Gators, Cotton Mouths, and Crackers, Oh My!

Sniffing and drinking a spring that has overtaken the trail

In most of the US, calling someone a cracker isn’t nice. The term has all types of negative connotations, and probably rightly so given the violent resistance to desegregation that was found in much of rural Florida.  Still, I think it’s important to define words in historical context.  Florida crackers were colonial-era British American pioneer settlers.  Florida cowmen were distinct from western cowboys in that, instead of lassos, they used whips (which they cracked … hence crackers) to collect the small, wiry cattle that traditionally ranged North and Central Florida.  Today, the few Floridians descended from these early settlers take a certain pride in knowing they were derived from this hearty stock that ‘tamed’ this formidable terrain.

We selected the horse mecca Ocala as the turn-around point for this trip.  For horse people, Ocala is defined by WEC – the World Equestrian Center – an enormous complex of equine event facilities with pristine stables, mammoth arenas, an upscale hotel, and shops with clothes that cost more than my first horse.  We visited WEC and were impressed.  But we’d come to Florida to ride Cracker-style, not in air conditioning.  So, our home-base for our three days in Florida is the Black Prong, a combo RV resort and cottage community some 30 miles Northwest of Ocala and adjacent to the Goethe State Forest – a 55,000 acre swath of longleaf pine forests, cypress swamps, and mixed palmetto groves and sawgrass fields.

Field or bog … hard to say, but fascinating to ride.

So, let’s talk about Black Prong for a minute.  Lest you think I’m really bad ass and roughing it in the Florida swamp, rest assured, this is a nice place.  Our one-bedroom cottage is beautifully appointed and very unique in that the backdoor (out of our bedroom) opens into the center aisle of the barn and the boys are in very spacious stalls with windows that look into our screen porch.  No, not roughing it … that comes with the rides.

Perhaps there is a dry season in the Goethe, but October the week between hurricanes Helene and Milton is not it.  Our first day of riding saw us setting out amidst a light drizzle that would occasionally turn to full rain but seemed a blessing in its deterrence of mosquitos.  Soon we were winding along a well-marked two-track through oaks hung with Spanish moss with an understory of palmettos.  Small purple blooms edged the sand track -- lovely.  Shortly, we came to our first puddle -- perhaps I should call it a water feature since puddle it was not.  No, this was basically the place where our path crossed tracks with a spring that had filled a bit of lowland with crystal clear water colored dark like tea by the tannins of the pine needles lining the sandy bottom of the pool.  Juneau sniffed, then bravely forged in as I scanned all around us for the eyeballs of lurking alligators and the sinuous wakes left by cotton mouths.

Over the course of our 20 plus miles of riding over two days, we probably spent 10 of those miles with the horses at least fetlock-deep in water.  At times, the pools have been deep enough to skim the horse’s bellies and a 100 yards from entry to exit.  The boys took to it like, well like ducks to water.   We never met any gators or snakes, but we did tussle with dozens of spiders the size of half-dollars.  Amazing riding, but not for the faint of heart.

Say what you will about cracker culture, but if those folks thrived here before the days of AC, screen windows, and deet, I tip my hat to them as I sip a delicious gin and tonic in my 72-degree cottage and my horses dry in their shaving strewn stalls with the ceiling fans on high.