“I’m so busy I don’t know whether I found a rope or lost my horse.” A co-worker read this quote to me yesterday from a t-shirt catalog she was thumbing through. As I laughed aloud, I thought, “That pretty much sums up how I feel.” Spring hasn’t really even gotten into full swing, and I am feeling left behind and swamped by undone projects.
For one thing, we are completely re-vamping our horse classifieds website, Liverystable.net, which requires a lot of phone tagging with the web developer and decisions on changes to be made. This website was supposed to be my stay-at-home business venture, but it sometimes gets pushed to the side because I’m not always staying at home like I’m supposed to be. The last two weeks I’ve been working full-time as a teller at our small-town bank, as a substitute for another co-worker who was on vacation. It leaves very little time for anything that isn’t completely necessary. I think this kind of busy-ness just comes with spring.
Yesterday, for instance, it rained all day in a dreary straight-down drizzle. I had planned to go out to the farm and doctor one of our cows. We had to pull her calf a week ago, which was sadly stillborn, and this particular cow was a first-calf heifer. The vet had given her a shot and said she was a little damaged by the hard birth, and that we should keep an eye on her. I noticed that she was whipping her tail and acting like she was in pain, so I was determined to give her a shot of penicillin. So yesterday, rain and all, I put on my muck boots and trudged down to the pasture with a bucket of grain. The heifer is a sucker for corn, and she just followed me up to the corral. I was thinking we would get her in the chute, but my brother-in-law James said he thought he could just give her the shot as she ate corn from my bucket. Sure enough, he walked up, stuck the syringe in her neck, and she didn’t even flinch. I wish all of our cows were so easy-going! And she seemed better already, so hopefully the anti-biotic will keep her on the way to recovery.
That was just a drop in the bucket of chores that needed done, though….my least favorite thing to do is make phone calls. I don’t know what it is—I could email people all day, or talk to them face to face—but dialing a phone is the hardest thing! Setting dentist appointments for the kids, scheduling repair on our rental properties, checking in with my husband on supper plans….it all just gets postponed until the last minute. But I got it done.
So finally, I’m at the end of the day with the pitchfork in hand, heaving fluffy piles of the dried grass to my herd of horses and wondering what it might be like to trade places with them for just one day. No chores, no job, no children, no work at all—since their owner has no time for riding except on the weekends these days! Nothing at all for them to do all day except eat. That thought made me re-evaluate my envy a little….nothing to do all day but eat? I would go nuts. Feeling sorry for the lazy beasts, I heaped the hay piles a little higher. If all they get to do is eat, I at least better give them enough hay to keep them busy, or they’ll have nothing to do at all!
But I went to bed happy last night. Work brings pleasure, and being busy and keeping your mind engaged with your duties leaves little time for self-pity, boredom, or worse yet, depression. I’m thankful for these things I have to work for….my kids, the cattle, the horses, my neglected websites, and even being a part-time substitute bank teller. And looking ahead to all of spring’s activities—the big garden we plan to have this year, a trip out to visit my parent’s ranch in Idaho, and lots of good horseback riding weather ahead—that motivates me and inspires me to get as much work done as I can and enjoy it while I’m in it. Without work to do, I’d go nuts. There is such a thing as too much time.
