This morning I was curled up on the couch with my computer, a can of Coca Cola, and a sleeve of saltine crackers (time-tested family remedies for a sick stomach). Mark had gone out to do a few chores - run hay to the ladies and to fill water tanks. Right around the time I was starting to wonder what was taking him so long I heard him come through the front door. "Babe, can you put on your warm clothes and come out?"
Oh sh-t.
He witnessed my stomach convulsions this morning and would not be asking if it wasn't serious.
"What happened?" I asked as I got up and headed for my Carharts.
"We've got an emergency."
Crap.
An emergency here can mean any number of things. It might mean the hydrant is frozen or that the tractor won't start but he wouldn't be asking for my help today if it was something like that. I went outside to see the Kubota at the bottom of an icy slope, a bale of hay laying down a section of barbed wire fence, a broken wooden fence post, and a crowd of hungry cows trying to get to it. My first thought was thank goodness he didn't roll the tractor. My second thought was how long before the cows realize that fence is down and they are scattered all over the property? What now? Being far from mechanically inclined, my job in situations like these is usually to run and get what he needs and to generally be an extra set of eyes or hands.
For the next 2 hours we worked on getting the Mahindra started (of course today of all days it doesn't want to run) so we could pull the bale off the fence and move the Kubota. He got the Mahindra limping along and dragged the bale with a strap into the pasture where it stalled again. We walked back and forth over lumpy, frozen ground that you can't possibly imagine unless you've been in a frozen pasture before, and with every step I'm whispering under my breath, "Please don't hurt your knee." The last thing we need right now is Mark to be injured and his knee has been giving him a little trouble lately. The cows were in the way the entire time. Did you know I'm afraid of the cows? I can hang out with some of them, feed them treats across the fence, and snuggle up to the sweet ones but I panic at the thought of walking within 10 feet of the bull or the general population crowded around a bale, not to mention trying to jump starting a tractor surrounded by cows frantically trying to get to hay, pushing each other out of the way, and slipping and sliding on the frozen earth as much as we were.
We got it fixed, hauling tools out and fixing it in the middle of the cow yard. We got the bale moved and both tractors out. The cows are fed and the fence is still mostly intact, stretched but intact. That repair will have to wait for spring. The other day I posted on Facebook the statement, "What do farmers do when they are sick? The same things they do every other day, just slower." I wasn't trying to get sympathy or complain, I was just making a comment on reality. This is the reality of being a farmer. Some days you are getting a wet kiss from a calf and others you are trying not to puke as you work because the work has to be done. It's not even that there are good days and bad days. There a days. They are all days. Any day we are here is a good day.
