It wasn't my fault...

So, I do have a knack of burning food.  Dave has learned to eat bacon that is quite crispy, his meat medium-well instead of medium-rare, and his cookies very crunchy.  I am far from a great cook/baker, but I can hold my own and my family is fed healthy, home-grown/raised meals.  However, the cookies on the front page (see picture) WAS NOT MY FAULT!    I was diligently watching them when something caught my eye out the kitchen door. 

It all started this morning, my mother was watching our two little ones so that I could get some outside work done and help Dave before it started to rain.  I helped Dave with the banding of our little bulls and putting weaning rings on our calves noses because they are drinking their mothers away to nothing (what can I say, we have great moms in our herd).  It felt great to be a part of the farming operation, as having our youngest limits me when it comes to participating a whole lot.  Sometimes I really miss it.  Dave and I met each other at work in Maryland, where we were both teachers and have always worked with each other since meeting, both on the farm and off.  Working on the farm together has always given us a perfect opportunity to talk and plan and well for him to secretly wish I was better at throwing hay off of the wagon, though he has always kept this to himself...he just doesn't know I'm a mind reader!  So anyway, I was really enjoying the time spent together working on the farm.

Later that evening after our youngest went to bed at 6:30pm (yes, he's usually asleep by then) I decided to make cookies with David.  We have always enjoyed baking together and I just figure I will make his future wife very happy one day.  As long as she doesn't always burn his food, he will love anything she makes.  In the middle of making my husband's favorite (oatmeal raisin), I saw something big walking by the kitchen door out the corner of my eye.  I thought to myself how odd it was that my husband was back already from putting new brakes on my car.  When I saw the big black object walk past the dining room window I knew something was off.  It was then that I realized that we had an escapee.  Sure enough good old Daffodil was walking past the back of the house.  If there's a jail break with the cows, you can bet Daffodil is in the middle of it and most of the times, the cause of it.  Remember, Daffodil was bottle fed, so she wants to be everywhere we are and literally plastered to our side.  That was fine and good when she was 50 pounds, now at about 500, it's difficult to force her to move if she really just wants to follow you around and lean up against you.  I noticed at the front sliding door, Daffodil's new best friend, our little Belted Galaway, Chatty Moo was roaming around.  Daffodil was just seeing what kind of things she can get into and was starting to go down the driveway to leave.  At least Chatty Moo was doing me a favor by mowing the lawn as she went. 

I assessed the situation to see how many cows were out.  By assessing the situation, this means literally spinning around 360* in the middle of my foyer, panicking for a split second before figuring out what to do next.  I called Dave and said, "Cows are out!" then hung up.  At this point I got the attention of my two hounds who were completely oblivious to the situation (a lot of good they are...) and they lunged at the door barking.  David helped me to get them in the cage and lock them in.  I didn't need them to spook the animals with their barking and pawing at the sliding door.  Turning off the oven I told David to stay in the house and ran to get my boots and grabbed my good winter coat as I ran by (times like these you sacrifice the nice clothing if necessary).  Keeping David in the house was safer as a spooked animal could easily lead to him getting hurt.  I went down to the front yard to try and get them to go to the back.  Daffodil, seeing Dave pull up the driveway, got excited and like all good dogs (she acts like a loyal dog when she sees us) hurried down to greet him.  Needless to say, Dave never made it up the driveway all the way because Daffodil was blocking it.  After some persuading, we managed to get them back into the pasture.  Chatty Moo was easy; fear of the unknown led her quickly back to the backyard and to the pasture.  Daffodil, quite comfortable in her surroundings with us, needed lots of pushing from Dave to get her to go in the direction we wanted.  I tried to push, but I literally didn't move her an inch...if I could read cows' minds like I can Dave's...I would bet she was laughing at me. 

So I raced back to the house to check on our little guys and knew David was watching out the window the whole time.  The end result, the burnt cookies on the homepage.  I let the dogs out to sniff the ground and occupy themselves with the smells in the yard.  David came running up to me asking me questions and finally telling me, "Guess what?"  I thought, "Oh, no, the dogs woke Ethan up..." so I got down on my knees in front of him and braced myself for the answer.  David calmly said, "Mommy, I went upstairs to check on Ethan, and his eyes were still closed and he was sleeping and he was okay."  Smiling wide, I pulled my little boy that's growing up wayyyyyy too fast into my arms and told him how proud I was of him being such a big boy and how helpful he was to daddy and me while we were outside getting the cows.  Hand-in-hand we walked over to the kitchen and ate some of daddy's favorite cookies with a big glass of milk.  This memory of my brave and responsible little boy will forever be filed, never to be forgotten.