How many times have we been told to turn the water off? Turn it OFF before leaving the area, check twice if necessary, to be sure the water is turned off and maybe even go back and check it again.
Dang it, some folks just don’t figure how much of a mess a run over water tank can make and most of the time they don’t have toclean up the overflow. Left on all night, a flood of water will make it under the feed room floor, into the stalls and, yes, even soak the floor of the tack room. I never would have believed that floor could be flooded from the well because it is on the south side of the barn and the tank is on the north end. Well, it can be flooded and the good plywood board willcurl up at the corners. No, my barn is not fancy and, yes, I used plywood for the floor.
I got up yesterday morning in fine fetter and, enjoying my coffee and my close relative’s company, I sat around for a while. I guess I would have stayed longer but the close relative’s washing machine made a strange noise, sounded like a calf strangling. She said I should probably check the well.
It, the well, was pumping and when it clicked off I figured it was fine. But before I could walk to the well house door it clicked on again. I sorta got queasy, sorta like when you see theneighbor’s longhorn bull in with your heifers, that sort of feeling. I knew as sure as the world that I was gonna find a flood.
An old timer told me that this part of the country didn’t flood but about once every hundred years. He didn’t take into consideration the common denominator of a simple, busy cattleman. That old man was bragging about being able to assure any and all that when it rained 40 days and 40 nights, this area only got a sprinkle.
I got the handle down on the freeze-proof faucet and water ran into my boots. Yep, right over the tops, and up to the bottom of my knees.I limped out of the water and headed for the truck to get some waders and on the way, a foolish thing to do, I opened the tack room door. Now I was not only queasy, now I was really aggravated and getting madder by the minute. I stomped, change that to sloshed, over to the truck and stripped out of my wet clothes and pulled on the waders. That is not a good-feeling thing to do. Think about it, cold rubber on cold bare legs.
It is my opinion, and everyone has one, when tragedies like this flood occur it is best not to rant and rail too loud. Someone is likely to remember who was at thebarn last, who might have left the water on, who needs to accept the blame and it could be someone near and dear to a man.
As a competent and wonderful director of this outfit, sometimes I have too much to do. I should have help and maybe even someone to follow me around. Even us superior cattlemen, who are dang near perfect, can be overdone and in need of assistance. I really needed help to clean up the mess but the offspring decided it was time to move cattle and fix fence!
Bill is a pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 01/18/2012