Although the first official day of spring is still a few days away, at least according to the calendar, we've been privileged to have a break from winter weather this weekend. Today, the high temperature reached the mid-50's, and a 60 degree reading is predicted for Wednesday. Ahh, spring. Breathe deeply of the clean, fresh air . . . . or not.
Here at the ranch, the smell of early spring -- before the grass really grows and the lilacs finally bloom -- cannot be described as pleasant or refreshing. Rather, early spring around here stinks. Literally. We winter weaned calves in the meadows just north of our house, keep steers and horses in the corrals south of the barn, feed weanling foals in the lot on the hill. And all those animals poop -- all winter long. A person doesn't notice the smell when the turds remain hard and frozen . . . but when the air temperature warms enough for them to thaw, well, you might want to take your deep breaths inside the house.
In addition to some rather strong smells, early spring at the ranch also features slick, snot-like mud and flooded meadows. I can only walk the dogs along the dike, a raised ridge of earth remaining from a time when this ranch was irrigated. Shawn has fewer options each day for feeding his calves, as so much of the meadows are under water. Today, he buried his pickup truck up to the frame in mud; he'd been attempting to cake his cows early, before the frost thawed, but got just a little late and got stuck attempting to cross the river. He used his suspenders to tie two pieces of driftwood together to help him stay afloat as he swam across, because the spring current threatened to take even him, a rather large, strong man, downstream.
Does it sound like I'm complaining? I'm not, actually . . . just listing the realities of ranch life, realities that don't often appear in magazine photo spreads or on country-living blogs. Each season of ranch living brings its challenges, its problems to surmount, its dangers . . . and each season, just as much, brings its joys. The geese are nesting in meadows, getting ready to hatch their young; it's just as well that I can't walk across those areas with the dogs, because I wouldn't want to disturb them. The green grass is beginning to come up, and the ice is thawing in front of the barn. We have a new puppy and a new foal, and soon the heifers will be in the arena, and Shawn will calve out next year's crop of babies. The place will really smell then!
And that's one of my favorite lessons from ranch life: that from bad comes good, from inconvenience comes resourcefulness, from discomfort and danger comes strength and ingenuity. It's not a deep metaphor, nor an original one. It's just the one Mother Nature keeps replaying for us, year after year. Thawing manure brings green grass; flooded meadows grow tons of hay; muddy corrals bring deep, rich soil. On the ranch, and probably in all of life, sooner or later stink brings sweet.
