No more horsing around
This house was so cold Donna had snow piled seven feet high all around for added insulation. The reason I say Donna is because I was fortunate to be attending trade school for eight weeks and was only home for the weekends. Without a doubt it was a cold place we had an electric blanket on the top and bottom of the bed. We had a pretty good wood heater but the plumbing still froze up, forcing us outdoors to the one seater which probably had been there for the past 50 years I hated it. Even today I wonder why I didn’t weather proof it and put a heater in it Around 9 p.m. one Saturday evening, some stranded motorists were at the door, their car had quit and they didn’t want to leave it on the road. We pulled the car into the yard, I dont recall the year of the car but it was a 442 Cutlass with leather bucket seats. They must have been working on it as it was painted with grey primer. I had always liked this model, a friend had one which was red with a white leather interior and always looked sharp. Casually I asked if they wanted to sell the car. They said no, so I gave them our phone number in case they changed their minds and off they went heading for Pierceland. About 11:30 p.m. the phone rings, the boys are in the hotel and now want to sell the car. We made a deal and within 20 minutes they were back at the door to collect the cheque. The car sat in the yard, I tinkered with it discovering it was the fuel fi lter which was plugged; after fixing that it seemed to run just fine. While I was working on the car a neighbour came by, saw the car, heard it running and wanted to buy it. I said I had just acquired it and wasn’t really interested in selling it. They said perhaps you would like to trade it for a horse. Well, I had never owned a horse and Donna had to ride a horse to school, so I thought with her previous experience we could handle a horse just fine. The trade was made. The horse, whose name was Pedro, moved in and out went the 442. With Donna’s positive encouragement, saying that’s all she rode was bare back, I tried riding him not knowing much about how to handle a horse. This fellow took off galloping down the road with me bouncing on and off his back this was no John Wayne riding into the sunset it was more like, “am I going to live to see tomorrow?” I finally made it back to the yard where he proceeded to back up into the ditch and throw me off. As spring was coming on, Donna moved back to Ministikwan Lake for the lake season. She brought the horse with her as there was a fellow in Whelan who agreed to work with the horse. Wes worked with Pedro for a time, then brought him back to the lake. Occasionally Donna would tether him around the yard. One day she tied him to my spare tire and all we know is something or the tire must have scared the daylights out of the horse, because when I found him he was five miles away without the tire. I never did fi nd the tire. One of our customers, seeing what happened, said he was looking for a horse to use in the foothills. He was an Alberta game warden stationed in Olds and Pedro would make a perfect pack horse for him. A deal was made and Pedro went off to Olds, Alberta on the government payroll. No more horsing around for him, he had a real job. |
