Red roses..candlelit dinner...music...Valentine's Day! The most romantic day of the year...there are so many ways to spend that special day with that special someone. Let me count the ways...
Well, I'll tell you one...
I simply can't start my day without a shower, people. Even if I've had one the night before. So I was in the middle of a warm shower when the phone rings. It's a guy from Okolona who bought four donkeys from us a few weeks ago--he's wanting four more and he'll be there in one hour.
We get the donkeys up, the guy comes and gets his and Leslie and I start talking about a woman who called three days earlier. She lives in Burn (I'm sure I'm not spelling that right but I swear I've never seen a city sign with the name on it!). She'd called wanting a couple of donkeys but didn't want to come look at them-just load up a couple and bring to her. Leslie told her he'd load up four so she could have a choice. She's 13 miles away, no way to haul them, AND seventy-seven years old. So, naturally...we'll take them to her. He calls to make sure and she says sure, bring them on.
We get there and she has a kennel where she raises Yorkies, Maltese and Collies. We admire her setup there in the country and it comes up that she has quite a few acres surrounding her house that she's wanting to put the donkeys on to go with three others she bought near Christmas.
Naturally, we are thinking about leasing it from her since the guy who'd had it leased just sold his cows. Nothing would do but that we drive around and look at the property. She has a pond that is spring-fed and we go down to look at it. Eventually, she looks at the donkeys in the trailer and says she'll take all four. Yippee! (That's NINE donkeys I've sold since yesterday morning!).
Anyway, we spent a quite enjoyable couple of hours in the company of this delightful elderly lady. We get home and it's about 2:30. Leslie asks (since someone had reminded him that it was Valentine's Day) if I want to go eat and where. I say either Golden Corral or the Western Sizzlin in Arkadelphia. He decides on Golden Corral but stipulates that afterwards we'll come home by way of Lewisville and watch the horse sale. Sorry folks, but I've never been hungry enough to endure a couple or so hours on a hard bench at a horse sale. I say as much and he decides we'll go to Arkadelphia and after eating we'll swing by Atwoods for something he needs.
We decide-since it's so late-that we'll fix a 'little something' before we go feed. I can't stomach cold sandwiches in the winter so while he's on the phone with someone I start hamburgers.:-) Don't know about you guys but after eating a hamburger and fried okra (left over from last night) I simply can't eat a huge meal! So I'm figuring the meal, at least, is out.
We have two places we need to put out hay and feed. We're at the first one and can't find one of the heifers that's supposed to calve. My side's been hurting off and on all day so I elect to sit in the truck and wait while Leslie takes the tractor and goes to look for "#4". He's gone a while but returns only to say that she's laying up behind the rent house, stretched out, trying to have the baby. The calf isn't showing yet and he's not sure if she's only been in labor today or if she started yesterday. Unfortunately, we didn't check on them yesterday so there's really no way of knowing. If she just started labor today she might have the calf by the time we come back. If she started yesterday, she could be dead by the time we get back.
We go load up the trailer and take it on over to the second place. Nothing wrong over there. We DO have a brand new calf but she's up with her mother along with the other cows so no worries there. It takes awhile to put out the hay and haul the feed to the different troughs.
We head on home and drop the trailer, grab a bucket with ropes, gloves and a comealong. Head over and Leslie and his sidekick-after adding diesel to the nearly empty tractor-get on and head up the hill with all the necessary life-saving equipment(including two lights since the tractor doesn't have any) only to find the cow standing along with the calf. Wonderful! It's always a great day when we don't have to pull a calf.:-)
We get home-again-to find it's nearly eight pm. The day is pretty much gone and it feels to me that it's nearly midnight. It's been SUCH a long day!
You know, when you've been married over thirty years you don't have to feel all that guilty when a special day falls through and things just don't work out right. We didn't have that special meal or a movie but dang it all--we got rid of nine donkeys!!!
Well, I'll tell you one...
I simply can't start my day without a shower, people. Even if I've had one the night before. So I was in the middle of a warm shower when the phone rings. It's a guy from Okolona who bought four donkeys from us a few weeks ago--he's wanting four more and he'll be there in one hour.
We get the donkeys up, the guy comes and gets his and Leslie and I start talking about a woman who called three days earlier. She lives in Burn (I'm sure I'm not spelling that right but I swear I've never seen a city sign with the name on it!). She'd called wanting a couple of donkeys but didn't want to come look at them-just load up a couple and bring to her. Leslie told her he'd load up four so she could have a choice. She's 13 miles away, no way to haul them, AND seventy-seven years old. So, naturally...we'll take them to her. He calls to make sure and she says sure, bring them on.
We get there and she has a kennel where she raises Yorkies, Maltese and Collies. We admire her setup there in the country and it comes up that she has quite a few acres surrounding her house that she's wanting to put the donkeys on to go with three others she bought near Christmas.
Naturally, we are thinking about leasing it from her since the guy who'd had it leased just sold his cows. Nothing would do but that we drive around and look at the property. She has a pond that is spring-fed and we go down to look at it. Eventually, she looks at the donkeys in the trailer and says she'll take all four. Yippee! (That's NINE donkeys I've sold since yesterday morning!).
Anyway, we spent a quite enjoyable couple of hours in the company of this delightful elderly lady. We get home and it's about 2:30. Leslie asks (since someone had reminded him that it was Valentine's Day) if I want to go eat and where. I say either Golden Corral or the Western Sizzlin in Arkadelphia. He decides on Golden Corral but stipulates that afterwards we'll come home by way of Lewisville and watch the horse sale. Sorry folks, but I've never been hungry enough to endure a couple or so hours on a hard bench at a horse sale. I say as much and he decides we'll go to Arkadelphia and after eating we'll swing by Atwoods for something he needs.
We decide-since it's so late-that we'll fix a 'little something' before we go feed. I can't stomach cold sandwiches in the winter so while he's on the phone with someone I start hamburgers.:-) Don't know about you guys but after eating a hamburger and fried okra (left over from last night) I simply can't eat a huge meal! So I'm figuring the meal, at least, is out.
We have two places we need to put out hay and feed. We're at the first one and can't find one of the heifers that's supposed to calve. My side's been hurting off and on all day so I elect to sit in the truck and wait while Leslie takes the tractor and goes to look for "#4". He's gone a while but returns only to say that she's laying up behind the rent house, stretched out, trying to have the baby. The calf isn't showing yet and he's not sure if she's only been in labor today or if she started yesterday. Unfortunately, we didn't check on them yesterday so there's really no way of knowing. If she just started labor today she might have the calf by the time we come back. If she started yesterday, she could be dead by the time we get back.
We go load up the trailer and take it on over to the second place. Nothing wrong over there. We DO have a brand new calf but she's up with her mother along with the other cows so no worries there. It takes awhile to put out the hay and haul the feed to the different troughs.
We head on home and drop the trailer, grab a bucket with ropes, gloves and a comealong. Head over and Leslie and his sidekick-after adding diesel to the nearly empty tractor-get on and head up the hill with all the necessary life-saving equipment(including two lights since the tractor doesn't have any) only to find the cow standing along with the calf. Wonderful! It's always a great day when we don't have to pull a calf.:-)
We get home-again-to find it's nearly eight pm. The day is pretty much gone and it feels to me that it's nearly midnight. It's been SUCH a long day!
You know, when you've been married over thirty years you don't have to feel all that guilty when a special day falls through and things just don't work out right. We didn't have that special meal or a movie but dang it all--we got rid of nine donkeys!!!
