Always an Adventure

Monday, August 14, 2023
Hello friends,
              What a beautiful day!  After a week of total muggy mugs!  It is literally like two different seasons.  The heat and humidity make you feel like staying inside as much as possible, and today’s weather encourages you to go outside and get things done.  We knew it just had to rain yesterday.  It was so thick that an ice cube could have caused a cloud to form.  True to form, we had a good rain last night and it scrubbed the air of most of that humidity.  Yay!
              Saturday morning was another farm adventure.  Every time something challenging happens, the silver lining is that I have something to tell in the newsletter.  We went to the “lower 20” pasture to get the cows for morning milking and we always count them.  There should be 16.  We milk 10, one dry cow, one heifer, and 4 steers.  We were short one so Bill and Gayla went looking and found Patty in the pond, up to her chin in mud.  She had waded out far enough to get a clean drink of water and the mud was too sucky.  Also, cows will only struggle so long and then they seem to give up.  Great.  They went back to the barn for the tractor and a strap of some sort.  I went to check on Patty and maybe look for some rocks from the creek to give some firm footing.  It decided to rain so of course we were getting drenched.  Gayla took off her good leather boots and waded in with only her socks.  I had my muck boots, but I was having a hard time not leaving them in the mud.  Finally, we worked together to fish around under Patty’s belly to get the rope under and behind her front legs.  We were literally totally covered with mud! It began to rain even harder.  Got it!  Now the other end was wrapped around the tractor. 
              We needed Patty’s effort too.  She had to be convinced that she could do it!  We coaxed and encouraged.  Bill backed the tractor up and she moved forward.  Then rest.  Do it again, until finally she got far enough out that she could sit up properly, and we knew she could stand.  But she had to be convinced.  Bill put the tractor away and we waited in the rain.  Finally, she stood up shakily, completely covered in mud, but except for a little rope burn behind her front legs, not worse for the event.  Gayla and I were a mess!  Sure, we hosed Patty off before we milked her, but who was going to hose us off?  What an adventure!  And then we milked, and things seemed rather normal.  Oh brother!….