However, two weeks ago my husband slipped on some ice and broke his ankle. Well hell... this is not good! My days of leisure seemed to have come to a screeching halt! After one week of hobbling around on crutches with a broken bone, he went in to surgery and came out with a plate and eight screws holding his foot to the rest of his leg. Waiting on him has reminded me of having a baby in the house again. The constant checking, feeding, changing! (ok, not diapers, but helping him to dress and such) and monitoring have both my 12 year old daughter and me running constantly.
It makes him crazy that he can't help out so he'll perch himself on a chair outside and shout orders to us. We quickly learned to feign deafness because we know exactly what to do and are usually in the midst of that certain chore as he's offering instruction. I guess it makes him feel like he's contributing? Heck, I don't know... but we just go on with our business.
The only part that I realized would be difficult for me to handle was the task of moving round bales. My gawd those things are heavy and non-forgiving. The horses sure do love them though. We are lucky to have bought 50 bales that were cut right here adjacent to our place. But the hayguy just left them out in the field so we take the pickup out, hook a chain on, and drag it to the feeding area. Not so bad if it's 60 degrees out and sunny. A horrifying experience when it's 10 degrees and freezing rain or snow. Boy that chain gets cold on the hands. You have to take your gloves off in order to hook it on. Brrrrr!
So far I've been fortunate to have local guy-friends come over and take care of that for me. Or my Dad struggles to do it. He offered to do it yesterday but he's not in the greatest shape either and it takes forever. He will try to go do it himself before I even realize he's out there. Then he comes staggering in telling me how bad he hurts. What the hell is it with men anyway? Is it bravado to see just how bad you can damage yourself????
So yesterday I told him I had someone coming over to do it. That kept him home and safe. I had fully intended to do it myself when I saw my best girlfriend sign on to the computer. AH HA! maybe her hubby can come and help me! She wrote back that they had the skidloader at the house that day and this would be the day to do it YAYAYAY!
So friend's hubby came over with the skidloader. It's such a cute little thing. Small but mighty! I was a little worried when I saw the back wheels come up from the weight of the bale though. I guess it couldn't have tipped far, but I had never seen one do that before. It was bucking lol.
As I was standing at the far south gate waiting for Rich to come back through, LG became fascinated with the fact that I was standing "over there" and was perked up and staring at Rich and the giant bale. He looked SO pretty there all attentive.
Rich put one bale in for the A-Team and had to beep-beep them to keep them out of the way. I'm sure they thought they were starving. Look who's there trying to snag a bite... IVAN! lol
We put the 2nd bale up behind the colts pen so it will be easy to drag it in from there. Lou found me out in the field and loped around biting snow as we ran along with Rich. It's beautiful outside. Ok, so it's only about 9 degrees.... but I did some running that got my blood flowing. At one point I took off running across the pasture to the south gate. It's been years since I actually ran. Heck, I used to do it for FUN! I started to get out of breath, but since he was driving behind me I cowgirled up and kept running. I was determined not to let him see me huffing and puffing. I MADE IT! Whew!
I needed to get the feeder over the top of the bale and he asked if I wanted him to help me. I pondered for a second and said "yeah". I went over to it and he was still standing talking to my hubby. I got it hefted up (whoof) and pushed straight up as far as my arms would reach. CRAP! I'M NOT TALL ENOUGH LOL! I never was good at math and it dawned on me that an eight-foot feeder was not going to be set on end by a 5-2 chubby woman.
I got it partway and I couldn't push it high enough to get it on end lmao! Rich stood at the gate and laughed at me. I was just kinda stuck there for the moment. So he came over and pushed on the other side so it was on end and could roll it to the bale. I was downhill (dumb dumb) but I'm not so sure I could have gotten it high enough even if I had started from the other side. So he rolled it over and set it over the bale and then I proceeded to remove the strings. Too bad I didn't get a picture of that part! My camera was in my pocket and if had let go with one hand I probably would have lost it and would have had to jump to the middle so it didn't crash on my head.
By the time I was finished with all the chores I had a wonderful sweat going on. I even unzipped my heavy coat to cool off. All bundled up, it felt like it was about 60 outside. It felt great.
Hmmmm I should have weighed myself.
In any case. I CAN do this and it makes me feel great that I can. I'm very grateful for my husband and all the help offered, but I'm even more grateful that I was reminded I'm not a piece of fluff who lets the man do all her work.
I feel good. :-)
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