I had a lot of work to do over the weekend, but Sunday evening I promised the girls I’d take them for ice cream.
I was sitting on the porch, waiting for them to finish their training session with their dogs, when it started to sprinkle.
I love rainy days and I love sitting on the porch while it rains, so I was totally content.
Watson looked out the window and saw me sitting on the porch, so he came out. He sat down beside me, but jumped up almost immediately because the wind was blowing the drizzle under the roof and he was getting wet.
It’s been hot and I didn’t mind a little mist, so when he complained about getting wet, I just kind of shrugged since it didn’t bother me. About that time it started to pour down rain in earnest.
He asked what we were planning on doing that evening (our church doesn’t have church on Sunday nights) and Julia told him we were going for ice cream as soon as the girls were done.
We looked over and the girls were still training their dogs in the pouring down rain. Ha. They’re dedicated anyway.
Watson said he’d take us for ice cream, but he wanted to go right away. So five minutes later when the girls came over, they were soaking wet, but they grabbed blankets (because they would be cold with the air conditioner on since they were soaking wet) and got in the truck – our big pickup was hooked to the trailer because we were taking two cows over the mountain to the vet’s and meeting the man who had our bull to bring it back, so we got in the old farm truck that is just two wheel drive.
On our way our the drive we look down in the lower field where we’ve had one cow who had a newborn calf the day we moved the herd so we left her in that lower field. (There is a pic of her calf the day it was born somewhere on Facebook.) We could see the cow down the hill next to the gate. Her calf had somehow gotten across the fence and was on the other side of the gate.
“We should get her. It will be dark until we get home.” Watson turned the truck and stopped at the gate.
The girls were wrapped in their blankets, so I jumped out to open the gate to let us in the field, then I hopped back in and Watson drove the truck down to the bottom.
I had him stop a good twenty yards from Charlotte (the cow) and I got out. “Girls, I need you to go get on the other side of her and push her through after I open the gate. We’ll just put her in the field with the calf, since it will be easier to move her than move the calf.” I knew the calf would run from us, but, while Charlotte isn’t a stand and let you pet her kind of cow, she’s not a scary cow, either.
Watson pulled the truck up some and said, “I really don’t want her in that field.”
I couldn’t think of a reason why not, so I said, “Please don’t make us spend the next forty-five minutes chasing that cow around in the rain.” I was standing in the pouring rain as I said this.
Watson pressed his lips together, but he nodded.
In the meantime, the diesel motor of the pickup was pretty loud and Charlotte had moved away from the gate and out along the creek.
It was still pouring down rain and now it wasn’t going to be a simple matter of opening the gate and moving Charlotte in.
Watson saw that he’d scared her, so I guess he thought it’d be helpful for him to drive the truck along the creek and try to move her back. That didn’t work and he actually chased her farther along the creek. The two girls were already soaked, and now Julia and I were too as we waited for Watson to come back with the truck.
I let the gate to the other field open and we figure Charlotte and her calf could just have both fields.
Watson came back and picked us up. Four of the five people in the truck are soaked. : ) We’re also at the bottom of the pasture in a two wheel drive truck with mostly bald tires. This is the field I couldn’t get the hay truck out of and ended up walking home and getting Pie to take the tractor and push me out.
Watson is a much better driver than I am. He’s also braver. He backed up to about the middle of the field and I think we were going about forty when we bounced over the last rut, ripped through the gate and crested the edge of the driveway. I’m not real sure. I had my eyes closed.
We did go get ice cream (it was very good : ) and as we went back down the driveway, we could see Charlotte up next to the fence, her calf by her side. Nice.
Also, we were all very happy to have hot showers when we got to the house. : )
Alright, don’t forget to check out Jay’s Labor Day devotion and preview!
Hugs and blessings!
~Jessie 