Today felt more normal than the past couple of weeks. I have been so crazy trying to tie up loose ends as school closed this past week, and at the same time, I was the main organizer of the meal delivery list for our kiddos that started this week. And in the meantime, I was striving/struggling to respond to/reassure my staff. And felt guilty with my own boys getting behind in their lessons here at home. It has been a busy 8 days!

It is days like today when I am so grateful to live where I do and how we do.

I came home to a couple of very excited boys who could not wait to tell me all about Brownie, our new bottle calf. Brownie will be Judd’s 4-H bottle calf to be shown at the fair in July. He was purchased today at the cattle auction.

Judd did a great job with Brownie’s first feeding. It helps that the calf was already bottle trained, but it was still new for Judd.

After the calf got settled in the trailer, (it stays separated for a few days in quarantine as well) we went to check the cows to see if we have any new babies. We seem stuck at 5 spring calves, but the others should calve any day now. We check on a couple of our young mothers – one that did not make much milk and we had to bottle feed her calf last year, and the other that is still just a bit spooky and unpredictable. Both of those mommas and babies look good. With the sunshine today, the grass looks greener and growing – great news for cattle ranchers. Good grass makes healthy calves.

For the entire afternoon, I wasn’t worried about the distance I was from someone or about wearing rubber gloves. I was thinking about toilet paper or milk or egg shortages.

This afternoon, it was just my family, here on our farm, and everything was right with the world again, or at least right in our small world for this moment.

I hope you can get just a few moments of distraction this weekend to just feel right again.