Sunday Stealing

SUNDAY STEALING

1) What is your favorite way to spend a lazy day?  Reading, taking naps, streaming television shows I like... Wait!  That's what I do most every day!

2) What do you look forward to every week?  All the early mornings 

 

3) Name three pet peeves you currently have:  People putting "apostrophe S" on a plural word.  Mothers who yell at the top of their lungs at their children.  And people who constantly whine about one thing and another and never have anything positive to say. 

4) If you were to win an all expense paid vacation for two weeks to anywhere in the world, where would you choose to go?  I've always thought I'd love to see England, Ireland, and Scotland.  Such a long, long past those countries have!  What are some of the things you would like to experience while you were there?  I'd just want to see the castles and all the other old, historic places.

5) What was one of your favorite toys as a kid?  I recall a farm set I had with a metal barn and plastic cows and horses and fences.  I also liked a kid-sized tent I got for my birthday one time, because when I pretended I was an Indian, I also pretended the tent was a teepee.  Did you save any special things from your childhood that you still have today?  I was spoiled, and not very good about putting things up.  That's somewhat true of me even now... I recall Boyde, a long-ago friend of ours, saying, "You don't care about anything, do you?"  I guess he was referring to the fact I don't care about fancy new houses or lots of nice clothes and such.  In other  words, I'm pretty happy with whatever I have and don't worry about things I don't have.  So no, I don't have any toys from my childhood, but it doesn't matter.

6) What is your favorite holiday? It used to be Fourth of July when I was a kid.  Once I grew up, it was Thanksgiving.  These days, I don't have one.  What is your least favorite holiday?  I know this will sound strange, but after my carefree childhood was over, I could have done without Christmas.  For years I went into a mild depression as Christmas approached.  These days I tend to just ignore it.

7) Have you ever met anyone famous? 

One Easter we went to visit our son and his family in Georgia.  Cliff and I went to Maranatha Baptist in Plains, Georgia, and sat in with his Sunday School class.  He and his wife were willing to stand with each group of visitors for a picture when Church was over.  Cliff and I were both at our heaviest weights at the time, but I still treasure that picture, and I do love Jimmy Carter.

What concerts have you attended?  Oh my, a lot.  Peter, Paul, and Mary; the Kingston Trio; Willie Nelson, George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis... many country singers, too many to mention.  And I've went to several Van's Warped Tours with grandkids after some of them were old enough to drive.  My granddaughter and I almost got caught up in crowd surfing once.  She was more scared than I was!  I've seen Green Day twice, too.  My knees won't let me go to Warped Tour now, but it was so much fun with all those young, enthusiastic people around.

8) Are there any expressions that people use that really annoy you? .If so, what are they?  People who say "whatever" in each sentence, or "like".

9) Do you like your name?   It's OK.  Are you named after anyone?  My middle name is Margaleen because my mother knew someone with that name.  So far, I've never met anyone else with that name.  Is there a story how you got your name?  Nothing I know of; I guess my mom just liked the name Donna.  It must have been really popular, because there were a lot of Donnas in my high school around my age. Would you change it if you could?  No, it's as good as any other name. If so, what name would you give yourself?  No idea

10) It is said that it's the little things that make life worth living. Name five of those little things in your life.  ice cream; a good dog; children; a garden; early mornings, especially sunrises; coffee; silence... I could go on for a long time, but I'll stop.

Man plans, God laughs

This morning I got bad news.  I will copy and paste the messages that went back and forth, so you get the picture:

I have some awful news that makes me feel sick to even tell you. Last night I was wrapping up chores and went to check on our little boy one more time. He’s been with his mom in a large outdoor calving pen. She was laying by herself and initially I didn’t see him so looked around more closely and found him badly injured, appearing to have been either stepped on or laid on by her. He was struggling to breath and I think he had collapsed lungs/broken ribs. I attempted to move him to take him to the emergency vet and he made it evident that wasn’t a good idea. I could tell by how he was moving that he had way too much damage and I had to put him down. It was traumatic and it makes me sick to even repeat it but I have to tell you. I’ve never lost a calf like this. She was an incredible mother. I don’t understand how this happened. I’m really

sorry. I know you were looking forward to him and I was thrilled he was getting a loving home.  

I do have two more due to calve end of June/early July. I’ll make sure you get my next little bull. 

Don't feel bad about it for me. Yes, I was excited. But I have learned that God works out everything for good. We can make plans, but things go wrong. You will have a boy available at the right time, I'm sure. We never know what's ahead, and we definitely can't control things like this.

Farm life is hard sometimes. I especially hate when it’s the babies.

I hate it when it's the best milk cow. All my Jerseys turned out to be pets. I even halter-broke them. So the very first time I lost my best cow, I cried for days... not because I lost an expensive dairy cow, but because I loved her.

I lost the best cow I’ve ever owned last Oct. She was 10 years old but she was very youthful and had so much life left in her. She got coliform mastitis and went down and although I was able to fix the mastitis and toxicity, she never got back up - even after 2 weeks of lifting her in a Daisy sling multiple times a day and flipping her between lifts - and ultimately I had to put her down. Her name was Kallie. She’s the cow in my profiles background picture. It’s part of having animals but it’s never easy and I always wonder what I could have done to prevent it.

Exactly. Actually, I hope your next two calves are heifers, because there will be a calf for me at some point anyway, and you need a heifer or two to cheer you up. Who knows, something might happen that would make me unable to have a calf before you get another boy. At my age, a person just don't know what tomorrow will bring,

---------------------------

That picture I shared in the last entry?  That is what all Jersey calves look like at birth, so if I get one from her later, it will look pretty much the same, unless it happens to be one of the rare ones that has some white on its face.  

Now I want to meet this lady and her cows.  I'll bet Cliff would be glad to take me over there before long; when we go, I'll take along a jar and buy a gallon of good Jersey milk.