With the agility and ability to leap high bar stools in a single bound while transporting a buxom vixen upon my shoulders to her awaiting Lamborghini to have a high time in her eloquent aerie atop the highest high-rise of the city and not spilling a single drop of icy, cold, frothy beer from my manly mug, instead of sporting a muscle-shirt and a pair of tights highlighting my abs, pecs and buns of steel, I now wear a wide back-brace and don't so much as dare to hop over a steaming dog turd. It appears as if my shoulders have attained a permanent shrug; my B-cup sized chest, lint-free navel and bony knee caps have also sagged. Perhaps I'm evolving back into an ape of prehistoric times as my arthritic knuckles are almost dragging on the ground when I walk. My posture and gait may be somewhat unsightly but with my knuckles only a hair width above the ground, I've found at least, there is less chance of losing my balance.
Once again, since today was a definite ray of bold sunshine; the snow melting and running off to wherever snow runs to, I was able to push several wheelbarrow loads of manure from the barn and down to its designated location by the garden fence. However, half way through scraping the strong ammonia scented chicken poop off the top of the nesting boxes and shovelling it off the gooey floor with an equally obnoxious aroma into the wheelbarrow and then gingerly taking it to the manure pile (few icy and muddy spots to traverse) remembering that I'd recently bought a back-brace, I immediately stopped what I was doing, went into the house and strapped it about my waist, which pushed my belly up to my breasts. I almost looked as if I had a shelf poking out, which would have been alright, except it was too narrow to hold a mug of beer.
Aint life grand thinks I, while cleaning out the barn with a sharp pitchfork and a dull shovel and then wheeling the pungent manure down to the garden fence, being very careful not to slip or fall, since parts of me that would have only bruised when I was younger, would now, most likely break And speaking of a pitchfork, a memory of an incident involving one just came to mind. I was just a young lad then, a bouncy teenager with only two things on my mind: popping pimples and dreaming of girls. I was working as a groom at Exhibition Park for an Irishman by the name of Sonny O'Connell, who had a glint in his eye, a very pleasing Irish lilt and hell yeah, the luck o' the Irish as well. But this memory has nothing to do with Sonny; it's about Jack, a large, strong, strapping young lad about my age and a skinny, arrogant, wannabe jockey named Earl. It took place one morning, shortly after all the stalls had been mucked out, the thoroughbreds had finished their track workouts, groomed, then watered and fed. I was just returning back to the stables from the track cook house when I heard a commotion in the feed room. Upon entering the room, I was very surprised to find Earl, a pitchfork tine on either side of his throat, pinned to a bale of straw. He looked as if he was about to wet his pants in fear because big Jack was at the other end of the pitchfork and the look in his bulging, bloodshot eyes was terrifying. In those days, people didn't beat around the bush calling imbalanced people emotionally and mentally handicapped; they were called retards and apparently Errol had called Jack a stupid, dumb retard. Now, Jack may have been dumb but he wasn't stupid and as big as he was, he was actually a very gentle and congenial soul. However, when I tried to break up the situation, before I knew it, Jack had yanked the pitchfork out of the straw and was now pointing it at me. Needless to say, if I hadn't just relieved my body functions before entering the feed room, there would have been a hell of a mess on the floor, not to mention in my pants. Fortunately for me, Jack's anger subsided when I began to reason with him and both Earll and I were allowed to leave the feed room without any puncture wounds. Earl being a little guy, at 5' nothing and about 100lbs soaking wet, to ridicule someone as big as Jack, I would have to say that he was the retard, oh sorry, I forgot, mentally handicapped (so polite).
Getting back to cleaning out the barn, Freya of course has been quite upset since little Simba, her wee buckling went to live on another farm. She's been bleating so long and so loud that her voice is beginning to crack; not sure if a goat can get laryngitis? I told the goat, as if she would listen to me, that she should stick her head in a pail of water and hold her breath for about 10 minutes. I have no idea how short or long a goat's memory is but hopefully she will quiet down and not miss her little guy too much any more. But then, even when she didn't have a wee guy, she never seemed to shut up anyway. Most of the chickens went outside and enjoyed the sun today; many of them were stretched out, fanning their wings and tails, trying to regain their tans from last summer; a person would have thought Golden Unicorn Farm was a summer resort for good looking chicks - cheers, eh!
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