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29.09.2010 - Opettavainen tarina

The Countess and the Impossible

(AKA The Five-Dollar Job)
By Richard Thurman

No one in our Utah town knew where the Countess had come from; her
carefully precise English indicated that she was not a Native American.
From the size of her house and staff we knew that she must be wealthy,
but she never entertained and she made it clear that when she was at
home she was completely inaccessible. Only when she stepped outdoors
did she become at all a public figure—and then chiefly to the small fry
of the town, who lived in awe of her.



The Countess always carried a cane, not only for support bus as a means
of chastising any youngster she thought needed disciplining. And at one
time or another most of the kids in our neighborhood seemed to display
that need. By running fast and staying alert I had managed to keep out
of her reach. But one day when I was 13, as I was shortcutting through
her hedge, she got close enough to rap my head with her stick. “Ouch!”
I yelled, jumping a couple of feet.



“Young man, I want to talk to you,” she said. I was expecting a lecture
on the evils of trespassing, but as she looked at me, half smiling, she
seemed to change her mind.



“Don’t you live in that green house with the willow trees, in the next
block?”



“Yes, ma’am.”



“Do you take care of your lawn? Water it? Clip it? Mow it?”



“Yes, ma’am.”



“Good. I’ve lost my gardener. Be at my house Thursday morning at seven,
and don’t tell me you have something else to do; I’ve seen you
slouching around on Thursdays.”



When the Countess gave an order, it was carried out. I didn’t dare not
come on that next Thursday. I went over the whole lawn three times with
a mower before she was satisfied, and then she had me down on all fours
looking for weeds until my knees were as green as the grass. She
finally called me up to the porch.



“Well, young man, how much do you want for your day’s work?”



“I don’t know. Fifty cents maybe.”



“Is that what you figure you’re worth?”



“Yes’m. About that.”



“Very well. Here’s the 50 cents that you say you’re worth and here’s
the dollar and a half more that I’ve earned for you by pushing you. Now
I’m going to tell you something about how you and I are going to work
together. There are as many ways of mowing a lawn as there are people,
and they may be worth anywhere from a penny to five dollars. Let’s say
that a three-dollar job would be just what you’ve done today, except
that you would do it all yourself. A four-dollar job would be so
perfect that you’d have to be something of a fool to spend that much
time on a lawn. A five-dollar lawn is—well, it’s impossible, so we’ll
forget about that. Now then, each week I’m going to pay you according
to your own evaluation of your work.”



I left with my two dollars, richer than I remembered being in my whole
life, and determined that I would get four dollars out of her the next
week. But I failed to reach even the three-dollar mark. My will began
faltering the second time around her yard.



“Two dollars again, eh? That kind of job puts you right on the edge of
being dismissed, young man.”



“Yes’m. But I’ll do better next week.”

And somehow I did. The last time around the lawn I was exhausted, but I
found I could spur myself on. In the exhilaration of that new feeling I
had no hesitation in asking the Countess for three dollars.



Each Thursday for the next four or five weeks, I varied between a
three- and thee-and-a-half-dollar job. The more I became acquainted
with her lawn, places where the ground was a little high or a little
low, places where it needed to be clipped short or left long on the
edges to make a more satisfying curve along the garden, the more aware
I became of just what a four-dollar lawn would consist of. And each
week I would resolve to do just that kind of a job. But by the time I
had made my three- or three-and-a-half-dollar mark I was too tired to
remember even having had the ambition to go beyond that point.



“You look like a good, consistent three-fifty man,” she would say as
she handed me the money.



“I guess so,” I would say, too happy at the sight of money to remember
that I had shot for something higher.



“Well, don’t feel too bad,” she would comfort me. “After all, there are
only a handful of people in the world who could do a four-dollar job.”



And her words were a comfort at first. But then, without my noticing
what was happening, her comfort became an irritant that made me resolve
to do that four-dollar job, even if it killed me. In the fever of my
resolver I could see myself expiring on her lawn, with the Countess
leaning over me, handing me the four dollars with a tear in her eye,
begging my forgiveness for having thought I couldn’t do it.



It was in the middle of such a fever, one Thursday night when I was
trying to forget that day’s defeat, and get some sleep, that the truth
hit me so hard that I sat upright, half choking in my excitement. It
was the five-dollar¬ job I had to do, not the four-dollar one! I had to
do the job that no one could do because it was impossible.



I was well acquainted with the difficulties ahead. I had the problem,
for example, of doing something about the worm mounds in the lawn. The
Countess might not even have noticed them yet, they were so small; but
in my bare feet I knew about them and had to do something about them.
And I could go on trimming the garden edges with the shears, but I knew
that a five-dollar lawn demanded that I line up each edge exactly with
a yardstick and then trim it precisely with the edger. And there were
other problems that only I with my bare feet knew about.



I started the next Thursday by ironing out the worm mounds with a heavy
roller. After two hours of that I was ready to give up for the day.
Nine o’clock in the morning and my will was already gone! It was only
by accident that I discovered how to regain it. Sitting under a walnut
tree for a few minutes after finishing the rolling, I fell asleep. When
I woke up minutes later the lawn looked so good and felt so good under
my feet, I was anxious to get on with the job.



I followed this secret for the rest of the day, dozing a few minutes
every hour to regain my perspective and replenish my strength. Between
naps I mowed four times, two times length wise, two times across, until
the lawn looked like a green velvet



checkerboard. Then I dug around every tree, crumbling the big clods and
smoothing the soil with my hand, then finished with the edger,
meticulously lining up each stroke so the effect would be perfectly
symmetrical. And I carefully trimmed the grass between the flagstones
of the front walk. The shears wore my fingers raw, but the walk never
looked better.



Finally about eight o’clock that evening, after I had run home at five
for a bit of supper, it was all completed. I was so proud I didn’t even
feel tired when I went up to her door.



“Well, what is it today?” she asked.

“Five dollars,” I said, trying for a little calm and sophistication.



“Five dollars? You mean four dollars, don’t you? I told you that a five-
dollar lawn job isn’t possible.”



“Yes it is. I just did it.”



“Well, young man, the first five-dollar lawn in history certainly
deserves some looking around.”



We walked about the lawn together in the last light of evening, an even
I was quite overcome by the impossibility of what I had done.



“Young man,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder, “what on earth
made you do such a crazy, wonderful thing?”



I didn’t know why, but even if I had, I could not have explained it in
the excitement of hearing I had done it.



“I think I know,” she continued, “how you felt when this idea came to
you of mowing a lawn that I told you was impossible. It made you very
happy when it first came, then a little frightened. Am I right?”



She could see she was right by the startled look on my face.



“I know how you felt because the same thing happens to almost
everybody. They feel this sudden burst in them of wanting to do some
great thing. They feel a wonderful happiness. But then it passes
because they have said, ‘No, I can’t do that. It’s impossible.’
Whenever something in you says, ‘It’s impossible,’ remember to take a
careful look. See if it isn’t really God asking you to grow an inch, or
a foot, or a mile that you may come to a fuller life.”



She folded my hand around the money. “You’ve been a great man today. It’
s not often a man gets paid for a thing like greatness. You’re getting
paid because you’re lucky and I like you. Now run along.”



Since that time, some 25 years ago, when I have felt myself at and end
with nothing before me, suddenly with the appearance of that word “
impossible” I have experienced again the unexpected lift, the leap
inside me, and known that the only possible way lay through the very
middle of the impossible. (originally published in Readers Digest many
years ago)



No one ever becomes truly great by accident. Neither will you achieve
success by some quirk of fate or stroke of fortune. Success requires
action. Before you can have, you must do. And before you can do, you
must become. Remember that big things are never done by little
people. By contrast, however, it often takes a big person to do little
things, and big events are always the consequence of a series of small
preparatory actions

Paul J. Meyer

20.05.2010 - Fantti 2009

Yllätin Fantin nukkumasta rennosti vuoden 2009 keväällä, silloisen asumuksensa, pihattokarsinan tarhassa.
Onneksi kännykkäkamera toimi ja sain kuvan!
En vielä ole nähnyt minkään muun hevosen makaavan samalla tavalla, onkohan ominaista vain issikoille? Itse kuvittelen Fantin olevan notkea pystyäkseen tähän koiramaiseen lepotapaan.

13.04.2010 - peruutteluja

Fantti on periaatteessa rauhallinen ja selväpäinen, helposti hallittavissa, mutta... Niitä muttia on tullut meidän yhteisellä monen vuoden taipaleella usein.

Siksi olin tyytyväinen harjoitellessamme tuulisella säällä uudessa paikassa, Fantti pelästyessään pysyi paikalla. Mikä onni, vaikka meillä ei ollut mitään hätää, olimmehan aidan sisäpuolella.

Hevosen mielenkiinnon saaminen ja ylläpitäminen ei aina ole ihan selvä juttu. Monet mielenkiintoisemmat asiat kilpailevat. Meillä yhteydenpito sujuu herkkujen avulla melkein aina. Jos tilanne on kauhean jännittävä, herkkuja on turha tarjota, ei pysty syömään.

Joka päivä ei ole samanlainen into harjoittelemiseen, näin on ihmisen ja hevosen laita. Joskus tulee taukoja, jolloin mietin mitä tehtäisiin. Fantti on saanu tilaisuutensa; kokeilen, jospa peruuttamalla saan palkkion.

Opettaessani Fanttia peruuttamaan en tiennyt askelkuvioita, minulle riitti taaksepäin. Vähitellen uskalsin katsoa jalkojen liikettä, neljä jalkaa siirtyi satunnaisessa järjestyksessä, kun niiden pitäisi mennä ravin tahtiin, ristikkäiset jalat yhtäaikaa.

Näin ollen tehtävänäni oli siitä lähtien tarkkailla jalkojen samanaikaista liikettä ja palkita vain siitä. Olen lepsuillut vuosikausia, tai ainakin ollut tietämätön, mikä kylläkään ei ole mikään puolustus. Fantti on saanut siirrellä jalkojaan taaksen ihan niin kuin on huvittanut ja jalat sattuneet olemaan, issikka kykenee aikamoiseen.

Tänään sain kolme oikeaa peruutusaskelta, vähän olivat laahaavia, mutta oikeita.

1.4.2010 - haavan parantamista

Nelisen viikkoa sitten Fantin vasempaan etujalkaan tuli vamma tarhauksen aikana.
Veri valkoisissa karvoissa osoitti haavan, se näytti puhtaalta verenvuodon jälkeen, joten käytin 10-20 minuuttia PalmMag-laitetta, joka tekee kolmiulotteisen magneettikentän sähköisesti, laitetta käyttämällä nopeutetaan kehon omaa paranemisprosessia.
Fantin tarhakaveri osoittautui Hudiiniksi avaamalla portin, aluksi nostamalla laudat, sitten solmuja avaamalla. Hevoset tietysti iloitsivat juoksentelemalla pihalla ja rupi irtosi haavasta joka kerta, samoin kävi hangessa kahlauksen jälkeen.
Olen hoitanut ainoastaan magneettikentällä jalkaa kerran päivässa ilman desifiointiaineita.
Kuva on otettu 24.3.2010, rupea on vielä keskellä, reunoille alkaa karva kasvaa.
Videoita-sivulla on biaxial PowerMag (PalmMag on aikaisempi versio)video, veterinarians panel part 4:ssa käytetään myos PalmMagia.