Early Riser

The Bag Lady had an exhausting day yesterday. She had to be in town early in the morning to go for blood tests, etc. and had several appointments and some errands to run and shopping to do. When she finally returned from town, she had chores to attend to and all those groceries to put away. By the time all that was done, she was played out, but she still had to make supper and clean up afterwards. She isn’t sure why, but going to town wears her out more than building a quarter-mile of fence!
She was in bed fairly early (OMG, whatever happened to Friday nights?) which was a mistake. The Princess, who is accustomed to getting up with the Cowboy when he gets up at all kinds of ungodly hours to go to work, woke up at 4 am today and insisted on waking up the Bag Lady. The Cowboy actually has the day off from his regular job (which does not mean that he isn’t going to work today, just means he gets to sleep until whenever he wakes up), so the Princess didn’t have to get up with him at 2 am. Consequently, she felt she had to wake up the Bag Lady to let her outside so she could do her customary barking to warn off any (real or imagined) intruders.
So the Bag Lady got up and stumbled around, waiting for the Princess to want back in. Of course, the dog was ready to play after her invigorating foray into the -30C temperatures outside, and the cats decided that since everyone else was awake, they might as well venture outside, and pretty soon the Bag Lady realized there wasn’t a chance in hell of getting back to sleep, so she turned on the (new) coffee pot and caught up on some reading. Right about the time everyone else in the civilized world will be waking up, the Bag Lady will be ready for a nap!
In one way, it’s a good thing the Princess woke the Bag Lady because the woodstove was almost out and it gets pretty cold in the house without it. Of course, the dog has subsequently gone back to bed – in fact, that was probably the plan all along! She had to get the Bag Lady up so the Princess could take her place on the bed, rather than get back on the chair she spends the night on.
Truthfully, the Bag Lady doesn’t mind being awake so early in the morning. She has always been an early bird and enjoys the peaceful quietness of the house. She putters around, catching up on her reading, drinking coffee and thinking deep thoughts. Well, okay, maybe not so deep.
But there are still a couple hours before the sun comes up, and the Cowboy wakes up and will want to do some work around the ranch. He said something yesterday about wanting to wean the calves, so that may happen today. And if it does, it’s certainly going to spoil the peace and quiet around the ranch for a few days! Weaning is not one of the Bag Lady’s favourite times. The mothers, in spite of the fact that it must be tiresome to still be feeding calves who are tall enough to practically lift the cows off their feet, will stand at the corral fence and bawl for their babies. The babies will stand on the other side of the fence and bawl back, deprived of that nice, warm milk. This will go on for at least a couple of days, and no-one will get much rest! As soon as the cows stop producing milk, they will settle down and stop calling for their babies, and the babies will get accustomed to eating only hay and a little chop (rolled oats, or barley) and things will quiet down again.