As I turned him back in with the other horses and watched him stretch his neck over the fence to try to reach the leaves on a little poplar tree we’ve been trying to grow into a shade tree, I got to pondering the subject of scars.
We’ve got a dozen horses and I can look at every one of them and find some scratch, mark or scrape. I know the story behind almost every blemish.
Copper has a barely visible mark on her right foreleg from when, as a baby, she followed her mother over an open wire gate that was lying on the ground.
Pepper, the roan gelding, is peppered with dark red marks on his back from his days at the bottom of the pecking order.
Snaz has a tiny swallow fork in his right ear from sticking his head under a barbed wire fence in search of the proverbial greener grass.
Winston has a wicked scar around his fetlock that extends all the way down his hoof from a tangle with some barbed wire when he was a yearling.
Dixie shows no ill effects from the seven-inch scar that runs along the left side of her belly – a reminder of the time she split her hide open while we were gathering cows out of some downed timber on the mountain.
My sons are always comparing their scars and wounds. They wear them like badges of honor. The winner is still the gash the 17-year-old got when, as a 4-year-old terror, he crashed into the fish tank his sister was babysitting for her friend.
His leg required a pile of stitches. The fish required resuscitation – which it did not receive – and, ultimately, met its demise.
The pinky finger on my left hand is always stiff in cold weather. I got it caught in my dally during the wild cow milking when I was 18.
The pinky finger on my right hand carries a reminder of the time my knife slipped while I was cleaning a deer. I’ve got a scar between my eyes from getting too close to the scope on an elk hunt.
Under my left eye is a nice little gem on my cheekbone from the time the boss’ 9-year-old son was practicing his spear chucking with a sorting stick.
I healed up pretty well from it but my face was a tad less handsome than normal for a couple weeks after I got kicked during a team branding a few years ago.
I’ve got a pretty little one on my right hand from the tip of a day-old calf’s hoof when I was tagging it. The big knuckle on my left hand is still a little tender from the horseshoe nail that impaled my hand when I was giving a colt his first set of 00s.
The thing about scars is that they’re usually not permanently painful. Scars are wounds that have healed.
There is certainly some pain involved in the initial reception of the malady but, once it’s healed, a scar can actually be a good thing – a lesson learned, if you will.
Most of the scars I wear are not repeats of the same screwup. I’m a master at finding new ways to fail but, hopefully, I learn from each mistake.
Emotional scars can serve the same purpose. It’s easier said than done, but you’re a lot better off when you let a gash become a scar.
Don’t keep picking at the scab. Let it heal. If you got burned when you sold your calves to Order Buyer Bob last year, don’t sell to him this year.
Don’t keep the wound open by trying to get even. Get over it and move on. Keep the scar and leave the wound behind.
Similarly, the cattle industry has received some pretty nasty wire cuts over the last decade. It seems to me, though, that we’ve responded pretty well to our medication.
The scar left from BSE is still there, and it’ll always be there, but it’s not an open wound and it’s not what defines our industry. What defines us as cattlemen and agriculturists is how we respond to and heal from our wounds.
Let that be said of each of us individually, as well. Wear your scars with pride. Just don’t open them up again.
