Of course, everything that happens is ordained by God, so it's all providential timing. Sometimes though, it's just more obvious. Take this evening for instance. I had just fed Snip and on my way back to the house, I looked up and saw something black in the grass in the pasture. At first I thought it might be a cat, but that wasn't really a serious notion. Other than a crow (which I had just heard) I concluded it was either trash or a calf. About the same time I settled on that, this 'little bit' as Mr. Ricky would call it, got to its feet and started to wobble toward its mammy.

I continued to go toward the fence as I was going to see if I could get a gender ID on it (I didn't--it can be so hard to tell when they are newborn). As I went I heard the floater valve in the water trough hissing. For some reason I glanced that way. Then I looked again. Clearly, some of the jostling the cows do around the water trough had knocked it crooked. Water was pouring over the side as fast as the valve could pump it in. (Or faster.)

Being my own self, without hesitation, I plowed out there. I hopped over the puddle around the trough to a little space where I could actually land. I tried pulling the still nearly full trough. "Stupid. Of course you can't move it!" Hmmmm.....

Standing on my little 'dry' spot, I janked my boots and socks off, tossing them across the puddle (good shot that...the boots landed one on top of the other!) and hauled my jeans up to my knees so I could wade around in the mid-calf deep water. Over the next several minutes I tried various means of shifting the trough. At one point, I was standing on the edge with it tipped as far down as I could pawing the water out between my feet. I'm surprised I didn't get much wetter than I did with that operation. I found an old soda can in there, wedged in the 4 to 6 inch deep mud, as well as some other interesting trash I could have cut myself on. I ended up scooping many, many handfuls of mud out and throwing it, "Splash!" into the surrounding area.

After a while, I hollered at Savannah, who was on her way to the house after watering the garden, to please come and help me. I had managed to shift the thing ever so little, but I needed some help. So she came out and waded in after making some comment about, "This is how you get parasites." Gee, thanks a lot, sis! :D

She had the smart idea (okay so I had the idea, but I wasn't smart enough to carry it out) to bail out the trough. She went and picked up the coffee can I carry Snip's feed in and brought it out to me. I bailed the trough most of the way out and scooped out more mud. Then, the two of us moved the trough...I stuffed some more wood under the lower end and took the stick out of the floater valve (I'd jamed one in to keep the floater up so the water would quit running).

Job done, I collected by boots and socks, went to the hose and sprayed the exess mud off me. Walking back to the house, in a put on, bow-legged kind of walk, ending each step with something of kick (an attempt to lose some of the extra water), Savannah told me I looked fashionable--two tone pants! Ya...so what... :D

Anyway, because a calf was born today, I saw that the trough was spilling over...so I could fix it. God's providence is awesome...and sometimes humorous.

        Racheal

Mum
12/3/2012 09:44:02 am

Yuck!! Another messy job....I am sure you had fun with....

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