6.13.21
Well, I had planned on sleeping in today. I even prepared for it by letting the calves stay out all night with Lass and Heidi so I could forego the morning milking chore. It has been a long week with much accomplished – trip to Bend to pick up a couple ton of grain, smoking hams and bacon slabs, lotion and soap making, gardening, moving pigs and cows – my body was telling me it needed a day off. Yet right on the dot of four o’clock in the morning I am wide awake. “Shall I get up?” I ask myself, “No, you are sleeping in today remember?” was the reply. So, I close my eyes and try to doze off again.
No such luck! A coyote starts yipping and yowling in what sounds awfully close to our farmyard “No Coyote Zone”. I get up and quietly slide open the screen door and slip out onto the deck to see if I can spot the offending interloper, but he must not have been as close as he sounded. Chilled by the morning air, I come back inside and crawl into bed, snuggling up to Darrell to warm up. It is no use. My grand idea of having a lie in has evaporated as I am now wide awake.
As I lay for a while, toasty warm next to my dearest Darrell, I listen to the bird’s chorus of song that somehow is always so delightful first thing of a morning. The neighbour’s bull adds a somewhat strident note to the mix, but it is not unpleasant. Off in the distance a tom turkey gobbles and a bit father on another replies. It’s no use. The urge to write hits me and I just have to get up, abandoning my grand idea for a long lie in followed by a lazy day.
As I quietly slip out of bed, Darrell stirs but I tell him to keep dozing, I am just getting up to write. After putting the kettle on for my morning tea I open the front door and look out over the fields that are now aglow with sunlight. The beef cows are contentedly grazing, and I even see our latest born calf, only two days old, a frolicking little brown spot in a sea of green. A robin is singing away as he perches atop a post in the vegetable garden and the whirr of hummingbird wings tells me those little busy birds are sipping away at their feeder. The peace of the new day surrounds me and an incredible contentment settles in my heart.
The past couple of weeks has seen a steady increase in my energy level. Although not back to my full head of steam, I am making progress as each day goes by. The past few months have been challenging as my body went through all its ups and downs, but at last I feel we are on the right track. After having a complete cardiac workup and subsequently learning I have an incredibly healthy heart – thank goodness! – I can live with the arrythmia that occasionally causes my heart to do a two-step in my chest. Knowing the function of my heart is just fine makes that little glitch bearable. A trip to an endocrinologist confirmed what my belly had been telling me, that a great part of my problem was a misbehaving thyroid gland. With the doctor’s guidance and a bit of medication my energy level is slowly on the rise.
Do I still get tired and hit a brick wall? Oh yes, but now that happens later in the day! My hardest challenge, one I am trying hard to work on, is recognizing the brick wall is approaching and putting my foot on the brake to start slowing down before I hit the thing! A work in progress. No wonder Darrell just laughs out loud when I say, “I think I am going to have a slow day today.” He knows me too well! When I hit my brick wall, he will remind me “Thought you were going to have a slow day today?” with a grin on his face! Yes, he knows me well.
It is hard to slow down, to admit you are getting a bit older, to try to reason with yourself that you can slow down and not feel guilty about it. Darrell has been after me for ages and ages to cut back on what I do, to take time for Rose as he puts it. Sit down and read a book or write or just do nothing at all. Darrell has worked so hard for so many years to get us where we are, yet my upbringing has always been to “work first and play later” – courtesy of a father whose mantra that was! When I know there is something to be done, be it laundry, dishes in the sink or whatever, I feel I need to get those chores completed before I can sit and relax.
This past year, what with my episode of Bell’s palsy and the health challenges over the past few months, sometimes make me ask the question “Why is this happening to me?”. Always a great believer in Fate, as I sit here this morning, listening to the sounds of a new day dawning, I think I know the answer. Many times in the past I have talked about taking more time to write, more time to stop and smell the roses, more time to take off on the spur of the moment with Darrell to go explore a new fishing spot with the truck and camper. I have talked a good talk but not ever really followed through. Maybe Fate, in throwing a kink in my works, is subtlety telling me it is okay to slow down a bit. It is okay to wait until tomorrow to do the laundry – after all there are still plenty of clean socks in the drawer! It is okay to forgo a morning’s milking now and then.
Did I accomplish my goal of having a lie in this morning? No, but instead I got to witness a glorious morning chorus of bird song, see the sun dappling the trees with golden light, watch a new calf frolicking in the field. Now, as the clouds start to roll in and dim the sky slightly the birds get on with their tasks of gathering bugs and grubs for hungry youngsters in the nests dotted here and there in tree and eave. The morning chorus of bird song is over. The calf must have tired and is lying down, hidden by the tall grass. It is almost seven o’clock, still early in the morning for most folk, but look what I would have missed had I had that planned for lie in!
