Maple Spring Ranch

Louis

The summers down here in Macon, Georgia leave behind the scent of sweat and horses. The fall brings apples and pumpkins and hay rides up and down the cornfields. But winter is the hardest season of the year. What winter brings is the cold and horse blankets and frozen water troughs. The winter means extra hours at the barn for my twin brother, Clayton, and I. We inherited the farm when my father passed away this past summer. It’s been really hard on my mom and my siblings and we help her through each day.

“She’ll get better one day at a time,” says my older sister, Charlotte, hiding the truth from our younger sister. They will never understand why their mommy can’t read them stories without breaking into tears anymore. It’s hard on us all, but working at the barn keeps my mind off of it.

In the early mornings, when the dew hasn’t yet left the glimmering grass, I take the horses out of their stalls to graze. Sometimes I bring my sketchbook out with me and lay on top of Koda and draw. Koda is my horse. We found Koda at a barn that breeds work horses. I was around the age of four or five when I picked him out. I had named him immediately. My mom told me that it was the first thing that came out of my mouth when I saw the grey spotted foal.

We had to train him like we do with every horse we buy. My dad used to call it, “part of the bonding experience.” Which it was. Koda made me extremely frustrated at times, but also proud. We are brothers and no one can tear us apart. 

Clayton’s horse also came from the same farm, but I got Koda before he got Chance. I have always been more interested in the horses than he has. When Clayton was young, he used to be afraid of the huge clopping hoofs and the drop when sitting on top of one. Dad was scared that he’d never get over his fear, but when I got one, Clayton instantly wanted to try to ride Koda. When my dad saw that he had the slightest interest in Koda, he surprised Clayton by bringing home Chance, who has grown to be 19 hands, which is 70 inches tall. Chance is pitch black with one small spot of white on his gigantic head.

The horses at our barn are either boarded here or are owned by the James family, which is us. I have two brothers and two sisters.

My older brother, Davis is in at law school at University of Virginia, following my dad’s very large footsteps. That is were our family got all of our money for the barn and the horses and chickens and goats. My grandfather and great grandfather and also my great great grandfather were all very successful lawyers.

My older sister, Charlotte, is a senior at Macon High School. My younger sister, Kaelee, attends Johnson Valley Elementary. She is in third grade, which is packed full of multiplication and division. Kaelee has a hard time grasping the whole concept of it, so we have a tutor come to our house every Wednesday and Thursday.

Kaelee has her own horse too. Sage came from a rescue barn where they take horses away from people who abuse them.

 We personally know the former owner who beat Sage. He used to do it when he was drunk. His name is Dan McNabb and he’s an alcoholic. He comes and visits us when he’s drunk yelling at us to give him back his horse. On occasion we have to fight him until he leaves.

Sage is a Gypsy horse, which are huge horses with spots of brown and white that cover their body and on their hoofs the have feather-like hairs that blow when they gallop. We trained Sage to jump competitively so we can put her in shows and earn some extra money, which is much needed right now. We also get money by selling the chicken’s eggs and the goat’s cheese and the other produce that we grow here at Maple Spring Ranch.

In the fall, we get a lot of income for our pumpkins and apples and hayrides and corn maze, which we have running all October.

When we host the fall festival for our church, I get a bunch of my friends to help me work the stands. We have pony rides, bounce houses, apple bobbing, we even have “trunk or treat” which starts at seven every year.

Autumn has come and gone and now it’s winter and I’m fixing the heater, that’s connected to the plug in the wall of the tack room.

Once it’s fixed and pushing heat onto my legs again, I stand up and open the door to a large blow of bitter cold air that freezes the tips of my ears. I cover them with my hands and keep walking down the barn to find Clayton. It’s dark in the stables; I have to us a flashlight. Our light has gone out. I’ll fix that in the morning.

I find Clayton in Chance’s stall with his headphones in listening to music.

“Clayton!” I yell into his face. He turns his head from looking at his hand brushing Chance’s long winter fur to me.

He pulls one of his ear buds out and yells back, ”What?”

“It’s time to go.”

We walk out into the snow and jump on our four wheelers and head back to the house. Our house isn’t what you would call big. But all our land makes up for our small house.

We walk in to Charlotte making tacos.

“Where have y’all been? I called you like twenty time on our  on your walkie-talkies!”

I remember the exact spot where it’s sitting, on the stool in the take room next to the heater. I forgot to turn the heater off!

“How close to dinner?” I ask Charlotte, ignoring her complaints.

“Twenty minutes.”

I sprint out the door and head back to the barn, fast turn off the heater and grab both walkie-talkies, noticing Clayton’s right next to mine.