On the beef farm in Canada where I grew up, many hours were spent spreading manure, literally. I would jump on the tractor with the loader on front, and scoop out the cattle barns, load up the spreader, then climb on the tractor attached to it and take it to the fields.
The manure wagon had a chain conveyer on its floor which would slowly move the manure to the back of the spreader and into the speeding beaters which would shoot the stuff out onto the soil below. It was not a terrible job, but the manure that had been stored in the barnyard, had been rained on for weeks and could be very sloppy. It was not a laugh a minute spreading that stuff.
But eventually, I would get a drippy wagonful and head out to spread it. The smelly slop shot out everywhere from the beaters like fireworks. If it happened to be a windy day and I was heading in a poorly chosen direction, I could feel the manure splat on the back of my head. However, now and then I couldn’t resist taking a look behind me to see how things were coming along. When I did that, I would sometimes get a blast of slop hitting me in the face, and, if I made the mistake of looking back while I was singing a Roy Orbison song, I might actually get a rancid trajectory of cow poop in my mouth. I know I should keep looking straight ahead when it comes to many politicians these days, but now and then, I look back while I am singing a Gordon Lightfoot song and whammo – mouth filled once again with stuff that came out of a politician’s mouth.
At those times, if you could only read my mind.
©2018 Jim Hagarty
