Why put this picture on my blog?
I was inspired by Dorothy Warden's Searcy Daily Citizen column about old Searcy and about Bob Collins, who lived at the corner of Academy and Pear and is shown looking somewhat disgruntled in this picture. Dorothy said that Bob said he could hear mules braying from Holmes' breeding operation on Holmes Road from his house on Vine.
That must have been Ballard Holmes's operation and Ballard Holmes was my husband's grandfather so I asked Hubby about that operation. He lit up with a long story that took up most of my coffee time at the breakfast table this morning.
His grandpa was a trader and evidently did a little of everything. Hubby explained that a jack will mate with a horse and that mating will produce a mule. The problem was that the jack was too short to mate with a horse without a little help. Grandpa had a trench dug that he backed the horse into so that the horse's rear end was lowered and became jack height. Then Mr. Holmes would braid the horse's tail so that he could tie it out of the way.
And then....he led the jack up to the horse and the braying began! There was one happy jack and the horse was bred. Evidently my husband witnessed a lot of these trips because he hung around with his grandpa quite a bit and that's why he understood Bob's story. And he said it wasn't the mules braying. It was the jacks making mules braying.
And that may be what Bob was hearing as he stood on this corner and posed for the picture.
Bob, thanks for sharing this picture with us. I still don't understand exactly where you're standing but perhaps we can figure it out on this blog with the help of Mr. GoogleMan.
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