Communication is always the answer, of course, but it took us a while to figure out the questions, starting on the first morning when he made a vague gesture toward the west and said, "Load up some bales in the tractor bucket and take them over to the horses."

I was somewhat baffled because I was under the impression that the herd of horses out in that pasture got big round bales along with the cows, but I dutifully stacked the tractor bucket full of small squares and headed out.

My husband came roaring past in the pickup to flag me down. "Where the heck are you going?"

"To feed the horses," I answered, because, Duh, isn't that what he just said?

"I meant the horses on the west side of the barn," he said, "not the west side of the ranch."

"Oh. Well. You should be more specific."

Sometimes, it's a matter of semantics. As a person accustomed to communicating via the written word, I occasionally find the lack of visible punctuation in spoken language troublesome. Thus began the endless loop in which my husband attempted to instruct me to acquire medication for what he referred to as "heifer calves." I assumed these to be "calves who are heifers," aka the yearlings, when in fact what he meant was "calves recently born to heifers." Which, technically, would be heifers' calves, but he proved to be emphatically disinterested in discussing the finer points of grammar while one of said calves was showing signs of expiring at any moment.

Then there's the nonverbal communication. We have the usual repertoire of arm waves and hand gestures for when he is driving the tractor and I'm running around on the ground cutting twine on round bales and opening and shutting gates and generally trying to anticipate what he wants to do next.

Sometimes I guess wrong. Lacking a functioning horn, his preferred method of getting my attention is to rev the tractor engine. Vroom! Point, gesture. No, go that way! I trot that way. Vroom! Point, gesture. No, I meant that gate! I trot over to the gate in question. Vroom! Point, gesture. Watch out for that cow. I watch out. Vroom! Point, gesture. Don't forget to feed the bulls. And so on. And so on. All. Day. Long.

Luckily, I now have most of the routines down pat, which is good for both our collective blood pressure and our chances of reaching our next wedding anniversary. The challenges come when we’re doing something out of the ordinary. Usually something he explained while I was writing, as if he still doesn’t comprehend that at such times my body is here, but my brain is at a rodeo in Texas and things are about to get Western. Inevitably, I miss some key bit of information. A little detail like "bring the red pickup because it’s got all the fencing tools in the back," so I go jump in the blue pickup instead because it has a working radio. I understand his frustration. Truly, I do.

But honest to Pete, if he revs that engine at me one more time. ...  FG

Kari Lynn Dell is a third-generation cowgirl, horse trainer and rodeo competitor. She writes from her family ranch on Montana's Blackfeet Reservation. For information on her novels, short stories and other writing projects, visit her website.

PHOTO: A simple job like loading and feeding hay can be baffled by vague hand gestures between husband and wife. Photo by Kari Lynn Dell.