It's the most efficient teaching method I've encountered and I've sat through a lot of corporate training seminars that could learn something from it.
The mud is spectacular. There is no other word for it.
It is thick and dark and has strong opinions about footwear. It has already claimed my left boot twice.
Remy watches each attack with the visible delight of a man witnessing premium entertainment in a sucking grip that required genuine effort to escape. He finds this more funny each time it happens, which is impressive given that it has now happened four times and you'd think the comedy would diminish.
It doesn’t.
"You're fighting it," Remy calls from across the field. "You gotta commit to the mud. Walk like you mean it."
"I do mean it."
"You're walking like you're trying to negotiate with it."
Silas, beside me, makes a sound that might technically be a laugh. I decide to take it as one.
I adjust my stride. Plant my feet with more conviction. The mud releases me with a sound like a disapproving comment and I move three steps forward without incident.
"There it is," Remy says approvingly. "That's a ranch walk right there."
It is a small and objectively ridiculous victory.
It feels surprisingly good.
By the time the field is draining properly, my shirt is a lost cause and my arms are tired in a way that is completely different from the gym. This is working tired. The kind that comes from moving real weight against resistance toward an actual purpose. I'd forgotten that kind existed.
Laney passes behind me to check the pump pressure. She glances at the progress and then at me.
"Not bad," she says.
She's already moving before I can answer.
Which is irrationally disappointing because apparently I've already started wanting to earn another compliment from her.
I look back at the draining field and think that those two words have never felt quite so meaningful as they do today.
By noon the field is draining and the crisis has officially been downgraded from disaster to inconvenience.
Remy marks the occasion by announcing he's starving, which surprises nobody.
Silas produces a cooler from the back of his truck that apparently has been there the entire morning, containing sandwiches, cold drinks, and a container of something that turns out to be Jolene's potato salad, which Remy treats with the reverence most people reserve for religious experiences.
It happens naturally, without anyone organizing it or suggesting it. Remy drops the cooler, Silas pulls out the food, and suddenly there are four of us sitting in the shade of Silas's truck eating lunch like this is something we've done a hundred times before.
Maisie materializes from the direction of the horse barn with hay in her hair and joins us without asking, wedging herself betweenme and Remy like she's been eating tailgate lunches her whole life.
Maybe she has. I'm realizing I don't always know what she gets when I'm not watching.
"You've got mud on your face," she tells me, examining me with the critical eye of an eight year old who takes personal presentation seriously despite the hay situation.
"I'm aware."
"It's on your ear too."
"Also aware."
"And your neck."
