Farm Fresh Blog

They say that horses are dangerous. They say you should always wear a helmet when working with horses.  What they don't say is that horses are dangerous even when they're not around you.  For instance, let's just suppose that you need to move a horse buggy from one house to another house that is less than a mile away.  Do you:

A: load it up on a flatbed trailer
B: have the horse haul it down the road
C: have someone sit in a Kubota mule and hold the shafts while someone else drives the Hillbilly contraption down the street

Stupid people that we are, we opted for "C."

It was late, in fact, it was dark.  (I want to go on record here to state that "I" suggested that we wait until the next morning when the sun was up!  But NO! He wanted to get that chore out of the way.  Okie Dokie, Smokey!)

Sooo . . .  he found a red lantern that flashes, (yes it is exactly like the red lanterns that the railroad men used to hang outside the prostitute's door, thus, "the red light" district was born . . . I read somewhere that this is actually a myth,  but I digress . . . )  Any hooo, he used some hay string to hang a red lantern from the back of the buggy, sat on the tail gate of the little mule, picked up the shafts, and gave the order to proceed.

There was much yelling to get it out of the driveway.  Other Half is a yeller and a screamer.  Unlike Ranger, the Blue Heeler, I don't take it personally, I just slam on the brakes, hop out, and scream right back at him because he yells contradictory instructions.  (It makes for a healthy relationship.  Either that, or it entertains the neighbors, I'm not sure which.)

After much yelling, we navigated the driveway and headed off down the highway . . . in the dark - two fools, pulling a horse cart behind a Kubota mule . . . illuminated by headlights in the front, and a prostitute light in the back.  All was well until we got to our destination. A sharp right-hand turn was needed to get into the driveway.

I slowly put on the brakes.

"You got it?" I asked.

"Yeah, I got it!  Go ahead!"

So I did.  And that's when he started screaming.  Now this wasn't the deep-voiced, impatient yell of a man used to telling other people what to do.  No, this was the high-pitched wail of pain.

"No!  NO! NO!  Back up! Reverse!!!"  (Plus there was lots of cussing, but since this is a family-friendly channel, I deleted those words.)

So I put the mule in reverse.  The screaming reached a whole new pitch.  And cussing . . . lots more cussing. (Something about cutting his blankety-blank finger off.)  So I leaped out of the mule and ran around the back to see what he had gotten himself into. 

Eegaads!  To make it easier to pull, he had wedged the shafts of the cart into the bed of the mule.  This worked well on the straight-away, but it didn't allow for the turn.  He was holding the shaft inside the bed of the mule. When our Hillbilly vehicle turned right, the wooden shaft of the cart pinched his hand against the metal bed of the mule. Ouch!  (or . . .  Bleep!  Bleep! Bleepity! Bleep!)

There was more hollering as we lifted the shaft to release his fingers.  (It actually made the skin on my butt crawl!) But . . . it didn't amputate his fingers.  Fortunately for him, he was wearing this . . .

It took the pressure of the shaft.  The ring bent, but the bone didn't break.

We had a doggone hard time getting that ring off. He refused to go to the Emergency Room to let them cut it off. (Diamond horseshoe ring)  We finally got it off with dish soap.

I was looking for a frozen bag of peas to put on his hand, but he insisted that I run to his fancy, smancy tactical gear and get a chemical cold pack (yes, he actually has chemical packs as well as "if you get shot, open this packet" gear.)  So instead of a bag of frozen peas, he wanted the chemical cold pack.  He grabbed it with the good hand, ripped it open, and it exploded in his face.  (uh oh!  It was not a good night for Other Half.)

So while he was standing over the kitchen sink washing out his eyes, I was rummaging through bags of frozen vegetables.

"No peas.  How 'bout some French Fries?"

He declined my offer of frozen French Fries.  (Truth be told, Other Half was a bit of a Bitchy Bear last night.)  Instead, he soaked his hand in a tupperware container of ice water.  (Which was 25 degrees Fahrenheit. I know this because he had a thermometer.  Why?  I don't know. After all, cold is cold.)  At this point the dogs and I were just standing in the kitchen watching the show, wondering what he'd do next.

Interestingly enough, despite the pain, the hand seems to have survived without much damage.  The ring was a bit oblong, but nothing was broken.  We discussed taking it to the jeweler's to have it fixed.  I'm gonna let y'all in a little secret.  Other Half is tight.  Other Half is really, really tight.  Why pay a jeweler to fix a ring when you have a pair of pliers?  I kid you not. It ain't pretty, but it fits on his finger again.  And now we have both learned a valuable lesson.  He learned to watch his fingers when pulling the cart, and I learned to always drive the mule and let him pull the cart.   (I'm just saying . . . )