Don't Name the Ducks by Wendy Dudley

Author:Wendy Dudley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781927083826
Publisher: Fifth House Books
Published: 2014-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Two Broads and a Mule

No wonder Mom and I are attracted to donkeys and mules. We're beasts of burden ourselves!

I scowled at the truck's flat tire, its sides bulging like a pancaked mud pie and a fat nail so deeply embedded in it that only its round head was visible.

"You know what this means, don't you?" I said to Mom, both of us dirty and weary from loading and hauling three truckloads of baled hay. "We're going to have to unload all these bales, then wait for the guy to fix the tire, and then go back for the last load. So if we're going to make it into town for dinner, we're going to have to take a change of clothes with us and drive straight to town."

Mom nodded in agreement, the two of us aware of the darkening sky to the west. Racing the storm clouds, we tossed the bales from the back of the truck, keeping our thoughts to ourselves. I wondered why we were always in a rush and why everything goes wrong when we can least afford it to go wrong. And why do we always promise my brother, who lives in the city, that we'll be there in time for the family dinner? The questions flowed like a funnel of grain, but I had no answers.

Settling into our plough-horse pace, Mom and I swung the bales into a wheelbarrow, then pushed the loads across the paddock and into the barn. We dumped the bales on the ground and wrestled them through the narrow stall-room door, whose width shrinks every year, I am sure. Then we stacked the sixty-pound brutes from the floor to the rafters, keeping them far enough back from the stall bars that Lucy couldn't stretch her rubbery lips and steal a mouthful. With my apologies to the porcine species, it is a "pig" of a job, sweaty, dusty, and itchy. I feel like a pincushion by the end of the day. Prickly hay stalks slip down my pants, under my collar, and through my socks, while alfalfa leaves find their way to the most unusual places. When we pause for a rare break, Mom and I cough and hack up black dirt and dust—a mild and temporary case of farmer's lung.

Leaning against the tailgate, I asked a question.

"So, did you expect to be stacking hay bales in your lifetime?"

"Can't say I did," Mom said, her fitness masking her near eighty years. Heaving another bale from the truck, she yelled, "Come on. We better get this hay unloaded before that man arrives to fix the tire." I guess there are some things not worthy of deep conversation, and this was one of them.

Mom and I have never been afraid of using our arms and backs, but we don't necessarily work well together, pecking away at one another like two crusty of hens. But by the end of the day, the chores are done and we're still on speaking terms, which, for most mothers and daughters, is quite an achievement.

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