The girls were receiving lessons from papa, a talented man who has spent much of his life being a cowboy. There isn’t much that he doesn’t know about breaking a horse. Everything I learned - I learned from my pa. It is wonderful to see the grandkids taking so much time to listen and hear what he is telling them. He has so many wonderful stories of growing up that hopefully one day I will get them all written down.
Back to the girls.... Not only was Patches being trained, so are the girls. Just a few minutes after this picture was taken, a neighbour dog spooked the horse. My 5 year old on it, and yeah every mothers heart stops. (Especially when mom is still on crutches.) Needless to say the crutches went down, and I hobbled slowly to the centre of the corral. But it was well handled. Yet, I am not saying my heart had started working and it didn’t for a few more minutes.
The little one stayed on while the horse bucked, my oldest held onto the horse and calmed him down. Papa reached for the little one and the horse. All I could do was watch with the fear of my daughter (the city girl) getting thrown off the horse and being caught either between it and the corral or under his feet. She held on. Thankfully she held on. Grandpa then calmly asked her if she wanted to stay on or get off. We all held our breath waiting for the answer. My dad looked at me and then back at her. All three of us knew what it would mean on so many different levels if she wanted off. She would not have confidence, she would possibly develop a fear, and the horse would have learned that he could buck and the rider would get off. A very bad habit any horse or child could form.
Her answer, ‘Nope I want to stay on!’ All three of us let out the air we were holding and relief hit hard. So please take her for one more ride around the corral and that is it for today. This they did and once she was in my arms my heart then started to beat again.
Bears, Cougars, Dogs Oh My
Shortly after this we watched a cinnamon bear go running by the house. It was a little bear looking for new territory. He didn’t hurt anyone in the neighbourhood or bother anything. But unfortunately the local game warden put him down. Yeah, I definitely don’t understand this one. The bear that wasn’t causing any problems and runs away from everyone gets put down. Yet the big black bear that chases livestock, rips apart the garbage in the neighbourhood and creates havoc was allowed to roam free. I think there was a problem with some peoples’ way of thinking or figuring things out. So now we have this black bear that is chasing the livestock and trying to cause havoc, joined by the cougar who is ticked off because a guide decided to shoot its mate early in the spring because it was within 5 miles of a residential area (note to foolish guide – they have been in the residential area and surrounding for the past 50 years) and never bothered anything prior to this one losing its mate.
Now the rest of the summer is spent with no sleeping nights as I am constantly up intercepting and calming down the horses and steers after they have been chased by the black bear, the cougar and the neighbour dog. Yes, the same one that spooked the horse. Yet the neighbour seems to think it is up to me to teach his dog to stay home, hmmm. To the point on the last time I took his dog home and asked him to keep it there he decided it was okay to get physically pushy with me, just a little harmless woman. Yeah, guess for those of you who know me you can stop laughing now. Because – yes, he got a surprise. My dad was sitting in the passenger side of my truck, I am still hobbling around (let us not mention I am still supposed to be on crutches, I know and a year a half later I still know - thank you). Oh dear neighbour don’t bully me, I don’t take kindly to abusive men who try threatening little harmless unarmed females. So please bring it on..... You first. (grin)
The neighbour was then gently informed (ha ha) that I would not assist him with teaching his dog to stay home and if the dog was to chase my child, my livestock, etc on our property again then the necessary course of action would happen and I would not bother to be so courteous. Since I didn’t back down he was very confused and grumbled ‘So be it’... Guess he had spoken.
We didn’t see the dog for about 3 weeks. It was much easier just dealing with the bear and cougar during the night and fencing and haying during the day. A vacation from the vacation would be great. Somebody please notify me when it starts. Oh and will that notification be by email, snail mail or phone call?
In between all of this wonderful drama, my soon to be sixteen year old son learns a lesson. My son has been doing online summer courses for school. Ugh, did I tell you that dial up is evil and ridiculously expensive because it is so evil and wants to see if you age and die before it downloads that file you need. Or hangs up and makes you start all over after rebooting your computer. Yeah for those of you who have had to deal with the nightmare of dial up I toast you for surviving. When we weren’t dealing with this we were driving to the coast so my son could write his provincials. Then back up to the farm for more work. A long trip that was very tiring. But hey he did it. Hopefully soon he will get why education is important and not stupid. But we won’t talk about the school system. That is a completely different rant.
We get back to the farm and we are fencing once again. 33+ acres of fencing, mind you as my father informed my son a year later of the accurate measurement of fencing laid out was over 70+ acres. This took 2 and ½ months to complete. We had to manually clear, manually pound posts (some would call it the old fashioned way), manually roll out the wire, and so forth. So if you ever want a how to fencing lesson please let me know. I am sure we can oblige. Heck, I can probably come up with hands on demonstration if you really like.
So we are finally at the half way point of the fencing and here comes my dad on the tractor. ‘So you guys ready to go to work?’ he asks. Considering it is now noon and we have been working for most of the day already, it was a very early morning. ‘I thought we were working’ I answer. He tells us that if we want to get hay in we need to go do it now. My son is an eager beaver for a change in the day events schedule. So - why not mom.
Oh, so you think that getting hay is easy do you... Even moms can be hard ______ and can kick butt on manual labour. Considering that I have gotten hay before, I know the drill and just how heavy those large bales are. My son on the other hand has not and does not know. So off we go to get hay. We moved over 19000 pounds of hay in 8 hours. This does not mean we used a tractor, we manually loaded it by hand into the back of the truck, then drove to the farm, then manually unloaded it and sent it up the hay elevator where then it needed to be stacked. We called it quits at 9:30pm that night. Hay was done, and it had been a 16 hour day.
The next morning my son couldn’t move his fingers, his hands were in a lot of pain. Papa told him he guessed we should have the day off and rest, and he probably should have gotten out the hay bale hooks?
My answer to my son was - so are you going to underestimate your mom again anytime soon? Needless to say, the answer remains a no.
Check back soon to see more of the ongoing trials and tribulations. Heck I haven’t even gotten to Christmas of last year yet and the start of the traumatic spring.
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