It was a beautiful late summer day. The kind of day where it’s room temperature out with a light, gentle breeze. I was doing what you would be expecting me to do on such a rare occasion,....indoors watching Arena football with a shades drawn to prevent unwanted glare on the tv.
The game itself was amazing, probably the best game of the year, and fittingly so as it was the Arena Bowl. But that is a story for another day. About the time I was asked to help my parents get the neighbor’s horses back into their field. I know it’s a strange task to be asked to help with out of the blue, but this is my parents we’re talking about. They are masters at coming up with unbelievably random tasks:
“We’re building a house for the goats by the lagoon”
“Dad is welding together a plow for his jeep”
“We’re dividing the goats’ field in half so they don’t jump in the truck cab every time we get the boat out”
“We took out the window well to the basement so we could throw firewood directly into the basement for the furnace” - of course you are mom and dad...of course you are..
I mean I love my parents to death, but they really suck at slacking.
So I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I was suddenly hauled off to corral horses. Just a normal day at my parents’ house. “The neighbors aren’t home and the horses were out and...” my mom explained. To which I thought ‘of course they are mom, I’ll be there in a sec’. I was more interested in this task though as I love horses and this could make for a good blog......oh if I only knew....
When we arrived at my parents’ neighbors’ house I saw this in their backyard.
Even though these neighbors live on an acreage it was still odd seeing full grown horses grazing only a few feet from a modern home.
At first things seemed to go okay, my dad instantly reverted back to his farm boy roots and was getting the horses moving no problem. I relied on my basketball playing days “Stay between the ball and the hoop” or in this case, the horses and escape. With a little effort, some good basketball defense on my part and a few “He-YAHs!” (accompanied by some impressive cowboy hat waving) from my dad and the horses were moving toward their goal no problem.
The first few were in when the second batch went into the wrong field, I’m not sure what was wrong with that field, but that caused cowboy dad to have to go after them. He left my mom in charge of keeping the first batch of horses in the correct pen and me in charge of the oldest, most stubborn horse. I don’t think he’d moved an inch since operation “Neighbor Horse Corral” had begun.
My dad yelled recommendations from the previously mentioned “wrong field”. The first such suggestion being to give the old horse a slap on the ass. I’m a city boy, but I know not to stand behind the horse. Still I was still nervous about doing so. So first came the tentative nervous slap. Followed by harder slaps as I got less and less nervous. The horse meanwhile, didn’t move a muscle. Aside from the muscles associated with chewing the grass of this forbidden backyard. ”Give him a kick” my dad yelled in between strings of four letter expletives directed at the horses in the “wrong” field.
So one minute I’m laying on the couch watching arena football eating nachos, the next I am kicking a horse next to a brand new house I’d never been to before and seeing no results. Really just a normal visit to my parents, but the oddity of the situations I find myself in at my parents never ceases to amaze me.
As my futile kicks continued I noticed my mom was starting to “lose contain” on the horses in the “correct” field (my mom never played basketball obviously.....). Before the horse made a break for it I made the decision I was going to have to get over there and prevent the horse from getting an easy layup into freedom. Sure enough he took off, I started to run, up hill, tripped and landed collarbone first, sliding up hill on said collarbones for several feet. I’m told my feet almost touched my shoulder blades causing my out of shape body to form a perfect “U” shape. Everyone stopped what they were doing to yell inquires as to my condition. The horse was gone, out to the front yard and down the hill towards the road and out of sight.
I was more embarrassed than anything. I do think that if it hadn’t rained the night before and the ground hadn’t been so muddy I may have broken some things, but then again if it hadn’t been so muddy I might not have slipped...
I got up right away as though if I got on my feet quickly enough everyone would forget the epic fall I had just achieved.
As my dad successfully got the horses in the “wrong” field to the correct field he assured us that the escaped horse would be back as horses are pack animals. ‘Makes sense’ I thought as I looked down at my shirt which looked like it had the world’s largest underwear poop streak stains on it. (I should have taken a picture).
Dad got the my (pick one, the or my) stubborn horse in, apparently you need a cowboy hat and a goatee in order to get a stubborn horse moving. Or I’m guessing that is the case as that’s all that appeared different about my dad’s technique as compared to mine.
So all of the horses were back in and a good thing too as we found out later (as my dad suspected) the fields around the house were filled with alfalfa which would have killed the horses somehow. It’s like their kryptonite or something. /shrug I admit I don’t know much about horses, and almost as little about Superman.
I had no further lingering injuries from my fall. Which will from now on be know as “The ‘U’ Fall” in Smitty family lore. This story will be brought up at every Smitty family gathering for many many years to come. And I’m perfectly okay with that for some reason.
I wasn’t as sore the next day as I thought I would be. I did have lower stomach problems from when my legs came crashing down to the grounded right on my belt buckle and keys.
Still if you had told me “Yah, you’re going to be in traction after helping your parents chase horses on a hill you’ve never been too” I wouldn’t have been surprised. Just another exciting visit to the Smitty ‘Rent’s house (tm).
The game itself was amazing, probably the best game of the year, and fittingly so as it was the Arena Bowl. But that is a story for another day. About the time I was asked to help my parents get the neighbor’s horses back into their field. I know it’s a strange task to be asked to help with out of the blue, but this is my parents we’re talking about. They are masters at coming up with unbelievably random tasks:
“We’re building a house for the goats by the lagoon”
“Dad is welding together a plow for his jeep”
“We’re dividing the goats’ field in half so they don’t jump in the truck cab every time we get the boat out”
“We took out the window well to the basement so we could throw firewood directly into the basement for the furnace” - of course you are mom and dad...of course you are..
I mean I love my parents to death, but they really suck at slacking.
So I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I was suddenly hauled off to corral horses. Just a normal day at my parents’ house. “The neighbors aren’t home and the horses were out and...” my mom explained. To which I thought ‘of course they are mom, I’ll be there in a sec’. I was more interested in this task though as I love horses and this could make for a good blog......oh if I only knew....
When we arrived at my parents’ neighbors’ house I saw this in their backyard.
Even though these neighbors live on an acreage it was still odd seeing full grown horses grazing only a few feet from a modern home.
At first things seemed to go okay, my dad instantly reverted back to his farm boy roots and was getting the horses moving no problem. I relied on my basketball playing days “Stay between the ball and the hoop” or in this case, the horses and escape. With a little effort, some good basketball defense on my part and a few “He-YAHs!” (accompanied by some impressive cowboy hat waving) from my dad and the horses were moving toward their goal no problem.
The first few were in when the second batch went into the wrong field, I’m not sure what was wrong with that field, but that caused cowboy dad to have to go after them. He left my mom in charge of keeping the first batch of horses in the correct pen and me in charge of the oldest, most stubborn horse. I don’t think he’d moved an inch since operation “Neighbor Horse Corral” had begun.
My dad yelled recommendations from the previously mentioned “wrong field”. The first such suggestion being to give the old horse a slap on the ass. I’m a city boy, but I know not to stand behind the horse. Still I was still nervous about doing so. So first came the tentative nervous slap. Followed by harder slaps as I got less and less nervous. The horse meanwhile, didn’t move a muscle. Aside from the muscles associated with chewing the grass of this forbidden backyard. ”Give him a kick” my dad yelled in between strings of four letter expletives directed at the horses in the “wrong” field.
So one minute I’m laying on the couch watching arena football eating nachos, the next I am kicking a horse next to a brand new house I’d never been to before and seeing no results. Really just a normal visit to my parents, but the oddity of the situations I find myself in at my parents never ceases to amaze me.
As my futile kicks continued I noticed my mom was starting to “lose contain” on the horses in the “correct” field (my mom never played basketball obviously.....). Before the horse made a break for it I made the decision I was going to have to get over there and prevent the horse from getting an easy layup into freedom. Sure enough he took off, I started to run, up hill, tripped and landed collarbone first, sliding up hill on said collarbones for several feet. I’m told my feet almost touched my shoulder blades causing my out of shape body to form a perfect “U” shape. Everyone stopped what they were doing to yell inquires as to my condition. The horse was gone, out to the front yard and down the hill towards the road and out of sight.
I was more embarrassed than anything. I do think that if it hadn’t rained the night before and the ground hadn’t been so muddy I may have broken some things, but then again if it hadn’t been so muddy I might not have slipped...
I got up right away as though if I got on my feet quickly enough everyone would forget the epic fall I had just achieved.
As my dad successfully got the horses in the “wrong” field to the correct field he assured us that the escaped horse would be back as horses are pack animals. ‘Makes sense’ I thought as I looked down at my shirt which looked like it had the world’s largest underwear poop streak stains on it. (I should have taken a picture).
Dad got the my (pick one, the or my) stubborn horse in, apparently you need a cowboy hat and a goatee in order to get a stubborn horse moving. Or I’m guessing that is the case as that’s all that appeared different about my dad’s technique as compared to mine.
So all of the horses were back in and a good thing too as we found out later (as my dad suspected) the fields around the house were filled with alfalfa which would have killed the horses somehow. It’s like their kryptonite or something. /shrug I admit I don’t know much about horses, and almost as little about Superman.
I had no further lingering injuries from my fall. Which will from now on be know as “The ‘U’ Fall” in Smitty family lore. This story will be brought up at every Smitty family gathering for many many years to come. And I’m perfectly okay with that for some reason.
I wasn’t as sore the next day as I thought I would be. I did have lower stomach problems from when my legs came crashing down to the grounded right on my belt buckle and keys.
Still if you had told me “Yah, you’re going to be in traction after helping your parents chase horses on a hill you’ve never been too” I wouldn’t have been surprised. Just another exciting visit to the Smitty ‘Rent’s house (tm).
