417 years

If you add together the ages of these 7 women that's what you get.  417 years.   That's a lot woman years.

These women are the Slow Ponies and they play old cowgirl music.   Well truthfully it's more commonly thought of as cowboy music, but seeing that there are no boys in this band, you can understand why they made the change.

The Slow Ponies played last night at GroveAtopia's favorite watering hole, The Axe and Fiddle.

I always try to see them when they come to town because they are just so darned good.  It's not often you see women of this age playing music together for no reason other than they have fun doing it.  The fact that they are very good at it is a bonus.

Plus there is an interesting story behind the Slow Ponies.  

They come from Yoncalla, a small town about 25 miles south of GroveAtopia.  Most of the members of the band are Applegates.  As in the Applegate family.  That family has a long history in Oregon.  There is even an Applegate Trail that runs north from Humboldt, Nevada through GroveAtopia and clear on up to Polk County. 

Some of the Applegates settled in Scotts Valley and there they met the local Indian tribe that came to be known as the Kalapuya.   Apparently the patriarch of the Applegates and the Kalapuya chief got along rather well; in fact, as the story goes, the Kalapuya chief welcomed the Applegates and they lived side by side for many years.

Then during one of the efforts to round up the Indians of Oregon and put them on reservations, the military came to Yoncalla to take the band of Kalapuya living there to the reservation.  But the Applegate patriarch would have none of it and managed to convince the officers to leave the Indians with him.

Now this story is important because one of the members of the Slow Ponies who is not an Applegate is a descendant of that Kalapuya chief.  The same chief who welcomed the Applegates to Scotts Valley. She sings the old cowboy songs and harmonizes so beautifully with the Applegate women that you just know all their ancestors are proud.   

Hearing the Slow Ponies sing makes you wish.  If only this harmonic blending of voices could have occurred between the all the Oregon pioneers and Indians so many years ago.  Perhaps we would have truly lived together all these years, rather than first fighting, then living apart.  

That didn't happen, but we do have the Slow Ponies.  Their story reminds us of what did happen so many years ago, and their beautiful harmonies show us what is still possible today.