Laugh Rolling Haybales

Spring! We hit 70 today, with a slight breeze to remind me that this is spring (calendar date notwithstanding). The allure of the outdoors called the boys. I watched the two olders ride their bikes from the top of the driveway all the way to the lower pasture. They walked their bikes back up. That must have been hot work, as they didn't do that again.

Instead, they made a fort across the drive out of bulb crates. And there they talked and laughed for hours.

The younger boys found the potato head backpack. They played on the riding mower and the tractor, and generally amused themselves for hours.

I played in the greenhouse, potting on cucumbers and ten tomatoes. I sowed a few varieties of flowers, and as I placed each minute seed in tiny soil blocks, I thought about the benefits of bulbs: they are large, and they are perennial. I am growing rather fond of perennials.

That said, I walked down to see the field of excess, where we quickly planted 1400 bulbs last Thanksgiving while we waited for more permanent spots. At the time, I imagined the magnificence of a mass planting, imagined the best Easter photos ever.

The actuality was definitely underwhelming. I'm not sure where the fertile grass mat between bulbs that showed up in my dreams was supposed to come from, as we didn't sow a cover crop. But even still: the effect was a good bit less dramatic than anticipated. It makes you think about those mass plantings in Holland, where the earth is covered from foreground to horizon with tulips. How many millions must there be?

I walked over to the cows, and was amazed to see that they had eaten through 25 pounds of calcium supplement in the last 24 hours. In fact, every time Phil or I walk over to check on them since we first put out minerals, they've eaten through all their calcium supplement. How much could they eat if they had an unlimited supply, replenished immediately? The mind boggles. And, since the pocketbook is finite, I doubt we will ever know how much they could eat; I just hope they fill up their deficit at some point and move into a more sustainable, maintenance mode.

The cows were close to needing hay, and Phil told me how to do it, so the older boys and I headed over. I had been apprehensive about unrolling it, but it ended up being a very bonding experience. We all started to push the bale, but after only a few rolls, I jumped in front of it: their strength, combined with the slope, meant that the bale was in danger of getting away from us.

I kept the bale at my back, which Jadon giggled in the background. "Only Isaiah is pushing it now!" And then not even Isaiah, as I gamely held back the 1000 pounds of rolling hay. I was thankful that the cows were still far downslope grazing. Dodging horns and hungry half ton animals while also holding back a bale would have been too much, I think.

After we maneuvered the corner, we saw a bovine headed towards us. I couldn't tell which cow it was, but Isaiah confidently affirmed that it was Snowman the bull. Several more turns of the bale proved that, indeed, my "cow" was, in truth, our bull.

And so we laughed again, as is appropriate in the spring.