Games that Old Farts Play

Monday I started mowing the paths for the Meditative and Medicine Wheel Gardens. It came to me after worrying about mowing it all, that paths for people to walk upon and if I fill in the un-mown spaces with wild flowers and trees will work great. Thank you… ‘The Voice’.

Anyhow, I was mowing part of the path going south in the field, with the intention of mowing a circle where I think the Medicine Wheel will go.  I looked towards the pasture by the house where Royal and Marty were turned out, to see Marty running around, but no Royal. I shielded my eyes from the sun and let the tractor and mower continue its job of mowing, in search for Royal. I cannot see him.

Where can he be I wonder, still letting the tractor and finishing mower continue while my eyes searched for the old guy, hoping he’d not fallen in the creek upside down again like two years ago, because he ducked under the fence, decided to climb the bank out and then fell backwards. Yes it was a scary moment.

Finally, when I'm almost done with the path….I see Royal…he’s rolling, and rolling, and rolling. He is the wettest part of the pasture…he rolls some more. Often he needs to rest a minute after his vigorous rolls before he gets himself up. I usually wait and eventually he gets up with little effort.

I watch, He lies down, he lies up, he lies flat, he lies up. Hmmm I wonder is he stuck maybe he can’t get himself up because the ground is to soft. So I decide not to go back to mowing but go over and see if he needs help.

Still in the big field, I shut the mower off, turn the idle down on the tractor, he hears me, perks up his ears, and watches me as I drive out of the field. Coming from behind the pine trees on the road, I can see he is still down, ears perked. He watches me drive down Hayes Hollow, into the drive of the barn, around the corner to the house, where I stop to park the tractor. I look; he’s still lying there, watching me, still with ears perked. I turn my head to shut the tractor down and lower the mower. Its only a couple seconds time when I turn back to look at Royal, all the time thinking, how I am going to get him out of there.

He’s gone.

What…where is he? I get off the tractor, walk towards the pasture, leaning to peer around the shed, thinking my location is off, no all I see is an indentation of where he was…but where his he? I walk farther down the hill of the lawn and look around the corner of the house and there he his, soaking wet from rolling in the wet spot, eating grass. I say… “You old fart, how’d you do that, get up and there so quick? And here I thought you were stuck, to tired and to old to get up. What was I thinking”.

With his ears perked and his sides expanding huge with a big intake of air, he bellows out a whinny, as if to say, “Na, Na, Nana…fooled ya…I wasn’t stuck at all”, and started eating grass, peering at me from the corner of his eye, with what seemed to be a smirk on his gray muzzle.

I smiled with a warm fuzzy feeling inside towards him… “You silly old fart…I love you and your huge hearted personality”, and walked over and gave his muddy wet neck a hug…he hugged back.

I can make a General in five minutes but a good horse is hard to replace.

Abraham Lincoln
1809-1865, Sixteenth President of the USA