WHAT A FARM WIFE CONSIDERS AS A DATE

Another full week behind us. Every morning the sunrise is a little later, and even though we do chores at the same time each night, there is less light to do them with every time. It's never the cold or the snow that makes winter unpleasant for me, it's the lack of sunlight. I'm sure thatI must be solar powered, and my "cheerfulness" batteries just don't stay boosted during the deep dark months of winter.

Coming into the dark time in late October and November isn't too bad. Socially it's a busy time of the year. It starts out with a whole string of birthdays that we usually celebrate with meals out with family or friends, and then moves on to Redvers' and district's annual fundraisers. Tonight we will be attending a dinner theatre and auction benefit for the local Health Foundation. By Redvers standards, quite the gala affair, and a lot of fun. This is the year we get to see the burning of the mortgage as well. Redvers is the proud owner of our own Health Centre (they aren't supposed to be called hospitals any more), a beautiful new building of which we are very proud. The trick these days is finding enough people to keep it staffed.

In November there will be another big evening put on by the Wildlife Association. It is a supper and auction as well with proceeds going to further conservation efforts in the area. By then, we roll into the Christmas party scene and the year comes to an end. It is January and the first half of February that really get to me. I drive to work in the dark. I drive home in the dark. The day I actually arrive home while the sun is still shining is one that I celebrate! I wonder if this year will be any better as I will have a full week of sun to start the year off with. We're off to Mexico for New Years with my sister and family. If it gets me through winter without my usual "low battery" warning, we'll just have to make it annual pilgrimage, don't you think?

Some people would consider these occasions "dates", but I'll bet that most farm wives would agree with me that, while they are great reasons to perk up your wardrobe and get your hair done, a typical date is a much more low key affair. Glen and I went on a "date" this week. After work and a bowl of home made soup for supper, we pulled on all our warmest clothes and headed out to do some fencing in the dark. This is not the same thing as dancing in the dark. Except for the romantic glow of the dashboard light as I hunted for a spilled can of fence staples, there was no mood lighting. The "music" came from a herd of 90 or so cattle who heard the truck and came running and bawling to see if there was chop being offered. Glen pounded staples and I moved the truck forward so that the headlights shone on where he was working - the culmination of this adventure was when we opened the fresh pasture up to those poor, starving beasts (they always think they are so hard done by) and watched them scatter into the darkness, 160 acres of ungrazed land at their feet.

Other dates I've had with my husband are things like crop checking during the growing season, cattle checking when the cattle are up on 21, returning a brother-in-law's cattle trailer after we've used it ... you get the picture. Strangely enough, I don't mind these kinds of dates - back in the day when the house was full of kids, it was a quiet time to ourselves, and now that the reverse is true, and we are always just the two of us, it still seems kind of special to "go" somewhere together.

The sunshine looks deceptively warm outside this morning, but I've been out to take the garbage out, and I wouldn't want to spend too much time there unless I had a warm coat on. It's 9:00 a.m. and the grass is still white with frost. On the other hand, at least the sun is shining. Last week, when we had a whole day of working with the cattle planned, it was rainy, cold, and windy all day long. I think my fingers only started to thaw out about Wednesday.

With a crew of Glen, myself, our two daughters Sandy and Jesse, and friend Jenn, we brought the whole herd in from pasture, and got them ready to push them through the cattle handling system we had rented from the CO-OP in town. We had to innoculate all the calves for Blackleg, and tag them all with radio frequency ear tags - there were 55 to do, but somehow with all that was going on we missed the two smallest. How this could have happened sure had us scratching our heads on Sunday morning when we discovered that we still had two tagless calves out there. The only way we can figure they managed to dodge the tagger was to duck under the corral gates before they got to the crowding pen. As we have to get them all back in for a booster shot in the next month, it will be taken care of then. Maybe by then, they won't fit under so easily - besides, we'll be on the lookout for escapees next time!

Besides the calves, we had to trim hooves on a couple of adult animals, and cut back the horns on one cow whose horn had curled back into her face and was pressing into her skull. This can be a messy job as, even though the horn is just like a fingernail and doesn't have nerve endings so there is no pain, it is supplied with blood. The last time we did the job (on another cow) she bled a lot and the clotting powder the vet had sold us was totally ineffective. Jesse had a different plan this time - from her feedlot experience she had learned to touniquet the horns with a bull bander. We just pulled one up snug around her horns, trimmed the horns right back, and took the touniquet off the next morning. I don't think she lost a tablespoon of blood. Glen, on the other hand, will remember the experience for a while. When he went to pull the band off it snapped on him just like the gigantic rubber band that it was; his finger was still throbbing hours later.

It was a long, cold, full day. I had made a big pot of chili for noon, but when we all trooped back up to the house after 6:00 there was nothing ready to eat. Glen said he was buying us all steaks at the bar so we cleaned up and headed off to town. After all that fresh air and exercise it was all we could do to stay awake long enough to eat supper and go home. Oh well, there's no better sleep than after a hard day's work.

Glen is working today, building another oil lease up so I have the day to myself. This whole summer has been out of the ordinary - the weekends spent doing things other than gardening or housework. I haven't got my windows cleaned, the flower beds are still all cluttered with dead plants, and the house needs a thourough cleansing. To be quite honest, I don't even know where to begin - hence I sit, sipping coffee, in the office writing my blog and thinking of other projects I'd have more fun with. But ... I'd better get back to the real world.