The opportunities were endless.
However, the opportunity I was most looking forward to was this: the chance to spend a Friday evening at home with my husband, with no set agenda. It's not often we get a night to ourselves and I was ready to take full advantage of it. Snuggles in front of the fireplace while watching a movie? You betcha. A glass of wine in hand? Yes to that. Pizza or takeout? Count me in.
So after we got off work Friday evening, we headed home to take care of the dogs and planned on heading to the liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine (or two) to enjoy later that evening. While en route to the liquor store, we both remembered that we needed to head out and check on the farmstead.
Bottles of wine in tow, we hit the road and about a mile down it, Jacob's phone rang. It was his dad. He had just gotten a message from his neighbor that the cows were out...again. After Jacob hung up the phone, the conversations went something like this:
"Of course the cows are out... tonight." Laughter. "Does the world think that if our life isn't chaotic that we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves? Because I'm pretty sure I had this night of leisure thing figured out." Laughter. "What'd you do on your kid-free Friday night Hills? Chased cattle? Oh that's cool." Laughter.
Once we arrived at the farmstead, it was after dark and cooling off. I quickly realized that I was in no way dressed for the occasion; canvas tennis shoes and a long sleeve shirt do not fair well for a person who is naturally cold, always. I can hear the critics now, "Jess, it's winter. What in the heck are you doing going out in the cold with no coat?" Listen people, remember, I thought we were just making a quick run for a bottle of bubbly! However, lucky for me, my husband is prepared for almost anything and had an extra coat and gloves in his truck.
We made our way to the barn and filled a bucket full of cow feed, grabbed the four wheeler and headed out to the pasture. Jacob quickly locates the cows and encourages me to coax them by shaking the bucket full of feed and calling for them while he makes his way to the other side of the fence, persuading them to come my way. Within minutes, I was quickly surrounded by cows....and a bull (not going to lie, he looks mean and makes me a wee bit nervous).
Now for the fun part, herding the cattle back up to the barn. As I'm sitting on the back rack of the four wheeler, shaking the feed bucket and hollering at cattle, my husband is 100% in his element. He is zig-zagging through the pasture, pushing the cattle back towards the barn. Even in the dark, I could see the grin on his face, the adrenaline surging. In fact, I may have even hollered at him a time or two, "Hill, don't forget I'm on the back of this thing!"
We'd gotten all but three cows back down to the barn, so we headed back out to the back pasture to try to wrangle up the last of them. Jacob looks back and me and asks, "some Friday night, huh?" My response, "You know, twelve years ago, if someone told me that one day I'd be out herding cattle, I'd have laughed in their face. But honestly? I'm having fun. And I've been harping on, 'try new things, embrace different,' so..joke's on them."
Try as we may, we didn't get the last three cows up to the barn that night. But I did have a solid couple of hours with my husband, laughing and making memories. And we still got our night in front of the fire, snuggling and sipping wine. Even if it started later than we expected. But truth be told, that's life. Life isn't always about following a timeline or living by the book. Especially ours. It's definitely more of a "herdin' cattle and fixin' fence" type of life. Between the kids, work, day to day activities and our social lives, it seems like we're always bouncing around from here to there and handling whatever curve balls life may throw at us.
Embrace it, embrace the chaos. It's what makes your journey a road worth traveling. It's what makes up the stories you laugh along to with your friends. It's the memories your children will carry with them and one tell share with children of their own.
And while it's nice to have a down evening, relaxing with my husband, I'll continue to herd the cattle and fix fence. And heck, maybe one day we'll be doing it at a farmstead of our own. A girl can dream right?
