Column by Hal Walter
Modern Life – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
IT SEEMS I HAVE a new career. After years of poking fun in my writing about the realities of living full time in the Wet Mountains, I’m ironically making a good portion of my income caring for small ranches owned by people who don’t live here full time.
Everyone should have a spare job. I have several. Recently, while listening to a soundbite from a sales pitch for overhauling Social Security, I was led to believe that having this many jobs could qualify my story as “uniquely American.” I suppose it could.
On Tuesday evenings, in addition to being a stay-at-home dad, I edit news copy via a remote connection for The Pueblo Chieftain. I do the same thing Wednesday evening, except my wife is home to watch the baby. On Thursday and Friday evenings I drive to Pueblo and make an actual appearance at the newspaper’s news desk, often driving home after midnight.
Most days I also spend odd hours working as the information specialist for a company that has introduced a line of USDA-certified organic whole-food vitamin supplements. For this I receive a monthly stipend, a small percentage of ownership in the company and a supply of the actual vitamins. These supplements may be what’s keeping me going. (Since it’s become quite fashionable for columnists to subliminally pimp stuff, check it out at www.firstorganics.net.)
But here’s the odd thing. Every morning I drive up my road to a neighboring ranch to feed and water nine horses owned by a couple whose main home is in Evergreen. Well, it’s really eight horses and one Shetland pony. I go up into the hayloft, toss out a few bales, and spread hay around the pasture. Two of the older horses must be separated and fed “Equine Senior.” I usually do this while the water’s running. I set aside a couple of bales for the evening’s feeding (I come back later in the day and use a pitchfork to buck it over the fence). Then I drain the hose down the hill so it won’t freeze.
There are two houses on the property that need to be checked occasionally to make sure the heat’s on, the water runs, that the mice aren’t partying in the pantry, that sort of thing. And there are some other irregular tasks like checking fences, starting up machinery, arranging for road plowing, farrier work, hay delivery, etc.
When I’m done with this, I sometimes drive down the road to another ranchito, this one owned by a couple from Florida. Here the job is mostly checking on things to make sure the house hasn’t been broken into, there’s propane in the tank, and the pipes haven’t frozen. If it snows I shovel off the deck. Two paso fino horses go with this place, but for the most part they are pastured on Bear Basin Ranch and fed there, so they are not too much work for me. However, from time to time I check on them in the pasture to make sure they are in good condition, and I sometimes need to haul them to and from a trainer.
The total round-trip commute for both care-taking jobs is about three miles. Some days I do it on foot.
SO WHAT’S SO ODD about this? Well, for starters, between all these jobs I’m actually bringing in a pretty decent living. Most notably, the care-taking jobs pay as well as the journalism, especially when you take into account commuting, which costs not only time but also gasoline.
Recently a full-time job came open at the newspaper and co-workers asked if I intended to apply. It’s a tough thing to explain that I’d actually lose income if I gave up feeding horses to do journalism full time. Plus, it would be monotonous — this career diversity is actually easier on the brain once you have a routine, though it does have its moments.
For instance, on a recent Friday I had been conscripted to cook a whole wild-caught Alaskan salmon for the crew at the Chieftain — we occasionally have dinner together in the lunchroom and one of the editors had acquired this fish from a fisherman friend.
I FED THE HORSES in the morning and got the hay ready to feed on my way to the paper. Back home I had a proof of a newsletter for First Organics on my desk; it needed to be cleared for printing that day. I also had a brochure that needed some attention. I got these things squared away, went out for a run, and put the fish in the oven when I returned. I got in the shower and dressed for the newspaper.
The beautiful salmon came out of the oven looking like something from the Steel City Diner rather than something bound for the Chieftain lunchroom. I wrapped it up and placed it on the back seat of my truck. I was running late when I drove up to feed the horses, and in the rush of cutting baling twine sliced my hand with my razor-sharp Buck knife. I pulled my glove on over the cut and went about feeding the horses. When I pulled the glove off my hand was still bleeding. I washed it off in the snow and the cut continued to stream blood. I debated returning home to deal with the wound but I was running late.
I remembered the paper shopping bags I had used as an outer wrap for the salmon, and decided to tear some of that off to use as a compress. While doing so I noticed that some of the liquid from the fish had oozed out of the roasting pan and onto the cloth seat of my truck.
In an act of true “Cowboy First Aid” I squeezed the brown paper over the cut and pressed it against the steering wheel as I drove to Pueblo, maintaining pressure for the entire hour drive while listening to Terry Gross, BBC news, REM and one cell phone message regarding one of the jobs to which I was not driving.
When I arrived in Pueblo, I left the fish in the truck, which now smelled a little like the dumpster behind a Red Lobster restaurant, walked through the door of the newspaper, and went straight to the First Aid Kit. In the lunchroom I removed the shopping bag compress and was surprised when blood again streamed out of the cut. I washed the wound, and with the help of a co-worker applied antiseptic goop and a Band-Aid.
FINALLY I WAS ABLE to go to work. Already a pile of page proofs was gathering on the desk waiting for my red pen. While reading the religion page I felt something running down my wrist and realized that soon there would be red marks on the page that did not denote misspellings, poor syntax or a nail through the palm.
Instead of four jobs what I really needed was four Band-Aids. I pressed a Kleenex against my hand and looked around the room full of bustling professionals, many of them dressed nicely for work, and thought: “Now this is uniquely American.”
Hal Walter’s fifth job, of course, is writing a regular column for Colorado Central, something he’s managed to do monthly more than 100 times without physically injuring himself.
