Friday, August 16, 2013

Country alarm clock

We haven't seen a lot of the cattle since we put them down on the pond property a few days ago. But they like to come up every couple of days just to say hi and hang around the house for awhile, making a lot of noise and leaving plops everywhere. It's a "cow" thing.

Invariably they do this early in the morning. I always like it when they come up because I can brush or scratch or greet them and generally check up on everybody. But this morning Older Daughter came stumbling out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6:47 am, looking grumpy.


"You're up early," I said, with uncanny powers of observation.

"That's because there's a whole herd of cows right outside my bedroom window," she groused.


Forget the roosters. If you really want to get jerked awake from a sound sleep, listen to cows bellow.

Still, it wasn't as if the kids could lie in bed today. They're doubly booked -- an early session of pulling weeds for an elderly neighbor who's been having dizzy spells, and several hours of cleaning rooms for another neighbor who owns a small motel.

9 comments:

  1. Oh, that's funny (sorry, Older Daughter!)...

    I have four roosters around me, one of which is mine, and another of which you would think is mine. I completely sleep through them all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Could I trouble you for more pictures of your hay barn? Specifically the roof and outside shots? I am going to attempt to build one like this and the pictures would help. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anon 10:43, if you scroll down on the left-hand side of the blog until you come to "Key Words," click on the posts for "Barn." There's quite a few, but hopefully you'll see what you need, particularly the four "Barnraising" posts as well as the posts that cover "One side of the barn" and "Two sides of the barn."

      - Patrice

      Delete
  3. It reminds me of Don's post a while ago about having a salesman call him while the cows were bellowing to be fed.
    Roosters may be high pitched, but cows have lots of force behind them!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, those pictures help quite a bit. Thank you for pointing the direction.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, boy - this reminds me of renting a room in a farmhouse in rural southern Germany. The end of the house that my room was on kind of made an "L" with the cow barn, and they had the attached pen was not quite under my balcony, but pretty close. :) I hardly noticed the cows, though.

    Then again, there was a local couple whose friends threw a shivaree for them, and they exploded something that sounded like a bomb and shook the whole house at something like 4am. I'm such a deep sleeper that I only roused a little, and sleepily went back to sleep with the thought "Well, if WWIII is starting, I'm sure someone will tell me in the morning!"

    (Yeah, the roosters never bothered me either, but I'm sure there were many times I was getting home after they had already crowed!)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ha! We used to have an old heifer named Eleanor and we affectionately called her our "watch cow" because she would let us know when anyone pulled in the drive!

    -Jen K.

    ReplyDelete