The runaway manure spreader

A large irrigation ditch ran across the northern border of our farm in Oregon. A narrow path where the tractor or a pickup could drive ran along our side of the canal. Once, when we still had horses instead of a tractor, some of my older brothers were coming off this ditch bank road onto the main dirt road that ran in front of our place, the boundary road between Oregon and Idaho, with the horses pulling a manure spreader.

Some­thing spooked the horses, and they started run­ning down the hill toward the yard. The bottom of the spreader bed, which one of my brothers was stand­ing on, would move like a conveyer belt whenever the wheels were en­gaged, which they were on this occasion, and he was run­ning at break-neck speed on top of the spreader while hanging onto the reins trying to stop the horses.

Had he lost his foot­ing, he would have gone out the back of the spreader and been mangled or even killed. Some­how he managed to hold on, running in place as fast as he could, and sur­vived the sharp turn off the road into the yard, where the horses stop­ped short as soon as they reached the barn.