Rites of Spring

It was, all in all, an almost perfect day.

Two Fridays ago the Good Rancher moved his heifers to their calving field, aka the horse pasture, and the cows to the Hunt field.

Everything went smoothly.

Everything except, of course, for the antics of ringleader Nod.

  Meet Nod.

Does she look like she

would be any trouble at all?!

The weather forecast was predicting rain and snow in a couple of days, so the Good Rancher was extremely thankful everybody could be settled with grass, water, and shelter as they prepared to have their babies.

As the guys did a quick check before lunch, they discovered these two wonderful mothers, who made it look so easy ...

The Mohn girls led the way,

right before the move - 

two beautiful calves, no problem! 

After lunch the men saddled their horses and they were off. They kept the two mothers and tiny babies back to cause them less stress and fatigue, then they moved the rest of the heifer herd up the fields and across the driveway to the horse pasture gate.

(Included in this herd are bottle calf alumnae Amy and Hanna, Diamond K, Angel, Venus and Serena, Redder, Marta and Gretyl, plus the seven Mohn cows the GR was fortunate enough to purchase at their sale. All these girls might be on their fourth or fifth calf, but they'll always be heifers to me!)

I gathered the five dogs, acknowledging two things: the piercing absence of ScoutyLove; and that my little Earl Grey with his sightless eyes was not so out of place with the other dogs when they were together out here. He couldn't jump on and off the side-by-side to chase cows; but he could feel the air swirling around him and he could hear the cattle thunder by and smell the first hints of spring. And he always loves riding in the side-by-side!

First the heifer group was moved. All seemed to go swimmingly - but I couldn't see Nod anywhere. Nod is Mabel the Holstein's daughter. The freemartin triplet identifies as a heifer and so the GR goodnaturedly lets her stay with the heifers each year. Her brothers, Wynken and Blynken, are in the bull program ...

A shout from Kurt: there was an unusually big cow leading a pack of heifers back to the field they had been in through the winter. The GR rolled his eyes and pointed his horse back in the direction from which they had just come.

"Tell me again why we keep her?" the GR sighed. "Remember Scout's last cattle round-up? Nod led her group over to near Lee Hunt's place and Scouty gathered them all up and brought them home."

I was shocked, shocked. "All the heifers know she's in the Bible!" I said. " 'Lead us, Nod, into temptation!' Of course she has to stay!"

The rebel heifers now safely in the horse pasture, the men turned their attention to the batch of cows they would guide into the Hunt field.

When I first moved to the GR's ranch and I heard talk of "the Hunt field," this is literally what I pictured:

The reality was that the GR and his Deb had purchased this piece of land from their previous employers the Hunts. They named it The Hunt Field, of course. And each Spring the matrons of the herd head as a matter of course to their favourite grove of trees, their choice watering holes, in this incredible pasture area.

As the men rounded up and sorted the cattle, I had a chance to look around to try and discover any signs that Spring was indeed approaching.

There were at least a couple:

The cows - most of whom had been born either in the horse pasture or the Hunt field - made their unhesitating way back home.

"Straight up the hill, turn left at 

the gate. You can't miss it. Don't 

mind the dogs - they're harmless."

Right before evening chores the GR took me on a tour of the Hunt field to make sure everyone was comfortable. 

It was more beautiful than I had anticipated.

The most amazing part of all was to see these dugouts - full of clean, cool water!

Every cow looked settled and content. The GR turned the side-by-side toward home.

One last dash through the horse pasture and the storm field to check on the hefs. The first mother to calve here this season belonged to the Mohn group of cows. She had not quite finished licking off her calf, but he was already on his feet looking for food.

The next morning the wind was vindictive and the GR was so thankful we had moved the mothers to their birthing fields.

The dogs pouted in the porch, unwilling to be outside but ticked right off that the GR took only Earl Grey with him this morning.

I was ticked off that I had to go check on the heifers in this bluster.

Still, once I was out there I spotted almost immediately the cow-calf pair from the evening before.

 As I drove through the open gateway between the horse pasture and the storm field, that baby bull pushed his way through the fence to see what the weird sound was.

I turned off the side-by-side's engine. The calf - not even 24 hours old - did a little four-step of joy, then he turned around and bounded back to his mummy.

The wind died down for a couple of minutes and I could hear that beautiful song of a mother lowing lovingly to her calf. And I was reminded that it is indeed the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

O Canada

 O Canada! 

Our home and native land!

True patriot love in all of us command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,

The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

REFRAIN:

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada! Where pines and maples grow,

Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow,

How dear to us thy broad domains, 

From East to Western sea!

Thou land of hope for all who toil!

Thou True North, strong and free!

(Refrain)

O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies

May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise,

To keep thee steadfast through the years

From East to Western sea,

Our own beloved native land,

Our True North, strong and free!

(Refrain)

Ruler Supreme, Who hearest humble prayer,

Hold our dominion within Thy loving care.

(Justin Tang / The Canadian Press) 

Help us to find, O God, in Thee
A lasting, rich reward,

As waiting for the Better Day,

We ever stand on guard

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Time in a Bottle

Early in the morning, this day, three years ago, my Dad shuffled off this mortal coil, to borrow from Shakespeare.

Everything was in order, just as he would have liked it. His friend and ours, Char, had come over the previous afternoon. Char had taken over the teaching of Dad's Wednesday Bible study when it got to be too much for him, and she would come over every Thursday and go over the lesson with him and they would have an often lively discussion. This particular Thursday, Dad had had a good lunch and their conversation was interspersed with gentle laughter and the flipping of pages to certain passages of the Bible.

As she prepared to leave Char got up, walked over to Dad and said, "May I pray for you, Allan?"

At the end of her prayer she rested her hand on his shoulder and murmured the old words:

The Lord bless you and keep you, 

The Lord make His face to shine upon you

and be gracious unto you, 

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you

and give you peace. 

.

Then she bent over and placed a kiss on his forehead - "... see you when I get back from my trip..." and she was gone. 

BA returned from work and we had tea and a "rose cookie toast" - a highly prized treat from Deb's Christmas kitchen.

I was getting ready to leave when suddenly a car drove up - Deb herself, who had decided to come down one night early instead of the Friday morning as originally planned.

The sun started to slip away and I had to go; the drive back to the ranch terrified me, more so when it was icy and dark.

On the way was a beautiful sunset. I stopped to take a picture, as I often did, to show Dad the next day.

Of course, that didn't happen. Instead, I received the phone call from Deb.

On the desolate drive to Dad's house, I had rarely felt so alone. As I approached the Tolman River I sort of asked God if they were together, if they had found each other. A few moments later, on a precipitous part of the highway I looked up, and there was this sight:

Startled, I stopped in the middle of the lane, turned off the engine and watched them for approximately ten minutes. No cars came for that entire time. 

They moved only to look at each other a couple of times; the rest of the time, they stared straight at me.

Then finally, when I could breathe again, they turned in unison and, looking at each other, slowly disappeared over the hill.

When I got to Dad's home the girls told me that his body was lying on his bed, just as they had found him.

When I walked up to his hospital bed, he looked completely at peace. He had removed the nasal prongs that delivered his oxygen, kicked off his blanket, and appeared to be stepping joyfully out of this life into the next.

Dad had used his time on earth wisely and to the best of his ability, and so he could leave without regret and without second-guessing.

"Nothing to prove; nothing to lose," as he used to say.

He was free.

Untrammeled.

The thought of using time wisely, of time slipping away at a seemingly accelerated rate each year I add to my life, has been weighing heavy on my mind for the last couple of months. One of my literary heroes asks the question:

The first Sunday of January this year, The Church at Endiang had a special New Year's service where - following in Dad's footsteps - we each chose a promise for our year. 

It had come to me at around Christmas time while I was pondering our group that meets on the first and third Sunday evenings of the month how different we are from each other, what a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences we bring to our gathering. What do we really have in common? 

What all of us have in common is time. All things being equal, we will all have the same amount of weeks in the upcoming year, the same amount of days. 

Of course, the inevitable caveat: the scripture reminds us that "our times are in [God's] hands," that there are cases where lives run their course before we are ready to say goodbye. 

The nightly news gives credence ... 

Beloved friends are diagnosed, with the addendum "inoperable" ...

Other treasured friends miraculously complete their "18 months to two years countdown" and shakily emerge on the other side with no timeline, no expectations, just gratitude for 17 bonus days and counting ...

One mother mentioned to me that her tiny daughter had commented no one would shoot her because she was pretty. Even in her innocence she is aware on some level that time can be upended.

Madison Rose, 12 minutes.

Baby L, born too early to be able to sustain life. Baby A, fighting for more time, for a chance.

Virgil. George. Maynard. Three brothers, each in their prime.

Pulmonary fibrosis, 84 years old.

Multiple myeloma, 70 years old.

Multiple myeloma, 48 years old.

We can all add our heartbreaks to the list.

Time is so fragile, so precious. 

So as I was contemplating our new year's service I thought that maybe we could mark the progress of 2020 with a simple exercise: I gathered glass bottles and jars in a variety of shapes and sizes and placed 52 little sparkling pebbles in every jar, the containers representing us and each pebble representing a week in the year ahead of us. I suggested that when we went home, we find an empty container and each week we transfer one pebble from the original container to our second container. We can keep an informal track of the passage of time.

I just moved my third pebble over. 

It's sobering and it's also a challenge. It's causing me to reflect on life, on values, on expectations. It's causing me to slow down and also to speed up. I've had a couple of awful days where I've wondered what is the point. And then a couple more days of clearly seeing what the point is.

I think my Dad might have liked this exercise.

A song from a CD my sister gave me has been playing in my head a lot for the past two days: Andrae Crouch's song from the 70s, "It won't be long". In two minutes he sums up what I'm feeling:

As I drove on the Snake Trail from Hanna to Endiang yesterday evening, the sunset was gorgeous. I was wishing I could show the picture to Dad the next day.

Of course, that didn't happen.

But somehow, I feel he knows ...