the ground.
One of the wagon men discovered a long garter snake...and just for
fun, tossed it forward, landing on my shoulder and dropped to my lap.
Here you must understand I
abhor snakes...and have a phobia-dread of them!...I
stopped the tractor.. fled from the field!!! And my father was
disgusted with leaving him stranded without his 'farm girl'!
Ordinarily, when the wagon is full, tractor pulls the wagon
to the side of the barn where a pulley from the upper barn, lifts it
forkful by forkful
to the barn's attic...ready for the winter feeding of the farm
animals.
The
Horse World Returns:
Decades passed and following secondary education. I then became a
teacher. Later married, I reared a son...then came my daughter who
had a yen for horses. No 'after-school activity' attracted her. A
friend's daughter, same age of 8, was taking a 2-week summer camp:
Learning
to Ride at an Oakville Stable! Into
this program, I enrolled her! So amazing was her interest in
learning to ride, I booked her for a series of continuing lessons.
Revealed to me (and the stable owner) she had this 'natural gift' of
communicating with with her mount.
Mr. B located a pony for her.. resembling a miniature race
horse...with chestnut coat and and on his 4 feet, 'white socks'.
His name was Richmond Rose (from a friend's stable) in Richmond, Va.)
and to my daughter...he was Richie.
Within a couple years, ready for a horse, we had no problem selling
him
to
another in-stable family But none could achieve the performance my
daughter had from this pony. And you may ask, what was the
difference? She
had this innate ability to communicate with her mount...
and
believe it or not...the horse then aims to please its rider.
Sundash
was
her first horse: a
thoroughbred 'hot
off the the track'...who being nervous at the 'starting gate',
she was proven to not be a winner.
Mr.B claimed this chestnut with a facial white blaze and sold her to us...knowing that my
daughter could handle this ever-so-spirited mare. Between them, they
trained her to equestrian-jump fences on a set course.
Thriving on
this new feat, Sundash jumped them like a deer!
The Sundash Attitude:
To the world...you may be just one girl ~
but, to the horse ~ you are the world!
Author: Merle Baird-Kerr...written October 9, 2018
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