She Kicked the Bucket

Belle unexpectedly put her hind foot in the milk pail this evening, halfway knocking it over as she did so.

Obviously the death kind of "kicked the bucket" is more severe than the loss of some milk, but it did make me smile to think of some crotchety old coot equating the two forms of loss on some farm long ago.

Somehow the milk didn't get too muddy, so I poured it out for Elle, went to rinse the bucket, and returned to finish the milking.

I have had some good days lately. Grocery shopping and picking up Phil on Friday. I cleaned up some long-time messes, and emptied the entryway of towels, cutting board, toaster, and gloves that had all been waiting to return to their proper places for two months. Abraham has been wishing for the Playmobil to come out, so everything I couldn't put away I stacked on Phil's dresser (my "desk"), my folding chair, and under the chair. I vacuumed the carpet and Abraham and Joe spent a happy day setting up small scenes with their favorite Playmobil pieces. I did dishes! I bathed boys!

Phil was stunned by this sudden change. (So was I, frankly.) It was so nice to feel normal!

Sunday morning I felt pretty much fine. So I went to church for the first time in nine weeks. How delightful to have happy hugs and waves and smiles and greetings. How marvelous to visit for an hour and a half after church. (What do the boys do during Phil's and my extended visiting? Jadon realized a few months ago that CarTalk replays on Sunday at noon, so as soon as church ends, the boys all head to the van to listen to Tom and Ray. Jadon has already heard each show on Saturday morning, but he's a huge fan. After that hour, they listen to Adventures in Odyssey. It is nice that they occupy themselves so well so Phil and I can have friend time.)

I probably should have planned better and brought myself some food. By the time we got home and I whipped up some homemade mac and cheese, I was shaky and really at the end of my strength.

It is so disappointing to go from feeling normal and happy to feeling wiped out and ill. Especially since that icky feeling continued all day today.

But I have had a few hours of normalcy; oh, is it wonderful!

Phil is keeping busy. He has plenty of office work to finish after his trip; he had to bring hay and get hay; we received an 800-lb. shipment of seeds and minerals today. How pleasant to have forks for the tractor—the last time we had such a large shipment, we unloaded bag by bag, racing to get it all off the truck before the delivery time expired. Now it was a simple offloading intact. Add to that the laundry and fixing an electric fence energizer, and it was a productive day despite some rain and grey skies.