I thought I was going to have to say goodbye to a very close friend this week.
She’s probably not the kind of friend you would expect, but over the years this friend has always been there for me. Like a sentinel, waiting for when needed, never complaining about the trials and tribulations I have submitted her to, and always ready for any weather that may blow our way.
In fact we have been together almost every day for the past 15 years.
That’s a long time to share so much time with a friend who has never uttered a word, no complaining, no judging, no criticizing – not even a peep when I have subjected her to helping with some of the most dirty and difficult jobs imaginable.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself, perhaps a little background might be in order for those reading my rural ramblings.
I first set eyes on this very special close friend when I was perusing the local thrift store for a warm coat to wear in the winter while I am performing the multitude of daily chores required on a cattle ranch. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that ranch chores in the winter can be much more than a chilling experience.
With the thought of that unpleasant chilling experience on my mind I continued looking for something lined, with a hood, and the big ‘must have’ – long enough to cover my derrière while riding on the cold saddle of an ATV in the winter.
I wasn’t fussy, just wanted something that fit my needs and didn’t cost too many of those hard earned bucks.
I must have chosen a bad day to be looking for warm winter coats, there were only a few to choose from, and none to my liking.
Not wanting to admit defeat, and knowing it was wintertime and that ATV was at home waiting for me, I pressed forward and tried on a couple of the offerings. A teal coloured coat fit quite well, and even had room to spare – a good sign – as by the time one puts on the long undies, the lined pants, an extra sweater (maybe two as this coat was pretty lightweight), and then you fill the pockets with gloves and all the necessities you’ll need while out doing chores – you still need to be able to do the buttons up on your coat.
The price for the second-hand teal coat was $14.47, and I reasoned if the most I got out of it was a couple years of hard usage it would be a bargain.
I was surprised to find that although the coat was extremely light weight and seemingly made of flimsy material, this newly acquired used covering was wonderfully warm when it needed to be, and also very comfortable on those days when the temperature gauge took a short jump up above zero.
In fact, I rather liked my new coat, and was even more tickled when I found it had no hard feelings about being thrown in the washing machine and dried on high.
My new friend did very well for a few years, but then I managed to rip the hood right off while making a fast and awkward dive through a barbed wire fence due to being chased by a very angry mama cow who was hot on my heels.
I figured the loss of the hood was a small price to pay considering I had saved the cow’s calf when I rushed over and removed the birth sack off the newborn’s face before it suffocated, because mom was too busy washing it’s bottom off.
Now I needed a hood on the coat to keep Old Man Winter from blowing down my neck, so I chopped the hood off an old brown coat that had long since been retired, sewed it onto my teal ‘barn coat’ and I was good to go.
When calving time comes it is always a messy affair if you get up close and personal with those in the calving and nursery pens (something any rancher I have ever met does on a regular basis), but that old barn coat handled it all.
The mess from pulling a calf, the yuck from being on the wrong end of a calf with the scoots, or the mess that comes from trying to squeeze a little milk out of a cow that’s never been touched and is taking the event far too personal by trying to kick your nose off.
There was also the time my ATV quit when I was a long way out in the field with a newborn calf that inconveniently made a surprise appearance in the middle of a cold evening rainstorm.
Back then I was pretty strong, and had been able to pull that calf up onto the saddle in front of me on the ATV. But I was not strong enough to carry that little sucker all the way back to a warm barn through a sea of sloppy mud.
The ground was trying to yank my gumboots off with every step; and if you have ever run your hand over a newborn calf you will understand that trying to hang onto or carry one that hasn’t dried off is like trying to hold onto melted butter. By now the newborn was starting to shiver and getting colder by the minute.
That’s when that old teal coat stepped up and saved the day.
I took off the coat, wrapped it around the calf with his bum in the hood and his head poking out the bottom of the coat, then I grabbed the two empty sleeves by the cuffs and pulled that 60 pound baby all the way to the barn with a concerned mom mooing along behind us. In short order, mom and baby were content – but my coat was dead.
At least I thought it was dead by the state it was in, but being frugal and not wanting to drive to town to find another I dropped my coat into an old water trough and pounded it up and down in the water for awhile before leaving it to soak overnight.
In the morning it hosed off not too bad, so I stuffed it into the washing machine with a bounty of soap and Lysol disinfectant and kept my fingers crossed.
She came through it all like a trooper, so much so that a few days later I used my coat to carry a collie dog with a severe cut on its paw back to the house for emergency doctoring.
Once again, the mud and the blood washed out of the coat and we were back in business once more.
Ranching is an everyday job. You not only have to feed and care for the stock, but there is always an ongoing list of repair work that needs to be done. If you are 50 acres away from your tool box and find a fence that needs to be fixed or a bolt that needs tightening on a gate hinge you need tools to do the job.
If you are on foot, or perhaps stupidly left the tools usually carried on the ATV in the tractor – neither of which are with you – it is a wonderful feeling to reach into one of the six large pockets of your coat and pull out the items needed to complete the job. Yep, it does give the coat some weight to it, but the end result is a quick fix and no time lost having to return to the barn for tools.
My old teal coat has served as a soft place to sit, a makeshift tablecloth for a picnic, a bed for a new pup that would sleep nowhere else, and it has even performed as a blindfold on a horse to help it walk calmly into a horse trailer. It has stuffed a crack under a door to keep the wind out when the power went out, has been dowsed with creosote, weed killer, tractor oil, livestock medicine, and even spattered with pigeon poop when I left it hanging over a door in the barn.
Needless to say, although she cleans up well, my coat is getting pretty worn around the edges, but then so am I – age catches up to us all.
I thought it was time to say goodbye – but I just couldn’t do it. She’s always been there for me, no matter what I have asked her to do – I think we just need each other to continue getting through the days.
Just like family and good friends – they are always there to cover our back.
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