Leap Year: Another year older; another year wiser

I love birthdays. I think I owe that all to my parents. Not the fact that I actually HAVE a birthday, that goes without saying. I owe them for making my birthdays something to look forward to. For them it has always been a celebration. It is never just another day in your life. Even now that I am married, my children are grown and I no longer am a child my mom makes me feel like a princess on my birthday. I don't know if they will ever understand how much I appreciate that they have done that for me.

It's a great feeling but it also reminds me that we ALL need to take time in our lives to have our special day. We need to take an entire day once in a while and fill every minute with things that we enjoy doing or be with those people that we enjoy being around. It's just good for the soul I suppose but it also helps me to keep things in perspective. If making my day so special makes me feel so wonderful then I need to take the time throughout my year to make somebody elses day special as well. It's not the big things, it's the funny note you can leave written in the snow on their car window, it's starting the neighbors car for them in the morning to let it warm up before they leave for work, it's telling a friend how nice they look in their jeans since they lost a few pounds, it's hugging your husband when he ruins the birthday cake frosting because he grabbed the powdered sugar container rather than the flour...it's as simple as warming somebody's heart.

I hope that I never have a birthday that I regret getting another year older. I understand that having a birthday every four years should ease that pain somewhat but I also want to be that person that greets every year with eager anticipation of what it will bring in my travels through life. I also hope that I have a LOT more birthdays which include my parents singing happy birthday to me; making me birthday goodies and wanting to spend the day with me. I regret that I haven't made their birthdays as special. It has taken 46 years for me to really figure out how much it really means to me. Maybe I can spend the next 46 making birthdays more special for others.

Never too cold for a photo op

It's a balmy ten degrees farenheit at the moment. I just finished my evening chores, cleaned two stalls in the barn and re-bedded them with fresh straw. Ginger the Jersey is in her stall with her calf and her newest adoption eating her nightly ration of grain and fresh hay with soft coffee house music playing in the background. The newest calf is outside with her momma and the rest of the calves. Even though she was in the barn all night last night the tip of one ear got a little frost bitten so now she is sporting a hood with only eye and a nose hole. Her ears are laying against her neck and then wrapped with duct tape (yellow) to keep everything in place. Of course most of the mommas think she is the subject of conversation but her own momma is keeping her well protected.

It has been calm all day. No new calves and although a few of the cows are due and/or overdue, I don't think anything is impending. For tonight I don't think I will lock anyone else up in the barn and will do my regular checks at 10 and 2:30. That seems to be working very well except that I really feel like a walking zombie at two in the morning with a head cold and trudging out in my pajamas under my coveralls to spotlight a bunch of sleeping bovines. It never fails that a deer will startle me as well. I am always careful to take my cell phone along in case I fall on the ice after getting freaked out by a wild critter or if one of the cows is in a dire position. I am not sure what good that would do since Brad sleeps like a bear and would probably not wake even if I did call. I suppose I could call 911 but I am not sure I could deal with the embarassment of having them find a middle-aged woman with bad bed hair wearing pajamas and pink coveralls lying on the ground with a 2-million candle power spotlight in her hands. That would classify as front page Denison newspaper photo op.

Just another day...in the life of snow.

It's been a long time since I have touched base on my blog. I guess the world is still spinning at its usual pace. It seems like almost everyone is exhausted in one way or another. Some are already calving and so goes the battle. Most however are just exhausted with the weather. It is relentless and even the old farts are admitting that this winter beat them all. Not too encouraging I guess.

Nelson Cattle Company is busy as usual. Mostly that means that I have been busy moving snow and keeping the few cows that we have here at the farm comfortable, fat and happy. I sold quite a few cows and then sent all of my replacements and recips to another facility in the fall. I only kept my donors and a handful of replacements here. I thought it was going to be a cake-walk until I realized that I had over-sold my stalk bales thanks to the weather. I think it is all worked out now but somewhere along the line about 60 head of deer decided to move in and are thinking that sharing our hay/stalk reserves are part of the deal. Darby takes greta pleasure in taking chase to any brave deer that ventures too close to the barns but when you wake up in the morning to a deer peering into your window I think it's easy to see that I am no longer in control. I guess that is how mother nature works.

I plan on keeping this more up to date from now on. Please stay in touch! There are LOTS of new things happening at NCC!!!