The Weekend Awards

This weekend was an award winner.  Plenty of snow, plenty of ‘real life’ moments to remember and plenty of farm snow pictures, just because.

Unfortunately, this weekend My Loving Spouse and I are tied for the “What were you thinking” award.

One of the cats we like, Pooh pretended all day to be stuck in the rafter of the garage.  I can say ‘pretend’, because we’ve seen that cat up there plenty of times, and down again as well, however she stayed up there all day crying.  Finally, My Loving Spouse took pity on her and went to help her down.  This was a quick decision, (‘quick’ meaning there was little planning and little common sense involved.)  He couldn’t actually reach the cat, so in his wisdom he stood balanced on top of two propane bottles.  This worked pretty well, until he actually got a hold of the cat who then latched onto his face, upsetting the delicate balance of the whole propane bottles as step stool system, down he fell onto the garage floor with Pooh on top of him.

My “What were you thinking award” is a tad worse, because I’ve managed to do it once before!  Moments after snapping a few pictures of the farm in the snow, I shoved my phone in my back pocket and jumped on Blue to help clear the driveway, still a bit of learning curve for me, especially with the new tractor, totally forgetting what happens when my phone is in my back pocket on a tractor!!! Yep, lost my phone in the newly plowed snow, somehow finding it just moments before My Loving Spouse ran it over with the tractor.  One would hope I will remember in the future as my luck with this phone certainly cannot hold.

Number Two Son earned the First Icy Path Related Injury Award.  While at work, carrying in a tray of scones he slipped on the ice and fell on his wrist.  I knew it was perhaps not ‘just’ a small thing when he called me at church to tell me he fell, “but don’t worry it is not broken”.  He is not a ‘quiet’ guy, in fact he has often been dubbed ‘The Energizer Bunny of Noise’, so as the afternoon wore on and he got quieter and quieter and held his wrist more and more, the writing was on the wall…bonding time in the ER.  A small fracture of his wrist, a large ‘soft’ cast, plenty of discomfort and grateful for the distraction of the Olympics to occupy some of his time.

I also earned the Cattleman’s Assistant Award which is an upgrade and boy, was I excited!  It was dark and snowing as we returned from the ER.  Our Friend the Farmer called me, he was trying to get over to ‘The Cattlemen’s Dinner’, which only happens once a year.  He had a cow that was calving, would I keep an eye on her?  Would I!  This big old cow had been moved into the ‘nursery’ set up for his calving and My Loving Spouse and I could see fairly well what was going on…the calf was half out and looked to be stuck.  Luckily, we could see the calf shake his head, so we knew it was still alive.  Just as we were sort of panicking, the cow pushed her calf out and as often happens it landed on his head.  (Hello, world!)  Now Mama just needed to lick it off and he needed to get up on his feet and we’d be all good.  Except it was dark and snowing hard, and it went slowly.  A newborn calf is often up in 5-10 minutes, not this one.  I needed to find a place to keep an eye on it and not disturb the Mama, so I stood near a crack in the boards of the nursery wall where I could make sure everything was progressing.  Ever grateful for my new farm jacket that kept the snow off of me, as it took that calf 30 minutes to finally get on his feet, worrying me the whole time!

The biggest award and the one that really means something in the ‘real’ world goes to Our Friend the Farmer and we couldn’t be happier for him.  At the Cattlemen’s dinner, he was awarded Cattlemen of the Year.  This is truly a big honor.  He is an incredibly hard worker.  He’s built his farm and ranch on his own with his kids, often learning things like we all tend to do…the hard way.  He has expressed how grateful he has been to have learned so much from those Cattlemen of the Year that have come before him and to now be named as such, he was deeply honored….and we are thrilled for our friend.