Family happenings (this and that)

This entry will probably be all over the place.  

I've intended for a long time to tell you about the wonderful idea our daughter had.  She and her husband live less than two miles away, but since they both work long hours all week, we hardly ever saw them long enough to have conversations.  Last November, I believe it was, Rachel emailed or messaged me and asked how we would feel about them coming over one evening a week, after work, just so we'd have some connection again.  The first time I think they brought pizza along; I suggested I just fix something each time, something simple:  hamburgers, a casserole, soup.  Supper isn't our main meal here, dinner (noon meal) is.  They protested at first, but I promised them I'd keep it easy.  Sometimes they even get leftovers.  

It's been wonderful!  We hear about things that happen on their jobs.  This subject is always of interest because Kevin, the son-in-law, works at the place from which Cliff retired... and our daughter works in customer service.  Trust me, customer service workers have the most interesting stories to tell!  So we have reconnected with our daughter and son-in-law in a most delightful way.  They stay an hour, sometimes longer, and then head home.  It's quality time.  

As for the rest of the family, granddaughter Amber makes a point of visiting us regularly, and Natalie and Monica drop by.  Arick and Heather, of course, are right here on the property, so we see them often but really don't spend a lot of time just chatting.  Cliff and Arick do spend time in the shop together.  You know which times are the most fun?  When all the grandchildren are here.  We have some of the biggest laughs when we all start having discussions about politics, our beliefs, and the facts of life.  

All children and grandchildren should now move along and stop reading.  Or read at your own risk.

You see, our daughter and our grandchildren (I'm not sure about our son's feelings on the matter I'm getting ready to mention, or Kevin's) each live in their own little bubbles.  There are two subjects they don't want to hear about from their parents/grandparents:  Sex and death.

Now when a couple has been married fifty years, they have the right to discuss anything under the sun.  You can talk about things you'd never say to anybody else.  Cliff and I find the most humor in the two topics the kids don't want to hear.  Making light of death has gotten us used to the fact that we are, indeed, going to die, and we know it could be any time.  We've laughed at death so much, it creeps into our conversations with the extended family, which brings on comments like "Stop it!", and much groaning and rolling of eyes.

The other day Cliff and I were in the car, heading to Higginsville, when I remembered an article I had seen on Facebook and decided to tell Cliff about it.  The headline read, "Overly obese body sets crematorium on fire".  By the way, this wasn't the first time such a thing has happened, but it's the first I'd read of such a thing.  If you want to read it for yourself, click HERE.

Apparently fat burns hotter than plain old muscle, there was something flammable sitting to close to the furnace, and the incident occured.  We discussed it awhile, and Cliff says, "Well, I wonder how you'd stop that from happening."

"I can't imagine," I answered.

"I guess you could do it a piece at a time," he said.  "You know, chunk in an arm and wait, then a leg..."

We both exploded with laughter, and when I could talk, I said, "You realize this is a story we can't talk about to the grandkids."

More laughter ensued.

Cows and their strange appetites

Spring is that lovely time of year when every flower that blooms seems like a miracle.  One of the early flowers to bloom in my yard is the Iris.  I have several colors of them.  Most of them are surrounded by grass and weeds and not properly cared for or divided yearly, and yet the beauty of those blooms overwhelms me at times. 

Cliff likes to see pretty flowers, but if it were up to him, he'd only be seeing them in the yards of somebody else.  They are just something for him to mow around.  But he patiently puts up with my casual flower-growing, maybe figuring if nothing else, he'll outlive me.  Then he can cut down every tree and mow every flower.

Walking around the back yard, I noticed something amiss with the Iris planted along the back fence.  

Those spots on the leaves are, I believe, a fungus.  They won't kill the plant.  Wouldn't you think the calves would have the decency to eat the spotted leaves?  Nope, they chose the good ones.

Seeing this, I recalled an incident from last year:  Whatever cow was in the calf pasture then had waited for my red iris to bloom for the first time, stuck her long tongue through the fence, and gobbled up the new blossom.  I was beside myself.  Apparently the Holstein calves growing out there have the same sort of cravings.  Indeed, they already devoured one flower-to-be:

Of course I went whining to Cliff with my problem and he went right to work on it, as any dutiful husband would.  I suggested chicken wire in that area, something no cow could graze through or stick her tongue through.  He went searching through odds and ends of junk he saves for such an occasion and found some used chicken wire.

Everything goes a little better when you have a good lead man (or girl) to oversee the work.  

Please notice the calves have lots of grass; Cliff has already mowed that pen twice, and the grass keeps growing.  And yet, those steers go to all the trouble to reach through the fence and eat my Iris.  

Cows, of course, will eat anything.  Even nails.  They really don't chew their food much, they just swallow it whole.  That's where their four stomachs come in:  When they've had enough, they go to a peaceful spot, lay down, and spit up the food a mouthful at a time, and THEN they chew it.  If there are nails or sharp, small pieces of metal on the ground and they happen to pick one up as they graze, they swallow it and are none the wiser.  If a sharp piece of wire or a nail penetrates the wall of the reticulum, they're in trouble.  Some farmers put a magnet down their cows' throats so any stray pieces of metal will cling to it and not cause damage.

We once bought a bred Jersey cow whose appetite came and went.  One time she'd come in the barn to be milked and eat the dairy feed I gave her.  Other times, she wouldn't.  She also had a tendency to bloat.  We knew something was wrong, and figured we'd just take her to the sale barn and give someone else an opportunity to find the problem.  But Cliff's boss at the butcher shop said he'd buy her for the price we'd paid, so away she went.  

Some weeks later, the cow died.  Richard, the boss, decided to do a autopsy on the cow.  What he found was a double handful of roofing nails in her.  She had hardware disease.  Now, I truly doubt the cow walked up to a bucket of nails and began eating them deliberately.  I'm thinking somehow, for some reason, somebody poured feed of some sort atop a bucket of nails and in eating the feed, she ate the nails.  Maybe an angry neighbor plotted to kill the cow?  Maybe some youngsters poured feed in the wrong place?  Who knows. 

Anyhow, if the calves eat any more Iris this year, they'll have to get out of the pen to do it.