Wednesday, February 23, 2011

A typical day on the ranch

Well it's Wednesday, the middle of the week and the one day I have any time to go out the ranch and see my fiancee. After three classes, (Psychology, Zoology, and Algebra,) it's nice to just jump in the truck and make the 70 mile trek to the ranch. Today was no different than any other Wednesday. I stopped to get some fuel, buy some last minute groceries for supper and off I was. 50 miles later I was at the dirt road that leads to T's house, I stopped, got out and checked the tires like I always do and kept on. Everything was good, so I turned up the music and kept on rolling.
After a while I heard something funny, like a grindnig sound but I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was just the road. But pretty soon after that I hear a loud "pop" and I look and my rearview mirror and one of my hub caps is rolling off into the pasture. So I stop, checked the tires on my side of the truck, nope nothing. Went around to the other side and sure enought... a flat tire. Not just any flat tire but a FLAT tire, all tore up and everything. You could have thought I had been going a 100 miles an hour.. it looked terrible.
 The first thing I did was look at my gps and it said I had 2 more miles to go before I got to the house. Great. I was faced with several choices; change the tire myself, walk to the house, or wait until T showed up. (I call him everytime I head out the ranch and when I don't show up he usually comes looking for me.) I decided that I would just change the tire myself. So I got behind my seat and retrieved all the right tools and with a determined demeaner I got busy. I loosened the lugnuts on the tire with quiet some effort, but when I went to jack my truck up, the handle to crank it was missing. I proceeded to jack the truck up using a screwdriver and after about ten minutes and both arms going numb from lack of blood I had had enough.
 After that I decided to go with choice two.. walk to the house. 2 miles isn't bad, I used to run 3 miles everyday for fun so this should be no problem. Or so I thought... I put my tools away, locked my truck, grabbed my pistol and headed east. After about a mile, I was tired! I was wearing boots so my feet hurt and I was walking up hill which didn't help the situation, and, the pistol was heavy! I was thinking to myself how much I wished T would drive over the hill and come rescue me.. but he didn't. Instead, I looked to my right and low and behold, my favorite little mare PD was standing at the fence wathcing me. By this time I see the house but it was about a mile off and, like I said, I was tired. Call me a baby but if you were in my situation you would understand!
PD just stood there looking at my as I crawled through the fence, took off my belt, put it around her neck and hopped on her. Thank the Lord for gentle horses! I didn't fully realize how tired I was until I was sitting on her as she walked to the house. I had made it about half way to the house when a cloud of dust comes over the horizon. T was on his way to the house! I think I startled him when I rode up to the house with a pistol in my hand. After I told him what had happened he busted out laughing!
Once I had recovered and got some water, T and I loaded up and went back to my truck to change the tire. It turned to be more trouble that I had thought and I'm glad I walked to the house instead of changing it myself.
The moral of the story: always be prepared to change a tire! I think I'm going to have to get a new jack for my truck and a new set of tires...

4 comments:

  1. Bless your heart! My Daddy made me change a tire for a whole afternoon just so I would learn how...thankfully I have never had to and hope I never do. I bet it was a sight, you riding up with a pistol in hand. :)

    ~M~

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  2. Yep, every women who lives out like we do, I do think it's good to know how to change a tire. My daddy also made sure I knew how to do it all... so far, I've lucked out with not having too... knock on wood.
    Thank goodness for gentle horses!
    I bet it was all funny afterwards for sure!

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  3. Oh gotta love horses like that!

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  4. What a story!!! :) I've never had to change a tire either... but it's defiantly good to know how!
    Thank goodness for gentle ponies! :)

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