Sounds like you got some deep roots my man. Where in the south are you from?
Im from MD, my mom's side is from rural VA. Dad is from rural MD. Both farming environments.
So, I CONSTANTLY hear stories of my parents driving mules...I remember being on my granpa's farm and feeding the pigs and being scared of the poled cattle. Great Uncle had a farm and you walk up to it, and there are banny roosters, ducks, geese, chickens, wild turkeys running all over the front yard. Pigs, horses, cows in the back.
And the food, man, the food...people from NYC and up North know nothing on how to feed a person like the South does.