Opinion

It was a normal day… not much going on. The only thing on my schedule was a trip to Ackley to cover a story on the governor visiting a business. I thought it would be a fairly mundane outing… yeah right.

I hopped in the car and headed north from Eldora, then soon noticed a state trooper right behind me. I kept checking my speed and wondered if I was about to be pulled over, as he was kind of close and in a hurry. Finally at the city limits of Ackley, he whipped down another street and was gone.

I was asked if I wanted to deal with a bottle calf about a month or so ago, because one of our mama cows had died shortly after childbirth. That was very sad to hear, so of course I would help out. I did it last year with Baby Calf. He’s my unusually small bull calf who must have a miniature gene in him somewhere, because he’s really, really little. He’s almost a year and a half old and is about half the size of our cows that are not quite full-grown. He has tiny little horns and a sweet face – although his head is unusually large and looks like a giant weight on his shoulders.

Do you ever say or do something, then immediately regret it? I’m not talking about the niceties which normally flow from our mouths along with our intentional thoughtfulness. I’m talking about the regret that follows a string of nasty words, which cut to the bone, or something done – usually in a knee-jerk reaction – with the sole intent of hurting someone deeply.

We’ve all been there. Usually these missteps end with an apology and everyone walks away a little tougher, a little wiser or a little less hurt. In time, everything returns back to normal.