Looking For A Few Good Boarders Scott Griffith is in the process of renovating his family farm by Nancy Brannon Scott Griffith is a fifth-generation farmer in Hernando, Mississippi whose family has raised every type of farm animal and seed crop, including the garden variety, that you can think of. He has a few horses of his own and a barn to house them, but recently got into the horse boarding business “because a friend of mine needed a place to board his three horses.” Presently Griffith is hoping to get more boarders for either full or partial board at his Twin Oaks Farm. Griffith is in the process of renovating his family farm, re-establishing pasture, putting up more fencing, and building more barns. He once worked for O.W. Hardin Construction. “Mr. Hardin was one of the smartest people I knew,” who taught him a lot about building. Griffith has built all the barns himself, including his own, a pasture shelter and another three-stall barn, with 12’ X 12’ stalls, tack/feed room, and turnout space. Griffith is an avid gardener, too, but his two-acre garden plot “is now down to about a half acre,” he said, as he spends more time with the horses and less with his garden. His own horse preferences are Tennessee Walking Horses and racking horses. But he has welcomed a Quarter Horse reining horse to his farm and adopted a horse and a pony who were starving as a result of the previous owner’s neglect. His main riding horse is “Pride Adjuster,” an 18-year-old TWH just retired from the show ring. “Pride Adjuster” achieved the High Point Amateur Racking Horse award in the Mississippi Walking Horse Association three years running, two with his son riding and one with him. “He won at Germantown; he won at Nettleton, at Starkville, at Holly Springs, at Somerville. He won the Mississippi State Charity Show two or three times. In fact, most of the times he went in the show ring he won.” Griffith’s “latest project” just turned three years old, a black colt “out of Pusher’s Show Time and by Black Rain stallion.” While renovating the family farm, Griffith has come across some interesting artifacts and has plenty of stories to tell about his forebears. He nearly tore down the old smoke house on the property, but decided against it after the surveyor told him he hadn’t seen another like it in Desoto County. “It’s where my grandmother and granddaddy smoked hams” and where he “found love letters written from my grandfather to my grandmother before they were married. That would have been around the turn of the century, in the early nineteen teens,” he said. “My grandparents raised just about everything, from cattle to hogs to cotton and other crops. My grandmother used to raise chickens and I remember her going into town to sell eggs and butter.” He still has the churn, butter mold and egg scales she used. His grandfather “used to train bird dogs for a living. He had kennels near the railroad track over at Love. He worked at Grady Smith Kennels, world famous for training bird dogs. The dogs would come in on the train and they would train them here. Then they would take the dogs over to Lamar when it came closer to Field Trials time. People shipped in dogs from all over the country for him to train. They said he had more patience with the dogs than anyone else.” Griffith recalled a story about one of his grandfather’s dogs that was printed in the weekly column called “Strollin’” years ago in the Commercial Appeal, “or was it the Press-Scimitar?” he pondered. The column featured a story about his grandfather’s 2-legged Feist dog. The dog had been in a farm accident in which his right front leg and left hind leg were cut off. “The veterinarian recommended that my grandfather put the dog to sleep, but he just didn’t have the heart to do it.” With his grandfather’s care, the dog eventually healed. The newspaper article described the dog as “hopping around like a kangaroo,” but she got around well and even “raised several litters of puppies,” Griffith said. Griffith’s regular job is farm-related, too. He has worked for the USDA, formerly the Soil Conservation Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service, for 28 years. He writes farm plans for pasture land and crop land and helps farm owners with erosion control. He says, “We’ve changed from a service agency to a regulatory agency over the years. Now we make sure farms are in compliance in order to get their payments. The 1985 Farm Bill made drastic changes in the agency and for farmers by mandating compliance regarding land use.” Griffith said these days he’s seeing more organically grown foods and grass fed beef with no growth hormones. Griffith loves to go to bird dog Field Trials and enjoys watching the dogs work. In fact, he would rather go on a day when there are fewer people so he can get a closer look at the dogs working. Although his wife Vicky has only ridden once in 28 years, “she loves Walking Horse shows,” he said. She has worked with the show chairman on the Holly Springs Charity Walking Horse show every year since its inception 4 years ago. “It was voted the #1 one-night show by the TWHBEA its first year,” he said. Griffith’s enjoyment of Field Trials and bird dogs fits well with his regular job, too. “We just bought a native grass seed drill at the office. We’re trying to get native grasses planted to restore quail habitat and get the quail population back up.” He said he has seen a drastic reduction in quail and all kinds of birds in the area. The native grass seed drill is available for a small rental fee to any farmer in DeSoto or Marshall County, Mississippi. These two counties have been designated by both Quail Unlimited and Mississippi State University for restoration of quail habitat. The USDA office has a list of seed companies who have the native grass seed available. For more information about this, contact Scott Griffith at his office at 3260 Highway 51 S, Hernando, Mississippi. Phone number is 662-429-8684, ext. 3. To board a horse or rent his three-stall barn, contact Scott Griffith at Twin Oaks Farm, 761 Gaines Road, Hernando, Mississippi. Phone number (662) 429-4923 of cell number (901) 734-5178.