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| I had to walk to the barn one evening last week and happened to see this calf standing at the water trough with one of God's great sunsets framing him. I'll never tire of seeing a great sunrise or sunset. |
During this parenting adventure I find that I am constantly either looking forward or backward, but not relishing in the moment nearly enough.
For instance, if I leave the house with all the kids now and feed them at 11:30, I have enough time to pick up parts, groceries and run to the bank and be home just in time for naps so I can run snap tests on cattle while the baby sleeps and then start supper during snack time. Perfect.
Or planning for the week: We can help work cattle these three days and skip naps, and then schedule me picking up feed on Thursday afternoon at 2. It's a 45 minute drive which will work perfectly for the kids to nap in the pickup.
Or, you can plan everything perfectly, lay exhausted kiddos down for a nap and then your husband decides to dry fire his implant gun in the house multiple times to test it and now everyone is awake and cranky. (I cannot even make this stuff up. That happened as I was typing the previous paragraph.)
As you can see, my life primarily revolves around working for my husband and then fitting the children in around the cattle and crops in our life.
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I feel like this is how we operate in agriculture as well, always looking forward or backwards but rarely taking a moment to enjoy the now. The kids were helping me grocery shop last week and I grabbed a package of multiple cans of wasp and hornet spray to throw into our cart. Kenyon asked why I was grabbing that already as technically this is still winter. My answer to him? "It's about time to think about shipping calves."
From his perspective I was being absolutely ridiculous, but in middle-aged parent math I feel this timeline checks out.
It's about time to start calving, which means its then about time to turn cattle out on grass, then about time to burn, then about time to work calves, about time to bale and haul hay all day, then play baseball all evening, then about time to finish projects for the fair, then about time load trucks at all those pens with angry hornets and wasps.
Yes, sir. About three good blinks and it will be the end of summer. Then it'll be about time to chop sileage, wean calves, preg check cows, survive the dreaded holiday season and BOOM. It's 2025. I feel like I should say Happy New Year, but at this point I don't know if I'm dreadfully late for 2024 or incredibly early for 2025.
