This is a re-write of an oldie but goodie. It's still true.
My boys started making engine sounds as
soon as they could talk. Their forks were bulldozers at the supper table, their
hands were boats in the bathtub, and their bodies were race-cars in the
supermarket aisles.
I have never understood this fascination
with all things motor. I prefer to ride something that breathes, so I
bought a couple of horses in hopes that I could bond with my two
motor-heads, After a season or two of trotting and cantering they abandoned me
for the four- wheeler. My oldest explained it this way. “Horses buck, engines
don't."
I
beg to differ. A horse wants to stay upright as much as I do, but a lawn mower
doesn’t care if it lives or dies. That’s why I never drive one on the side of a
slope. A lawn mower can definitely buck you off, and then cut your foot off for
spite.
I
once dated a fellow who loved bucking souped-up trucks across impossible slopes
covered in rocks and mud. I rode with him, once. He yee-ha’d as we skidded
sideways down a 90 degree incline and climbed cow-sized rocks while I pressed
my knees against the dashboard, clenched the door handle and prepared to
dismount as soon as the wheels stopped spinning.
When I married My Own Farmer, I never guessed he came complete with a variety
of motor-induced hazards. We’d be skidding along a comfortable, horizontal
track in knee-deep snow as we carried hay out to the cows, when suddenly he
would point the nose of the truck uphill and start digging a path to the top
through the ten foot drifts. The whine of the engine was always drowned
out by the whine of his wife as we topped the rise.
On another occasion, My Own Farmer offered me the chance to
go along with him and spread some lime. His poetic descriptions of the vistas I
would see, outweighed my common sense and I probably would have enjoyed the
scenery if I had ever opened my eyes.
Dangers lurk right outside my door, as well. Just
yesterday, after mucking out the chicken house, I asked my husband to help me
spread some of the litter and manure. When we got halfway down the
driveway, he dropped the truck into low range. I looked at him
suspiciously. “I thought we were going to spread this on that nice flat
meadow in front of the house.” In answer, he turned the truck straight up the
tallest hill. “It will do the most good here,” he replied.
It’s been raining a lot lately so of
course we hung up in thick mud creeping down the side of the ridge. “Now,
we’ll see what this baby can do,” my motor-head hubby laughed.
“This baby is going to hit you if you don’t
let me out,” I replied, but by that time, we had managed to spin our way
through the muck to solid ground.
We rode up the hill the rest of the way in silence. My eyes
were closed and I was too busy praying to engage in frivolous conversation. When
we finished forking the last bit of manure off, I walked down.
After years of riding along with him, I
knew my husband would bring the truck off of the hill safely. But, he
could concentrate better if I wasn’t screaming all the way down.
