Under the Wire

Well, spring is here, supposedly everyone’s favorite time of the year, with the exception of skiers for obvious reasons and those who yearn for fall so they can rake leaves. I am not a member of either group. Born, raised and spent my entire life in Colorado, never been on skis and no intention of ever changing that. In our business of ranching, snow is only good after it melts and soaks away. Otherwise it needs shoveled out of feed bunks, plowed so you can get to the mail box and falls inside the collar of our Carhartts as you pull bales off the stack to feed the cows and horses.

Leaves? There is a reason they are so named. That is exactly what I do with them after they cover our yard. Yep, Gary just “leaves” them. Why rake them, that is what wind is for.

Actually, I do like spring best of all four choices. Every spring, I spend some time not only enjoying the green grass sprouting up everywhere but laying in it every so often. No, we are not having a family picnic and I definitely don’t have time to lay on my back in the sweet smelling grass watching the meadow larks circle overhead. The truth of the matter, I am laying in the grass because my darn horse just bucked me off. Happens three or four times before the effects of too much winter grain and excess hay consumption begin to wear off. Talk about an ungrateful animal. Tons of snow down my neck to get hay for him, a feed bill every month for that dang grain and he shows his gratitude by laying me out in the new green grass.

People often ask me why I am still wearing my winter clothes, all four layers of them, in April. Granted I do sweat a bit more resulting in losing some of those winter gained pounds, but my real reason is even better. They serve as padding when old Freckles dumps me in the green grass. Once in a while I even bounce a time or two when I hit the round. Yea, I guess spring is my favorite, too, as long as my Carhartts hold up.