I apologize for not getting this out last night, but I think I had a touch of post-cattle drive depression yesterday.  The feeling reminded me of our legislative session days, when right after the end of the session, we suffered for a day from something we called post-session depression.

We weren’t sure exactly what it was, but the adrenaline that we had lived on for so long quickly left us and we were almost useless for anywhere from 8-24 hours.  It was hard to accomplish anything during that time.

Chuck and I both were lethargic all yesterday afternoon.  All we did was drive home; all the way home instead of stopping for the night as we planned.  We were like a horse headed for the stall.

Yesterday morning, we got up at 6 AM and by 9 AM the trail boss began the final day of the drive with cattle at the head, wagons next, and riders in the rear.  We headed to the Kenansville Rodeo Arena, our final destination.

The Green Bandana group, my group, rode up front with the cattle; and for the first time I wished I was there on a horse.  I rode a good bit when I was younger, but haven’t wanted to do it at all this trip until now.  I wanted to be up there with the cows and also spend more time this morning with my group.  We have met so many new and interesting people here.

Best of all, though, we got a treat before we headed out.  The owner of the property said that we could leave our gear and tents here until we came back from the Frolic, the event held after we bring the cattle to the arena. This meant the tent could dry before we put it away. Which also meant we did not have to pitch it again in Tallahassee to let it dry out.   What a generous gesture by our host!

We rode in the big red wagon again with Bryce, the young college students, and a member of the press. Court Lewis hosts a radio show called American Variety Radio from Tennessee.  You can read about it here.

He and Chuck hit it off right away. Both of them grew up in southeast Florida (he in Miami and Chuck in Ft. Lauderdale) and both fished as youngsters and shared a life-long love of this sport. They talked fishing the entire time.

Speaking of the press and media, photographer Carlton Ward was with us doing his aerial photography from a helicopter on the last day of the drive.  The helicopter followed the herd.

He does very good work, and you can look at some of his Florida cattle and cowmen photos at CarltonWard.Com.  The link will take you to those photos.  We are so fortunate that he has photo documented so much of our beautiful state.

Carlton Ward Photo

Again, because of the rain and all the water in the woods and in the pastures, the wagons left the drive to go out on the road to get to Kenansville. All of the riders and the cattle went on the trail.  We met them again at the rodeo arena.

On Friday night Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam visited us, joined us for dinner, and spent the night at the camp.  He rode with the cattle drive the next morning.  Our Commissioner comes from a cattle and citrus family in central Florida.

Commissioner Putnam

Chuck and I had a chance to talk to him and when he hugged my neck, I almost cringed because I was afraid that we smelled. Hardly any of us got a proper bath in a week, and my hair is dirty.  Add to that the smell of being around burning fires all week long, and I’m sure civilized people shouldn’t stand next to us.

I wasn’t one of the lucky ones that took a bath in a creek next to one of the evening camps.  Several people took a bath that night, but I never even knew the creek existed until we were several days down the trail.

Although, frankly, the whole damn place is a creek of sorts, and I could have stepped away almost anywhere.  I did wash my hands numerous times in little puddles, and I guess that is why there is dirt under my nails and around my cuticles.  My nails are a mess.

For the special occasion of the driving in of the cattle, riders, and wagons, I wore my soiled brown pioneer skirt with a clean white blouse, not tucked in and with a nice leather belt worn on the outside of the blouse. Elizabeth would have wanted to dress up for this day, where they paraded us around the arena in front of the crowd.

We traveled again down US 441, and again we were a parade. People came out of their homes to take pictures, and the traffic waved and took photos as they passed.  We were again escorted by the Osceola County Sheriff’s Department.

The sheriff’s department did a wonderful job of helping us move across the public highways.  They held up traffic on this road several times as the drive crossed back and forth during the week.  When we crossed, it really held up a lot of traffic.  It took a long time to get all the cattle, horses, and wagons through, even though they stopped and let traffic go between the groups.

I wondered if the semi drivers were upset, since for them time is money.  It seemed most of the trucks were hauling some type of agricultural product.  Several years ago when I was working, I found out that more than 25% of all semi trucks on Florida roads haul some type of raw agricultural product.  After all, Florida is seventh in the nation in agricultural production.  This did not count all the Publix, Winn-Dixie and Wal-Mart grocery trucks.  It takes a lot of food to fjeed America three times a day every day, and a lot of Florida’s products are shipped north and all over the world!

Anyway, this is a big agricultural area in Florida; and on Friday morning just as the first members of the camp were beginning to wake up and stir about, a semi truck out on US 441 ran by the camp and just sat on his horn.  Our green group’s camp was right by the highway, so we suffered the brunt of the bellowing truck.  I believe it was some form of pay back from one of those poor drivers who had been sitting in the very unusual traffic jams way out here caused by our giant cattle drive.

The Green Camp

There is a different jargon spoken on farms, ranches and especially here on this cattle drive.  The young women in our wagon are the ones who are coordinating the media. One of the young cowmen asked them what their job entailed.  When they explained, he said, “So you are the media wranglers.”   Smiling, one girl replied, “I guess you’re right.”   He added, “So, it’s like herding kittens, huh?”; and she said, “Well, maybe so.  They seem nice enough.”  You just got a love the lingo that you listen to here.

I spent my time on the final portion of the drive asking Bryce lots of questions about handling a team of mules, a team of oxen, problems that might occur to a wagon that has a long distance to travel, etc.  Bryce as a farrier and drover is a wealth of information, so I got his phone number in case I have other questions when I begin writing the migration portion of the book.

He handled the two Percheron draft mules named Beckie & Bonnie commanding “Gee, gee, gee,” to turn them right.  They were very well trained.  By the way for these mules gee is the command to turn their heads and walk right, and haw means left.  Back is back and a click click with the mouth means forward.

We turned off of US 441 onto the south end of the Canoe Creek Road heading north.  We passed through Kenansville and by the Heartbreak Hotel and an old renovated bank.

Someone said that the hotel was for sale.  It is famous in these parts for having housed thousands of cattle drovers and woods men since it was built in 1915.  This part of Kenansville seems to be a ghost town today, but in the late 1800s it was a cattle town sitting on an old military trail that was later used for driving cattle north to the railroads.  It was called Whittier then.  A sawmill came to Whittier, and it continued to grow.

Kenansville’ Old Bank

Later in 1911, Flagler built his railroad line through here on its way to Okeechobee; and the renamed Kenansville became a railroad boomtown.  Its recently built hotel was called the Piney Woods Inn.  In 1955 the inn was bought by new owners who renovated and renamed it the Heartbreak Hotel.  Elvis was in Florida at the time doing a tour, but no one is sure whether this was just a coincidence.  Here is a story about Kenansville and also about Elvis’s tour.  Elvis’s song “Heartbreak Hotel” was released as a single in 1956.

The railroad pulled up its tracks, the depot disappeared, and the town became what it is today.

Finally, we got to the arena; and because of the crowd we went ahead and paraded the wagons through.  We were just riding, as we had been doing for days, when all of a sudden the crowd in the stands roared.  We forgot again that we were a spectacle.  We waved to the crowd, and the applause got even louder.  It really surprised us to be such celebrities.

The cattle and riders were not in sight yet.  People were standing on top of anything high enoughto watch the drive come in.   Others walked out to meet them.

Chuck and I knew that a helicopter would be following the herd; and since it wasn’t in sight, we took the time to go get our car and move it closer to the entrance of the arena.  Also, we had been warned the night before that the parking area where all our cars, trucks, horse trailers, and stock trailers were parked was a rain-soaked mucky mess.  They had three large Caterpillars ready to pull us out whenever we wanted to leave.

So we waded through the muck back of the arena, and it was truly a mess.  Deep ruts and standing water everywhere.  We had trouble finding the car, because the roads were unrecognizable.  You couldn’t see where they had been.  Finally, we found it, thanks to modern technology.  We set off its alarm.

I thought we did real well driving about 200 feet when we hit an area where we could no longer get traction.  We were done.  Chuck went and got one of the Caterpillars.  They could find no tow bar except in the back, so they towed us out from behind.

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Only one more day and night to go on the Great Florida Cattle Drive.

Evenings on the drive are magical. There are campfires and the sounds of the nigh, talking, laughter, the cracking of whips, and quiet horses and mules. At least for now. We can hear coyotes way off, and the temperature is dropping. Earlier tonight, we had a large bonfire; and it was truly needed.

In the photo above, you can see the Seminole Tribe of Florida leading us in their Long Dance.  More on this later.

We learned so much about the history of our state on this drive.  For example, they mentioned tonight something that I had just read in “Florida Cowman” by Joe Akerman, Jr.  All these years I thought the county of Alachua got its name from an Indian word, when in fact it comes from a Spanish Ranchero owner named de la Chua.  There were ranches all over our state during our Spanish occupation

Just before the drive Chuck read, “A Land remembered” by Patrick D. Smith.  This book should be on the “must read” list for every Floridian.    I cannot think of a better book about Florida and its early frontier days.  Another good book is “The Yearling” by Marjorie Kinnon Rawlings who lived among the Old Florida crackers and captured their spirit in this beautiful, moving story.

But I digress.   We got up to a cool morning as the temperature was about 55°, and the wind was blowing.  It was quite chilly,  too chilly for us Floridians.

They let us sleep an hour longer so the alarm went off at 6 AM, but we were awake before the alarm. A horse very near our tent was constantly whinneying. Then we heard someone yelling from the other end of the camp that a horse was loose and down there.  Horses are very social creatures.   I wanted to yell back that I was sure it belonged here near us, so please return the thing so we can all get back to sleep.  Good grief!

Breakfast was the standard eggs, bacon, sausage, and biscuits that we had every morning while on the cattle drive. The announcements though let us know that we will be hanging around camp all day.
There was a farrier demonstration at 10:30 AM.  Two very gifted farriers with help from some others made a horse shoe and a mule shoe on the spot.  These guys are super good.

Bryce, our wagon driver, is on the right.  They also talked about blacksmithing and how it was used before and during the Civil War and its importance to the armies on both sides.  It was important enough to the south that the iron cities were the first to be hit by the North.

Otherwise, this morning it was so good to just straighten up the camp, and I actually put some makeup on and combed my hair better.
I am in period clothing today wearing the dark green skirt; but instead of a white blouse I decided to wear a flannel shirt. It is cool and I believe Elizabeth Walker would’ve done the same or used some warmer material.

While I was sitting on the ground listening to the farrier demonstration, I noticed a little girl in a white dress cracking a whip out back of the wagons.  She had on a blue vest with white skirt, and I took some pictures. She was very good with the whip and could probably teach the little boys many of which were struggling with it.

The children added so much to the drive.  Here are others practicing with their whips and ropes.

Yesterday we had to get Chuck a new green bandanna. We have to wear ours because it shows that we are supposed to be here like when we get our meals etc.  They wanted everyone to wear theirs today, because this camp is on US 441 and people could walk into the camp uninvited.

We are the North Florida region, and all of us wear green bandannas and camp in a circle around our stock trailers, the same ones that moved our gear and supplied our group’s horses with hay from day to day.
By lunch time the sky had almost completely cleared, and the sun was shining brightly. It was still breezy, but there was a pleasant coolness to the air. It’s a great time to be in Florida.
While waiting in line for lunch, we talked to some ladies from another camp, the light blue camp. They said that we were not the only camp with runaway horse problems.  It seems that two nights ago a half a dozen horses ran away and were running together through their camp. It seems to be a recurring problem all over.
Last night we sat with a group of young girls, all teenagers; and they told us about riding with the herd yesterday.  They said a deer jumped up in the middle of the herd out of the palmetto and was running into the cattle bouncing off back-and-forth. It caused the herd to separate and caused a minor stampede. It sounded as if the cowmen had their job cut out for them. The kids got to watch the cur dogs bring the herd back together.
Historically, cur dogs or cow dogs as others called them were used to flush wild cattle from the scrub and swamps, and the men who accomplished that difficult and dangerous task also used these dogs to keep herds together as they drove them.  These dogs are still used today.
After lunch Chuck and I took a walk around the perimeter of the ranch, but had to stop because of standing water throughout much of the back pastures. We did find the herd which was pinned up next to one of the camps, and there were the two longhorn cracker cattle there.   They were up front near the gate, as if they were protecting the rest of the herd.  I know we kept our distance, though I hear they are still fairly gentle.
Afterwards, we joined a group of our own camp members. They were from Panama City, Saint Augustine, and one man was originally from Polk County but now lives in Georgia. Anyone from out of state is in our camp.
We met a couple from Oldtown, Florida, and they brought us what is considered a delicacy here at the camp. It was a Diet Coke. We haven’t had a soft drink all week, and I’m not sure where they got theirs from unless they packed it in with their 60 pounds. Chuck was thrilled.
Dinner was wonderful. We had steaks and coconut cake. Afterwords there was a presentation by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. It was explained to us the history of cattle ranching by the Seminoles.
Today they have their cattle operations at the Brighton and Big Cypress Reservations. We listened to them talk about the Seminole Indian War and how a lot of it centered around their being able to raise cattle. By the way to their tribe there is no first, second and third Seminole Indian war. To them there was just one continuous Seminole Indian War.
Much of the history was very colorful such as during the days when the Seminoles drove their cattle up to Jacksonville while the Lykes family took their cattle to Jacksonville along the same route. When the two drives got too close to one another, they would shoot at each other.
He also explained that the last United States Calvary soldier killed during the Seminole Indian War was buried between the two Capitols in Tallahassee. Florida has an old and a new Capitol, one standing in front of the other. All those years we walked across Red Square (that is what we call that area), and we never realized what was buried below.
After dinner and the presentation, we all gathered around a very large bonfire; and the tribe honored us by dancing their corn dance which is only done privately.  Afterwards we went back to the tent, where the temperatures already dropped to the low 50s.

It was a wonderful day, and we look forward to the end of the trail tomorrow in Kenansville at the Frolic. More importantly though, we really look forward to a hot bath and a warm bed tomorrow night.

Yesterday morning Chuck said, “Dante had it wrong. There aren’t seven levels of hell, there’s eight. Dante didn’t know, because he never went on this cattle drive.”

I thought, well, they said that this wasn’t for sissies.

Chuck’s Dante comment came right after he cracked his head on the little silver aluminum table that set right by his bedroll. He bled like a stuck hog and required a quick bandaid. What a way to wake up, for both of us. My alarm clock was his howl.

We got up at our usual 5 a.m. It wasn’t raining as much, but there were still intermittent showers. I had a leak over by my sleeping bag, but it was just a small puddle that didn’t wet anything but the floor.

We must be living right, because I had to go to the port-a-potties twice last night; and the rain stopped both times right on cue. You come to appreciate the simplest little things out here.

We weren’t so lucky later, though. We broke camp in the rain. Everything we owned was either wet or damp. We do have a dry bag, a large waterproof duffel, with our clean clothes; but even they seemed a little clammy. It rained on and off for over 24 hours. Today’s forecast was no better.

We found out that the trail today is so wet that the wagons won’t even be able to make it. We thought that this was a signal that we shouldn’t try to follow the cattle either.

Flooding everywhere on the Cattle Drive

By 8:30 a.m. we pulled out with our red wooden show wagon with its mule team made up of Beckie and Bonnie. I called this a show wagon because it looked like something that you would see in a circus parade, except stripped down.

Hitching the mules in the rain.

We watched them hitch the two mules, and then we left the Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area where we stayed last night. We rode down US 441 to the next evening camp on another ranch south of Kenansville. We are truly our own parade. Traffic stops to take pictures. Again, we enjoyed listening to the chatter of the young people in our wagon.

Along the way Heather, one of the girls riding with us, sliced a cylinder of fresh, uncooked swamp cabbage, also known as heart of cabbage palm, our state tree. You can boil this to make swamp cabbage stew or you can chop it up for a slaw.  Normally, I just add some sliced to my green salad, but I buy it already canned as Hearts of Palm.  We snacked on it as we rode down US 441. It was left over from last night.

Heart of Palm, otherwise known in Florida as Swamp Cabbage

We will be at our next camp for two nights. Thank goodness, because both of us are sick and tired of being sick and tired of setting up and breaking down this camp.

We had not seen hide nor heard of the cattle drive this morning as they rode out earlier. We were all wondered if our celebrity walker could make it through today, too, with the herd or his group. My guess is that he will.

This farmer walked the entire drive.

By the way he is a farmer who grows turnips and other produce from Lake City, Florida. He is doing this walk, because his deceased lady friend walked this same drive ten years ago. He is doing this walk in her memory.

I have a feeling her conditions were not this wet. His fifty miles will be much tougher to accomplish, but he is determined to do it.

We ate a quick lunch, and thank goodness we re-established our camp early today. It rained lightly all morning, but it came in heavy again around 4 pm. The tent had a chance to dry some in between.

Chuck and I shared a Jack and Orange and sat and listened to the rain and the cracking of whips. The kids practiced their new skills, even in the rain. Apparently, some of the Cowmen taught them how to crack a whip.

Kids practiced cracking their whips.

Speaking of kids there are several on the drive. Yesterday, I watched a grandfather and his granddaughter riding together. They crossed a swollen creek. She looked to be about eleven or twelve. In another group were grandparents, parents and two children.

Last night we listened to another cowboy poet who grew up in Florida. His poems were about some of Florida’s more famous cowmen such as Bone Mizell, Jacob Summerlin, and Captain James McKay, who was key in forming the Florida Cow Cavalry or the “”Cattle Guard” as they were also known during the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression as my grandmother would say. Most everyone else calls it the Civil War.

Florida’s cattle was what fed the Confederate Army until the end of the War, and it was cattle drives like this that transported the cattle north to the railroad lines up near Baldwin east of Jacksonville and earlier as far north as Savannah, Atlanta, and Columbus, Georgia. They made sure the cattle got to their destination, driving them about 8 to 9 miles a day, a grazing rate.

Cracker Steers

You can read all about this in a book called “Florida Cowman” by Joe A. Akerman, Jr. I am currently reading another book by him and his son J. Mark Akerman called “Jacob Summerlin: King of the Crackers”.

Another sound in our rainy afternoon camp is the braying moan of the mules. Many are tied up under the oak trees in an oak hammock right in front of our tent.

They don’t do it a lot and not in response to each other. All of a sudden, though, you’ll just notice a long drawn out lonesome bray. Chuck says that it is the mule moaning, “Ohhhhh. I don’t waaant to be a mule.”  Apparently, Chuck thinks a mule’s life is much sadder than a horse’s.
It was a nice relaxing day, but I missed watching the cattle drive itself.

I didn’t my pioneer-style skirt and blouse today.  I brought jeans for these two days.  These were also the two days with rain in the forecast.  Can your you imagine dragging around all that material soaking wet?  So instead I planned to wear jeans, flannel and rain gear.

Below, we met some interesting cowmen out here.  (This is an older photo.)

So which cowboy plans to dismount, restrain him, and tie his three legs together? The one in the picture or the other one not seen at the other end of the other rope.