Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

The past week or so there has been a heifer up the road who was nearing her calving time. Yesterday she'd been off by herself, but nothing happened all day. Then this morning when I went to feed them I went in to check on her. She was lying down, with the hooves and the nose of a calf sticking out of her rear. I took one look at the calf and thought; "It's all over for that one." Its tongue was hanging out of its mouth and it just didn't look good. I whacked on the cow but she didn't move; just laid there with her chin in the mud. I was going to head back to get hubby, but then I saw something. The calf's chin twitched. I thought I was seeing things. I chucked it a bit and sure enough, it moved again. I whacked on the cow again, but still she would not move. I thought maybe I could herd her to the corral, but no dice. So I ran back to the 4-wheeler, got hubby's nice new rope, put it around one of the calf's ankles, dug in my heel...

My husband has all but accused me of being the above when it comes to Christmas trees. Here, in my own words, is my story: One of my favorite Christmas pastimes as a kid was going to get the tree. Depending on weather conditions and time we would either get one from the National Forest Service land a mile or two from our place, or we’d pack up and go for a long drive into the mountains. We lived in the Pacific Northwest, on the rugged North Coast of Humboldt County. Dad would pack up the old Ford truck, a couple of us kids would pile in and off we would go, further inland, higher up into the wild. Up, up we would go until we’d break through the coastal fog layer into the sun, the fog a roiling gray sea below. And still up we would go. Eventually we’d get to Willow Creek, a town whose fame has something to do with the Bigfoot legend. I remember every year we’d see the town’s life-sized wooden statue of the furry creature, and we’d speculate on the possibility of seeing him fo...

For those of you who aren't connected on Facebook. Here is the picture I WAS going to use as one of those photo Christmas cards to send out. Just imagine it with the caption underneath; "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" Off and on all summer Ellen would drag this snowman kit out and try it on for size. She'd ask; "When is it going to snow?" "Argh," I'd say. "Don't rush things." We did get a dusting of snow last week, but it was too dry and powdery to make any kind of snowman, even a teeny one.