Every week I learn new lessons from my mistakes on a regular day basis. This week I learned a valuable lesson of not being lazy and always expect the unexpected through the loss of my cow. It all started when the sun set and the cows left the horse corral towards the road. I left to my grandparents house while I was driving on the road I notice some of our cattle getting closer to the road. I was to tired to say anything about it so I just kept on driving thinking there going to past the road and walk into the mountain. On the way home I forgot about it so I just drove home thinking about relaxing and watching television. As I was home just sitting on the couch, watching television, my auntie came over to tell us the bad news. “I think one of your cows got hit,” the words that struck me.

            It was stuck in my head, should of just chased the cows back in, while we drove up to the truck that hit the cow. As we got closer I got to see which cow it was that died. It was mine! It had to be mine, it sure got into my head. The truck’s nose was destroyed by the cow and somehow the cow’s body flipped over the top of the truck and landed in the bed of the truck. Glad to say that the driver was never injured. In the middle of the night, we had to talk to the police and drag the dead cow off the road.

            Through all the events that happened, it taught me a couple of things to live by. First was never to be lazy at all because when you lay back, something always has to come along and punish you or at least test you. Only if I took action when I seen the cows go towards the road, I would not have to drag the body off the road and by now still have my cow.  Then you have to be ready for the unexpected, always watch out because something may happen at anytime. I was just sitting back watching television and all of a sudden, I find out that my cow got hit and now I have to do extra work in the middle of the night. Last of all be responsible for what you own, especially your pets and take care of it well. Even though it was cold and starting to snow, I should have been responsible to chase our cattle somewhere else than the roadway. Throughout the week I learned many lessons off of one mistake and now I have to learn from it. 

                Another week has gone by and now track season has started so it is time to get back in shape for me. The hardest part of running is when you first start because your so out of shape that it burns your muscles and throat. Running out in the open teaches me to become physically and mentally tough. That is the thing I love about running but when I stop running for a few weeks, I have to start over again. So for the past week I have been running in the cold weather and feeling the pain of not being physically prepared. 

            Every time I run in the sand I could really feel my thighs burn so bad but somehow someway I train myself to keep pushing it. I have those times when I am down or just to lazy to run that it takes so much out of me to get up and run but I do it. The course I run gets difficult as it gets farther especially at the end when I have to hustle to the top of a mountain. When I get to the top it is the greatest feeling of the day especially when I feel that cool air and look down upon the land. As time goes on and I keep running, I start to get back in shape and become physically tough once again.

            In my eyes, it seems that running can be similar to life when you go through the running phases.  Through life you are revealed to many pains that may hurt you especially in the beginning just like running. The only way to keep going and move on in life is to forget about the pain by becoming mentally strong and to encourage yourself to throw pain aside. So as you move on in life, while it throws pain at you just keep going because at some point it is going to be nothing to you. Close to the end your going to finally finish at the top if you keep avoiding the pain. 

           

This week for me was more of a worrying weekend with all the worries on our horses. Have you ever seen a person drunk? Or how crazy they get when there out of their mind? That’s the feeling my family have been having for our horses. Yes, somehow or someway horses seem to get drunk without the need of alcohol. The substance that seems to get them foolish is a plant that has dark green leaves and purple circular cottons in the middle; the Navajo people call it na’adii (na-a-di). It affects all kinds of animals not just horses. For the week, our horses got into the plant, so they were our main priority.
Sometimes the actions of others help teach us lessons and never to do it at all. The week was dealing with building more corrals to keep them contained from doing more stupid stuff. When you look at the horses that graze out in the pasture, you can tell if there drunk by their actions: they spook so easily, the friendliest horses are now scared of you and they don’t walk straight. The thing we were scared of was if the horses spooked they would run into something, cutting themselves open. Then they could walk into anything like trees were they could go into the branches, killing themselves. Just watching the horses go all crazy and stagger around, reminded me of all the drunks in town that get effected by alcohol.
In my head all I thought about alcohol is, “Dang this can really mess you up or at least make you act dumb in front of people.” The plant that horses eat usually grows out in the winter where all the grasses are dead making the only option for horses to eat is the deadly plant. Similar in life when alcohol persuades you in when there is no other option or at least at your vulnerable points. When looking at the horses they remind me of people when alcohol brings them at their lowest point. Even sometimes leading them into the wrong direction by killing the person. To this point it scares me and makes me realize how alcohol plays a similar role to the plants by destroying lives. Well that’s how my week went with all these worries so never try alcohol.

Feeding cattle

Every day in the evening, I have chores to do around the house and one of them is to feed our cattle. Man the food we feed the cattle stink horribly, the first time you smell it, but after you get use to it, it smells great. As I think about these cows, it’s like candy to a kid, that’s how good it is to them. It’s quite an exercise to feed the animals because I have to shovel their food into a wheel barrel and pour it into big buckets to share them. Now stroll that wheel barrel about 20 times, that gets tiring. The scariest part of this is when the cattle are not scared of you and go all crazy eating the food. They try to knock the wheel barrel over while you push it or the cows start fighting beside you and they start running into you. The tamed cattle that have horns are the horrible ones because they’re not scared of you and they try to hook you. After I finish feeding the cattle, the quiet moment I got is when I just sit there and think about things and watch the cows eat. In my head I think, “Dang, they sure got some anger issues.” As they run bucket to buckets, they always have to hit each other with their heads. Then most likely they go at it all hard fighting causing a bunch of dust to rise. “Don’t you ever think how these cows survive?” There always out in the open eating, then somehow they survive in the night without freezing. Hardest part to figure out is how strong they are to have big calves with no help. In general animals are just fascinating creatures, they leave their moms at a young age while it takes humans about 18 years and most of them can provide for their own. Just looking at them, it must be lucky to be them when you can eat and drink water, that’s all you need. Instead of having stress or troubles and working for your goods. That’s what caught my interest in this weekend’s hard work.