Tacos, Horses, and Europe

This Saturday, I will be traveling to London, where I will meet my sister for an extended adventure in Europe. We’ve been talking about this for so long that the reality of it hasn’t really hit me. Perhaps it will descend upon me as I board the plane. I may need an emotional support animal. Maybe I should take a cow.

Anyway, seeing as I’ll be away from home for so long, I wanted to write a final bit of home onto here. Not that I won’t be coming back. I shall return a wizened traveler; no longer a Prairie Chicken, but a mostly calm - albeit still easily startled - old hen.

That’s the sort of chrysalis and emergence that I’m picturing in my head. It’s also the one I want to encourage my parents to believe in. They are concerned for their little butterfly chickens.

It’s been really busy over here with bull-checking, sick-calf-needling, bale-hauling, Brother-wedding, and shingle-helping. That is a quick, hyphenated run down of the preoccupations that assailed us just in the last two weeks. Recently, we added puppy-raising to our list, and soon we will be doing new-nephew-visiting. These last two are nice bonuses of this last week at home. Not LAST last week, Mom and Dad; I will be coming home.

I have to throw in those assurances, because they are driving me to the airport and are therefore in a position to sabotage my trip if they take it into their heads to do so.

Aaanyway, it would take me an approximate very long time to write about all of those things we were getting up to, so I’m going to talk about the thing that was most life-threatening. It wasn’t even that life threatening, really, but I’m sure I’ll be inspired with opportunities for exaggeration as we go.

Besides, it is really the most nerve-wracking thing that’s happened for a while. Unless you count today, when a taco chip got lodged in my esophagus.

We were having lunch at someone else’s place, which is nerve-wracking enough, when someone asked me a question. That’s what happens when people talk to me while I’m eating. I’m not a natural multi-tasker. And of course I had to answer the question quickly, or I would be looked at expectantly. I verily dislike being looked at expectantly. It’s the worst kind of being looked at. To answer quickly, of course I had to swallow what I had just put in my mouth. And I mean JUST put in my mouth.

Quickly swallowing my taco shard of death, I actually managed to get out an answer to the question. It was a bit of a raspy response, because the taco shard of death was slowly caressing my throat as it slid down. Like a feral cat would caress someone who was trying to force it into a place it did not want to go.

Because of my apparent discomfort, the whole party looked up at me. I pointed to my throat.

“Taco chip,” I wheezed, trying to say it without moving my throat, which didn’t matter because I was compulsively dry-swallowing every five seconds anyway.

Everyone nodded knowingly, and were instantly transported to a time when they had experienced the same thing. It’s not an ordeal you forget, and it makes me wonder why they still make tacos.

Oh right.

Because they’re delicious.

Anyway, I swallowed several more times as, here and there, a comment was made about someone else’s own taco shard of death experience. But my own taco shard of death was not proceeding. It had clawed its way to roughly just above my collar bone and was refusing to move farther. I grappled with God for a moment about why he made esophagi so soft and taco chips so hard, and then my Dad piped up, “It’s probably through, you’re just feeling the scratch.” Afraid to turn my neck, I tried to give him a sideways glance of intense displeasure.

“No. It’s still in there.” I prodded at my throat a little and winced, then pointed, very pointedly. “It’s right here. I can feel it.”

I was beginning to get pretty worried that I was never going to get rid of the taco shard of death. That I would take it with me to Europe, to home, to the rest of my life, just having to deal with the chronic pain of a taco shard of death. Always afraid to swallow, but always thinking about swallowing, and therefore always swallowing because I have very little self control.

If I was at home, I probably would have had a full on meltdown. I’m talking complete overreaction, like when I got my first needle (and second needle), when I had my first tick (not nervous tick - I’ve had those for years), and whenever I had to take tests in elementary grades (and also some high school ones... and that one college test).

However, I was not at home. I was a guest at lunch. And I had to be dignified, even through I’d just swallowed my food whole, like a toothless Neanderthal.

I dry swallowed another few times while everyone just looked on at my discomfort.

They were all looking expectantly.

I’m not sure if it was that or the taco shard of death, but I was getting well into a nervous sweat.

“Well,” I said, trying to look casual with my ramrod posture, flushed complexion, and rapidly accumulating sweat, “continue eating. It’s just my esophagus. I can still breath.”

They turned to their plates, but were still glancing up at me.

Expectantly, of course.

“Try drinking some water to soften it,” Dad suggested. I didn’t like the idea of swallowing more, but realistically I was already unable to control my swallowing impulse, so I thought I might as well try making the taco shard of death a soggy shard of less death.

It took three large and painful gulps of water to finally get that thing moisturized enough to slip on through.

And what sweet relief that was.

I was a little gun-shy of the chips after that, but I’ve discovered a handy little tip to avoid situations such as what I just went through.

Chew your food, people.

Anyway, I know it’s important to get back on a horse again, so I saddled up with salsa and went for another ride. Chewing carefully, of course.

Now that I’ve regaled you with that heart-pounding story, this next one kind of pales in comparison. However, I did resolve to tell a tale of home and agriculture, and throwing in a horse metaphor at the end of a taco shard of death story doesn’t quite cut it.

Instead, let me tell you about a real horse.

A horse named Tee.

Tee is a Quarter Horse gelding. Quarter Horses are so named because they are the fastest horses for quarter-mile sprints. I think Sprinter would have been a cool breed name, but apparently on horse-breed-naming-day there was a very literal guy in charge.

Anyway, even though the breed is typically pretty quick, Tee is the opposite of that. He is pretty not quick. I don’t know if you get it yet. He’s not just not quick. He’s one of the most very not quickest horses I have ever met.

It takes a pretty strong leg to get him going when he gets lazy, which is roughly most days; sometimes the only way to get Tee’s attention is if you have a stick to motivate him with. You don’t even have to use it for the most part - it just needs to be there. Dad seems to be in a fairly constant battle with him.

Here are some things that I nod placidly along to as we ride through pastures...

“This horse could be so good, if he would just listen!”

“What are you going that way for?! Can’t you feel me steering you??”

“I can’t get this horse to move when I need to do something! Maybe if I had the reins in one hand, the rope in another, a stick to smack him with in another hand, a bat to beat him in another hand, and a knife to cut his jugular in another!!!”

That last one escalated pretty quickly, brought on by Tee meandering off the trail and eating the wolfwillows. Dad was exaggerating, of course. He doesn’t have that many hands.

Anyway, I’m not actually writing this just to defame Tee. In fact, this story is meant to commend him, because he is deserving of commendation.

Last week, we took another bull out to the yearling heifers. Since the bull that was out there was a bit of a psycho last year to get home, we thought we’d just leave them in there together. Unfortunately, they are the same age, and with the more dominant bull having lost a lot of weight from being out with the heifers, they were evenly matched. This meant that they went straight to fighting, and each one was quite certain it would win.

Tired of waiting for a champion to emerge, we decided that we would check all the other pastures, then come back to see if they had stopped fighting.

It was later in the evening before we finally got back there. To our disappointment, the bulls were still at it. They weren’t fighting hard, but followed each other around, ensuring that neither of them could do their job.

That meant the psycho had to come home.

Here’s the thing about that bull. He doesn’t even look like a psycho. He’s fairly quiet in the herd, and is a little pushy (bulls are kind of like that), but mostly just leaves you alone.

But he has snapping potential.

Dad first saw this when he halter-broke the bull. After getting a halter on him, Dad let him out of the chute, and the bull ran to the far end of its pen, turned around, and came back towards Dad, a hunting look in his eye.

There’s a look that bovine get. Sure, there’s some that’ll chase to get by you, or if they feel cornered or threatened. But then there’s the ones that hunt you. The ones that go out of their way to get you. Those kind will leave a place of safety just to plan your demise. You don’t need to deserve it; they just want to kill you.

This bull got that look, and Dad hasn’t trusted him since.

Fast forward to last fall, when the bull had to be pulled from the pasture to come home. I wasn’t there personally, but apparently Dad was really impressed with how much the bull had quieted down. He was able to toss a rope onto it as the herd milled around. The bull even seemed to remember its halter training, as it didn’t fight the rope much. Unfortunately, when Dad flicked the rope to readjust it, it somehow pinched the bull’s ear. That was that. The bull snapped and came at Dad. Poor old Tee got the run put on him, but I think he moved alright under that motivation. He must have, because he’s still alive today.

After that, Dad was a lot more careful with that bull. He managed to get him loaded, but wasn’t looking forward to doing the same with a bigger, badder, two-year-old version.

Fast forward again. This fall. Last week. Same bull. Same horse. Same Dad.

And pretty much the same dealio. The bull was really quiet, just moving around in among the herd. Dad managed to get a loop around its nose that somehow stayed there, so he kept him going in a circle while I tossed a loop over his neck. It was a glorious loop, by the way. 10/10, easily. One of my finest moments.

Around that point, the playful heifers were bored of us (I don’t know how they could be, with such excellent roping skills of mine on display) and moving onward, so the bull was getting restless. My horse hasn’t done a lot of pulling in his days and can be a bit of a chicken turd with even just 800-pound calves. I did not want to be dallying on that big thing, in other words.

However, since the bull was on the go, I had to do something until Dad and I were able to switch ropes.

So we ran, my horse and I. I’m not much of a roper, and kind of a timid dallyer, but one thing I can manage decently is the in between part. This is because I’ve been the rope holder for Dad since I was about seven. I had the good old Red mare and would get a couple wraps on the saddle horn, then watch Dad tag the calves, keeping a lookout for the momma cow. Tangled coils, careless dallies, and rope burns were heavily frowned upon.

Anyway, I may not be pro at much, but I can hold a rope (which sounds about as useful as the country song phrase, “I’m pretty good at drinking beer”, but I will maintain that it is, indeed, a skill).

As I was saying, it was easily accomplished for one so proficient as myself, especially since I was on my big steady Mack horse. My goodness, I like that horse sometimes. Someday I may pay story-tribute to him, too...

We were able to lope along easily with the bull, keeping at a safe distance and keeping my rope straight. Dad was back a little, swearing at Tee a bit because Tee is not good for this in between part where there’s running involved.

The bull stopped when he got to some heifers, so Dad and I moved quickly. We exchanged our ropes, my excellent head loop for his ineffective, yet somehow still hanging in there, nose loop.

The heifers were taking off again, so Dad dallied up and braced for impact. It wasn’t that bad. The bull circled around a couple times, testing the security of the rope, but he didn’t seem so psycho. I followed the bull around his circle, keeping Dad free of the extra rope. I thought we were sitting pretty good. Not far from the trailer. Minimal running. This bull’s not so bad.

Then the darn thing doubled back on the rope and got it between his front legs. That gives them more pulling power. Dad went to loosen off and ride with the bull, but the bull was looking like he was going to run off, so Dad tightened up again, and stopped the bull. It stopped the bull for a moment, but when he tried to run a circle again, he felt the rope between his legs, and it was that, this year, that made him snap.

With a great snort, the bull charged. Thankfully, he didn’t charge at either of us, just past us, away from the heifers. It was quite awe-inspiring how quickly and powerfully he moved. I heard the zzziip! of the rope as the dallies slid through his grip and the wraps in the saddle horn. We both tossed our ropes away and let him go.

Another thing we’re both good at is safely tossing ropes away. We’ve heard a lot of stories about fingers lost in rope kinks or dallies. Once, Dad didn’t surrender his soon enough and it slapped his leg as it spun off the saddle horn. He had a purple bruise that looked exactly like the twisted rope.

Anyway, after our very professional defensive actions of giving up, the bull ran blindly for several strides, then turned and headed back past us and towards the heifers.

We let him be, since we didn’t want to fix fence that day. Or die, I guess.

He went back to the herd and was calm again, standing with them.

As the bull ran, he had dropped the nose rope, so I picked it up and gave it back to Dad when I got to the herd. Dad put another head loop on the bull, and I cautiously dismounted to pick up the tail of my rope, which was still dragging. I had to be extra cautious because that bull is extra psycho, Mack is extra tall, and I am extra not that limber.

That’s a lot of extras to account for.

After we had the ropes, Dad began pulling him back the way we came. By this time, it was a bit less than half a mile to the trailer.

My job was to push the bull up so Dad and Tee (mostly Tee, let’s be real) wouldn’t have to drag him the whole way. This would have been doable if I either wasn’t holding a rope to keep it out if the bull’s feet, or if the bull wasn’t the sort that kicks to kill. Dad suggested I use my rope to slap him, but at that bull’s leg-distance away, I couldn’t coordinate my rope safely or effectively.

A new method was needed.

Dad bid me drop the rope, and run to the bush to grab a stick. I did. I pulled off the biggest branch that I could manage. I collected the rope again and swatted the bull with the Poplar branch.

It wasn’t big enough.

Dad bid me drop the rope and leave it drag, and find a bigger, harder stick.

I did. I got off and grabbed a nearly whole, dead old Poplar. Thankfully, Mack allowed me to scramble up while holding it. I wasn’t sure he would, because sometimes he’s really good and sometimes he almost dumps me off when he spooks at cow poop.

Anyway, then I practically had a jousting rod, which was long enough to reach the bull, but only really qualified to give him a light poke.

So here’s the part where Tee comes in. I mean, he’s been there all along, working away, but this is the point at which he starts bearing the brunt of the labour.

Good old Tee pulled that miserable bull all the way back to the trailer. There was a pretty good lean on his saddle, and it was clearly a load for him, but he just walked steadily on.

I guess that’s why Dad endures all the things about Tee that drive him nuts. At the end of the day, when a stubborn bull needs to be pulled a half mile to load in a trailer, there’s no other horse so tolerant as Tee.

So there it is, my last adventure at home for a little while. I go off very soon to become a wizened old hen, but if I find the time to cluck about my squawkings there, I’m sure there will be no shortage of adventures to share.