My Achin' Ball Joint
January 29, 2010 
First let me say that I don't know if this actually involves a ball joint or if I even have a ball joint. (I think I do, right?) But it's what I think of it as every time it is plaguing me, so that's just what we're going with, o.k.?
(Also, any anatomy lessons left in the comments would be more than welcome.)
A few years back, before I birthed any children or realized that my body would not, in fact, remain the vision of youth forever (I have realized that now, believe me... and my gray hairs... they speak volumes to me every day), I was feeling spry and frisky one March day and decided I would attempt to take down a 600 pound calf.
I guess a little bit of back story is required here. You see, this isn't something I (or any woman) would normally just do on a whim. Except it kind of was, at the time...
Marigold, her sister -- whom I shall now refer to as Sunflower, whether she likes it or not -- and I used to be goat tying queens on the rodeo circuit. If you've never watched this before, goat tying involves running your horse to the opposite end of the arena, where an unsuspecting goat is tied out on a stake. You dismount your horse, either still at a run or slowed down (this is where it always gets interesting), run to the goat, flip it over and tie three of its legs up. The goal is to do this as quickly as possible, thus winning the competition, thus winning a pretty belt buckle that you will maybe wear for a few years and then pack away and never look at again for the rest of your ever-lovin' life.
If you're nice to me I might someday dig out some old photos of me doing this and let you see them.
Even if you're not nice to me I might do that because my body was much younger and slender-er then, and sometimes it's just good to remember that you were once young and slender. It helps to silence the gray hairs for a bit.
It also reminds you that you shouldn't do things to hurt your body, even if it was young and slender, because someday, when you're less young and less slender, you might end up having an aching ball joint because of it.
And now we've come back full circle to what I'm trying to tell you about my ball joint. So, this sort of leads in to the 'why' and the 'how' on one lovely March day, I decided to try to flip over a calf.
A big calf.
Marigold, Sunflower, myself and all of our husbands got together that day and thought it would be fun to go over to Marigold's husband's parents' ranch and practice tying down calves. Marigold's and Sunflower's hubands were/still kind of are calf ropers, so this was just something that they did to practice. Mr. Blue Eyes and us women folk thought we might as well do this too.
It seemed to make sense for some reason.
That reason being...
Uh....
(Crickets: chirp chirp, chirp chirp.)
This was not a good idea, for me anyway. I ended up falling on my behind, quite literally and very HARD, and it wasn't the calf's fault (unlike the case of Bush Babe... she's got bigger problems than I did), it was my own stupid clumsy and less than 600 pound self.
As soon as I got up I knew that something wasn't quite right with my left hip, but after walking it off for a few hours it seemed o.k. Still not right, but o.k.
Here are pictures of Marigold's husband, who actually knows what he's doing in this sort of instance... (And other instances. He's very skilled at tipping over cattle.)
Goodness, that man is flexible. He has hip problems too, yet seems to be able to handle this task with quite a bit more skill and grace than I did. I'm not going to show you pictures of me doing this. Oh no. You'll just have to trust me on this one.
Short story long, to this day my hip aches from time to time. It comes and goes, but lately it has seemed to have taken hold and won't ease up. I don't mind thinking of myself as having 'child-bearing hips', but arthritic hips? Are you kidding me?
My gray hairs are starting to pipe up again.
Reader Comments (5)
This so happened to me...
Except there was no calf, there was a horse
...and I wasn't trying to tie the horse up
...and there was a ton of bruising.
I feel your pain!
Honey, you probably sustained a sprain in your acetabular ligament (ball joint)
Sorry to hear about that, but remember you probably should leave the wrastlin' of the 600 pound calves to the cowboys, not to the previously birthin' moms .....
ouch
Thank you, Tauna. Now I can be more precise. And know that I actually do have a ball joint. I feel validated now. ;)
Having to been to several brandings, it only took one to realize there was no way I was ever going to throw a calf on it's side. I leave it all up to the husband. ;) Sorry to hear about the hip though.
Yeouch!!! Blinking calves... don't know their own strength/weight!!
THanks for playing the relfections game BTW.
:-)
BB