A Bad Day

© Frank Swartwout

Did you ever have one of those days when you think you should have stayed home?

It started early in the morning on my way to my first stop. I put on my brakes and the front of my truck started shaking like crazy. Lucky for me I was only a few miles from the garage that does my work. It was a bad master cylinder. Two hours later I was on the road again (it's good to have a mechanic that is also a customer.)

On to my first stop. I walked into the barn and it was flooded. I had two horses to shoe and both are very easy to work with, so I tied them outside to a round hay feeder. Everything was going fine until I felt the hay feeder moving. I got out from under the horse I was working on and saw the other horse had his halter caught on the feeder and dragging it down the hill. I went over to the horse and calmed it down.

I then untied both horses and looked at the feeder. It didn't look that heavy. So with two (good) horses in one hand I started rolling the feeder back to where it was originally. Everything was going was going fine until it got away from me, and down the hill it went. A lot farther this time.

I took the horses in the barn, put the feeder back, and finished the job. Then on to the next job. I put the first horse in the cross-ties, got a leg up, when a goose grabbed me on the leg. So I got a horse's leg between my legs and a goose biting me on my other leg. I grabbed the goose by the neck, let the horse put his foot down and led the goose by the neck into a box stall. There I locked him in and finished up the day. When I finally got home that night I thanked God for the calm horses I had that day.

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