Getting A Sitter

It has been a while since I needed to find a sitter, and even longer since I was the sitter.  As a kid, I approached baby sitting with delight…two of my favorite things…kids and cash…it was all good.  Now I am the sitter again…life is coming full circle…and I am delighted to be with the kid without the cash.  I can only hope that it is a long, long, loooong time until I need a sitter.  Friday afternoon, I drove 3 hours to spend the night with THE Grandson, giving Grammy the chance to kiss his neck and give his parents the chance to go out to dinner.  It seemed like the very second that the little guy was out for the night (6pm) his parents left at warp speed.  I was told what to do if he awoke, how to work the remote and who to call if I needed them…and they were out the door!  I was so glad to give them a night out and to be the trusted one.

You might say it was a ‘two-fer’ sitting weekend.  Sunday afternoon, Our Friend the Farmer needed to do an errand which would take him out-of-town for the afternoon.  Could I keep an eye on the cows?  Could I?  Ah….you bet!  He was going to be gone about 3 hours, so I checked on the girls about 3 times.  Some could say that is over kill, but then again, ‘some’ where not upgraded to official cow sitter either.

No calves were lost on my watch.  No calves were actually born on my watch, but still, I was ready.

Our Friend the Farmer has mostly Black Angus (Black) with a bit of Hereford (Red cattle with white faces) thrown in.  He’s had two little red calves born this year to Black Mamas.   This is fairly unusual.  They are very cute and he is very proud of them.  While I was ‘sitting’ we got to drive through the herd and check out the recent additions.

Cows are very good Mamas.  (If they are bad Mamas, they get to be hamburger…sorry, but that is life.)  The little calves are let to wander a bit.  However, if someone new and different shows up (like me), the Mamas come and take up their spot near their calf….

We found one of the little red calves and Mama found us and made a quick move to join her calf.

Once she was near her all was okay, but she kept us in her sight.Because that is what good Mamas, Grammys and Sitters do…we keep those we are taking care of in our sight…even if we know that we just looked at the bred cows, we might go look at them again and even if we know that the baby was put to bed in his crib and he can’t actually crawl let alone walk or climb out of his crib, we might just maybe go and take a look at him anyway and make sure…all is fine on our watch.