Selective Hearing, Tongue Biting and Voting

There are two important skills that every person needs to learn. These are not easy and just because you have mastered them once, does not mean you may have complete control of them. If you use them wisely they will serve you well.
Skill #1 is selective hearing. Sometimes it is just better to filter some things and just not hear them. It helps keep your blood pressure in the normal range and helps you attain skill #2, which is tongue biting.
Now all of us have had occasions where saying nothing is the best choice. Sometimes saying nothing is hard, so you place you tongue between your teeth, bite down and keep your mouth closed.
It really helps if you can keep a pleasant or at least blank look on your face.
Yesterday my skills were tested. Dancing Drum and Ruby are Thoroughbreds with very thin soled feet. They were bred for racing and good feet were not part of the plan. Every winter the girls gets abscesses and need special foot care.
I had let Ruby out of the turnout that she shares with Rico and Pedro. The plan was to put her in the round ring to medicate and care for her feet. Pedro and Rico decided if Ruby was going they were going. Now I had not waited for Jim, so I couldn't close the gate fast enough to keep the boys in.
When Jim saw the boys out romping and racing around I heard a few "Stubborn, mule headed," etc but used my selective hearing to just get on with my chores. Jim put the boys away and we continued our day.
The stall in the turn out with Dancing Drum, Star and Dunny has turned into a swamp. It is impossible for the horses to get down into their stall. Jim had mentioned two or three times that I should take water up to the horses.
After the third reminder I grabbed an empty water tank and started up the hill. The idea was to put a tank or two up above, tie off the stall until it can be tractored out and keep the horses a little drier. If you look closely, there is a lot of goo, but off I set. About three steps in I knew I had a problem. The mud came to the top of one of my boots and I couldn't get the boot out of the mud. I felt like an animal trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits.
My mother used to tell me about the wonderful mud pies I'd make as a toddler, so I have never had a mud aversion. Simple plan. Pull my foot out of the boot, take off my sock and move on. Good plan, except to get my foot out I had to put the other foot down. Yep. Two feet stuck. I really didn't mind the cold, squishy stuff oozing through my toes, but since I had forgotten to roll up my pants I had about 30 pounds of mud on each pant leg, making it difficult to keep on my pants.
I thought the whole thing was hilarious, but the love of my life kept muttering, "If you had waited... I always have to fix your messes..." Stubborn might have been mentioned again, but as I was using my selective hearing skill I just kept on with my task.



Jim decided I NEEDED my boots since we have so much mud and he was going to get them for me. More mutterings. I mentioned gently that it might not be the best idea, since he weighs more than I do and I got stuck, but by then Jim's selective hearing had kicked in. The back of the stall has a slope with the stall being a low point. We didn't know when we built the barn in the Summer that there were springs that kept things wet all winter.

Up Jim went, wisely holding on to the fence, but still having mud issues. He kept saying, "How much can one artificial knee take?" and other things that sailed over my head. I had placed my tongue between my teeth and hoped I looked pleasant.

He finally got to the boots, after having been nearly mired himself. I was wondering who I'd call if he fell in face first. I knew I couldn't get him out. Should I call 911 or go immediately to the auto club and have them bring a tow truck? He came to the boot that was stuck the deepest and had a very difficult time extracting it. Below is the second boot he pulled out. He made the toss to the barn successfully.

The first boot had been different. The blue smoke from bad words were pouring out, but I couldn't hear them.

Jim was not pleased and was determined to throw the buried boot to me. Now he was up on the hill and I was down in the barn. I almost mentioned this fact, but decided it was in the best interest of family peace to just keep still. Jim has always been athletic and when he gave the boot a heave-ho we watched it in slow motion. It went up and up and landed......on the barn roof. My skills kept this from being family set-to, but I was laughing so hard inside that I had to leave for a couple of minutes.

By evening Jim saw the humor in the whole thing.We'll wait for a younger agile person to climb the barn to get my boot. In the meantime I'm wearing an older, bigger pair and not saying much.

Last night I had a severe pain in my side and Jim thought it might be appendicitis or a muscle pull from trying to get out of the mud. I know better. I pulled a muscle from laughing so hard on the inside.
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