Our General Manager

On Chip's days off from school, he always tags along to do work on "The Ranch." As he works by my side, he prattles incessantly (he must be adopted - no one in his lineage EVER does that) and eventually gets around to the fact that he's the General Manager. He asks how I get anything done when he's away...

One night, after seeing the Michael Jackson Thriller video, he was alone in the house when I did chores. It was quite a brisk evening and I soon found him at my side in the barn. "Didn't want you to get freaked out by yourself out here Mom. That was a pretty scary video!" He had a windbreaker on and his lips were already blue. So I took off my coat, gloves and hat and dressed him up.

He is also very good about supervising the cleaning of the Poop Palace. He tells me just which turds to toss. He really delights when one of the horses pokes its head in to say "hi" to him and inadvertently gets beaned by flying dung.

Mid-winter we had some round bales delivered to the Ranch. With the snow conditions and the extreme cold (AND WIND!) of the day, we were happy just to push them off the nice gentleman's trailer and high-tail it back into the house. So one afternoon, a week or so later, Chip and I decided to "put the hay away." Our process is relatively simple: I back up to the bale, dally a tow-strap around the bale, and tow it into place in the back pasture or near the barns. Chip was "ground guy" on this day and delighted in hooking up the bales, surfing them back to where they belonged, and then riding on the tractor blade to the front yard to do it all over again.