Finally and Thankfully

That lack of clarity I was talking about in the last post? Apparently clarity finally strikes this pregnant lady in the middle of the night when she has just returned in from checking the cows in her pajamas, her rear end is wet and cold from sitting in the snow that ended up on the seat and she's hungry because all she at for dinner was oatmeal, by choice. You might ask why Ben isn't out checking the cows so that I can sleep? Aside from the fact that pregnant ladies just don't sleep well at this stage and Hannah is teething and keeping me awake, the cows are one thing that I don't let go of easily. Filling the pellet stove or moving things that might be a little too heavy, those are no big deal. It's a good thing I'm not on bed rest! I tend to the be animal person in the group and I insist on feeding (with "adult supervision" as Ben says) and watching them for signs of calving. I'm not sure the degree in Animal Sciences really makes me that much more qualified, it's just important to me and most everyone has realized that. Whether I have a newborn (which I generally leave in the house) or am pregnant I'm going out to check on the cows! :)

One thing that sparked the beginning of this need to check the cows in the middle of the night was a pretty good snowfall in the last 12 hours. I don't know if you can tell in the last pictures of Hannah but it has been really dry here. So dry the water supply for our irrigation season is/was looking scary and each day Ben checked the snow pack report it was shrinking with our warm days. The roads were dusty and we were burning weeds around the place on Saturday. Those are definitely things that shouldn't be happening in February. The snowfall means that Ben doesn't have much work later this morning but we are very thankful for the precipitation nonetheless. The hay trucks he loads can be a little apprehensive to come in the snow.

As a result of the several inches of snow we got last night my midnight ride was beautiful. There is something peaceful about being the first one out to disturb the new blanket of snow. I think it was close to a full moon too. The black cows are striking on the background of new snow. And the one cow that I was sure was standing along the fence line licking a calf...there was no calf. When I bombardiered out there to see what was going on she looked up from her snack of tumble weeds and said "Of course I'm eating tumbleweeds. What did you think I was doing?" I was again thankful that I didn't have to drag a cold calf into the house for a warm up and a bottle. I do plan on going back to sleep at some point soon.

So maybe this late night post qualifies as rummy more than clear, coherent thoughts but that's what we've been up to on this little piece of dirt. When the sun comes up I will stick a few pictures in this post.