"How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You" 🎵🎶

The Good Rancher needed a hand - his helper was sick, and bales had to get out to the fields. I fearfully acquiesced to drive a regular cab truck pulling a short flat deck trailer upon which the bales would be loaded. My dog Carly Simon broke out of the house and jumped in too. Then I remembered the tee shirt I had layered into my fetching ensemble ... James Taylor and Carly Simon together in a tiny truck - what could possibly go wrong?!

As the GR was piling bales onto the flat deck I caught a glimpse of the stackyard cat taking what shelter he could, and I was grateful for a warm vehicle — and amazed at how resilient animals are.

From there it was a simple matter of getting the laden truck up a short driveway, turning left onto the 855 and waiting for the tractor to be loaded and lead the way.

Except that the GR had said, "Don't stop at the top of the driveway whatever you do — it's slippery and you'll get stuck."

And I asked, "What if a car's coming?"

To which he replied, "Hopefully they'll see you and stop ..."

The Good Rancher has told me several times that I overthink things. At the bottom of the slope, where I was supposed to be picking up speed, I was already to the point in my inevitable car crash where the police were locking me up with 100% culpabity and STARS was airlifting my hapless victim to Calgary.

I stalled at the crucial spot. Not even 4 wheel drive could help my spinning tires.

I tried to call the GR, but there was no cell service. Carly Simon was being Carly Simon, one moment trying to comfort me as I opened the window and gulped panic and fresh air down my constricting throat, the next looking down her patrician nose and sneering, "You prob'ly think this song is about you..."

"I know it's not — it's about the frozen, hungry cows," I wailed.

"What?" The Good Rancher was at the window.

"Just talking to Carly," I muttered shamefacedly.

"Move over," he replied, and shifted into reverse.

I will never know if he did this to make me feel like not such a failure, but bless the man, he stalled on his first attempt up the hill. "Everyone does it," he remarked. "Even Lonnie, one of the best, has done it."

"But he was driving a loaded semitruck," I protested.

"Same thing," the GR responded as he hopped out and walked back down the hill to the tractor.

We arrived at the first field, delayed thanks to my incompetence. The cows were waiting for him. He immediately went to work, grinding two bales and then grabbing two more from the trailer. Long lines of feed spit out, and the cows immediately started noshing, a veritable Ponderosa steakhouse buffet.

As we left that field for the next, one chill cow looked up as if to say thanks ...

Creeping along the icy lane to the next field I spotted a horned owl puffed up against the cold.

How do these creatures cope? I wondered to Carly, shivering as I rolled up the window again.

All the bales chopped and strewn, we headed back to the stack yard and little Gabe, who had to be put on his mother.

(He knows exactly where to go: along the length of the squeeze and through the little palpation cage gate, down the alley and into the makeshift pen where his mother waits irritably ...)

This day Gabe's mother deigned to glare at me for the first moments; then she pointedly turned her head, giving me the coldest shoulder of the week.

After his nursing session was over, Gabe appeared at the top of the palpation cage gate like he was ready to get back into the warmth of the shop.

I called to him: "Gabriel, Gabriel!"

And just like that he took off around the yard, over and over, the same triangle pattern, a barrel calf in the making...

The Good Rancher stepped into the fray, with no better results:

 

Eventually he pinned the little miscreant and firmly marched him back to the shop. 

Drama over, the GR loaded sidekick and dog into the truck to take us back to the house, only to turn around and begin the task of bedding all the animals in his charge. His day would be finally over at 7:30 that night - except, of course, for Gabe's bedtime bottle at 10 o'clock.

And as the truck started up the driveway Carly Simon slipped back into her favourite travelling spot, back into the arms of the man who will always love her...