Reflections of a Farmer: Who needs sleep?

Who needs sleep? We do. On Saturday we got up at 5:00am and went to bed at 1am Sunday morning. Even though we didn't get a lot of sleep I can hardly complain. We got a lot done. Of course it is my weekend off from the group home. And we have our helper.

We pounded in some posts and got some more things ready for winter. We started putting our cows on the bed pack. We did take some time to go to our Longhorn Association's winter meeting. The GNTLA are a great group of people that all love the longhorn breed. I was secretary and was up for re-election. I am now in charge of the web site and another member took over the job of secretary. We'll see how this goes. I have never designed a web site before but I think I can do a good job. If anyone out there has any advice, please share.

This weekend I have stood in awe of my husband and our helper. Our helper is 15 years old and never complains about anything. He was such a trooper on Saturday. It was snowing, things were not going well with the pounder (Noel smashed his hand), and he was soaking wet and hungry. We would never had even known if we wouldn't have asked. Wow, even I had a hard time not complaining about my frozen toes! I told him how I was not looking forward to using our elevator for feed because they get frozen. Then chains break and we don't like it when things break. He said, "Well look at the bright side, at least you don't have to use the pitch fork to unload all the feed." Aaggh, I know he is right. Makes me think I complain to much. I have to work on that.

Then, even after our late night on Saturday, Noel got up on his own and headed out to the barn without us on Sunday morning! Any one who knows us, knows that I am usually the one out of bed first and I have to help Noel get out. I heard him get up and go outside but I heard him restart the drier. My barn clothes that were washed were still a little wet yet, I had thought. I waited till I heard the clothes drier go off and got up for the day. When I got out to the barn I asked Noel if the clothes were indeed wet. he said "no I just thought I would warm them up for you." Aaww, it's the little things that make my heart melt.

With all the snow, I woke up on Sunday and took some pictures. Feeling very grateful, and in awe this morning on my way to church, I took A LOT of pictures. Then we got home from church and took a nap, watched to Packers play,and win, went over to my parents for supper, then I went to choir practise for our church's Christmas eve mass. When I got home from practice Noel was still milking, and our helper had left. I knew we were in for another long night. I was right. 1am bed time again.

Who needs sleep? It is times like this were it is hard to stay positive. Sunday night we didn't even do anything extra, like pound posts. This not getting enough sleep is starting to wear on us both. I can tell we are both moving slower and are a little crabby.

We have a lot to do today. I think the only thing keeping us going now is the fact that our cows are going up in milk, which means a bigger pay check for us! All this work will pay off.

As I sit here and write this post I got and email from our adoption social worker. She was supposed to be sending us dates that would work for her to come out and do her second visit. Turns out, her supervisor said she didn't have to come out and we could just send her pictures!!!!!! Then our book will be started to be shown to Birth moms!!!!! I am so excited!!!! Finally moving forward again!!!

This is how our life is right now. Hard in some ways, but still good. We really do have so much to be grateful for and just have to keep that in mind when times are tough. FYI Noel's hand is sore but doing OK. I don't think the Dr. would do anything for it anyway, so no trip into the ER.
Here are some pictures from the weekend...