9.20.15
Here I am, a little past three o’clock in the morning, bundling up in my heavy tattered old barn shirt and pulling on my wellie boots with flashlight in hand as I head out the door to go check on Lass. Now I had decided last night I was going to have a lie-in this Sunday morning so had left Heidi with Heifer calf in the calf pen so as to save me the chore of milking, after all, I was going to have a lie-in remember? Well I have been somewhat patiently waiting for Lass to drop her calf for the past couple of days as she is big as a house and definitely ready!
I woke up out of a sound sleep, glanced at the clock and almost turned back over to snuggle up to Darrell but then of course started thinking … what if Lass was calving and it was a big one and she needed help? It was a tad chilly out this morning, I could tell as the bedroom window was partially open and I had the urge to snuggle deeper under the covers. What if she calved and the little one needed a hand glomming onto a teat so as to taste its first meal? Maybe I should just pop out for a quick look to make sure all was well. Of course once these thoughts start running through your head there is nothing left to do but leave a toasty warm bed, creep out into the living room so as not to wake Darrell, pull on your barn chore clothes and grab a flashlight before making my way quietly out the front door to head down to the barnyard.
Now I am somewhat blind as a bat when it is dark outside with no moon to light my way. So with the beam of the torch before me I followed the well beaten path from house to shop then shop to milking barn and cow paddocks. In the feeble light of the torch, feeble because I should have changed the batteries, I found Lass lying in her usual nighttime spot in the cow paddock contentedly chewing her cud. She looked at me with calm eyes that more or less said: “Hello! What are you doing down here so early?” She definitely did not look to be in labour! Heidi slowly rose up from where she had been lying under a tree in the calf’s pen, stretched and softly mooed at me as if to say, “Okay, it’s kind of early but I am ready if you want to milk me” as she started heading to the gate expecting me to open it to let her into the milk house. What wonderful, if at times exasperating, creatures milk cows are. They look upon you as their “second calf” and are so trusting … for the most part! But then trust is a mutual thing is it not?
With a pat for Lass and a “No I am not milking you today” admonition for Heidi, I started back up the slope towards the house. By now my eyes had become adjusted to the darkness around me so I switched the torch off and made my way by the light of the stars and Milky Way. Like a faint beacon, the light from the sitting room lamp glowed through the house windows suggesting warmth and yes, tea! Part way towards there I stopped, tipped my head way back and looked up at the night sky. There was no moon out on this chilly morning but the sky was ablaze with light from the myriad of stars above me.
Stars and the night sky have always held a special place in my heart. When I was just a wee little girl accompanying my father home from the local pub, he would often look to the night sky and tell me each one of those stars twinkling above us was someone special who had passed away and was watching over us. For a very long time I lived under the impression my mother had died when I was born, so would look up at night and pick the brightest star I could see and imagine it was her looking down over me. Even after learning she had not passed away but was living across the ocean in Canada, the starry sky still fascinated me. Many, many years went by before I learned her thoughts had always been with me and she never gave up loving and diligently searching for me. Maybe somehow I subconsciously knew this. As an adult, after learning she had passed away without my ever really knowing her, I often gaze upwards and just as when I was a child, pick a bright twinkling star and know she is there watching over me still.
So on this early morning jaunt to check on my milk cow I find myself standing there gazing upwards at this glorious sight, the words of a long ago memorized poem came to mind, that line in the William Wordsworth poem: “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud”; “Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way, they stretched in never ending line along the margin of a bay. Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance” Looking up at the never ending stretch of Milky Way above me I could indeed see where Mr. Wordsworth found inspiration for that line.
The sky was brilliant and I felt so very insignificant as I gazed at this magnificent display. As I so often did as a child and yes, still do, I wondered if out there somewhere amongst all those stars another girl is looking up at the starry sky wondering if another girl is looking up at the starry sky … but then a special twinkling catches my eye … a smile crosses my face and a sense of peace settles in me. No matter what trifles life may throw your way, all is well, for mum is watching over me …