At this point in the year, the promise of the pillow is everything. The adrenaline has come and gone and has left us a farmer who is tired out, body and soul. Once again, I fell asleep waiting for him to come into us. He ran behind, there was a calf sick, the tractor gave trouble, spreading went on. There are a number of reasons that would delay a farmer from eating a supper and sinking into a well deserved slumber this late in the Spring.

The pillow had just taken the weight of his weariness as that blasted cow gave a bellow. A long, relentless bellow that had both myself and himself sitting upright in the bed trying to figure out the bellow. Where are they? Do they have grass? I thought I heard it to the left of the house? Is there a cow in to calf? And so, despite my insistence that I go in his place, my farmer dragged himself from the bed to make sure all was as it should be outside.

It could go any way I thought, those misplaced bellows have previously had us rushing into clothes in the middle of the night whereon we’ve chased errant animals back to their patch.You always have to follow up on a bellow. Tonight, I begrudged the cow her bellow, one that took my husband from his much needed sleep. A while later, I hear the back door shut again and his heavy legs pull up the stairs.

All is grand he whispers as he soaks back into his side of the bed, to much needed rest.