Should have stayed in bed !!!

Greg had a tough day off the ranch yesterday....John had a REALLY BAD day on the ranch. Just as the snow started to fall, Greg checked out to go for a medical overhaul. We had some good news, the muscle wasting disease our primary suspected isn't....so my "ranch hand hopefully gets to spend a lot more years with me as his boss. smile. Big brother John, always enthusiastic, always smiling, ...wasn't !!! It started well enough, all the animals were where we had left them the night before ( always a good start ! ) The horses all went out to the pastures without incident, the 2 hormonal doelings appear to have given up their love quest and Macho the lusting buck appears to have been thwarted... then it all started to go wrong for big bro. John had his pitching practice with the sheep, he threw the alfalfa flakes with perfection into the feeder, 1, 2, 3, ..oops, a fumble, an incomplete pass and he had to go in, tackle the ewes and recover the flake. Next chore, sanding Marys cherry wood ready for her little goat soap boxes. No sooner had Gregs truck disappeared through the snowflakes when the fragile boys toy fell to bits !!! Johns anxious (and incidently... not smiling ) face appeared round the stall door. Clearly there was an "issue"....Johns policy is "stay WELL CLEAR" of poo, something serious had brought him into the poo zone. We soon found out, as soon as Gregs back was turned the offending machine had a hiccup, swallowed a piece of wood and then coughed it out where it shouldn't be coughed out. Big brother took it appart ( easy )...tried to put it back together, ...not so easy. Reinforcements were clearly needed and so there we all were, the England team each holding a part, trying to get the thing back together. Each time one piece re connected another fell apart. We decided it was an American conspiracy and after utilising the dreaded baling twine and checking out the look of desperation on Johns face I made an executive decision...... abandon surgery, declare dead and just close the door ! Something tells me brother John is going to give the sander a very wide berth in future. Things didn't get better for my despairing sibling and by mid afternoon a traumatised John declared that he shouldn't have got out of bed. Have a Corrona..It will all be better tomorrow, ...we hope ! As for Trish, she is on familiar territory, horses and poo are right up her street...another glass of wine ?? Take care, keep safe. M