'Ol Red- Part 3, The Final Adventure

It was the summer I turned 15, life was good. I had just returned home from working on a ranch for the first time. I remember arriving home feeling very grown-up and much more mature. I decided that a ride around the pasture on ‘Ol Red would be a great way to welcome myself home and so I jumped on my noble steed and with the cursed electric fence behind me, I rode with ease towards the edge of the pasture. I had made a few relaxing rounds up, down and around the pasture when I saw my little sister, who had missed me like crazy, come running out into the pasture for a ride. Now this was before the “pond incident” and so Logan didn’t know how to drive herself, plus, she just missed me. I decided this would be great sister to sister time. She jumped on behind me and with a couple revves of the engine we were off. I zigged and zagged, I swerved left and right, I couldn’t believe how great I was at driving that scooter. Honestly, I should be driving professionally, I was that good. As I began to day dream about being a professional scooter driver I put my brain on auto-pilot and imagined the fame and money to be made. The horses, cows, chickens and llamas became crowds of people watching me in wonder as I drove through the green grass. The geese, ducks and pigs cheered as I drove towards the huge 7 foot high pile of chicken manure that I would jump…wait...I don’t jump stuff…I just swerve left and right…I only know how to zig and zag…and what the heck is that pile of poop doing there…the cheering turned to a scream in my ear as Logan saw the pile-o-doom looming over us. I didn’t even have time to swerve as we hit the manure pile and flew head first in to chicken poop. You’ve heard the expression “Up to their armpits…” well few have actually lived to tell. As I lay on my side, stunned for a moment with a fractured left arm, I wondered at how chicken manure could have produced such a hard and painful landing. There was absolutely no cushioning despite the 7 feet of sun-bleached poop. I looked to see if Logan was still alive and if she had faired better than me, she had. She was settled in an upright position as if she was reclining on a lazy boy, her hair was a bit messy and there were chunks of…well, you know, but she was alive and that’s what really counted.

We limped back to the house, ‘Ol Red was injured too and wouldn’t start so we had to push it back through the pasture to the barn.
For those city folks out there who are wondering why there were 7 foot tall piles of chicken manure in our field and what kind of chicken would leave 7 foot tall piles of chicken manure, I will now enlighten you. Poultry manure (once it’s set for awhile so the acid has time to be released) is amazing for your lawn. We had the nicest crop of hay that year; it was so tender and green. And we lived near a chicken farm so they brought the droppings from hundreds of thousands of chickens in big trucks, so the pile-o-doom was not the work of one mutant chicken.