As I peeled back the covers this morning after a night of restless sleep (if you could call it sleep) I groaned at the piercing sound of the alarm clock. The house was quiet so I jumped up fairly quickly knowing that if the alarm did not cease the house would soon be filled with another piercing sound - that of our almost five-month-old son. He stirred in his crib but did not wake. I found clothes and dragged my tired body into the kitchen for some much needed coffee, which I found to be barely luke-warm. This indicated that DH had been up with our little man for several hours already. Lest I sound like a dead beat, my off-farm job is working second shift, some days 3pm - 11pm and others 5pm - 1am. Last night I got done at 11pm, came home and watered rabbits and fed baby chickens before I went in and laid down around midnight with sleep escaping me for what seemed like another eternity.
I stepped outside and consumed my barely warm beverage while soaking up the sunshine and hoping the vitamin D would jump start my motivation for the day. Back inside I made a couple of telephone calls and completed some paperwork before DH came in showed me the cause of our lawn mower problems - a broken clutch cable. Onto the internet in search of a parts diagram for a tractor that is almost 20 years old; diagram found, two more phone calls and the appropriate cable located within 15 miles, DH was off. Working around a five-month-old's schedule is interesting while trying to complete the lengthy list of regular spring projects let alone those added to the list when one acquires several dozen rabbits. I took advantage of his morning snooze to return a couple of emails and post some long overdue photos to facebook. Mid-phone conversation and mid-photo posting a blood curdling scream came from the other room. I was out of my chair and across the house before I realized I had been extremely rude to the woman I was talking to in order to check on the well-being of the little man. He was COMPLETELY fine. He decided that he had enough of the crib and Mom was not paying him sufficient attention. I didn't think that they learned this trick until they were much older - I was wrong.
DH returned with the cable and we went outside - all three of us - to try and install it. Not so efficient, but funny. Try holding a baby, holding a wrench, balancing yourself and the baby while leaning into the mechanical workings of a lawn tractor and not knocking over the tractor, falling onto DH who was working underneath or dropping the kid. America's Funniest Home Videos would have had a good one if a video camera had been nearby.
At the end of my day on the farm (before I had to get ready for my off farm occupation), only one flower bed got weeded and a little bit of paperwork got done, the lawn tractor still has no clutch or brakes - but it runs, seeds are not planted, and the rabbit shed is not finished; but the rabbits, chickens, cats, dog and people are fed and watered, the sun was out, and Mom got to spend some great quality time with her little man over peas and turkey and backyard chickens. 
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