Over the last week or so, I have been exchanging texts with a woman my iPhone calls Horse Manure.
Last winter I scoped out this tall, well-kept and well-used barn with a muddy paddock in front and a pasture behind that sloped away, first gently, and then steeply, into a valley. As the weak winter light faded on the empty rural road, the curious horses peered at me from behind their paddock fence. It took several visits before I saw a human. I asked if she had horse manure to give away; she did, but she didn’t have a tractor to load it into my truck. Her neighbor might be able to help.
Around here, it is relatively easy to find horse manure that its owner is keen to dispose of; it is the loading, transportation, and unloading that is tricky and hard work. I held on to her phone number under the name Horse Manure, but didn’t get back to her, possibly apprehensive it would be too much trouble to coordinate with her neighbor. I ended up buying some semi-composted horse manure from a horse breeder who sold it under the moniker of Garden Gold, which I filled into a 4’x8’x40” bin constructed out of pallets, that wonderfully adaptable detritus of a market economy. The purveyor of the Gold had his own tractor; the exchange of money made everything simple. This bin of Garden Gold yielded a good harvest of butternut squash. Butternut squash keeps well through winter. I halve it length-wise and roast it in the oven; this makes the skin come off easily in a thin, papery layer. I make the cylindrical top section into soup for us humans; our ducks clean up the spherical bottom including seeds, skin, and the stringy pulp.
With the passing of the year, I felt more strongly that it is silly to pay for horse manure, and felt more bold to involve two sets of people to procure it free of cost. So I texted Horse Manure, who despite the passage of time, replied promptly and turned out to be very eager to help me out and recruited her neighbor in the process. When I showed up on a bright, mild, early-winter morning, we both admitted to naming the other on our phones after the material that had brought us together and introduced ourselves properly.
She was looking after about a dozen horses, some of which belonged to friends who didn’t have barns of their own. She no longer bred horses, but mostly kept them for the pleasure of riding. Sometimes, her family would load a few into a trailer, go to a National Park, set up a base camp and ride into the wilderness for day trips. They had done similar trips in the western United States, but not with their own horses, which would be unaccustomed to the dry air and stony footing. We fondly remembered our favorite parks out west: Bryce Canyon, Dead Horse Point.
Her neighbor and his son drove up with their powerful, expensive-looking tractor. I would guess that it is one of the many underutilized tractors squirreled about rural parts; their owners love to use them to do their neighbors favors. The bucket on the tractor was much wider than my truck bed; I put a tarp down next to the truck to catch any spilled manure so it wouldn’t soil her driveway. The son directed the tractor’s bucket so it wouldn’t crush the truck cab, yet minimize the spill. She videoed the operation in case we had an unplanned spectacle. He looked around for a shovel; I had one handy. He jumped onto the truck bed to direct the manure off the bucket into the bed with the shovel. It helps your social standing when looking for a favor to come prepared with these little things – a tarp, a shovel.
We loaded two bucket-fulls into the truck and then I headed home, planning to be back for another load, but not before I handed my benefactors a butternut squash each, for which she thanked me repeatedly. This is poop! she said, holding up the squash. Have fun unloading! he said.
As I huffed and puffed shoveling the heavy, dense, moist – but surprisingly mild-smelling – manure from the truck bed into the bin, I got a text from her. She asked for my address; her neighbor would drive his tractor over with another load. They arrived surprisingly quickly. It does twenty-five miles an hour, the son said. A Ferrari amongst tractors.
The width of my manure bin was perfectly sized for the Ferrari’s bucket. The son was concerned that the load might bust out its walls, but I pointed to my newly added flying buttresses of T-posts stuck into the ground and angled into the pallet-walls on the downslope side. He was more reassured by the 3” wide ratchet strap girdling the entire structure. Men in the country place their trust in competently tightened ratchet straps. His dad dropped the load neatly into the bin, which held.
This time I gave them six onions and four garlics. The son asked if I owned a bunch of land – yes, 20 acres – and if I hunted on it. Well I didn’t but a neighbor who’s been promising me venison for ever but not following through did, so we could think about it next year. We exchanged numbers. I’m sure he put me down as Horse Manure.