Tag Archives: pride

Day 43 – Calving Season 2022 – Stealing a Coffee Break

I am giving myself 25 minutes to create this blog. What gets done gets done and then I hit publish.

Here at the ranch we are doing what we always do at this point in May and thats put herds of cows and calves through the working chute. This allows us to give vitamins, vaccines, tag the calves, replace lost tags on the cows and castrate the bull calves. Its a big chunk of work and it takes a crew. I should be out there but I am not because Dawson was able to come today and do my job. That is a lifesaver today in particular, I have a funeral to conduct tomorrow, a graduation to attend later today and tags to make. Not to mention feeding this crew. You might think, “why are you writing a blog?” I just have to. I have the fever to. But there is a time limit set.

Okay….maybe I have the fever because last night a friend we had not seen in a long time came for tea. As she stepped in the door she said, “I came because I just want to encourage you.” How interesting we humans are, how quickly old tapes and things rise to the surface, because you know what rose up in me when I heard that? I caught myself thinking, “oh great, someone is here to tell me what I need to do better at.” That wasn’t at all what our friend was here to share. However, I have had impacting experiences being told things that start with the words, “I just want to encourage you…….”, followed by some message to do things differently, worry less, have more faith, exercise more, …..some message that essentially said, “you are not enough.” But that is not what I heard last night, last night I heard, “your blog makes a difference, I want to encourage you to keep it up” and there was a bit more than that. But you get the drift. So, fuelled up I am here to share about this day.

There is so much stirring within.

I am proud of our crew. We had Morgan’s friend Griff with us yesterday and we got 80 pairs handled at the chute. I was not needed hands on, we had such great help, so I was able to cook and make tags and do the essentials in the house.

I am proud of Gina. More about that in the pictures.

I am sad. The details of this past week have stirred grief.

I am angry. I am angry at Covid. Tomorrow I do the first funeral I have had to do for a person who died of Covid. Two of my sisters were diagnosed with it this week. I saw them last weekend. So we have been wearing masks and testing daily. I believe I missed it this time.

I am hyper. I made the best pot of coffee this morning. It was nuclear fuel in my body. Russ just called me to tell me a story from the chute. We had a cow that needed to be chased down, details elude me. Anyways, the story was a bit epic, a should to shoulder race which Russ won and with great delight he told me, “when I looked at her tag Kathy, you know who she was?!? Streak! Kathy, I outran the streak!!!” I was suitably impressed! We agreed that coffee had weaved magic in us.

Some pictures to share!

I stepped out the door this morning to see a herd of cows and calves being moved through the yard. This still amuses me. I ran back to get my camera. Notice the mud encased Expedition. There is unreal puddle action on our roads.

I made some cheese and bacon roll-ups for a snack after the cows and calves were sorted from each other. It amused me to see how dirty Morgan’s hands were as he ate. I see this as a personal strength not weakness in Morgan. We do encourage handwashing, but, when it isn’t possible….well…….dirty hands are part of a working life and he is not too needful of perfection.
This is me and my kids during coffee break this morning. I am pointing to my shirt because it says, “Gina’s Mom”…it was a gift about 10 years ago. Gina graduates later today, we will be able to watch via a livestream at the Connelly’s. However it makes me sad to miss it. Really sad. We didn’t get to share in a ceremony for her high school grad in 2020. Its hard to miss this too. But we couldn’t be in Victoria two weekends in a row and the show weekend was more important. So……she is on our minds. And….we gotta get our work done so we can get to the livestream on time.

There was an awards ceremony yesterday. Gina’s stage combat mentor presented her with this award on behalf of the college. His words and manner touched her so much and we were so thrilled for her. The fine print says, “awarded to a student who has shown outstanding achievement in Musical Theatre.”

The college released this photo on instagram yesterday. This was an amazing number from Shrek where Gina tap danced with 12 rats. This was the number that brought me to tears. Why? Gina was having so much fun.

Jill in the foreground making a cow replacement tag, Laurie in the back. Part of the team this morning.

Not great team pictures but a little glimpse of the scene at the ranch today.

Calving is perking along, a pretty normal set of days and events are the reality right now. This is good timing. I hope your weekend is going the way you need it to. Blessings to you.