Today we moved the horses’ shoeing stock inside the barn and out of the weather.

I would have done it myself…………………but some good sensible logic stepped in (temporarily) and I asked my good friend (who’s a ranch manager) to come over and help with the tractor-tactical-movement of the wooden/monstrosity of a shoeing stock to it’s permanent home inside the barn.

I really don’t want to have to move that thing anymore………….

It’s already got major mileage on it since I’ve gotten it…………….I wish it had accrued frequent flyer miles…

But chaining and clevis-hooking it onto the front-end loader of the tractor and placing it into the barn in the appropriate alcove was something I “could” have done by myself…

…………………….but the barn/the gate/the gate post/the stall walls/the tractor & the shoeing stock itself would never have looked the same or functioned the same again (after I was “done” with it).

So I called my friend, Ralph (Ralph the Grease Monkey)………………..that’s not his real name…

But Ralph knows farms and farm equipment and how to use them properly.

 

Me……………………I’m more of a crash and burn sort of handy-man……………handy-person…………..handy-gender-neutral-individual.

 

 

I break things that I don’t intend to…

I break things that I intend to…

I break things real good.

 

So with age/wisdom/& beauty………………I called Ralph.

He came right over………………….he’s seen my past, failed projects.

 

He chained that puppy right onto the tractor, lifted the bush-hog out of the barn’s breeze-way without having to attach that stupid PTO.

 

 

 

 

He just lifted the bush-hog up with the pallet forks and moved it out of the way.

 

 

……………..and remember that huge (1000 lbs) bag of sand I bought from Home Depot (months ago)?

Ralph chained that up to the front-end loader too, and ever so carefully put the gigantor bag-o-sand into the stall———(otherwise, I would had to of done it all with a shovel……………..augh).

 

He slowly missed the stringer on the top and the stall wall at the bottom.

 

He inched the tractor forward so that the hinges on the extension arms of the front bucket equally matched the height of the stall wall………………..then (when it was all done) he let me go inside the stall and unhook the chains.

 

I felt so useful……………

 

 

………….and then I slipped and fell in a massive patch of  $#&**#$%!!@ nettles.

It was hard to look cool when Patrice & I were wallowing & rolling & flailing in stinging nettle plants, with my bi-focals dangling & stuck in my hair…

 

 

I tried to act like nothing happened.

Ralph tried to act like he hadn’t noticed.

 

 

 

Ralph is a cool friend.

………………..my barn is still intact……………(not because of me).

………………..my tractor is still working.

 

………………..Ralph even chain-sawed four (4) stumps from one of my telephone poles to be used as hoof-supports for the shoeing stock………AND……..(he started that #*%&#*@&% two-cycle-engine chain-saw with no problem at all—–it would have herniated me—–and then never started, to boot).

 

I gave him the two remaining 5-gallon aluminum paint cans that we had left over from re-surfacing our house’s tin-roof…

That was all he wanted…

………………..and then Grease Monkey Ralph went home…

 

 

He just drove into the sunset…

 

……………………me?………I was welted & exhausted & I had done nothing……………………