Some Days

Some days I chuckle. 

It's alls I can do when I step back and look at my life.. and what it would look like to my friends if they were to witness a day in the life of me here. 

This morning is a good example:

First of all, I woke up and realized I never made it as far as crawling under my blankets last night. I guess I was just too tired... so I slept on top of them all night, but that saved me the trouble of making my bed today! So that was nice. 

Kolby came in to jump on my bed. (he does this every morning.. I wish I could say I'm awake before he does this.. but I'm not. He's responsible enough to wake up early to feed his calves and make sure they're still alive.. which is much too early and cold to for normal human being to be awake---actually I just suddenly realized that both of his calves have died now.. so I really have no idea why he's awake so early). He informed me that my father had gotten a ride to work and then asked if I'd help him finish his record books for 4-H, I figured it was a good enough reason as any to be starting the day. It was at that moment, Kolby looked out my window and said, "hey, can you call dad?" 
"What for?"
"well, look, the cows are over there chomping grass... and I don't remember building a new pen and I don't really see a fence.." 

Looking down into their empty pen and over to where they were chomping grass free reign... I decided asking Dad about the situation would be wise. 

"Hello Dad, where are the cows supposed to be?" 

"Their pen is behind the garage"

"Uh... so... they don't belong in the North Garden? By the field entrance?"

"No... I didn't move them."

"Well... They're out... again. I guess we'll play round up." To which Kolby gave a little Yeehaw... I was less enthused.  

We informed Eva and Kyle about the situation with the cows... but they were more concerned with getting the bottles to the little ones. I think they forget that we live on a plot of 4acres and most of that is garden and the cows only have so many places to go before they end up in someone's corn field or the highway... I think the day they get into the corn is the day I give up chasing them. The farmer can mow them over with the combine for all I care.

Well.. they weren't in the corn just yet... Kolby and I started out into the North Garden... we couldn't see anything since the weeds and vegetation are all over my head at this point.. but we had a general idea as to their location... except they'd moved closer to the road.

Thinking better of the idea, since we would have pushed them MORE toward the road if we kept going, we doubled back and decided to flank them from the road and push them back through the garden.

No worries... these are 4H cows and are trained to walk alongside their owners.... most the time. When Kolby and I ran back, the cows got excited and ran back too. So there we were, in the front yard with the cows coming right to us. Kolby got a halter on one of his and I went to open the fence. That's the part where the rest of the cows were done playing tame and easy-to-get. They ran first to the farside of the farm... and then back. It was when I went to retrieve them that I looked with panic at them sauntering up on the highway.

Okay... well, we thankfully live rural enough that we dont have TOO much traffic... but we generally get a lot of feed trucks at this time in the morning... large semis that could plow over a cow no problem.. but also scare them into the neighbor's corn.

I stood and stared at them from the front yard, praying that by some miracle they'd just decide to wander back into the yard. That doesn't happen though. Because I prayed that my naughty little nanny kids would come out of the bedroom where their dad was sleeping one time and that didn't work.  (That was a real bad day. None of my days ever seem so bad since that day).

My next thought was that I'd probably be witnessing them getting hit by a vehicle. Which could be funny, I guess. There's a scene in O' Brother Where Art Thou where a cop car hits a cow... that's usually a funny part that makes me laugh... I'm not sure I would have been amused to see it in person.

Kolby joined me in watching the cows on the road and we both didn't quite know what to do. Either way, they were headed for the corn field.

Kolby took one ditch and I took another... It rained last night and there was a good 6inches of water/mud at the bottom,.. but cows.  We flanked them just right and scared them back into the yard.

By younger siblings claim I don't know anything about animals on account they were the first one's to take on cows and I've been away for many years.

I often remind my young siblings  that I had sheep long before said siblings came to exist. I've definitely done my time chasing dumb animals helter skelter through mud and trees and yards and ditches. I told Kolby if he grabbed the sweet feed they'd follow him into the pen, but he didn't believe me. He retrieved a small handful of feed and held it out to the cows, who were more preoccupied with the grass in the South yard.

Although cows aren't smart enough to recognize your voice and come like a sheep would.. they can recognize a bag of sweet feed and will tromple you to pieces if you have one in your hand. Which I easily proved to Kolby when I hefted the bag and the stupid cows were suddenly very interested in where I was headed. Like puppies, they followed me back to the pen and happily munched the feed I poured into their trough while Kolby and I mended the fence...again.
When we came in, I grabbed some left over coffee out of the fridge from yesterday and sat myself down at this computer where I have been writing reports, organizing 4H project material, and composing record books for the children. 3 books.

I've been here 4 hours now. When I finish, I will grab some coffee and turn these stinkin' reports in to the ISU extension office.

At this point, I'm really thankful I never did 4H. Don't ask me what it is because I feel salty about it now.

It's my siblings 4H projects that keep getting out of their pens and running all over. It's me that has to round them up and put them back. It's their 4H projects that has me writing reports on their projects and involvements.

Why not make your siblings do it? What a great question. Well... when the cows are on the road and the siblings are no where near...you do it yourself.
Why don't they keep their own records? They can't type fast or come up with sarcastic wit as fast as me and these are due in minutes from now... and my 4 hours put into them has them done.

As much as my life here has made me to feel like I don't have purpose... sometimes I feel like I do. Not that I think it's worth very much... but the fact that I've been able to say I've done somethings, makes me feel okay.