4.24.22
What a peaceful morning it is. Still chilly enough for me to get a good fire started in the old wood cookstove but that is okay, since at this time of year that old stove provides us not only with warmth but our main means of cooking. I can hear the low rumble of the flames in the firebox, eating up the wood Darrell cut for me yesterday. As the stovetop warms, the kettle begins singing as the heat brings the water inside it to a boil. Almost teatime. Glancing out the window to the right of my easy chair, dawn has not yet broken. The pine trees are standing still this morning, nothing but dark silhouettes against the deep blue sky. I move my head slightly and can just make out the sliver of the moon between the dark branches. A warm beacon of light that brings a smile to my face.
This is such a busy time of year for us. The grass is finally growing, and the cows and horses turn their noses up at any hay you may offer them, instead searching out and feasting on the new shoots pushing their way up through the earth. Heidi and Willow – Lass’s adopted calf from a few years ago who is half dairy herself – anxiously await the day when I will open the gate to the milk cow field so they too can much the green grass. Right now, they must be content with hay as the wild onions are sprouting. Why might that be of concern you might ask? Well, unless my milk customers want onion tasting milk, I must keep my milking girls away from those succulent stems! It is true, you are what you eat! Or in the case of milk cows, they flavour their milk with what they eat!
Good old Lass is now out in the fields with the beef cows. I know she would still be producing milk for me, but her decision to not breed back, and after so many years of being such a wonderful milk cow for me, she deserves full retirement. She looks odd out there beside the beef cows that already are starting to look sleek as they munch the green grass. Lass looks bony and rather skinny in comparison. But the old girl’s eyes are bright, she is perky and content. Now the main milking girl is Heidi. While not quite the producer her mum Lass was, Heidi still is a grand girl. Willow, Lass’s adopted daughter, has a beautiful little udder for a half Jersey half Limousin cow. I have never trained her to be a milk cow but might the next time she calves. I decided to breed both Heidi and Willow artificially to a rather fancy looking Guernsey bull. This with luck will give us two milking heifers when the girls next calve. Somehow, after all these years of having milk cows, I just cannot bring myself to be without one… or two!
So, between getting the fields harrowed, fixing fence and moving animals from one paddock to another, it has been an eventful week since the snow finally left the ground. Darrell has been busy splitting more wood for the stoves as this past winter saw the woodshed depleted a tad faster than usual. Thank goodness he always has extra wood cut and stacked, albeit in large rounds that still need splitting. He always is thinking ahead. Now as the ground starts to warm, thoughts of spring planting once again enter our minds. On these sunny days, how hard it is to remind oneself to be patient and wait a while longer before getting out there in the vegetable plot! As soon as the ground dries up a wee bit more from our last round of rain, Darrell will be on the tractor rototilling the soil again. Preparing the garden for planting. In one cupboard under our kitchen counter, potatoes are sprouting, just begging to be planted. However, Darrell knows from experience they will have to wait a bit longer before going from cupboard to soil!
I love this time of a Sunday morning. As I sit here in the peace and quiet, I reflect on what transpired over the past week and contemplate what the coming one will bring. I think of all I am grateful for and resolutely push aside any negative thoughts. These days, with an arm that is almost but still not quite healed, I find myself trying to do more than maybe I should! Finding I pay for overdoing things the following day by having to rest a swollen and tender limb! It is sometimes easy to feel a bit on the negative side, to let oneself slip down in the dumps and be sorry for oneself! Yet sitting here, watching the sky turn slightly pink as dawn approaches, I am again reminded today is a new day, a clean slate for us to make our mark on.
The sun is just about to peek over the horizon. Heidi’s calf, who has been penned up all night so I can take first milk of a morning, is mooing plaintively. A sign I need to get my milker put together and head out to begin morning chores. The trees are no longer dark silhouettes. Now, as the sun rises, their trunks are bathed in a golden light, their needles sparkle as the dew on them catches the sun’s rays. It is going to be a beautiful day. As I sit here for a few moments more I feel tears prick at the corners of my eyes. Not tears of sadness, but tears of joy. My cup runneth over.
