Cows may safely graze

It's been an eventful couple of days which began yesterday with a visit to Farmer Chris and his new calf, Barney.  Barney's Mum, Marge, is having a spot of bother following the birth of her second (elder brother Harold is a beast now at 6 months old) and Chris is feeding Barney by bottle twice daily, in the barn.

Spotting a sucker for anything small (ish) and furry, he very kindly invited me to help with the feed when I popped up to meet Barney and Marge.

'Put your wellies on' he said. 'You do have wellies don't you?'

Funnily enough my brown wellies with retro sprig flower print are the most sensible thing to actually have made it out of the garage (where all the sensible things are still stored in boxes) and into the house (where all the ridiculous things are spilling out of the boxes struggling to find a home and generally causing a health and safety hazard.

Wellies donned I head for the Barn at the appointed time. Chris doesn't use gates, he climbs over them - which I duly do to, thinking 'when in Rome' and proceed to sink up to my ankles in the mud.  His caravan sits in the middle of this mud and I can see why he prioritises the large screen tv and not the house work!  I wouldn't bother either if I lived in a tin boax floating in the middle of a swamp!

Barney and Marge are asleep.

I hold the milk while Chris climbs in and gently lifts the calf and moves him away from Mum.  It seems that, especially with a stranger in the pen, Marge might get a bit protective of the bottle feeding.

At 4 days old Barney is still a wee bit wobbly on his feet and stumbles on his long gangly legs to get to the bottle and get his breakfast.  It went down very quickly and when he'd finished it he started head butting my tummy.

' He's looking for the teat' says Farmer Chris.

I remember a trick I used with my god-son Ted when he was also tiny and frustrated at the end of the bottle and I held out my fingers.

It struck me the power of nature - how exciting it is to be living so close to it - this 4 day old creature just following his instincts, and how much we could learn from following ours too.

There's so much frustration in our lives - too much food, too little exercise, not enough sleep.

Cows just eat when they are hungry, sleep when they want to, and spend their days minding their own business.  They just get on with it.  I'm glad I am human, that I have the capacity to think, and reflect and take something new from each day.  And today, among other things, I have realised quite how far I have come from a darkish place I was in a few years ago.

Today I have made two batches of apple sauce, cleaned out the fireplace, taken Tilly for a long walk, and now the Mr is lighting a fire and radio 4 is chuntering the background whilst she tucks into a bone (on the newly hoovered carpet....) and the rabbit is hopping about hopefully hunting for a cable he hasn't yet had a go at chewing.

Yes, I think, I am going to like this new life.