Lessons Learned

So 2021 got off to a pretty shitty start for me. I’m talking literal manure. The other day as I was walking over to the barn to feed the horses I noticed all three of them appeared anxious, more so than on any other morning. I couldn’t figure out why until I got into the barnyard. They were thirsty. I mean T-H-I-R-S-T -Y! That’s odd I thought. I had just cleaned and filled the trough the day before. Well, that‘s when I noticed that the clear fresh water had turned brown and murky. Someone (Maddy) pooped in the trough. Seriously! So there I was with 100 gallons of contaminated water located in a very muddy barnyard. This was going to take some planning to clean up. But first I filled some water buckets from the spigot so everyone could quench their thirst. They drank as fast as I filled. Oh well, shit happens.

Once my equine charges were hydrated and happily munching hay, I walked over to my potting shed to retrieve my submersible pump (used for the garden water feature) and a length of hose which would be used to divert the water away from the barnyard. I headed back to the barn and got to setting up and plugging in. And NOTHING! The pump was dead. As I stood there contemplating baling out the water with a 5-gallon bucket, my husband came over with another pump he had from his old aquarium set up. We plugged it in and watched as it removed water from the trough. Problem solved. I went about my chores, keeping a listening ear on the sound of the pump. Then about 40 gallons down the pump didn’t sound so good. So I went over to check and saw that water was not coming out. Damn! It was clogged with manure. By this point, I was getting frustrated and cold. I decided to quit the project for the day and just fill the 6 empty buckets that I had in the barn. The trough wasn’t going anywhere. The horses were fine. I needed to just walk away.

The next day started much the same with me filling buckets and feeding horses. The trough just sat there mocking me. Oh, how I just wanted to kick and push it over. However, I thought twice about it. I didn’t want to make ground conditions worse than they were already. I had to think. I knew there had to be a simple, nonmechanical, and hands-off way to remove this water. I went about cleaning the barn and considering my options. Then it came to me. An incident from my childhood, a long-forgotten lesson, would be the solution to my problem.

Isn’t it funny how a past mistake can become not only a learning experience but also a solution to a future problem? I can recall the day. One hot summer afternoon, when I was a child, I was tasked with the job of filling a 50-gallon water trough placed near the yard fence and when it was full I was told to detach the hose from the house spigot. My mom did not like leaving the heavy length of hose hanging from the old spigot for fear that it might break. So I did what I was told. The trough was filled and the hose was disconnected. The length of the hose was left stretched out across the yard for a future filling. Well, when I went out later that day to feed the horses I noticed that the trough was empty. Maybe it had a leak or the plug was loose; there wasn’t a drop of water on the dry ground. It was impossible to believe that the horses drank all that water so quickly. I went inside to tell my mom who then swiftly came out to inspect the situation because I probably was not clearly explaining it. When she arrived she started laughing and pulled the end of the hose out of the empty trough holding it up for me to see. Mom explained to me that once I unscrewed the other end of the hose it acted as a siphon. I wasn’t getting it. I was a child after all. So she told me to refill the trough but to make sure I pull the hose out when it was done filling. I never made that mistake again.

This trip down memory lane gave me the a-ha moment I needed to solve my shitty situation. I ran over to the house to get the long garden hose. I attached it to the barn spigot and placed the other end in the trough. For good measure, I even weighted it down with a rock. I turned on the water and let it run until the length of the hose was filled and water flowed into the trough. Then I closed the valve, quickly disconnected the hose, kinked it, and ran across the mucky barnyard and down the hill. I planned to have the water drain toward the stone wall behind the barn. I unkinked the hose and watched as water flowed out of it. I stood there waiting for the rush of clean clear water to turn into a tiny trickle of brown. To my surprise, the strong flow kept going and by the time I finished stripping the horses’ stalls, the goat shed, and the chicken coop, I was left with an empty trough. Well, almost empty. It still had a nice layer of liquified manure coating the bottom.

With the trough all clean, I was feeling pretty proud of my problem-solving skills. I also felt kind of silly for not thinking of it in the first place; of course, at my mature age I know what a siphon is but I just wasn’t thinking big enough. After all, I’ve used siphons plenty of times to clean the fish tanks. My little fish tank one was not going to work on a big trough. Trust me I did consider it. I also considered using the long hose as a siphon but let’s face it I was not going to provide the suction it needed to get it started. But it was that childhood memory that pulled it all together. That silly mistake turned valuable learning experience is what made a potentially frustrating and messy situation easy to handle. As my Dad always said when I would bemoan any blunder made, “it’s cheaper than going to college and you learn just as much.” He was a wise man.

This experience left me contemplating two things. The first is where am I going to move the trough so Maddy doesn’t do this again? He is a horse after all and I really can’t assume that he learned from his mistake. Keeping it in the barnyard outside his stall near the spigot is the most convenient location for me but it also proved to be a risky one. I don’t want to waste water or see the horses go thirsty. I’ll have to make a change. My second contemplation is why can’t everyone learn from mistakes. Just think about it for a minute. I learned as a child after messing up once to always remove the end of the hose from the trough so as not to drain it. Simple. I recently learned that keeping the water trough in a suitable spot for me turned out to be a huge inconvenience. But it’s the combination of the two experiences that led me to effectively solve a problem with the least amount of discomfort or effort.

My point is that when I was faced with a problem, that my immediate attempts could not solve, I did not get flustered or stressed. No matter how tempted I was I did not rush to use my brute strength to knock over the trough nor did I allow desperation to force me to expend energy scooping the water out one bucket at a time. I did not complain. I did not ignore the mess. I did not ask someone else to clean it up (even though my husband offered). No, I just took a step back and cleared my mind and that is when the solution came to me.

I’ve learned a long time ago that the best way to deal with a perplexing situation is to stop thinking so hard about it. Often we spend so much time focused on a problem that we fail to see all the potential ways to solve it. If I had succumbed to tunnel vision then I would have probably run to Home Depot to buy a new pump or I would have in my frustration just pushed the trough over. Either way would have ended in an empty trough. However, one would have cost me some time and money. The other would have cost me no money but a lot of cleanup time because undoubtedly a good amount of that water would have made its way into my tack room. Neither was a feasible option in my opinion. Sometimes we forget that not all complications are dire and that they can wait. Seriously. A dire situation might have been if my pump failed and we had no water to give. But I’ve been there before and know how to be proactive. My rain barrels would buy me a few days. Do you see? A lesson learned.

All this talk about my shitty situation has me wondering what this country would be like if everyone (of sound mind, maturity, and means) took the time to assess a perceived problem, contemplate different ways to solve it, to draw upon knowledge from the past, and to take responsibility for both their part in and their reaction to it. Whether we ( I am using the collective because we are in this together) like to admit it or not many of us are usually responsible for most of the problems that plague us but very few of us want to take responsibility for solving them. Individually, we are unhappy with our weight but we still want to eat at McDonald’s. We are lonely but we continue to push loved ones away with our destructive behaviors. We hate being in debt but we still want to keep up with the Joneses. We lose a race but we didn’t put in the effort to train for it. We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired but we don’t try to make changes to our habits. We see situations we don’t like but pretend they aren’t there. No, instead we complain, we blame, we justify, we stick our heads in the sand, or we lash out. It’s sad really but it is human behavior.

Now take these problems and exponentially grow them and blow them out of proportion and you have the current shitty situation in our country. Why? Because the collective is made up of individuals and each one of them has their own biases, opinions, beliefs, agendas, and traumas. Because of this simple fact “We” will always become “Me” vs “You” or “Us vs. Them”. Fortunately, collectively we are better than our forefathers and hopefully, our descendants will prove to be even more superior.

What was once described as a melting pot, a place where dreams could come true, a country striving for universal equality is now a porta potty of hatred and vitriol. This may seem like a grim assessment of our country but look at the cesspool that we have created. I don’t care how enlightened, how tolerant and just, how patriotic and God fearing, how righteous, or how blameless we claim to be, every one of us is part of the problem. Thankfully every single one of us is also part of the solution. So stop the name-calling. Stop hating someone because they look, pray, speak, or think differently than you. Stop the conspiracy theories. Stop pointing fingers. Enough with the arguing. Enough with playing the victim. Take responsibility for your thoughts and actions. Just walk away, breathe, and take a moment to see the problem and then ask yourself, “What are my options and how can I make this situation better?” Will you attempt to be the change you want to see? Accept the things that you cannot change. Will you use force? Will you ignore them? Will you expect someone else to fix it? Will you regret how you treat others? But the most important question you should ask yourself is, “What lessons can I learn from the past?” because the truth is history sometimes has this funny way of repeating itself. I don’t know about you but I’d rather use my brain and take the time to read about and learn from it than see it repeated.

Unfortunately, we cannot change what happened in the past. If we could, I’m sure we would. History books exist to remind us of from where we came, and the mistakes that were made, and to warn us of what could happen if we don’t heed the lessons learned. Our history, the dark parts, and the victories belong to all of us. The history that we are currently making will belong to our children, their children, and their children’s children. I can only wonder how those textbooks will read and hope that the mistakes we are making today will prove to be valuable lessons to future generations.