I saw Ellie and George at the feed store the other day. She was wearing a walking cast on her left leg. She. d broken the dorsal tip of her fibula and pulled some tendons. It was the result of her perverse need to train young horses.

She was in pain and George was despondent. She couldn't drive he said. So he had to haul her to town every day to do errands. I remarked she was the luckiest woman in the world to have an attentive and thoughtful man like him to wait on her hand and foot.

He agreed and had formulated a workout program for her so she wouldn't feel completely useless. Another sign of his deep concern for her holistic well being.

He had been devoting considerable mental energy tryin' to figger out the easiest way for her to open gates. It seemed to him that's what she missed the most.

I asked him how she got in the truck. He said he could back up to the loading chute and push her in with a wheel barrow. He'd throwed a couple bales of straw in the back for her comfort.

And gettin' out? I asked. Easy as backin. in the old chicken house and lettin' her grab one of the low hangin' rafters. He said it worked pretty good the second time after he'd repaired the cross beam.

I wasn't sure I understood how she managed to open the gate from the pickup bed. He said that was one of the drawbacks. He had to back everywhere he went. And she still had trouble with wire gates.

How 'bout a big ramp of some kind, I suggested. She could drop it off the end of the tailgate and slide down. Maybe tie a piece of cotton rope to the gooseneck ball and pull herself back up.

He'd already thought of that, he answered, but it took her too long to drag herself around the pickup and back. Not to mention the dirt and gravel that collected in her cast.

As we speak, he informed me, I'm workin' on a new idea. Jack is weldin. me a small A-frame with a boom on it. It. ll bolt to my front bumper. We're gonna hang an ol' truck tire by a chain on the boom. She'll be able to swing sideways from one headlight to the other, open and close any gate I can get up to.

He'd fixed her up with a pushin. pole and a gaff hook. Should work slick as a whistle, he said. She can do it all by herself. Have a sense of accomplishment.

And you won't have to get out of the pickup, I added.

Yup, he said, I do what I have to to build her self esteem.