My home is what you might place in the “humble” category. It’s not big, and most of the time it’s not too trashy. I have trouble keeping the lawn mowed and cared for and the various pieces of equipment and ranch paraphernalia stored in their proper places. I have a bad habit of temporarily leaving something (mineral tubs, tractors, fencing equipment, grain totes, etc.) sitting in front of the house with the pure intention of putting it in its proper place tomorrow. Sometimes, however, tomorrow doesn’t arrive for quite a while.
We don’t throw many lawn and garden parties, though my wife is passionate about her greenhouse and her garden, both of which are situated on about half an acre behind the house. A set of working corrals sits adjacent to the house and garden area. The garden and greenhouse are kind of fenced off from the rest of the plot where I usually keep a horse or two or the occasional crippled cow or leppy calf. If my wife were forced, in the name of something of vital importance, like national security, to choose between giving up her husband or her garden … well, I’m sure the tomato harvest will be another good one next year. It is in this tenuous atmosphere that I live, with the full knowledge that the sorry-excuse-for-a fence around the garden needs to be rebuilt.
It’d been a hectic and busy spring day, but I felt pretty good about myself for having accomplished most (or at least some) of what I’d set out to do that morning. I’d rounded up some help for the day and sorted off about 35 pairs so I could synchronize the cows to breed to some top-end female-maker bulls. I’d set up a hot wire and fenced them in a pivot corner adjacent to the corrals and just outside of the holy garden area where I could feed them and easily check heats and get them up into the corrals and chute area. It was a redneck setup, but fairly effective, nonetheless.
The next evening, after a day that had worn me to a frazzle, as I was checking on the water trough situation for the cows, I noticed that I’d neglected to tighten the wires on the little perimeter fence around the buffer zone between the cows and the garden. About 20 of the cows, ever in search of some spring greenery, had discovered my neglect and were joyfully partaking of the freshness of the burgeoning spring season. My initial reaction was one of mild terror and an impressive compilation of creative cuss words. The boorish bovines had set off one of my triggers, and I knew the Mrs. would not be pleased. I didn’t really have a valid excuse for the dilapidated condition of the fence and the subsequent cow invasion, and my wife had given me several chances with gentle persuasion and irritatingly calm admonitions.
Seconds before I allowed my fury and panic to take full control of my frayed faculties, I heard something in the branches of the scruffy old elm tree above my head. The cacophonous racket was at once irritating yet oddly soothing in its familiarity. It was the cackling of a pair of obnoxious magpies who had been busy the past couple of weeks building a nest in the lilac bushes next to the house. I’d been meaning to get a bead on the nest and knock it down. I wanted no part of a family of magpies right outside the door of my humble home. But, as with so many of the chores that I so often leave for tomorrow, the nest construction had continued unimpeded, and the insufferable squatters had become all too comfortable in their lilac bush homestead.
Somehow, the safety on the trigger of my ire remained locked, and I laid my weapon down, so to speak. I leaned on a fence post and just listened. The sound of the water from the hose as it filled the troughs was refreshing. The squawking magpies, though simply waiting for me to feed the dogs so they could steal a cheap meal from me, seemed more like friendly, familiar, though slightly bothersome neighbors, than the marauding pests they really were. And then there were the cows. Those beasts, whose mission sometimes seemed to be to drive me to madness, were offering me a truce of sorts. Here, in the middle of their recalcitrant behavior and obvious flaunting of ranch rules, they were somehow giving me peace. The sound of their contented, even joyful, munching of the delectable green spring offering somehow brought a simple calmness to my surly soul.
I realized that, to me, outside of a baby’s laugh, there are few sounds and sights that bring me more joy than cows grazing on fresh green grass. And besides, most of what they were eating was immature foxtail. They were actually doing me a favor, as long as I kept them out of the Garden of Eden. I let them graze for 10 or 15 minutes before I ushered them back out. They seemed to appreciate my tolerance of their transgression and calmly slipped back through the fence without causing much more chaos.
The cows, the magpies and I will continue to have our disagreements, but for a few minutes, in the long early evening shadows of a late spring day, they all helped me understand that frustration, aggravation and even sorrow can coexist with joy and happiness. At least for one day, I understood that waiting for misery or heartache, no matter its depth, to end before I experience joy may cause me to miss joy altogether. What an unfortunate and unnecessary mistake that would be.
