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I shouldn’t be so selfish

By Kerry Hoffman

I didn’t have a very good Wednesday this week.

I was all excited for Wednesday morning when I hit the sack at 8 p.m. Tuesday night. I was looking forward to having a different human being in the milking parlor with me. Gone would be Steve and in would be Tarah.

My alarm played a joyful tune at 4:15 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Steve was still snoring when I slid my finger across my iPad to turn off the alarm.

Sleeping in on the morning after these particular meetings, once a month, is the norm for him. He returned home Tuesday night at about 10 p.m. Then he felt like talking. I talked with him for a short spell and then he was sleeping.

I was talking to dead air.

It was like he fell asleep mid-sentence. I didn’t think my conversation was that boring.

There I lie, wide awake; listening to the drone of his narrowing airway. (No, I didn’t feel like closing it off completely.) Knowing I had to arise early the following morning, just made it all that more difficult to fall sleep. Then knowing I would be milking with Tarah, instead of Steve, made it even harder to catch a few restful minutes of shut eye.

A change of scenery and company is always a welcome change for me. Repetition will be the death of me.

Anyway.

I was all wide awake Wednesday morning by the time Tarah walked into the milk house. She always greets people with a very chipper, “Good morning!”

(To prevent the urge to close her airways I chose to get up early, because I am not an enjoyable morning person. I don’t do this for Steve. Poor guy. I may have to start. Nah.)

On our way up to the barn to bring the cows down to the milking parlor, Tarah and I have to follow routine and stop in the calving barn to check on all the lovely ladies-in-waiting.

There were four cows lounging around, chewing their cud and sure enough, there was one cow in the process of having her calf.

I should also mention, as Tarah and I opening the door, were chanting something about hoping there would not be any calves because we had a ton of other things we needed to finish on time.

I walked over toward the cow and she looked like she was doing OK. There were two feet emerging and the cow was lying on her side as if it was just another day in paradise.

I noticed the cow’s right ear had a pink ear tag.

That means she is going to have twins!

A second thought screamed through my mind, and I chose to ignore it.

“You should really get her up, walk her over to the head lock and reach in to check her,” my thoughts said.

But I brushed it off.

The second thought was, “You can have Zach check her when he gets here. We have to start milking because Tarah has to leave early and I don’t want to be stuck milking cows all alone.”

I chose to follow through on the second thought.

It was quite selfish of me.

I wasn’t specific enough when I asked Zach to check on her. I wanted him to check right away. I didn’t tell him of my sense of urgency.

Had I expressed my wishes more specifically, there may be two live calves in our barn.

Because I chose to take the lazy route and not check on that cow right then and there, both her calves were born dead.

It bothers me to no end. If I had just checked them at five they may have survived.

Making choices because I was lazy and didn’t want to be late for milking, makes it all that much harder to tell myself that it would have happened anyway.

For questions, or comments, e-mail me at kahoffman@newulmtel.net.

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