All in 24 hours...

Just a few interesting things that happened all in one day.  Just another day in the life, right?

Well, the adventures started when my husband had to go and pull a calf.  That means that mama cow is having a hard time getting her baby out, so the ranchers have to step in and assist. We don't usually have to do this too much, but every once in a while, it's needed. 
So they finally got the calf pulled, but the mama also pushed out her uterus too....a uterine prolapse. Not a good thing.  So my husband and some others started trying to help her and get everything back in it's place. Unfortunately, the mama died. 
So sad.  So here is a little newborn calf without a mama.  It actually made me extremely sad at the thought. Poor baby without anyone to feed it and keep it warm.  My husband made it a bed of hay and has been bottle feeding him baby cow formula.  But I just feel so lonely for it. Stupid cows. I don't know why another mama can't adopt it!  I mean, one cow lost a twin, she should be able to care for and feed this one too. But they are dumb. So the calf is all alone and the only one who pays attention to it, is my husband. Isn't that awful.  Made this pregnant mama want to go out and save the world. Cause then I started thinking about all of our human orphan babies that need moms and I want to take care of them all! Sad day in the life of calving.  He'll just keep feeding it because it's likely that another mama will have a calf that won't make it. Then they'll graft this calf for that mama cow. 



Next story.  So it's March.  That means that it's rainy and wet. All this wet in the country causes some major mud problems. A few days ago, my husband was hoping that it would freeze just so the mud would be solid enough that he could get his truck up to an area to be able to feed the cows. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to make it. Fortunately for him, it did.
Well, I had my first experience with the mud.  I drove over to a friend's house in a my little car, and lucky for me, got extremely stuck in her driveway! I called my husband, and he was in the next town. Just then, her husband got home.  He got some ropes and chains and got them all hooked up from my car to his. Not so bad. Until I found out that I had to drive in reverse out of there. I'm sorry, but I'm just not so great at driving in reverse! So then I got all nervous.  We started up and I gave it some gas. Things were going well for 2 seconds until all of us sudden, I sunk down and the rope broke!  I got out and realized that since I was so worried about looking behind me, I didn't realize that I steered my front tires over a big chunk of curbing they had lining their drive way.  My tire sunk right into their newly planted grass. I got out so embarrassed and thought maybe we should wait for my husband to get there and the two of them could do it together.  Nah, he thought I could get back over it.  Ok...so second try. He fixed the chain, I got in, held the steering wheel tight, gave it some gas and vroom! Over the curbing I went. I must have hit a dry patch of dirt cause I sped backwards and slammed on the brakes just before I hit his truck. Embarrassed again!
He got out and said, "You want me to back it out the rest of the way for ya?"
Yes please!
When I finally drove away, I may or may not have cried out of sheer embarrassment. lol. I'm pregnant, remember?



And finally...the last story.
That evening, a huge storm came in. It dropped a ton of hail and gave us a big lightning show....then a power outage. And it stayed out for a few hours. Not a big deal right. Yeah, it's not really that big of a deal.  But have you ever been in a power outage in the city as compared to the country? The city has lots of emergency lights. So there are small glows here and there. The country? Pitch black. What's an emergency light? hahaha. But, we did have our propane lamp that was awesome. And fortunately the kids hadn't completely depleted the batteries in our flashlights so we were good.
The only other amusing thing about a power outage in the country is that means that we also don't have any water. Yep, it's true. We have our own well, and our own pump that runs on electricity. So when that's gone= no running water!  It's interesting how many times I wanted to wash my hands, but couldn't (thank goodness for baby wipes and sanitizer), and how hard it is to break the habit of going to the bathroom, and not flushing. Pretty hilarious.  I was just glad that I wasn't at my sister in law's house.  She was commenting about how they have to come up with a bathroom plan since there's 9 of them. How to go, where to go, how much to go, hahaha.  It's a good emergency preparedness experience, right?

So what do you think? It was quite a day, back at the ranch. At least that's the most excitement we've had for a while.....