Form of Torture

I've read about people using sleep deprivation as a form of torture, so lets save ourselves a whole lot of grieve and for a full nights, uninterrupted sleep I will tell you anything you could ever want to know. That's right, I'm easy.

We have had 86 baby calves born in 20 days. God has it only been 23 days since we started calving. It seems like months.

I know we are getting run down when Robert tries to put
the coffee carafe in the fridge and I put the dirty dish towels in the dishwasher. One morning I spent so much time thinking about what I would make for supper that coming day that when we went to the house for breakfast I cooked chicken breasts on the george forman grill and we ate fajitas for breakfast instead of our usual cereal. Robert didn't mind but I had to come up with something else to make for supper.

The all time most hilarious goof up was last week. I was in bed sleeping and Robert had just woke up from a cat nap in the barn to go and do his last check of the cows for the night (midnight) and wouldn't you know, there was one farting around, switching her tail and restless. He walked her into the barn and left her there. He wrote on our message board that she was in there and came to the house to sleep. (he needs a full 8 hours or he is a zombie, he's tried to do the night shift but he can't) When I went out at 2 am she had not done anything, so I continued to watch her. At 4 am I brought another cow inside, It was -27 outside and the wind was blowing and snowing. The first cow still had not done anything. At 6 am neither cow had progressed so I had to buzz Robert and he finally came to the barn. We got the first cow in and he (with surgical sleeves on) reaches in to pull the calf and there wasn't one. He says(still half asleep) "THAT'S WEIRD" so he tells me there is no calf. I'm like,"WHAT?"
Robert says oh shit, I hope she didn't have it outside last night and I brought her inside and the calf is out there frozen. I glared at him and said you look in here and I will look outside but that I was out there all night and I never saw a calf. I went outside to look and he says he looked in the barn.

Now there are six pens on each side of the barn with an alleyway down the middle that also closes off with gates to make pens. There were 13 cows in the barn that night, so it was full. This cow had been in the alley to calve.

So I came back in and said there is no calf outside. He had let that cow out and was pulling the twins out of the second cow (the one I had brought into the barn) I started walking down the alleyway in the barn peering into each pen. and voila, in the last pen there was a first time momma cow with two babies, but she only had birthed on. Her calf was dry and snuggled up in the straw sleeping but there was a still slimy calf trying to have its first suckle on her. Robert went into the pen and pushed the wet calf out into the alley and the poor mother started licking her lost baby. Apparently she had layed down with her butt against that pen and when the calf slid out and sat up it was on the other side of the fence. Robert and I started giggling about us thinking it had been a phantom pregnancy. ahahahhahaa pretty soon, due to sleep deprivation we were rolling in the straw, tears streaming down our faces, laughing so hard we scared the cows. Later I told him, I won't tell anyone if you won't, but he thought it was so funny a story we couldn't not tell. The really funny part is, no body else thinks it's that funny, so I guess it's one of those times you just had to be there.

P.S. by Valentines day I usually don't have to go out at night anymore but the weather is so nasty here this week and the forecast says it will be until Friday that I will be spending one more week doing night shift. Crap.

Try doing the night shift and having a hot flash every hour and in between those you are so cold you could be a dead fish. The thermostat in this body is definitely broken. Don't even talk about the mood swings I had at the beginning. I would literally sob my way through DEAL OR NO DEAL. What's that about. My doctor just giggles and winks at Robert. Damn men.