The Breath of Life

Yesterday was bring your farm to work day.

If David had lived throught he same day as I did, and someone asked him:

“Hey, David.  How was your day?”

He would shrugged and said, “Fine, I guess.”

And if you asked me . . .

And now, I present to you, my day:

I woke up stressed.

Usually, I am as cool as a cucumber.  Just ask David.  But today, I had to haul a stock trailer to town with my best friend Hazel and some newly hatched chicks.

I woke up, stressed, as previously stated, and was immediately worried that Hazel, who is a country girl and never been to town, would accidentally run into the road by the school and get hit by a car.

Not wanting to sound like an insane person, I did not mention my fears to David.

Want to know one of the best perks of marriage?

Having your husband bring you coffee in bed at 4:45am.  I give it two thumbs up.

So he brought me coffee and said:  Today is your big day!  Are you nervous?

Me:  I am really worried that Hazel will get hit by a car.

David:  I woke up in the middle of the night and thought the same thing.  Bye!

!

With fear and trepidation, I started to get ready for my big day.  I heard the dogs barking something fierce and I assumed they were attacking pigs or a horse, or any other animal who could totally kill them.  But I looked outside and they were chasing a coytoe.

!

A real, live coyote!

And the coyote was running all around the cows, including precious Hazel, and I knew David would never believe me, so I took video:

There is a coyote in the video.  It is, admittedly, hard to see.  But you can see it at the very beginning.  It is the same color as hay and is followed by three dogs.

So, then I had to panic and worry and wonder why the Lord chose to unite me with this man named David who would move me out to rural areas and make me in charge of keeping animals safe from coyotes whilst he was busy being an electrician in a big city.

Then.  Then, I woke up the boys.

The girls were at work and the boys were at home.  I am the only one who has school on Friday.  I woke the boys up because I needed help getting everything loaded and ready to go.  I tasked HD with getting Hazel loaded and LD with loading chicks.

HD decided to first make 27 pancakes, with chocolate chips, of course, and, duh mom, I know I have to load Hazel, it won’t be that hard, gosh.

LD started to take the chicks from the house to the car, but I was like, dude, take their water out because it will spill.

He did not take the water out and it spilled.  There was a bunch of water in the bottom of the tub.

Me to LD:  Listen to me.  The chicks will drown.  Take all of this and dump it.  Put fresh straw in and load the chicks in the car.

He is gone for 20 minutes, doing what I had presumed to be just that.

Meanwhile, I am loading stuff and getting ready and HD is like,

MOM!  I cannot load Hazel!

So we have to trick her with a bottle and lift her into the stock trailer because she is too small to step into it.

And then I drove to town.

Alone.

I have accepted that fact that I must tow the trailer, but I do not know how to back up a trailer, so I must plan all routes and situations so I would never have to back up a trailer.

As I am driving to school, HD texted me.  I did not notice because I was driving a stock trailer to town.  And hauling things totally stresses me out and I have to be like 10 and 2 the whole entire time.  And then I remembered that sometimes David LOSES animals out the trailer and for the love of everything there is no way I am going to be ok with Hazel flying out of the trailer and onto the road so I pulled over and checked and everything was locked and loaded so I went back to driving safely five miles under the recommended speed limit and keeping my hands at 10 and 2.  And if ever I passed a police officer I would shout:

Please look at me!  Am I legal?  Is everything ok?  If not-PLEASE PULL ME OVER!

I also was in tow mode.  If that impresses you.

HD then calls me and shouts:  WHY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING MY TEXTS?

Me:  Remember?  You just saw me leave?  I am driving to town?  With Hazel and chicks?

HD:  Can you help me drive 2 1/2 hours to go buy a bunch of bottle calves I found on Craigslist tomorrow?

And is he not just the carbon copy of David, Reader?

(Spoiler alert-I am not driving him to get bottle calves)

I get to school.  I unload Hazel.

I recruit fellow teachers to help form a human barriacade to ensure that Hazel does not get any fancy ideas and run into the road to get hit by a car.

She makes it to the pen at school safely.

I then go back to get the chicks.

LD did not heed my instructions and three, yes, THREE chicks were drowned in the puddle of water.

I hurriedly have to unload everything and get ready to go live with students for our first meeting.  My teacher team and I decide the drowned chicks are close to dead, but not all the way dead, and we try to recuscitate them.  We even had help from other teachers in the building.  We were holding wet little chicks in our hands and blowing on them and trying to teach and be merry.  We were reciting the Pledge of Allegience whilst blowing the breath of life into these chicks.  And 1 of the 3 died and I had a Come to Jesus meeting with LD about his laziness, although I don’t think I reached him yet.

Maybe someday. Yes.  Maybe someday all my words of wisdom will seep into his messy haired middle school brain.  Let us all hope and pray.

And the kids came it was so fun.  They were so excited to meet Hazel and see the chicks and I have the best teacher team ever.  One of our teammates made us cute shirts that said:

I said a Moo, Chick-A Moo.

We were missing one teammate, sadly, who was out due to a family emergency, but we made it through the day and much merriment was to be had.

Look at my cute team teacher in the background, waving to all the peoples.

Get this.  They made me her mentor for this year.

That’s right.

MENTOR.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

She’s top notch and doesn’t need a mentor.  And I am not mentor-quality.

Hazel was, as expected, a total star.  She did become completely “over it” by mid morning and would just go sit and look in the opposite direction of the children.

At first, I thought I could just take kids in the pen with me to pet her.  But then, she stepped on my toesies and I was only wearing sneakers and it hurt so bad.  I even had to whine about it all day to my team teachers and tell them I now understood why cowboys wore cowboy boots.  I decided bringing small children in would not be a good plan so I had to keep chasing her and pinning her up against the fence so the kids (and their grown ups) could pet her.

And, yes, my knee is toast.

At the end of the day, we posed for this picture.  It was a hot mess.

We, including Hazel, were all exhausted.

Afterwards, I had the audacity to drive my SUV and stock trailer to THE COSTCO and shop.  I had to go to Costco to get Dino-Nugs to donate for Hadley’s class fundraiser.  And we only go to town once a day!

Hazel did not appreciate me stopping at Costco.

Also.  I forgot the Dino-Nuggs.

#winning.

I came home unloaded all the things with the help of all males in my family and got in bed to ice my knee.  I woke up several times throughout the night, worried my coyote friend had come back to eat my Hazel.  I wonder if the mama cows out there would at least adopt her and chase off a coyote?  I cannot get anyone to wipe her bottom for me.  I fear I might have to do it again soon.

Hazel did not die.  But she does have some sort of an eye infection.

!

I.

KNOW.

More worried could I not be.  I wiped her eye goop and made David shoot her in the buns with something I believe to be medicine to cure all ails in cows.

My Own Child:  Mom?  I am coughing up green stuff?  Is that normal?

Me:  Yes!  Just go!

Hazel has eye goop and I am planning a trip to the vet.

Guess how many times I have whined about my knee pain today.

Go ahead.

Guess.

And just look at this old picture from the spring of 2001.

From left to right:

Grammy, Me, Sister Meagan, my Dad.

That was a bit before I was pregnant with Kate.

Grammy passed in 2010 and now all my grandparents have passed.

My Poppy died in 1994.

One day, I was at his house and I wrote a poem.  I went and showed it to him and he thought it was the most beautiful poem he had ever read.

(It wasn’t)

He wrote on the top:
Written by Taylor Marie Moering on this day _____ in the year of our Lord______.

And then he made 78 copies with his copy machine.

It was not a common thing to have a copy machine back then.  I felt he felt I was hot stuff.

I have like 18 copies of it somewhere in storage.

Maybe I will find it again someday.