We never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity – Abu Eben

There has been much bumping together of gums concerning staying fit over the past few decades. All kinds of expensive exercise gadgets are advertised on late-night television. However I don’t seem to find the time to ride an exercise bicycle. I am too busy walking back and forth the hundred yards from house to barn, as I forget something at one place or the other and a have to go back for it. Then, after lugging fifty pound feed sacks, and delivering buckets full of feed to not so patient equine diners, I don’t have much desire to lift weights for exercise. Finally, shoveling, sweeping, hooking up implements to tractors, hauling water hoses like sailors pulling hawsers, takes up even more of the gym time I could have had. As I walk circles, training young horses in hand before I get on to ride, I clock miles every day. Mounted,clenched upon the “hurricane deck of a Texas cow pony” my “core “gets plenty of “Pilates” trying to stay balanced in the saddle and not become a yard dart. By the end of the day, frankly, I am too pooped to do exercises. So I sit on the porch in my rocking chair and sip my beer while I watch the sunset. A friend, helping me work colts one day, remarked as we sweated and cussed, with a group of stubborn three-year-old colts “I don’t know why we get paid to do this, the horses do all the work! “I guess one of these days I’ll have to start driving the thirty miles to the gym, to get my exercise. Meanwhile, I am too tired, I’d rather sit on the porch. Where’s my Lone Star long neck?