Struggling To Find Ourselves

It had started sprinkling on her before she reached the mountain meadow where her cows were hold up in the trees.  It was getting muddy pretty fast even with only a sprinkle because of the saturated ground because of the recent frequent rains.

When she saw her cows in the trees, she glanced off towards the South of them, and saw one of her cows bogged down in the watering hole.  The cow was still struggling, but it wouldn’t be long before the cow gave up.  She knew she had to act fast, if she was going to save her cow.  She quickly rode over to the edge of the watering hole, and took her rope from her saddle as she stepped down.  She made a loop and threw a hula-han that went over the cows head perfectly.  Then she took the end of the rope in her hand, walked back to her horse that was standing quietly right where she left her, took the slack out of the rope, and dallied the rope around the saddle horn and tied it off.  Then she made her way back towards the cow with her gloved hand on the rope.  When she got to the edge of the watering hole, she ducked under the rope, and backed up about 2 steps.  Then she told her horse to back up.  The cow lunged forward in an attempt to get out of the bog, which put a little slack in the rope, and her horse, being a GOOD roping horse, backed up to take the slack out of the rope again.  Again, she told her horse to back up.  The horse attempted to, but the cow was bogged down deeply enough that she was about to the point of giving up on trying to get out, so she wasn’t being much help.  After 2 or 3 more attempts to get her horse to pull the cow out of the bog, she knew that she was going to have to do something, and do something quick.  The ONLY way her mare could pull the cow out of the bog would be with the cow’s help, even if it was only a little help.  But the cow was now to the point of needing some encouragement, so, without a second thought, she waded into the bog behind the cow.  The mud tried to pull her down as she continued to make her way over to the cow.  The more she moved, the further down she felt herself being pulled.  She had finally made it to where she could touch the cow, so that’s what she did.  This particular cow TOTALLY despised being touched for ANY reason, so when she touched the cow, the cow lunged forward with a renewed strength.  As the cow lunged forward, putting slack in the rope, the mare backed up to take the slack out of the rope.  Little by little, they were able to get the cow closer to solid ground.  And then, with one more lunge, the cow was free of the bog and shaking off the mud.  The mare stood still as the cow tried to go to the others, but found she couldn’t because of the rope around her neck.  The woman got to the point in the process of making her way to solid ground that she realized that she wasn’t making any more progress.  So she called her mare over to her.  The mare, though slowed down a little by the cow’s protesting, came to stand on the last piece of solid ground before the bog.  She stood sideways, so that her owner could get ahold of the stirrup on the saddle.  When she had ahold of the stirrup, she commanded the mare to turn to the left, which she did.  As the mare turned to the left, the woman was pulled from the bog, and let go of the stirrup when she was completely on solid ground.  She laid there for a moment, exhausted from her task and covered in mud to about chest level.  She realized then that it was a good thing that she had emptied the laundry hamper this morning by starting a load of laundry before she left the house, because this set of clothes was going to need to be washed separately.