Poor Tulip!
With the river freezing over the question was raised as to whether to bring Heidi & Charlie up from the pasture or go down & break the ice everyday. Being a little on the busy side we decided to bring them up. Richard opened the gate & they came up on Tuesday night. I’m like, “I bet they start drinking off of Tulip again.” “No”, says Michelle, “they’re too old now.” Well guess what?! After I had milked Tulip yesterday morning she walked out the door & immediately all four calves got on! Poor cow! Here you can see Dolly (hidden), Charlie & Heidi:

Barbecue is on the other side & here is Daffodil looking on, thankfully!

Obviously we couldn’t leave things that way so yesterday afternoon we took/dragged Heidi & Charlie back down the field. I took the axe down to break the ice but due to the temps reaching 70 here on Tuesday the ice has melted - for now.
Yes it was a glorious day here on Tuesday - don’t get many of those in November. We had to go get some papers signed in town so decided to ride our bikes. Hah! It was SO windy - we really got our workout for the day.
Suffered from a severe case of lack of sleep yesterday. Michael came in for a few minutes on Tuesday evening. As he was playing with Daniel on the floor I noticed a tub of chewing tobacco in his pocket! When I challenged him he went red in the face & looked me straight in the eye & said, “It’s been there a while!” meaning that he wasn’t using it now. Yeah right! I could have shaken him SO hard. No offense to anyone reading this, but chewing tobacco is an AWFUL habit & extremely bad for you. The thing that really smacks here is not only the lying but the fact that Michael watched my Dad, his grandfather to whom he was extremely close to, die of mouth & jaw cancer 4 1/2 years ago. It was a hideous death - the disfigurement was hideous & my dad had never smoked or chewed tobacco in his life! (Doctors were mystified.) Michael seems to be doing everything he can to destroy his life or to try and prove himself invincible.
Well anyways Hannah got up in the night on Tuesday & when Hannah gets up she is not quiet - the adrenaline starts pumping & so my brain started working. Ever get that?! It is SO annoying. I was totally stressed. By the time she got up the second time I was really wound. THEN finally exhausted enough to sleep, Richard’s pager went off for the ambulance so he had to get up at 3:20 am & transport someone to the hospital! SO as you can imagine, yesterday was not the day for the kids to be naughty for either of us! LOL!
Richard & I are really struggling over Michael - you can cut the tension here with a knife when he is here. We are obviously very concerned for him but realize there is nothing more we can do. He is making his own decisions, sadly not very wise ones. Our main concern is protecting our little ones. Michelle is old enough & stable enough to not be affected by Michael’s actions - she just shakes her head like the rest of us BUT Daniel is of a very impressionable age and picks up on stuff very quickly & sometimes way too easily.
This is tough! Richard and I need a lot of grace & wisdom. Michael’s court dates are fixed now - Monday Nov 23rd is the one in Chinook and Thursday, Dec 10th is the one in Havre plus I think he still has one on the 3rd too.
Take care,
Liz



