Wayward carrots and horses
RD: Interesting carrot picture, Gary Saunders (Letters to RD, “Aberrant carrot,” RD Nov. 2020, page 9). Yours grew up, mine grew down. Never seen a carrot like this ever!
Here is another true story. We had an old dapple-grey mare named Trixie, and she was hyper, to say the least. Hoofs a-flying if anyone went near. Old Ned, another dapple-grey, was just the opposite – mild as a cucumber. We could run around him and under him, and never once did he try to nudge us. One day a neighbour came to get a drive to a local store five miles away, so old Trixie was hooked up to the two-seater buggy. All went well going down, but just as they started home, a pickup truck whizzed by to pass them. Trixie reared up and dumped the two of them, plus groceries, in a ditch full of snow – then she took off for home on the dead run.
I heard a banging on the barn door, and went to see. Here was old Trixie fetching the wagon up against the barn door. Her feet were flying, so I didn’t want to go near her. I ran over a mile up the road to get the woman’s oldest son. He got close enough to unhook Trixie, and let her in the barn. Then the owner came and hitched up old Ned and went to retrieve the woman who had been dumped in the ditch with her groceries and eggs.
When haying season came around, we had the wagon heaped with hay when a hornet flew by. Up reared old Trixie, tipping over the wagon. One of the men got buried in the load, with a pitchfork right by his face. After a bit of huffing and puffing, the wagon was set back up and the hay reloaded. It was a tangled mess. I think that was her last run. Old Ned got all the jobs, after that.

Esther Bradley
Moncton, N.B.

Betty and the Beanstalk
RD: I wanted to share this picture of my friend Betty and her Scarlet runner beanstalks. A little bit of chicken manure, a hot summer, and a very tall ladder is all she needed to harvest her Scarlet runners. Always enjoy your magazine.

Sandy Hickey
Cow Bay, N.S.

Holiday wish list
RD: Here’s what I’d like to see more of. (You asked!)
It may be impossible, but something from DvL – I loved “Pot Luck.” And it would be lovely to have a compilation of Gary Saunders’ stories from Rural Delivery about “this old house,” cold frames, root cellars, gathering bagged leaves for mulch when his lads were young, foundation insulation, … and many more!
I have copies of Getting Rid of Alders (100 Seasons of Farm and Country Living from the pages of Rural Delivery magazine), My Life with Trees by Gary Saunders, The Dome Chronicles by Garry Leeson, and South Shore Facts and Folklore by Vernon Oickle.

Donna Tryon Fraser
Magog, Que.