I tried

Well, y'all...Grace is on vacation. She went to visit her Marmie, Popi and Papa. She was so excited. This is the first time she has been since before Hurricane Ike.

Last night, Jack and I went out to eat and we caught the late feature of Australia. We didn't get home until about 12:30. I think that's the latest we've been out since two New Years Eves ago. The show is awesome. Go see it. It's not for wee ones like Grace. I cried through almost the entire movie, but it was worth the tears - all three hours of them.

This morning when I opened my eyes, I could hear Jack David up making coffee and heating up crawfish balls that my Mom had sent him when we traded Grace yesterday - breakfast of champions! It was 9:30 and it took us until about noon to get our rears out the door. We needed to move Clyde back to 646 now that the weather is decent again. So, I made the tough decision to go ahead and load Lexie up since we had the trailer anyway. She has been on just one bottle a day (instead of 3) for two weeks now and Jack thought it was a good time to reintroduce her to our herd. The first time I put her in the pasture with the other cattle, I closed and tied the gate and she turned around and jumped through the downed panels of three pens to get back to me. We weren't thinking about all the damage from Ike. The other cattle are too big to do the maneuvering she did and they can't get out even if they tried so they just don't try. So, I led her back in and went and stood by the feed trough thinking that would interest her enough to let me get out so the other cattle could come introduce themselves. Not so. If I moved, she moved. Cloudy, our other baby, did try to come and break the ice but Lexie wanted nothing to do with her. She only knows me. She doesn't know what a cow is! I walked out in the pasture and made a full circle, her at my heels the entire time. I finally took her over where the horse and cow pastures meet and, unintentionally, Romeo spooked her. I turned around and all I could see was her dust! She took off down the fence line with Romeo running right with her on the other side. At this point, once she was separated from me, all of the other cattle started running her. I got out so that I could watch how she interacted with them. Jack and I went and sat in the truck and watched for what seemed like forever. I was bawling...my face was red, my nose and eyes redder. I've spent so much time with her, cleaned her poop everyday, fed her endless bottles...she IS my kid! When the rest of the cattle finally settled down, she just stood in the pasture mooing. Everything was so new to her. She was lost. When Jack looked at me and said, "Go get your cow. Right now, it's not safe enough out here. If she crosses the pens again and gets out in the open and gets spooked, she'll most likely get hurt. It's not worth it. Go get her. Let's take her home." Before he said the last two sentences, I was out of the truck calling her. She heard me and started zig-zagging through the cattle to get to me. Her moos were desperate. It broke my heart. Jack says he's gonna fix the pens and we'll try again soon. I don't think so.

She's back home and grazing now. Jack is going to work on his truck for a while and I'm gonna piddle around the house until it's time to go to the Kemah Boat Parade tonight. With so many boats being damaged during Ike, the parade might be all of three little skiffs - who knows - but we go every year and we're not changing tradition cuz of some ol' dumb hurricane! Darn it! I'll try to take some pictures - I'm gonna make us some hot cocoa to take and we're gonna bundle up and watch some lighted boats - that's all there is to it!