Mucking With Mary

Coker Creek is good ground for gold hunters. Richard and I are currently just more interested in garden gold than the shiny metal type. Hoping to eliminate the need for commercial fertilizer for next year’s crops, we’re enriching the soil in Mamie’s garden with product from fertilizer factories of the live animal kind. Since the garden gold has to have time to break down before next planting season, we harvest poop now in order to harvest vibrant veggies next year.

The weather finally held long enough for us to go scoop poop with Mary. When I asked if we should bring any equipment, Mary said she already had scoops and muck buckets. I didn’t know, until we arrived at Mary’s, that horse poop scoops are called muck rakes. Another piece of the American language puzzle put into perspective. And so, we officially became muckrakers.

Mary’s horses are beautiful creatures, and her foal is just as friendly as she described. As we drove up, he first ran to Mama Mary for reassurance that we were friends, and then ran up and presented his head to us for petting. Whenever we tried to ignore him, Mary's "baby" whacked us with his head or nipped at our ankles. He and Mary’s dog competed for attention, chasing each other around the yard. When the horse began ignoring the dog, the dog took to tussling with the cat. What a whacky set of playmates!

Mary of the Mountain and her husband Don live just above Jack. In fact, if I rolled down the hill from their place, I’d end up in Jack’s front yard. Because TVA keeps the power line right-of-way that runs through Jack’s and Mary’s properties mowed, from Mary’s mountaintop, you can see the adjoining mountains strung like pearls all the way to North Carolina. Mary talked about how the setting sun through the right-of-way hits this panorama in the fall, turning whole sides of the hills a brilliant gold. I could have stood all day looking at the view, but poop was our purpose -- so we got busy.

In an hour, we’d half-filled our “honey wagon,” and the yard was seemingly clear of equine land mines. I used to tease a friend about driving a shit wagon to collect all her “do-gooder” projects; Richard is now, literally, driving a shit wagon. Our motto could be, “Have poop? We’ll travel.”

Upon finishing the poop patrol, Mary invited us in for coffee and pie and a tour of their home remodeling handiwork. As we walked into the house, we were greeted by the sounds and scents of Don brewing espresso and steaming milk for cappuccino. Mary served a decadent concoction of graham cracker crumb crust filled with caramel and banana filling topped with whipped cream. Not something I expected – a ten-dollar dessert break for free in the backwoods of Tennessee.

Mary accepted from us gifts of Cajun roasted pecans and muscadine madness jam before we headed down to deliver duplicate culinary delights to Jack. Then, it was over to Mamie’s to spread our horse-grown treasures.