Rank

     You arrive at the ranch early.  The sun's light is just beginning to outline the tops of the foothills and the periwinkle hews of dawn are spending their last moments in the barnyard.  As you cross the yard to the saddle house an excited rooster preemptively announces the hour and chickens scurry and flutter out of the way of your sleepy boots scuffing the dirt.    Reaching the small but well made building that serves as a tack room you hear a faint stirring and a door creak on its hinge as one of the hands leaves the bunkhouse.  You glance over as he lights a cigarette and you see him recognize your truck.  He considers for a moment and then follows your path to the tack room and nods when he sees you before heading into the main house for his breakfast.
     Entering the saddle house you look at the tools of your trade.  Saddles, bitted bridles, hackamores, ropes, spurs, girths, chaps, tie downs, reins and in short leather, hang in an organized chaos from hooks and nails and saddle racks around the room.  It smells like leather, saddle soap and dirt and horse and it smells like home.  Different saddles have different functions.  There are some beautiful saddles in this room, saddles you could ride in for days.  Today you walk to one of the back corners and grab a dusty and scuffed up saddle with a deep seat and a high pommel.  There are guards on the front of the stirrups so your feet don't get caught.  There's no need for fancy silver conchos or straps for tying rope or bedrolls because this is a busting saddle.
     Dragging the saddle behind you, you step back into the yard where the sun is now working quickly to warm the ground.  Hands are moving about the yard and several brush past you to grab saddles.  Its a short distance to the tall fenced round pen and you sling your saddle across one of the knobby poles before walking to the corral.  
    There's excited movement as you approach and a particularly nervous buckskin moves into a group of horses, trying to put more space between yourself and him.  Ears flick towards you, nostrils flare and one brave little bay turns her head towards you and blows.  
Pushing your hat back on your head you're joined by the foreman.  He pulls out a cigarette and you watch the herd as he strikes his match.  At the snap and flash several horses jump, others look and a few can't be bothered.  
The foreman appears to be studying his boots as he slowly asks, "See that flaxen sorrel with the blaze?"
"Pretty," I said.
"He's rank. Tried to run one of the boys down yesterday."
"How you want him handled?"
"Leave him to then end. Get him separated from the others for a few days. Wear him down before you try to break him or you'll never get it done."


    Driving to school this morning I would describe my mood as rank.  I'm pretty much ready to run you down if you enter the corral.  A rank horse isn't just a scared horse or a flighty horse, its a horse that is mean.  Its unbroken, untrained and fractious. 
     The good news is that, during my first two lectures, while half paying attention and writing this blog. I began feeling less rank.  I'm now less inclined to think, "Shut the hell up!" when a professor is lecturing on and on and on passed the fifty minute lecture period (Which happens nearly every lecture).  Or likewise, run someone off the road because they're obviously in my way. 
     I attribute some of this to some great pictures of horses during orthopedics class.  Just writing this blog has helped me calm down, finally being allowed to use the creative part of my brain for a few minutes.  Most of all though, its the people I sit with every single day.  The Smalls', Jones', Chells' that make me laugh because they are willing to be so goofy just to get me to smile. 
     This morning I will leave you with a quote and important information from the very entertaining Dr. D in neurology.  "The Manx cat is an abomination."  We laughed at first but apparently Manx cats, who are born without tails, have what is called sacro-caudal dsygnesis.  This means that they are born with a range of malformations in the spinal column.  Many will die in utero and those who are viable will not be sold by breeders until they are 4 or 5 months old and the full manifestation of their disease is realized.  So don't buy one because we shouldn't breed animals like this.  Its not responsible.