Bringing Home The Rest of The Cows

For once the weather was beautiful. Last year I believe it was about nineteen degrees. Of course last year I got to bring a horse. Given a choice I’m not sure which I would choose. Maybe next year I can have both. Beautiful is relative of course, thirties to low forties, most things are nice compared to nineteen degrees.

The Goblin Child and I bundled up warm and rode on the four wheeler with her father. I am sure we were a BIG help. The poor thing isn’t made to carry that much weight. We didn’t fit very well either with four of us and Daisy. But we enjoyed it, or I did, not sure that the child could see out wedged between us as she was. But it was warmer and safer and allowed her father some limited steering ability.

The cattle came in easy enough and headed straight for the corrals. The four-wheelers were dropping like flies though, which I have to mention because, to everyone’s pleasure I’m sure, I spend the whole time saying how much better everything would work with horses. One was over heating and another just died. Ours worked fine though allowing The Goblin Child and I to chase those cows. We had dropped her father off to bring the pickup and trailer along.

Growing tired of sitting the child insisted on standing on the seat in front of me. I was fine with it, other than my arm growing sore from holding her, until she turned around and yanked my hat off my head. Not exactly sure what happened then  but it went in very slow motion. I let go of her to grab the hat and she fell backwards off the side of the four-wheeler. I realized I was dropping my child to save my hat and had a change of priorities. Letting the hat fall I reached down and grabbed the leg of the child who seemed to be floating  on her back sticking out to the side of the four-wheeler and pulled her upright by her lower leg. It doesn’t make sense. Not really sure of the logistics here, it must have been a God thing.

We were stopped by then, not that we were moving above a crawl in the first place but stopped is still good. She decided it might be a good idea to sit down. We retrieved my hat from the ground and continued on after the cattle none the worse for the wear.

Much to the overly excitable child’s delight an airplane flew low over our heads as we walked down the road. She is fascinated by pwanes and tried to tell everybody around us about it, whether they could hear over the work they were doing and the noise of engines or not. She pointed and talked and asked for more when we could no longer see it. Luckily for her the owner of the plane came by to visit after he had landed. With some fair amount of hinting he invited us over to see it closer, not for a ride fortunately for me. She got to sit in it and look around to her hearts content. It was a beautiful plane, built in 1946 it’s build consisted of a steel frame, light pipes it seemed, and some wood parts covered in cloth. I mean the whole body was covered in cloth. No metal, except a little around the nose, and no plastic, all fabric that is stretched over the frame then ironed to shrink fit it. It was fascinating and horrifying. It has lasted this long though so apparently it works.

After getting all the cattle hauled home and calves sorted off cows and lunch ate and the child down for a much needed nap I played the pregnant card and quit for the day. Riding around on the four-wheeler all morning took muscles I don’t have at the moment and as much as I wanted to continue playing (vaccinating the calves) I really could go on no longer. So here I sit playing on the computer while by the sound of things outside the guys have finished with the calves and are pushing this bunch of cattle out to join the others on the corn stalks. It is nearly dark, the warmth of the day used up and a good time to be done with a good days work.