There are so many chores for those living in the country. It is a wonder they all get done. Huge families get to divide those chores, and possibly rotate them so nobody gets too bored. Our family was small and we did not rotate chores. One of the toughest chores on one of our places from my viewpoint was lawn care.
Many ranch houses do not have a lawn. Those places just have plain old dirt for a yard. There are several reasons for the dirt yard. They are really easy to maintain, and when it rains, you have to use a walkway to get to the house. One of our ranch houses dumped all the gray water in the back yard area. We had to control the Johnson grass there. By the way, weed eaters had not been invented. Weed slings usually got the job done. Another reason for a nice dirt yard is that you could track any activity around the house. Raccoons making way to the trash dump always leave little tracks. Every once in a while you could see a snake trail leading up to the house. This was really nice for tracking them down and dealing with them.
Our last ranch house had a beautiful front and back yard with flower beds all over the place and a lot of pretty green grass. You can guess who drew the lucky straw to keep that area looking nice. Well, that job went to the youngest in the family because everyone else had much more important work to accomplish. There was an old reel mower on the place. Really tough to push through tall grass, so once the grass was cut, one had to stay on top of the job.
I also drew the job of mucking the horse stalls and taking care of the horses. The place with the lawn had a barn close by and we kept two horses in a little trap nearby during the day. I was very diligent about the stalls and keeping the horses brushed and looking really nice. I could spend a couple of hours giving those horses a nice bath in the summer. Of course you have to dry them off and brush and brush and brush. They always looked great after a bath. And, they always loved to roll in the dirt after a bath, too.
I came up with a brilliant solution to the yard maintenance. Both horses really eyed that green grass inside the yard fence. It was so easy to walk the horses over to the yard and hold on to the bridle reins while they enjoyed a gourmet meal. I could keep the yard trimmed really easy this way, and the horses’ coats seemed to get really shiny with that quality grass. This worked out so well, I managed to get two jobs done for a couple of months. The yard looked good, and the horses took to that green grass. I did have to watch for those piles of horse manure, though. I learned about how much a horse would eat before becoming comfortable enough to fertilize the yard. There were indications, and if you watched closely, you could lead the horses out of the yard just in time so you would not have to scoop.
The horses became so accustomed to this routine, that I thought I could probably get three jobs done at the same time. After their bath, I could let the horses mow the yard, they get fed, and if I worked it right, I could muck the stalls at the same time. This turned out to be a really, really bad idea.
I took the halters off the horses and let them roam in the front and back yard on that green grass while I cleaned out the stalls in the barn. Got the stalls cleaned out. Took the halters to catch the horses and discovered right away that I missed a fertilizing round. I missed several fertilizing rounds. Wow, I missed a lot of fertilizing rounds. What seemed to be going on here? When I rounded the corner of the house to get to the front yard, both horses jerked their heads up like they were caught with their head in the cookie jar. Well, they sort of did have their head in the cookie jar, they had just ripped up all of Mom’s precious flowers. As a matter of fact, they had just about destroyed all the flower beds in the front and in the back of the house!
I do not know which flower tasted so good to those horses, but they ate them all. Flowers seem to have some sort of impact on the digestive system of a horse. I saw first hand that impact, and realized there would be more than one mess to clean up.
The horses did not want to leave the yard, of course. They really liked it there. Since I had removed the bridles, I had to catch both horses to put the bridles back on to lead them out to the little pasture. Since they had found their new very best home, they were not to be caught. Horses can really destroy a lot of stuff if they do not want to get caught, not to mention tear up a lot of ground. We lost a fence down the side of the yard. It was all right for the moment, because those horses did not want to leave the yard. Mom’s clothes line came down and we made a new gate out of the fence in the back yard. Belts were a multipurpose piece of apparel for a boy on the ranch. I managed to get a belt around the neck of one of the horses without my pants falling down. That ended our rodeo for the time being. The other horse seemed to become a little more docile, and I was able to get bridles on both horses. Last I saw of that pair that day was both of them rolling in the dirt. I know they were grinning and laughing. Horses have a way of letting you know they really enjoyed the day.
Being also the designated fence boy for our place, I was able to make some quick fence repairs. However, goats really like to explore. Before the fences went back up, there were ten to twenty goats feasting on the remnants of our yard and flowers. Goats can really fertilize a place. They just took care of about ten year’s worth of fertilizing in about thirty minutes time. They can clean up messes though, and I really think those goats helped the look of the disastrous yard around our house. Goats belong in the pasture and not in the yard, so out they go.
Surveying the damage told me I was in some kind of hot water with Mom. Dad would appreciate the ingenuity and probably laugh at the damage, but it was Mom that I needed to be scarce around. I spent the day removing horse manure, tiding up the turf damage, and trying to straighten out what was left of the flower beds.
As luck would have it, Mom was planning on cleaning those flower beds out to get ready for the fall months. Dad noticed the fence repairs, the new gate in the back yard, and he thought I had put in a nice half day of work. Little did he know there was a rodeo in the yard, several hours went into making it look natural and that when bedtime came around, I was exhausted.
I did let the goats in to mow the grass. I had just about had enough of those two horses. I let them watch the goats in the yard. I know that might have been a bit mean, they must have been really jealous of those goats.
short stories 