| Dear Readers,
Getting in the hay just about killed
us.
Nothing went right. We don’t have a
tractor or a baler, but we have two big Percheron horses, a
horse-drawn mower, and a Hochstettler wagon that’s eight feet wide
and sixteen feet long. We started mowing and finally got the horses
used to the mower.
THE FIRST CASUALTY
But then the horses, who love to spook
the cows by running up on them, were put out of commission. I guess
Boaz ran too close to one of the Highlands and she fetched him one
in the chest with a horn tip. The result was a minor but sidelining
chest wound. Grass, however, does not stop growing.
I called my friend Randy, but he
didn’t know anybody who might bale it. About the time I was ready to
give up on getting any hay in, my other friend, Arnold, had David
Clark call to still see if we needed our hay baled. Did we ever. We
had no sooner negotiated a price than David whisked over here,
mowed, and baled. Next thing I knew there were 664 bales of hay
lying in the fields, and rain threatening.
A TRUCK’S NOT BIG ENOUGH
On Tuesday evening (to beat the heat
of the day) we started throwing hay into the Toyota & Ford
pickups while Justin hitched up the horses to the Hochstettler
wagon, which they had never before pulled. We had stacked several
loads in the barn when Justin finished hitching the horses.
Now to understand what happened next,
you must know that the wagon has stamped steel wheels. That prevents
punching holes in your tires, but also sounds like 55 gallon drums
half full of gravel rolling down the road. Also, the Hochstettler
wagon hath no brakes. You stand to drive it, and use gravity to
stop.
ZACH LEARNS TO PRAY
Justin eased wagon out of the tractor
shed. Unknown to Justin, Zachariah had climbed up in the wagon and
lain down behind him. We were just walking up from the barn behind
the tractor shed. Susan had gone to town in the station wagon. Just
about the time Jachin and Boaz cleared the fence posts and turned
left onto the road, those stamped steel wheels hit the
gravel.
Imagine what would happen if you hit
two horses in the rear with a live 220 volt electric line. They
literally leapt ahead, veered toward the driveway fence on
the other side of the road. "That’s it," I thought, "end of wagon
and horses. I hope Justin can jump clear."
They missed the corner post and veered
back in the road. Justin, a.k.a. Ben Hur, was still pulling back on
the reins, trying to stop them. Zach was flat as a fritter on the
wagon bed, clinging to the boards with his fingers and skin, praying
with an unfeigned and earnest fervor.
About that time Susan turned the
corner into our road, about 400 yards away. When she saw Justin
bearing down the lane toward her, she first thought, "Now why is
Justin running those horses like that?" Her second thought was to
pull over -- fast.
They never slowed down. Past Susan the
road curves away to the right, and you could follow the horses
running for over a quarter mile until they finally ran out of gas.
We hopped on the vehicles and raced down to Justin.
For the first time, Justin turned
around and saw Zach. "Zach, have you been in the wagon the whole
time?" he queried.
"Naw," Zach snapped, "I just ran up
here and hopped in to fool you."
Once we got the horses off that gravel
road and onto grass where the wheels didn’t scream, they acted fine.
On the way back to the barn with a load of hay, they were too busy
and tired to act up.
ONE MORE TRY
On Wednesday we figured that the
horses would have settled down to the wagon from the previous day’s
experience. It was parked in the bay of the barn, pointed out into
the fenced paddock. Justin hitched up the horses, climbed into the
wagon, and took up the reins. I went and opened the gate to the
paddock.
A flash of black horseflesh and wood
passed before my eyes. It was the wagon, shortly before it broke the
speed of sound. I saw poor Jordan Uselton lying in the back,
beginning his instruction in the Zachariah Sanders’ School of
Prayer. Justin stood up, pulling on the reins and yelling at the
horses.
Now picture that the pasture the
horses had run into is somewhat bowl shaped. Around the lip of the
bowl are first the barn and then the tractor shed, and the fence at
the back of the tractor shed. That runs at a right angle to the shed
and along the road. Where the bowl would be there lies a fairly
sharp ravine. Instead of heading down toward the ravine, the horses
ran around the lip to the corner of the pasture behind the tractor
shed, where they stopped at the fence.
We thought we had the horses calmed
down, so with Jordan on Boaz’s side and me on Jachin’s side, and we
began to circle them around clockwise, facing the ravine again.
After about four steps, they felt the urge, and away they flew, the
wagon hitting the ground about every 20 feet. Justin apparently
thought better of riding down the ravine, and leapt off the wagon.
About that time the horses veered back left and headed away from the
ravine and toward the corner of the pasture. I thought they’d stop
again at the fence.
They didn’t. Still pulling the wagon,
they waded through that barbed wire like it was paper tape and never
slowed down. They curved along inside the fence next to the road,
and vanished out of sight over the hill, with all of us running
after them.
Eventually we got them out of
that pasture and led them back up the road to the paddock, where
Justin and I left them. Remember that. That was not a good
idea.
YOU STILL HAVE TO HAUL THE HAY
We headed back to the hay-laden
pastures in the truck, an hour closer to sunset and tireder than
ever. We had no more than half a load when here came our friends Pam
and Arnold, pulling their long trailer. If Arnold had been Santa
Claus with a full sleigh and a paid-up American Express card I
couldn’t have been happier to see him.
We took our load back to the barn, and
about the time we had finished unloading, Arnold backed a full
trailer into the barn. Picture now that on one side of the barn
there is no loft and we had stacked hay 20 feet high from floor to
ceiling. Now we were ready to begin on the other side stacking the
hay up in the loft.
With so many people you can move a lot
of hay fast. We started stacking the hay at the far end of the loft.
About the time we had stacked 50 bales down there, I heard a large
tearing, creaking noise, and turned in time to see that end of the
loft disappear from view, carrying Justin and Christian with
it.
The horses, still standing in the
paddock, heard it, too. Through their minds, insofar as a horse has
a mind, one thought sprang: "Time to git!" They began
circling the paddock at about seventy. As they circled back toward
the barn, I thought, "Oh, no, they’re going to drag that thing
through the barn and wreck everything!"
They didn’t. Rather, they ran onto the
open gate, jammed the wagon tongue into the mower’s wheel, and
rammed everything together so tight they couldn’t move.
By this time I had determined that
Justin and Christian were all right, even if the barn was somewhat
worse for wear. Eventually we got the horses, wagon, gate, and mower
disentangled. The rest of the hay we just stacked from the ground up
next to the first stack.
Miraculously, the horses were hardly
scratched. It was God’s own miracle that nobody was killed or
seriously hurt. I know it’s not funny, but still when I see in my
mind Justin standing on that wagon, hair flying behind him and those
horses running like their rears were on fire, I still have to stifle
a laugh. And in the end, we got all 664 bales of hay tucked safely
away in the barn.
I’m telling y’all, this place is
not Green Acres.
Enjoy your summer,
Franklin
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