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I just bucked 160 of those bad boys. That's a minimum of 6,400 pounds. I feel more alive than I have in a very long time. I only regret that the pile was so small.
This morning I went out to the ranch. The woman who asked for my help saw me pull up in my truck. "Well," she said, "since you know how to handle a truck, you get to drive." She tossed me keys to a Ford. Moments later we were hitching a four horse trailer to an older model Ford F-Series. It was pretty much my truck but 6 or 7 years ago, and now with the extra length of a horse trailer. She and I and another guy jumped in and headed across a field, down a dirt road to a neighbor's property, and found a thin Mexican fella waiting beside a stack of hay at least 20 feet high and as long as a small house. We loaded the bed, then the trailer, then headed back to the barn. It took some fancy maneuvering, both forward and in reverse, but I drove that big mama in, around, and back out of that barn like nobody's business. The windows were down, the dust was up, the engine was rumbling. Hell yeah!
Why does this make me so happy? Partly because it brought back good memories from childhood. Partly because I wasn't pecking at a computer. And partly because, when the work was done, I could stand back and see that something real and tangible had been accomplished by my own two hands. It wasn't some virtual thing, some rearrangement of photons in a plastic box. It wasn't something everyone could have a petty little opinion on and suggest I tweak this or adjust that or modify something else. This was something raw and physical, something with an undeniable presence. It was a big, sturdy stack of horse feed, and because it existed horses would get to eat for a few more weeks.
To "buck" hay means to throw a bale, and mostly that means moving it from the ground to up over your head. It doesn't take too many bales before you start to feel muscles you never knew you had. Talk about a workout! Chest, biceps, shoulders, back, legs and lots of lower back and abs. I've bucked hay before but never this much in one go. It was awesome. I'm filthy, covered in a fine dust and lots of dried grass bits. You might also be surprised at how sharp hay can be. My forearms are pricked and bleeding all over. Funny thing is I didn't even notice until the work was done and we were all standing around BSing (which is one of the best rewards of ranch work, in my opinion, but it's only good if you earn it first.) I noticed the blood when I felt my forearms stinging. "Huh," I thought. I loved it.
But the work wasn't actually over. We also unloaded a horse trailer full of pine shavings used for horse bedding, and then I spent two hours riding. Have you ever loped around on a horse? The lope (in Western riding) or canter (in English riding) is basically third gear for a horse, one step down from a full-on gallop. It's an incredible feeling, kinda like flying. It's so smooth and rhythmic. Your upper body stays relatively motionless, while your hips lunge forward and fall back with each stride. It's almost like an erotic dance. You can feel every contraction of the horses body, and when you've been riding a while you can sense his every footfall, his every twitch. Riding has little or nothing to do with audible or visual cues. It's entirely about body language. A slight motion of your foot or leg or arm and the horse responds accordingly. Likewise, every motion the horse makes you respond to. There's a continuous feedback loop of information between a good horse and a good rider, all unspoken, and when done right it will appear to an observer that the horse and rider are of one mind.
And now for a late lunch of homemade buttermilk biscuits with butter and home canned fruit preserves, fresh milk (just milked yesterday!) and scrambled yard eggs with bacon. After that, a siesta followed by some guitar on the porch watching the sunset. I suppose at some point this weekend I'll have to sit behind this damned computer (for more than just blogging) to pay the price for my wonderful day.
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