It Takes A Team

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Wagonteamster

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3/13/10, West of Snyder, TX - It rained all night and into the morning.  The wagon was parked at the bottom of a hill, below the Ratliff ranch house. I had my doubts about the ability of the team to pull up a hillside that had been turned into a very soft clay by all the rain. So while I pondered how to get back up the hill, I wandered up to to the house for a great breakfast that Diane had put together. After breakfast, Randy hooked up his truck to the wagon and pulled it up the hill. While this was going on, I led Bill up while the other two hooligans were allowed to run and do a little bucksnorting and rolling. Up by the house, Bill was startled by a heifer and did a little jump to the side. I wasn’t paying attention, so his left front hoof come down on the inside of my leg - ouch. Fortunately, he missed the ankle, so all I had for my inattentiveness was a bruise.

It actually looks worse than it it.  This is what happens when you don’t keep an eye on the Belgian that you’re leading, and he does a quick sidestep.

It took a few minutes to round up the other two wild boys and begin harnessing, as they were having entirely too much fun. We finally pulled out shortly before 11 am. 

While stopped for lunch, Darlene sister stopped and picked her up, bringing her wagon adventure to a close.

After lunch, we drove through a very large power generating wind farm on our way to the city of Snyder.  I think the company that owned the wind farm was a subsidiary of the parent company that owned the nuclear plant I used to work at - small world.

Being Eco-friendly, Bill and Bob are firm believers in wind power generation; however, they definitely lean towards methane production.

For it’s size, Snyder was a fairly quiet city, but I met some really great folks.  One guy (whose name I forgot) was kind enough to give me $10 and point me towards the feed store.

Bill and Bob, wanting to expand their horizons, opted for the drive-thru feature at the grain store.

When I stopped at the connivence store, quite a crowd gathered to chat and pet the team. A lot of people left there with a smile on their face.

In Snyder, we didn’t go through the beer drive-thru, but we did hit the grain drive-thru.

Tonight, I’m camped at Tommy and Amy Syler’s place, a few miles west of Snyder.  The team has a couple of really nice round bales of Bermuda in their play pen and I have a belly full of some really great fajitas and beer.

All in all, this was a really great day, followed by some fantastic people at the days end.  The ankle feels okay tonight, so I guessed I got off easy on that one.  I’ll probably take the day off on St. Patty’s day and do a little horse shoeing. Both of the Belgians are in need of a reset, so I’ll be pretty busy.

Stopped at the convenience store in Snyder This little boy loved to feed the team some nice long grass.

Barry Rayburn, who keeps up the Google map on the website, has decided that we need to go a little more high tech. So in about a week, he’s sending me a special cell phone that I’ll wire in.  When he calls the number for the cell phone, it will transmit to him my exact GPS coordinates.  He’ll plug these into the Google map, so if you zoom in the map enough, you’ll be able to see exactly where I am.  And here I thought Barry was only a friend; I didn’t know he was a “Big Brother”, as well!

My host for the night, Tommy Syler.