Meaning from the Mundane

   I get stuck in a daily routine that can seem pretty mundane at times. Everyone does. But looking at something I do every day from a different perspective helps me realize that what is mundane, frustrating, or just plain ordinary to me might be unique and interesting to someone else. 

   I change these eight gates in this one spot back and forth, to and fro, at least four times every single day. The gates need to stay open to the road for most of the day so people can get in and out of the south side of the show barn to feed, clean stalls, and turn horses out. I always seem to need them set the opposite way, though, so I can move pregnant mares in and out of the barn area in order to watch them at night; move broodmares in and out of their light pen in order to extend their "daylight" hours and get them to start cycling earlier in the year; or move yearlings or two-year-olds up to the barn in order to work with them, get their feet trimmed, doctor one that is sick or injured, etc.

   The beauty of these gates is that they allow me to move large numbers of horses from any of the horse pastures on the ranch up to the barn by myself. The frustrating part is how much time I always seem to spend moving them back and forth. It gets even more frustrating when multiple people are trying to go through this one intersection at the same time, and need the gates set in opposite directions, especially when the horses are already on the move and approaching this spot. 

   Just last week I brought the two-year-olds up to the barn, so I could de-worm a few of them. I only had to de-worm seven of them, so the amount of time they were up by the barn was no more than fifteen minutes. I didn't see anyone over by the show barn, and figured nobody had moved the gates back or left one of the gates open in such a short time. Believe me, I have learned my lesson to never assume that all the gates will be in the same positions that I left them in, no matter how little time has passed. You can probably guess what happened.

   I like to think of it as adding a little excitement to my day. Who doesn't want to throw themselves over a fence in a hopeless attempt to get in front of the two-year-olds as they realize the gate is open, cutting your palm and bruising your leg in the process? And who doesn't want to spend the next forty-five minutes running after this group of excited horses as they run up the hill, turn the corner, race past my house, and head for the shop and cattle pens, all while stirring up every horse in the surrounding pastures as they go by?

   Which brings me back to the gates. Moving these gates back and forth at least four times a day may be a mundane, and sometimes annoying, task, but this set up is significant, as it has the ability to make my life so much easier, or a little more difficult. It all depends on their positions and my current goal.