Life on the Farm

I usually write late at night, often not going to bed until 1:30 or 2 a.m. I don't do this when we have concrete work to do the next day, but I do it pretty often. Last night was one of those nights. I'm working on a romantic suspense/thriller and I was in the groove, so I finally hit the sack around 2. Woke up at 6. Not sure why, but it might have been those dang cows bawling outside my window. They were bawling yesterday, too, but we thought it was because they wanted something to eat. But when they're hungry, they don't usually come up to the fence until around 8 or so.

I figured something must be wrong, especially since I heard echoing bawls coming from way across the pasture. So I drug my tired ass out of bed and went outside. There was my mama cow, staring at the back door and bawling her head off. And no calf to be seen.

Shoot. Paddy was missing. But from the bawls I could hear, he wasn't too far away. Just over in the neighbor's pasture. So by 7 I was dressed, had my shoes on (I never put shoes on until I absolutely have to, was armed with wire cutters, pliers, and extra barbed wire, and the dh and I went out to risk life and limb by cutting the fence and going into the neighbor's pasture at dawn. In earlier times, we could have been shot. Shoot, considering that all our neighbors are heavily armed, we could have been shot this morning. But we got him back, patched the fence, and laughed while his mama gave him what for. I'm pretty sure Paddy is grounded indefinitely.