Wind, Mud and Toddlers

Sunday began rough and it ended rough.  It had rained all night and all morning.  By noon the wind had kicked up and blew with gusts up to 50 mph and continued to blow the rest of the day.  The sun had peaked through so it was a tad bit improved over the cloudy rainy skies of the morning.  But the melted snow and rain has turned the place into a muddy mushy mess! 

This was the day Wade’s family was coming for a visit and to make the day extra special they were hauling his horse up to live with us.  We had a very nice visit.  We have a nephew who is two years old and he is crazy about trucks, tractors and cows.  Wade had waited to feed cattle cause he wanted to take him along – spend some quality uncle time with him. 

We bundled him up and out the door they went. Time ticked away and they still weren’t back yet. So I called Wade.  He was stuck in the pasture with the mixer wagon.  I needed to get the nephew. 

So I gallantly headed for the pasture.  I trudged up in the muck to the tractor.  Wade was already out of the tractor with nephew in his arms.  I could hear him yelling through the wind as he made a path through the swarm of hungry cows that had surrounded the bogged down mixer and tractor.  We met halfway for the exchange and I took nephew in my arms.   I walked a little ways away from the fray and asked him if he had fun with Uncle Wade. He looked at me with those big blue eyes, pointed at the cows and said, “those bad b*tches…” I am not gonna lie. I laughed. I could only imagine what else he might have heard from Wade... 

I spent the next ten minutes carefully picking my way back to the gate.  It’s hard to balance a two year old who keeps turning back to look at the tractor jabbering about cows, trying not get blown over by the gusty wind and getting sucked down by the infernal muck and/or slipping with the little guy.

We got back to the house – I was covered in mud but the nephew was pretty clean considering the mess we had walked out of. 

Wade and a neighbor ended up having to unload the mixer and dig her out. He didn’t get back to the house until 9:00.  I learned he was doing just fine feeding when some cows got in front of his tractor. He lost momentum and slipped into a very very wet spot - causing him to get stuck. His wheels sunk a little and mud kept balling up.  It was just not an ideal situation. He also told me he had found a dead calf in the field. That makes two that have slipped. Such is life.