This essay ran a few months ago in our diocesan newspaper, in a slightly different/edited format. I submitted this full version to Catholic Online, and I share it with you here because it’s about farm life. You guys seem to dig that. Enjoy!

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It was a day of weather that only Spring can deliver – hot sun, without the oppression of summer humidity; balmy wind, without the hindrance of looming thunderstorms; full day ahead of more of the same, without being the middle of the week. We were driving into the nearby Teeny-Tiny Town for something or other, and my husband remembered – as he always does – to slow down at a particular spot by a favorite cow pasture. There, close enough that we could see details, was a brown and white cow, lying down by a blown-over tree, with a shiny bundle of something behind her.

“She’s having a calf,” Bob remarked, slowing down a little more.

“She’s having a calf?” I screeched, hands a-flutter and eyes a-goggle. “She’s having a calf!”

[Read the rest.]