Paul Sez

Flinthills Philosopheez and other unsolicited ramblings
... scrawled out by Paul Mattson

How come an old timer like me is still foolin' around with horses? 
    Sept 1999 

At 79 years of age, I'm still doing chores ... feeding 16 head of horses in every kind of weather that comes along ... mean, ornery, or good. My neighbor and I put up hay on shares for several people again this year. Sometimes we put up little squares, sometimes big rounds. Of course, we're working with equipment that's about as old as I am, sickle bar mower, rakes and balers that keep breaking down as fast as we can fix 'em, and the weather's either hotter than *hot* or it rains after you've cut and raked it the first time. But all in all, we got quite a bit hauled home before the real rain started. 

By then, the weeds are 10 feet tall around my fence lines, and it took me 2 weeks to chop it down with a corn knife to keep the electric fence hot. I calculated that I can chop a half mile in half a day. I got some winter rye seeded in my new pasture last week. Now I get to fix the shed roofs that are leaking. Figured out if I park my old 1962 Dodge pickup along side the building it's a lot easier to get up and down the ladder with the tin or roofing paper and shingles. Got a couple of them fixed yesterday.

Now I've got a couple of yearling studs that need to be separated. I've got to build a cross fence in the front pasture and set up a portable barn that my friend and I will haul in and set up to shelter the both of them.

I keep asking myself, "Why?" Well, by the time you make it to fall, how can anybody do anything different when yer all set up for winter ... and a new foal crop coming? Seems like every year the colts are better and better. This year I've got most of the mares bred to my young Paint stud, so the crop of 2000 will be extra special.

I threatened to get rid of some of them over the years. I remember a day about 30 years ago, I was working with a palomino mare who'd just had a colt that morning and wouldn't let it suck. A man happened in about an hour later and offered to buy her. I was ready. "How much you wanna' give," I asked. He said, "I'll give you $300 right now." Huh ... I thought! I wasn't mad enough to sell that good mare for killer price, so I kept her. Turns out that was one of the luckiest things I ever did, because that mare turned out to be a great producer for me. Nearly all the Quarter Horses I own today come down from her, including one of my best mares, the only palomino that carried all the way down.

One of the most unforgettable books I ever read was "Smoky" by Will James. After reading it in school, I always dreamed of having a cow horse just like ol' Smoky. In the 1930's my Uncle Clay Van Horn had an excellent cow horse ... solid black with a star and one coronet. He was half Morgan and half mustang. But that was Uncle Clay's special horse. He didn't like sharing him with me or anyone else. I was at an age where I was nearly single handedly doing all the daily chores on his 1200 acre farm, where he grew wheat, milo, and Atlas Sorgo for silage. 

For livestock, the most we had at any one time was 2,000 feeder lambs, 200 feeder calves, 100 ewes, 10 hogs, 200 chickens, 4 dairy cows and 4 horses. Animal chores were done in the early morning and late evening, leaving the daytime hours for field work. My uncle had a tractor by that time, but we did some of the livestock feeding with a team of Percherons. I really wanted a horse of my own, especially one like Will James' Smoky. My uncle was wise enough to know he'd best keep his "mule" happy, so he secretly made a deal on a horse for me.

The man who sold my uncle the black horse also had a two-year-old straight Morgan gelding ... a bay with stockings on the rear and a blaze face. One morning Uncle Clay said to me, "Let's go on up and see if we can make a deal on that two-year-old Morgan horse." I didn't waste any time climbing into the car, and he drove the 20 or 30 miles to the farm north of Little River, Kansas. 

When we got there, it didn't take long to make the arrangements, and they saddled the horse up and told me to get on and ride him home. What a surprise! The colt was good sized, but he'd never been ridden. He didn't give me any trouble, but he wasn't sure what to do either. Uncle Clay followed him down the road, honking the horn to get him moving. By the time I got him home, he was pretty well "started" under saddle. I rode him every chance I got, and for the next two or three years, "Tony" was my ticket out of there on Sunday mornings ... before Clay could think up something for me to help with. I'd pack a lunch and be gone all day.

There was no time for me to be active in high school sports, but I knew I was in top physical condition. One day when I was close to 18 years old, I had my cousin, Duane Van Horn, drive their 1936 Dodge 4-door sedan at 15 miles an hour, starting from one section corner to the next, while I ran alongside. I was hoping I could keep up with the car ... and I did. The first quarter was pretty tough, the second was not quite so bad, the third was just fine, and the fourth was easy. When I reached the one-mile mark, my brain told my legs to quit moving, but they wouldn't do it. I had to go another couple hundred feet before I could get stopped. I took in two deep breaths and had my wind back. I was back at work within the hour ... as if nothing had happened. Today, I marvel at the memory of that day, running like that in overalls and high topped leather work shoes on a sandy county road.

I can't run a mile that fast anymore, but I walk plenty of them in a typical day,  just doing my routine horse chores. I can still stack bales as good as ever, and it's probably a good thing, too. 

Common sense says, "you'll get tired of it someday."  But, I guess horse people don't go by the rules of common sense ... only horse sense ... and I'd rather have the horse sense! Too much common sense ... and you can't let a horse get into your heart. After that happens, you are never the same ... and nobody can understand except horses and horse-people.

I wish I could find a banker with horse sense.

'Til next time,

Paul

Paul Mattson is a Flint Hills horseman whose life-long love of horses was sparked as a small boy by the big horses pulling milk and ice wagons through the Chicago suburb where he lived. He felt an irresistible bond of friendship as he stood beneath their huge noses and felt their warm breath on his face. This mutual affection was to influence his life forever.

From the age of 8, following the death of his father, he and his 4 brothers rotated between uncles on several Kansas ranches while their mother struggled to make a living teaching school. These were Great Depression years in the thirties. It was a life he loved, in spite of it's hard-working nature. Every uncle had a farm horse or two, and that's all it took for Paul to be happy.

Paul joined the Air Force at the age of 21. During World War II he was a flight engineer flying "The Hump" from India to China and Burma. Those hardship years were made more endurable by the thoughts of his horses at home. When the war was over, he attended the University of Arizona and Kansas State University, graduating from KSU with majors in agriculture and animal husbandry.

His earlier years included being a farm and ranch hand, wheat harvester, trucker and mechanic. He worked for 13 years as an agricultural journalist, first for the Kansas City Daily Drovers Telegram and later, the Hereford Journal. Paul has owned and raised Quarter Horses since the early 40's, purchasing his first registered horse, as son of The Deuce (P-512) from Dan Casement.

Married and living near Wamego, Kansas, he continues to raise a few good horses, the same type he has admired and believed in all these years ... the athlete, the horse with the Cadillac ride.