Day 54, Daniel Leaves
Day 53, Tractor Boogaloo
If you were to ask me what habits I expected to pick up on a cattle ranch, I’d likely have said an early wake up call, an appreciation for labor, and a terrible habit of mentioning testicles whenever presented with a steak. While all but one of these make some sense, it comes as a surprise to me that the ones I notice the most are of the unexpected variety. There’s the fascination of metals and mechanics, an odd aversion to Japanese trucks, and a terrible habit of leaving gas lid anywhere but the tank opening. But oddest of all for a ranch worker would likely be an unexpected appreciation of the iPod. That symbol of consumerist design, following the shapes, utility, and fragility people expect from devices of the future, has developed into a major anchor for my life out in the middle of nowhere.
Day 52, On Larry
I’ve never been good at describing a person. It was always my biggest weakness in creative writing class, always made my stories and tales a little duller and harder to listen to, always an injustice to the people I described and to the people who I conversed with. No amount of showing, not telling, seemed to work for me.
Day 51, Cali, Stinky, and Socks
Of all the members of the ranch, I display the most affection to Cali: Debbie’s calico cat, Stinky: Larry’s half-dachshund, half-chihuahua dog, and Socks: Bob’s young colt he brought with him from Minnesota.
Day 49, Things Fall Apart
I think it’s important to emphasize that haying is TOUGH, and though it may not be particularly tough on the operator the very moment he is harvesting, it is incredibly tough on the machines, which in turn is tough on the manufacturers of the machines who make these enormously intricate machines and send them to dealerships, tough on the dealerships who sell and supply machines, parts, and supplies to local ranchers, tough on the ranchers who must maintain and fix the machines, and on the machines who need to cut, rake, bale, and load several thousand bales worth of tough, prairie grass. So it becomes inevitable that things begin to fall apart.
Day 48, One More off the Bucket List
Getting up at 4 am, I was almost certain that I wouldn’t make my ride to Billings. The dream of cheap groceries was fading quickly, but I was determined to try best to make it. I wasn’t certain whether it was possible to finish a field of that size in only 4 hours, I hadn’t enough experience to know something like htat, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.
Day 47, Good Sunday Morning
Saturday morning found us in the field battling mother nature, as she tore the rows of hay up with mighty blasts of air. The rake was stretched wide catching as many stalks as possible. The wind had turned the ground into a plush carpet of grass clipping, the rows were hardly identifiable, and anything raked into a neat row again generally blew back into its original form.
Day 46, Prairie Dog Town upon a Hill
You know, it’s funny how, with each passing day I’ve gotten better and better with the tractor, but despite this each day has been harder than the next. It’s almost like I was playing a videogame, starting out with a few, easy tutorial levels, a basic field with nice straight rows, then a slightly curvier field, then a really strong storm that completely scatters all of the grass around, then doing opening rounds and negotiating islands, and now this?!
A PRAIRIE DOG TOWN?!!!!!
Day 45, Beans for Breakfast
I had beans for breakfast today. Sitting in my tractor, waiting for Bob to get going with the baler, I took the opportunity to pull the can out of my bag, tear it open with my pocket knife, and quickly spoon the contents into my mouth. I got halfway through my competitive eating contest when I quickly sandwiched the can between the controls so that it wouldn’t roll, and was on my way again. My half eaten breakfast would have to wait a while longer.
