I was feeling tender with my cow
Vulnerable post alert. I was feeling tender today. I was feeling tender with my cow.
No, don't stop reading, this is rated G folks. I swear.
I had a bad day today. You know, one of THOSE days, when nothing quite seems to go the way you want it to, and by the end of the day you are so "done" that you are just ready for bed and suddenly come to the horrible realization that you've only just had breakfast? Well, that happened to me today. Things just went plain wrong. We have some pretty great projects going on at the farm right now, but that has kept us busy! Mr. Pell has been working hard at taking a monster tree down, lambs are growing, sheep and cows have been looking longingly over the fence at the growing grass ("It's not ready yet!" I told you!), fencing needs erected, brush needs cleared for garden plots, and so on and so forth. And of course, with all of the hubbub, comes S-T-R-E-S-S.
If I wanted something to turn out one way it went another. The excitement of new chicks arriving sooner than expected soon dissipated when the price was discovered at the feed store cash register (these BLASTED Buckeye chicks cost HOW MUCH?!). Breakfast was late, lunch was late, and, well, you can pretty much guess supper. And I'm still hungry. Coffee spilled in the vehicle. I needed a stick for something and couldn't find one. A stick! One chick is already down (and take a cynical guess at which breed it is), and I've got too much cream skimmed for butter (First World problems right there). I was impatient and cranked up the mixer to try to get it done faster, and do you know what happens when the butterfat [finally] breaks away (leaving buttermilk , of course) at such a ridiculous speed as mine was going? You don't? Well let me tell you: It splashes. All. Over. The. Place. "That doesn't seem like such a big deal," you may be saying to yourself. I tell you, it's a big deal, and a big mess when the mixer just so happens to be on the top shelf of a rack, over top of everything else imaginable in the kitchen. Buttermilk dripped from the racks down to the items below, while puddles formed underneath. Butter clinging to the wall. I attempted to console myself by replaying the scene in my head from Charlotte's Web where Mrs. Zuckerman washes Wilbur the pig to a beautiful gleam by bathing him in buttermilk. I told myself that I may experience the same effect on my kitchen. I doubt it.
I went out to milk Bernice, the cow, because, well, I have to (and where else would I acquire even more buttermilk for cleaning the rest of my house?). And as I got into my rhythm and the milk was pouring into the bucket, I found myself relaxing. The birds were chirping at the feeders, lambs were prancing on the hill together, a northern sunset was showing off once more, and Bernice was chewing her cud, standing as still as a statue. Bernice my cow finally likes me enough to behave at milking time. She loves me that much (okay, so she was tied to a fence post and couldn't get away, but, she still didn't *try* to).
The perfect pastoral picture. (Wow, alliteration for the win. English nerds unite!)
I was suddenly overcome with gratitude for all that I had and all that I ever have. Tears dripped down my face and I found myself cuddling up to a twelve hundred pound animal and her milk bag. It was as if I needed to know that it wasn't all for nothing. I wasn't losing my mind, even though I was hugging a cow's udder and she was letting me. All of the emotions of the day had hit an apex and receded. I was tender. I was tender with my cow. I was enjoying my farm, and everything in it and on it. That picturesque, romanticized ideal of farming that we get when we read the "How to Farm" blogs and read the Little Golden Books to our children at bedtime? Yeah, it's real, and I was given a glimpse of it. The scribbles inside my head began, and I decided to share them with you.
So now I am going to crawl into bed with a wee one (there's bound to be at least one or two children in my bed by now), and as I wrap my buttermilk-smooth arms around one of my greatest blessings, I will know that everything is going to work out. The farm will work out. Tomorrow is a new day. A brand new day. With my blazing fire and classical on the radio, I hope I will sleep as soundly as Wilbur the pig in his manure pile.