Sunday

Loverboy went out at 2 a.m. and came in again at 2:30 and woke me.

“Can I take your blow-dryer out to the barn? I want to dry that calf off. It’s mother isn’t looking after it, and it’s wet and cold.”

Confused and more than a little dazed, I struggled to remember where the blow-dryer was, then told him and fell asleep again. At 4:00, I got up and threw a couple logs on the fire, and found myself disgruntled because I was putting wood on the fire in the middle of the night and my fella was not in the house yet, but outdoors somewhere in 30-below weather.

There are six calves in the barn now, where they are kept during the day while their mothers spend the day outside to be fed and watered and are brought in each evening to be with their babies. There will be another 45 calves here this spring, if all goes well. I promise, I’ll get some pictures. Usually when I go into the barn to see them, they’re curled up in the straw at the back of the stall, where it’s dark and all you’d see is a lump of brown.

By sometime today, he’d got the calf standing, Pa had fed it some colostrum he had in one of the deep freezes, and its mother was starting to take a little bit of interest in it.

[the window in Don and Barney's bedroom]

It sounds like today Loverboy has organized himself, his dad, and his brother -- the cow men -- to take turns getting up in the night to check cattle. Good thing too, because they’re all going to be operating at pretty low energy for the next two months if they don’t get smart about it.