craigdailypress.com

Diane Prather

When I’m doing something away from home, people are used to hearing me say, “I have to go home now so I can fill the water tanks.”

In fact, if I’d saved a penny for each time I’d said it, I would have quite a lot of money set aside.

The “water tanks” are cow watering tanks, and I’m responsible for keeping two to three of them full of water.

That means using a hose, and over the years I’ve learned to resist the temptation to go off and do something else while a tank fills. Invariably, I forget about the water and return to find a lake.

So, there I sit on an overturned bucket or mineral tub, on a bale of hay, or even on a chair (if I’m filling the tank next to the house).

Waiting for a tank to fill is time-consuming, indeed, but there’s a positive side to the task as well.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about things that I might have not noticed if I hadn’t been waiting for a water tank to fill.

For example, I might not have noticed …

• The winter birds feasting on grain that the steer had pushed out of his pan.

• Fluffy snow coming straight down, turning the property into a winter wonderland.

• A mama cat taking her kittens from an opening between bales in the haystack from which they were escaping, and depositing them in the rhubarb patch.

• A bull and cow fighting over a mineral tub, the bull using his head to pull the tub toward him and the cow pulling it back — over and over.

• The angry face of a snow-covered barn cat as she made “leaping” movements to get through drifts of snow to the food pan.

• A flock of blackbirds settle in the elm tree next to the corral, spooking a young heifer with their sudden appearance.

• Icicles on the shed, frozen in a “sideways” pose.

• A cat’s clever way of wetting and licking his paw to get water from a tank that wasn’t filled enough for him to get water the usual way.

• The quiet of the early spring/summer mornings, quiet enough to hear the sandhill cranes fly over to summer nesting grounds.

• The “delicious” aroma of lilac and chokecherry blossoms.

• A killdeer walking around on bare ground, perhaps looking for a place to lay its eggs.

• The rainbow that seemed to settle over the calving shed where a newborn calf was nursing.

• The dark sky and distant lightning, signs that a summer thunderstorm was approaching.

• Two Easter eggs, partly hidden in dry grass under a honeysuckle bush, overlooked during an egg hunt.

• A bull as he drank and drank from a water tank, just how many gallons one could only wonder.

• Calves running back and forth across the feedlot.

• A mother cow gather up her calf and, using her nose, push him to another part of the feedlot.

• The breathtaking color of autumn leaves.

• The first dandelion of spring.

• A calf chase a cat across the feedlot.

• Curious calves that sneak up along the fence to check me out.

• That a bird nest, blown down from a tree, was partially constructed of discarded strings from grain sacks.

Taking time to fill water tanks is a pretty positive time, after all.

Copyright Diane Prather, 2011.

Click here to have the print version of the Craig Daily Press delivered to your home.