Our favorite helicopter company, Ambrosini Helicopters, Inc. in Fresno is run by a man who faces danger every day. A few days ago he flew one of our guests in from Fresno, and he came back to the ranch a few days later to pick her up and take her to Mammoth, on the other side of the Sierra. For several days we had been getting afternoon thunderstorms up there, so he asked me to get ahold of the ranch and make sure she was ready by 9:00 in the morning. That way he could beat the storms. “I hate flying in hail,” he told me. I emailed the ranch and got a response: She was ready.
Contrast what he faces daily with what I face daily. Last week I slipped on some dry grass as I walked down a steep slope to the creek on the way to feed horses. I fell flat on my back. My head missed a rock by mere inches (mere centimeters). The following day a horse, anxious to get to the feed I was putting in his trough, pushed me into the steel teeth of a hay bale cart. I still have a very swollen shin. While I was stirring a pot of 220°F (105°C) apricot jam, the boiling got especially vigorous and I got splashed by hot jam. I can still find the red spot on my arm in the right lighting conditions. I am dreading the day, when opening a bill from one of our suppliers, that I get a paper cut.
