Saturday, March 8, 2008

Dull Moments

this is taken from my journal entry on March 3, 2008

Today started at 12:30am. Gannett had just climbed into our bed and was getting himself and his Pooh Bear situated. As I started to try to drift off back to sleep... I heard what I first thought was a dog howl, followed by several other dogs barking. My first thought of what was going on was that the neighborhood dog howl phenomenon was happening--- oh yeah, I don't live it a neighborhood anymore. Stephen LEAPS out of bed and flies to our french doors... Mallory tears through the house barking. I said, "STEPHEN!" He immediately responds with, "Honey, its OK." How did he know that when I said his name in that terrified voice, that is what I needed him to say? He ran to our front door and said one word that sent my heart racing--- "Coyotes."
We have 3 precious baby goats that we are raising to be Sweetums' (the jersey calf) buddies in the years to come in the pasture. Esther and I bottle feed them 2x a day and she carries them around our yard all day. They follow us everywhere. My heart was pounding because coyotes are the #1 predator of baby goats in our area.
I stood at the french doors of our room watching Stephen run out in his boxers with a lantern to see what exactly was going on. I tried to comfort Mallory, but her Wyoming instincts knew what was out there. The howling has stopped. In the lantern light, I saw Sweetums walking up slowly to the gate ... then I saw each of our 3 babies all coming to see what Stephen was doing at such an odd hour. He pretty much knew at this point the coyotes had been some ways off from our yard. He put the babies in their kennel and locked the door for the rest of the night... I wouldn't have gone back to sleep otherwise. We got back in bed, Gannett snuggled down close to me... my heart rate began to come down, and I fell back asleep knowing all was well on the farm..... for then at least. (see the next post)

1 comment:

Jenny-Lynn said...

I am so so happy your sweet little babies are okay! I could hardly read to the end for fear of them not making it!!!