Down under.

I’m on my dairy farm driving my 250 Kawasaki motorcycle, it’s early morning and I’ve just finished milking the cows and moving them into the paddock. I’m checking the paddocks to make sure everything is okay, just like the millions of other times I did it before.

It’s a beautiful day,

The wind is blowing my hair as there were no helmets on the farm. It’s not too cold and my motorcycle is running well. I love, and I love life. The feeling you get when you shift into a higher gear – that chesty humph you get feels so good.

GOD I LOVE LIFE !!!

The cockatoos are flying past me as there is a huge cloud of beautiful red dust tracing behind me and it looks like I’m in an Australian travel advertisement.

  But that’s not what I’m thinking about at the time (another day on the job). What I’m doing is I’m looking to make sure there are no baby cows where they shouldn’t be or that there is nothing that should be open or closed – just preparing for the afternoon shift.

When all of a sudden in the tree line next to the river I see what it looks like to be a baby cow. (Aw shit, Boots, nooo why did you run away!)

After looking for what feels like 5 minutes as I am hurtling across the bumpy dirt roads

I realize that it is just a kangaroo. I look back on the road and see something in my path but it’s too late.

One of the electric bungee cords with the metal woven into it is crossing the dirt road. it’s about neck hight. I realized I’m too late and I can’t stop! I lift up my one arm in the hopes that it will save my neck…

But all that does is postpone the inevitable. I hit the cord fast,  I can feel it stretch. But I know it will give out soon and then It will be my turn to stretch out. Then I get shot off my bike. The cord snaps and wraps around my neck as I fly through the air.

(I should interject to let you know that I’m okay.)

As it tightens around my neck and my arm I hit the ground hard, the motorcycle instantly stalls and dies and I am laying on my back untying the rope from my neck. At that time I didn’t realize what had just happened.

Strangely enough, the first thing that happened after the dust settled was laughing; a lot of laughing.

Then I just laid on that soft red dirt feeling my neck. I brought my fingers up to my eyes. I was a little woozy but  I could see that there’s blood – not a lot of blood, but there was blood.

(I should interject again to let you know that I’m okay.)

I quickly moved my limbs to make sure that they all worked, thankfully they did. I move my head back and forth to make sure my neck was not broken. Probably not the smartest thing in the world.

Then I quickly hopped on the motorbike and I tried to button start it…. it’s not working.

(Shit.)

So I tried to kick start it instead and it works perfectly fine. It roars back to life. Like a dragon from Game of Thrones.

I slowly and tentatively motorcycle back to the farm, once I get to the garage I drop off the motorcycle and walk around the corner. Three of my friends were standing there shooting the shit. When they saw me I started to laugh and I told them the story.

After I told my yarn one of my more smart-ass friends tells me he knows how to fix the blood coming out of my neck. He quickly gets the industrial iodine from the cabinet and gives me three sprays.

It burns like the fires of hell. Everybody laughs, including me as I quickly wrap my scarf around my neck to make sure the dirt doesn’t get in, forgetting that I used it to clean cow shit off my face the day before.

And that is the story of my fucked up cut.

Extra added an interesting fact. This happens four days before I went to Calgary so the first time I saw my mom in a few years she saw a huge scar on my neck – it was quite funny. For me not so much her.

P.s. No, I’m not condoning getting scars. But I do think that the ones you have you should have a certain respect for them. They show that you’ve done stuff and survived. Now there are some situations where scars do not ascend the best of memories, but as you go through your life you understand that those scars shaped you.

And that’s, well…about scars.

I love you all and hope you enjoy this post. I’ll see you in the next one!

Love Dane